Welcome to CIVICS, where we break down the week’s municipal meetings throughout the Inland Northwest, so you can get involved and speak out about the issues you care about.
Some things that stick out to us this week include:
- This week, the Spokane City Council will vote on an ordinance to continue banning some stores near schools and parks from selling liquor meant to be consumed off-premises through April 2027 — think gas stations selling Buzz Balls.
- At the Wednesday city council meeting, they will also take a feedback on a slate of policies planned for a vote in the next two weeks, including spending an additional $120,000 on inclement weather sheltering, setting their legislative lobbying agenda and increasing the amount of property tax collected by the annual regular levy.
- During the Finance and Administration Committee, the Spokane City Council will discuss an ordinance that could create a land bank to rehabilitate blighted properties and then sell them to developers to create affordable housing.
- The city councils of Liberty Lake and Spokane Valley will host discussions on revisions to their respective budgets, and Liberty Lake will host a discussion on its legislative priorities for 2027.
- The Spokane School District’s lobbyist will present on potential setbacks to state-level funding for K-12-adjacent programs for 2027.
- The Mead School District is set to tighten its policies governing when and where students can be restrained or isolated.
- The county is set to accept financial assistance from the state Department of Ecology to install filters in homes that have wells contaminated with forever chemicals.
Spokane City Council Agenda Review
Every Tuesday, the council meets to finalize the Wednesday agenda, which now includes items that are coming up in the next two weeks, giving you more of a chance to comment on things before they’re up for a vote.
Up for a vote next week:
- An ordinance to establish equitable budgeting practices that was deferred. It now includes an amendment filed last week by the bill’s sponsor, Council Member Sarah Dixit, that would add key performance indicators, clarify compliance requirements, target savings from certain departments and make technical corrections.
- An amendment to the city’s contracts with Salvation Army, Catholic Charities and Jewels Helping Hands to spend up to an additional $120,000 on inclement weather shelter beds through the end of 2026.
- An amendment to pay Jewels Helping Hands an additional roughly $50,000 for costs associated with housing navigation and emergency shelter for folks impacted by the Spokane Complex fires.
- An ordinance to increase the amount of property tax collected from the annual regular levy by 1.25%, as well as a 1% increase from 2026 on the taxes collected by the emergency medical services levy, approved by voters in 2022.
Up for a vote in two weeks:
- A resolution to set the city’s legislative agenda for 2027, which tells their lobbyists what to prioritize fighting for during the next state legislative session. Fire recovery, preserving the Thorpe Land Trust, a bill to allow cities to tax only the value of land — rather than factoring in the value of structures on the land — vehicle tab cost increases for large trucks and expanding domestic partnership eligibility are the top priorities on the list.
Agenda here
Tuesday, October 27 at 11 am
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
Spokane City Council
🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Up for a vote this week:
- An ordinance to expand the boundary of the East Sprague Parking and Business Improvement Area to include new parcels that sit on the west side of the current area, stretching along Sprague Avenue to Hatch Street.
- An emergency ordinance that would extend the current interim ordinance prohibiting stores selling booze to be consumed off the premises from being permitted near schools and parks. The extension would continue this until April 28, 2027, but the council anticipates addressing permanent changes in the Comprehensive Plan update in December.
- An ordinance to penalize “nuisance properties” that was deferred on October 13.
Agenda here
Wednesday, October 28 at 6 pm
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane City Council Study Sessions
Agenda here when available.
Thursday, October 29 at 11 am
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Finance and Administration Committee
🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers
A new land bank
Council Member Paul Dillon is proposing to designate the Greater Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium a “land bank” under a new state law passed earlier this year that allows local governments to address blight.. Organizations designated as land banks can hold property in a tax-exempt state while rehabilitating it and preparing it for affordable housing. Basically, if this passes, the Housing Consortium could acquire abandoned, vacant or tax-delinquent land, rehabilitate it while not paying property taxes on it and then sell it to a developer who wants to put affordable housing on it.
If passed in a few weeks, this ordinance would grant the Housing Consortium the ability to act as a land bank for five years, requiring it to present annual reports on its activities to the mayor and city council.
Avoiding ambiguity
In March, the council changed the schedule for meetings and the process by which legislation is submitted, amended and discussed, effective early July 2026. Council Member Zack Zappone has proposed an amendment to refine the way that late amendments are dealt with that would “avoid ambiguity,” about whether rules suspensions are required to consider them or not. Attached below is the very simple and clear chart that explains what’s changing.
If you are not a city employee and you understand this chart, hit us up at team@rangemedia.co — we want to pick your brain.
Sidewalk settlement
In 2025, a Spokane woman tripped and fell on a sidewalk near North Fotheringham and W. Beacon Ave, fracturing her wrist and suffering bruises and cuts. She filed a lawsuit against the city last year, alleging that the sidewalk was in disrepair and the city was negligent in its duty to keep the sidewalks safe and inform pedestrians of the danger posed by the sidewalk. The council will discuss settling the lawsuit, to the tune of $65,000.
Agenda here
Tuesday, October 27 at 1 pm
Council Chambers
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Plan Commission
🫑/5 peppers
Agenda here
Wednesday, October 28 at 2 pm
Council Briefing Center
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Public Facilities District
🫑/5 peppers
Agenda here when available
Wednesday, October 28 at 12:30 pm
Board Room, 720 W Mallon Ave, Spokane
Virtual attendance here.
Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session
🫑/5 peppers
Agenda here
Tuesday, October 27 at 9 am
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Board of Spokane County Commissioners Legislative Session
🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
New money on the table for PFAS filters
The county is set to accept a $170,000 grant from the Washington Department of Ecology that would pay for filters for owners of wells on the West Plains that are contaminated with forever chemicals. The money is part of a large environmental response to a widespread contamination crisis stemming from airport firefighting training operations in which firefighters would unknowingly wash compounds containing the chemicals into soil by tarmacs. The chemicals leached into the groundwater, which fed Airway Height municipal water users and people with well drills into the aquifers. Read RANGE’s extensive coverage of the crisis here.
Agenda here
Tuesday, October 26 at 2 pm
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Regional Health District Board
🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Budget, legislative agenda resolutions
The district is set to request from the county a $1.3 million budget for 2027 and weigh in on its legislative agenda. The meeting agenda does not describe these resolutions in detail.
Agenda here
Thursday, October 29 at 12:30 pm
Auditorium, First Floor
1101 West College Avenue, Spokane
Mead School District Board of Directors
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Tightening restraint, reasonable force guidelines
The board will consider in a first reading revisions to the district’s policy governing how schools can restrain, isolate and use force against students. The changes create a standard for circumstances in which schools are permitted to restrain or isolate a student “only when a student’s spontaneous behavior presents an imminent likelihood of serious harm to themselves or another person.” The new guidelines also say rooms can’t be repurposed to restrain or isolate students.
Agenda here
Monday, October 26 at 6 pm
12509 N. Market St. Bldg. D, Mead
Watch via Zoom here.
Central Valley School District Board of Directors
🫑/5 peppers
Agenda here
Monday, October 27 at 6 pm
Board Room at 2218 N Molter Rd
Liberty Lake
Watch via Zoom here.
East Valley School District Board of Directors
🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Protected categories added to student disciplinary policy
The board is looking to add categories to the kinds of students it can’t lawfully discriminate against, including “homelessness, immigration or citizenship status, the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability, and neurodivergence.”
Agenda here
Tuesday, October 27 at 6 pm
3830 N Sullivan Rd, Bldg 1
Spokane Valley
West Valley School District Board of Directors
🫑/5 peppers
Agenda here
Wednesday, October 28 at 6:30 pm
District Conference Center
8818 E. Grace, Spokane
Watch via Zoom here.
Spokane School District Board of Directors
🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Legislative pressures
The district’s lobbyist will outline a number of pressures in the state legislature that could impact public school funding next year. While Governor Bob Ferguson will likely not cut core functions of the K-12 system, other “adjacent programs” may be subject to cuts, according to a presentation document. The presentation describes the coming legislative session as “likely the most difficult we’ve faced.”
Agenda here
Wednesday, October 28 at 4:30 pm
200 N. Bernard, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Valley City Council
🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
2027 budget amendments
The city council will do a first reading on a measure that would increase the city’s general fund by $3.8 million derived largely from increases in sales tax revenues and a transfer of $1.3 million from the civic capital projects fund. Overall revenues will increase by about $6.8 million. The 2027 budget will increase spending by $5 million funded through these new revenues and through reductions in other programs. Read more details about the budget here.
Agenda here
Tuesday, October 27 at 6 pm
10210 E Sprague Ave, Spokane Valley
Virtual attendance here.
Liberty Lake City Council
🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Legislative priorities and budget workshops
The council will workshop its budget and its list of legislative priorities, which outline the state- and federal-level programs and funding it wants to participate in, for 2027. The largest increase in the $24 million budget is a $1.3 million hike in staffing costs mostly driven by an 11% increase in health care fees imposed by the city’s insurer.
Agenda here
Tuesday, October 27 at 6 pm
22710 E Country Vista Drive, Liberty Lake
The meeting is also live streamed here.
