Spokane “temporary” utility tax could be here to stay

*The city's gonna make us tap the sign... Meme by Erin Sellers*

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:

Spokane City Council could validate the concerns of their more conservative members, by extending a utility tax that was supposed to expire this year, providing a reminder that tax sunset dates not written into ballot language are not binding.
The Public Safety & Community Health Committee will discuss paying lawyers another $50,000 to fight a lawsuit accusing the city of discrimination against homeless people.
The county could be getting more public defenders through a half million dollar grant from the state.
Liberty Lake City Council will decide on their legislative priorities for the year, which include asking for a mandatory minimum sentence for property crime.

Important meetings this week:

Spokane City Council

🌶️🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

NIMBY-ism or dangerous development?

Tonight, council could approve a resolution that would ask the Department of Natural Resources to delay the sale of over 160 acres on Thorpe Road in Latah Valley for 180 days. If the sale (or land transfer, which is essentially a trade for a different property) goes through, a developer hopes to build as many as 1,000 homes on the land. But local activists have fought the transfer, stating that the area doesn’t have enough infrastructure to safely support that many people — it has one road in and out — and that the undeveloped land is a precious resource. The city council’s resolution would be unbinding, but they could pressure the state government into delaying the sale to give time for “various organizations and tribal communities to weigh in.”

Later, levy

A long-awaited levy to improve the city’s parks was scheduled for the February special election, but a resolution up for a vote at tonight’s meeting could defer that levy indefinitely in favor of a “partnership with Spokane Public Schools (SPS) for a citywide neighborhood investment,” at a later date. This time, the delay has the support of the Spokane Park Board. The potential pros: voters could get more bang for their buck if SPS and the Parks and Recreation department join forces for a levy and there’s more time for a coordinated marketing campaign to increase the likelihood it passes. The potential cons: a joint proposal is complicated, voters shot down SPS’ last levy and it’s just another in a string of delays. Have strong opinions? Share them tonight!

The fragility of sunsets

Last year, then-Mayor Nadine Woodward proposed and implemented a 1% utility tax that was supposed to pay for ongoing city costs and reduce the budget deficit. It was also supposed to expire on December 31, 2024. Proving irony does indeed exist, now-Mayor Lisa Brown has asked the council to remove the sunset clause from Woodward’s utility tax, right after arguing that voters could trust a promised (but not ballot-guaranteed) 2035 sunset date for the brand new public safety sales tax.

If this resolution passes tonight, the utility tax could run in perpetuity with no sunset date. It addresses one complaint about the original tax — one-time revenue can’t cover ongoing expenses — by making the revenue ongoing, but gives Brown’s critics ammo.

We anticipate this will be a big item of discussion tonight.

Agenda here
Monday, December 2 at 6 pm
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Public Safety & Community Health Committee

🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Finders keepers

If you love finding out what weird stuff the Spokane Police Department (SPD) confiscated, you’re familiar with their asset forfeiture program. A new ordinance up for discussion could change the requirement to audit their forfeiture reports from yearly to every four years — at the request of both SPD and the State Auditor’s Office. This would hypothetically reduce the burden on both offices because the yearly audit turn-around was difficult to meet.

Support for COPS

The Community Assembly, which is a council formed of representatives from the neighborhood councils across the city, has submitted a resolution asking the city council to continue contracting with Spokane community policing nonprofit COPS. Their resolutions are even *less* binding than the council’s, but it is a show of support for the embattled nonprofit and will be discussed at today’s committee meeting.

Cash for discrimination case

The city of Spokane is currently being sued for its sit-and-lie, pedestrian interference and anti-camping laws by the ACLU, service provider Jewels Helping Hands and others. The suit alleges that some of Spokane’s laws are discriminatory and violate the constitutional rights of unhoused people, because they functionally criminalize homelessness, constitute cruel and unusual punishment and are mostly enforced against unhoused people. The case is currently in the discovery phase. Spokane’s insurance policy has already paid out $50,000 on legal fees for this case, and a contract amendment being discussed in committee could bump that number to $100,000.

Agenda here
Monday, December 2 at 1:15 pm
Council Chambers in the Lower Level of City Hall.
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session

🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Millions in possible equipment purchases

The BOCC will review a proposal by the county Public Works Department to buy $3.8 million in road maintenance equipment. It identifies the following items, among others, for potential purchase:

Four four-wheel-drive trucks
Two extended cab pickup trucks for SCRAPS
Two enclosed trailers
A mini excavator
A “low boy” trailer
Eight grader machines (this is a big one, entailing more than $2 million)

State money for public defense

The county’s public defender office is fielding a grant of just over $550,000 from the state Office of Public Defense to hire attorneys and investigators to reduce caseloads for public defense in the county. Public defense offices around the state, including Spokane County, are struggling with insufficient resources for mountain caseloads, as Samantha Wohlfeil recently reported in the Inlander.

At the same time, the prosecutor is looking at accepting nearly $200,000 in state funds to hire an attorney to focus on “organized retail crime.”

Agenda here
Tuesday, December 3 at 9 am
Public Works Building Lower Level, Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane, WA 99260
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Board of Spokane County Commissioners Legislative Session

🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Legislative Agenda

The BOCC will vote on its legislative agenda for 2025. The list of priorities include tens of millions of dollars in transportation funding, $3.5 million for a childcare complex in the Hillyard neighborhood, allowances for condo developments to build higher and allow more units and $20 million in disaster response funding for the “forever chemicals” contamination on the West Plains. (Read more on that crisis here.)

Surplus lands for affordable housing

A public hearing will discuss selling a piece of land that has historically been used for SCOPE (Sheriff’s Community-Oriented Policing Effort), which is a local volunteer organization that partners with the Sheriff to advocate for public safety. Earlier this fall, Commissioner Chris Jordan asked that the county delay a vote to auction off the property until the BOCC can discuss opening such county land to be developed for affordable housing instead. Both Thrive International and Habitat for Humanity had submitted letters of interest in acquiring discounted or donated surplus property like this. The land is appraised at about $400,000. No bids will be accepted at the public hearing.

Board appointment

The BOCC will vote whether to appoint Andrea Staton to the Spokane County Developmental Disabilities Advisory Board.

Budget adjustments

The county is scheduling a public hearing for December 17 to consider tens of millions of dollars in adjustments to the 2024 county budget. The requests for adjustments include more than $20 million in adjustments based on incoming grants, a $3 million helicopter purchase for the Spokane County Sheriff and nearly $3 million for capital purchases for solid waste disposal.

Agenda here
Tuesday, December 3 at 2 pm
Public Works Building Lower Level, Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane, WA 99260
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Valley City Council

??/5 peppers

There’s still no agenda available for this meeting, as of 11 am on December 2. SpoVal has seven hours to get that baby live before it could become an Open Public Meetings Act violation, if they still intend to meet at 6 pm tomorrow. Unfortunately, we can’t tell you what they’re going to talk about if they do, because we’re on deadline.

Agenda here
Tuesday, December 3 at 6 pm
City Hall
10210 E Sprague Ave
Spokane Valley, WA 99206
Virtual attendance here.

Liberty Lake City Council

🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

The big four

Liberty Lake City Council could approve a list of legislative priorities they would use to outline their advocacy during the 2025 State Legislative session. The list includes three main priorities: public safety, planned growth, economic vitality and “public service excellence.” That all sounds great, but some of the specific things they’re pushing for are a bit more controversial:

Advocating against any piece of legislation that establishes “unfunded mandates” — basically anything that increases costs for local governments without a state funding mechanism
Imposing mandatory minimum sentences for property crime
Promoting the addition of jails
Asking for continued funding for the development of Army National Guard Readiness Center on a Department of Natural Resources site in Liberty Lake.
Opposing increasing taxes for the sole purpose of funding affordable housing.

Agenda here
Tuesday, December 3 at 7 pm
22710 E Country Vista Drive, Liberty Lake, WA 99019
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Ombudsman Commission

There’s no agenda up yet (see our note in SpoVal about public meetings laws),but the Ombudsman Commission — which reviews information from the Office of the Police Ombuds — noted in its last meeting cancellation that it will meet tomorrow.

Agenda here when available
Tuesday, December 3 at 5:30 pm
Council Chambers in the Lower Level of City Hall.
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201

Spokane School District Board of Directors

🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Grades are in

Want to know what the Spokane Public School District’s report card looks like? The board will be receiving a detailed presentation on their 2023-24 goals and how they did on them, as well as discussing their goals for next year. The presentation includes data on literacy, graduation and retention rates.

Agenda here
Wednesday, December 4 at 6 pm
Spokane Public Schools Administration Building
200 N. Bernard, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Community, Housing, and Human Services Board

🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Agenda here when available.
Thursday, December 5 at 5:30 p.m.
Council Briefing Center in the Lower Level of City Hall.
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201

Spokane Airport Board

🌶️🫑/5 peppers

The board will meet Thursday. Though its agenda was not up by the time we published this newsletter, it is in discussions about the departing Spokane Airport CEO Larry Krauter, who is planning to leave his post to be CEO of a Cincinnati, Ohio, airport.

Agenda here.
Thursday, December 5 at 9 am
Airport Event Center
9211 W. McFarlane Road, Spokane, WA 99224
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane “temporary” utility tax could be here to stay