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:

The Spokane City Council will consider a resolution in support of putting the two-tenths of one percent transit tax renewal on the ballot this August, but the decision ultimately lies with the Spokane Transit Authority.
The Finance and Administration Committee will talk about budgeting priorities for the next biennial budget, and a grant-funded program to make streets safer after fatal crashes.
The Spokane Transit Authority board will hold a special meeting to finally vote on a proposal to put their sales tax on the ballot for the August primary elections, after a last-minute deferral earlier this month to placate the business community.
The Board of County Commissioners are set to accept millions in state funding to install filters in the homes of West Plains people who get their water from wells contaminated with forever chemicals.
The BOCC wants to establish a taxing district to protect the West Plains drinking water aquifers, which are contaminated with forever chemicals.

Important meetings this week:

Spokane City

Spokane City Council

🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Support for STA tax renewal

The Spokane Transit Authority Board has to decide this week if they’re going to run a sales tax renewal on the August ballot before the deadline to get ballot language to the county auditor’s office.

STA is funded in part by two-tenths of one percent sales tax — meaning they get 2 cents for every $10 retail purchase — approved by voters in 2016. The sales tax expires at the end of 2028, though, leaving the agency limited time to run a ballot measure to renew the tax. If they fail to renew the tax this year, it could put potential federal funding for the Division Street Bus Rapid Transit line in jeopardy, most of the board members said.

However, despite having a plan and ballot language ready to go, the board waffled on the renewal earlier this month. With uncertainty about whether a new jail tax is going to be ready to run in November, rumored threats that business organizations would pay to run an opposition campaign and last-minute comments from Greater Spokane Incorporated (GSI) that they didn’t feel involved enough in the lengthy and public planning process, the city of Spokane could make their stance on the issue clear tonight.

City Council Member and STA board member Zack Zappone and City Council Member Paul Dillon are co-sponsoring a resolution up for a vote tonight to show the city’s firm support for running the tax renewal in August with no sunset clause and making the 0.2% sales tax permanent. Some STA board members — including City Council Member Michael Cathcart — expressed frustration with the move to remove the sunset clause, which means the tax would run in perpetuity, saying it removed accountability. Other board members said that sunset clauses on transit taxes were out of the norm and that removing it would make going out for state and federal funding easier since matching agency funding wouldn’t potentially be in jeopardy every decade.

STA will meet later this week both with GSI and then the next day to vote on adding the tax to the August ballot.

Food truck vending

Last time this was on the agenda, it was deferred for a few weeks. But the ordinance from Council Members Sarah Dixit and Paul Dillon to make it easier for food trucks to operate in the city is scheduled once again for a first read. The ordinance would do a few things:

Stop requiring food truck operators to make site improvements when they’re operating out of a surface parking lot
Update city code to match state code, allowing food trucks to sell alcohol at certain events with the appropriate permits
Eliminate a $60 permit required for trucks operating more than two weeks in the city
Allow food truck to park in any surface lot (with the owner’s permission)
Eliminate an onerous requirement that food trucks get written permission from any adjacent properties they want to park next to, requiring only the permission of owner of the property they park on

There is also an amendment proposed by Cathcart, which would add a clause requiring mobile food vendors to leave any site they operated from in the same or better condition as they found it, and give the police department the authority to enforce city code around food vendors.

It would also make violating the mobile food vendor code a criminal misdemeanor, both for employees and business owners. Employees could face up to 90 days in jail or a $1,000 fine or both for violating the code under the Cathcart amendment, while employers would face up to 364 days in jail, a $5,000 fine, or both. Currently, violating city code for food vending is just a civil infraction. The Cathcart amendment will get voted on during the agenda review session before the evening meeting.

Agenda here
Monday, April 27 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, April 30 at 11 am
Council Chambers
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Council Committees

Finance and Administration Committee

🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Emergency streets

Last year, Sarah Rose — co-executive director of Spokane Reimagined — spoke to the Spokane City Council about an idea: when somebody dies of a traffic crash, the city should put out white traffic cones to mark the fatality and slow traffic in the area until it can be determined what caused the crash and how to fix any infrastructure issues. Nothing came of it at the time. Now, the city is taking steps to bring something similar to what Rose pitched to Spokane streets through a pilot program funded by a Washington Traffic Safety Commission grant.

The council already voted to accept the grant, but today, they’ll be briefed on a special budget ordinance to actually purchase the traffic control equipment needed to run the pilot program: candles, cones, barrels, signage and other items, for up to $10,000 of the grant funding. The pilot program will run May through September as an effort to help the city more immediately address traffic fatalities. More details hopefully soon, perhaps even at this meeting!

Budget priorities

City budgeting isn’t just something that happens in the fall. There are benchmarks for the city to hit along the way as a lead-up to the official budget getting passed, and today, they’ll be working towards one of those benchmarks by discussing their budgeting priorities for the next two years. There’s no additional info in the agenda to give us a preview about what they’re thinking, but they’re going to start discussing what’s at the top of their lists for funding today with City Council Budget Director Kate Fairborn. Later, what bubbles up from this discussion will be turned into the Council Priorities Resolution, which they will pass as an official way of telling the mayor where they want money to go.

Agenda here
Monday, April 27 at 12 pm
Council Chambers
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Housing Authority Board

🫑/5 peppers

Agenda here
Monday, January 5 at 3:30 pm
Meeting Room at 25 W. Nora Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Community, Housing, and Human Services Board

🫑/5 peppers

Board Retreat

Did you know the public can go watch board retreats for government bodies, too? Technically, they’re public meetings, so while you might not be able to give public comment or participate, you can still watch! In lieu of their regular meeting, the CHHS/Continuum of Care boards will hold a joint board retreat to “engage in strategic planning, coordination, and alignment of priorities.”

Agenda here when available
Friday, May 1 at 9 am
WorkSource Spokane
130 S Arthur Street, Spokane WA 99202

Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session

🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

New surveillance devices possible for parks

The Spokane County Parks, Recreation, and Golf Department wants the BOCC to give it permission to install new surveillance cameras at some of its newly renovated parks and trailheads. The idea is to “prevent vandalism of public investments.” The cameras would collect data for “investigative purposes” and share live images on the department’s website. It’s unclear what brand of cameras will be purchased, but the County shut its Flock network down this month.

Nearly $7.5M in state funding for PFAS relief

The county is looking to receive $7.45 million from the state to install filters in the homes of people who live in the West Plains and whose drinking water wells are contaminated with forever chemicals. Read our coverage of the crisis here.

Agenda here
Tuesday, April 28 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

Ballot measure for West Plains aquifer protection

The county will place a measure on August primary ballots to create a taxing district to raise funding for awareness and protection of the West Plains aquifers that are contaminated with forever chemicals. The chemicals came from the two airports in Airway Heights, Fairchild Air Force Base and Spokane International Airport.

Agenda here
Tuesday, April 28 at 2 pm
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane County Planning Commission

🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Workshops

The commission is planning two workshops for the county’s long-term planning on economic development and rural land and agritourism. Visit these workshops if you want to know more about the way the county plans.

Agenda here
Thursday, April 30 at 4:30 pm
Commissioners’ Hearing Room
1026 W. Broadway Ave, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Transit Authority Board of Directors

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Special meeting: tax renewal edition

At their last meeting, the Spokane Transit Authority Board decided to wait until the last possible minute to vote on whether or not to add their sales tax renewal ballot measure to the August primary ballot. They scheduled a special meeting for the afternoon of April 29, which isn’t up on the website yet, but we know it’s happening.

While the majority of the board expressed their preference for running the tax renewal in August — both as a way to get it done and out of the way of potential future tax measures other municipalities might want to run and because of fears they could lose federal grant dollars if they delay — the body ultimately deferred. There were fears that if they didn’t have even more meetings with the business community before officially adding the measure to the calendar that the business community would shell out the funds to run an opposition campaign to the tax renewal.

The meeting with the business community is scheduled for April 28, but it doesn’t seem likely to change at least a few minds: Zappone has already announced he’s introducing a resolution at the Spokane City Council today to support putting the renewal on the ballots in August.

Agenda and scheduling details for the upcoming special meeting can be found at the link below when available.

Agenda here when available
Wednesday, April 29 at ???
STA Boardroom
1230 W Boone Avenue, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Regional Health District Board

🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Handing over the reins

After the forced resignation of former Administrative Officer Alicia Thompson last summer, the Spokane Regional Health District is holding a vote on a resolution to formally hand the reins of power over to the new Administrative Officer: Danny Scalise. Scalise was officially hired by the board after they held an executive session, gave no comments to the public on the candidates after and then voted to hire “candidate A” — not even giving the public a name. His name was not announced until after he had been officially hired.

Unpermitted food vendors

Food Safety Program Manager Jessica Martin will be presenting on unpermitted food vendors in Spokane County, in advance of the Spokane City Council’s upcoming vote next week on the ordinance to make it easier for food vendors to operate in the city. A preview of the presentation shows that complaints for unpermitted food vendors have gone from eight in 2023 to 32 in 2025. There’s not much else in the presentation, besides some photos of unregulated food stands.

Agenda here
Thursday, April 30 at 12:30 pm
Auditorium, First Floor
1101 West College Avenue, Spokane

Mead School District Board of Directors

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Supporting the Let’s Go WA agenda against trans athletes

The board of directors is expected to take a vote on approving a resolution that expresses support for two initiatives that will appear on the November ballot: the first would ban trans student athletes from participating in girl’s sports and the other looks to broaden parental rights by stripping amendments made to a 2024 law and re-enacting original provisions.

According to the Washington Education Association, the latter initiative would erase nondiscrimination policies that protect students who are homeless, immigrants, neurodiverse and trans. The initiative would also let parents and legal guardians examine textbooks and curriculum used, and opt children out of certain classes and activities, among other things. Both of these initiatives are backed by Let’s Go Washington, a conservative PAC sponsored by multimillionaire Brian Heywood.

A new holiday

The board will also have a first reading of a district policy revision to add Juneteenth to the list of holidays the Mead School District observes. Juneteenth, celebrated June 19, commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. The board is expected to take a vote Monday.

Elective credit for jobs

Another policy revision that the board will hold a first reading for centers around student credit opportunities. The revision would allow students who are 16 or older and eligible to work to get credit for up to two electives through a job.

Agenda here
Monday, April 27 at 6 pm
12509 N. Market St. Bldg. D, Mead
Watch via Zoom here.

Central Valley School District Board of Directors

?/5 peppers

The agenda viewing software that most school districts in our area use appeared to be down this morning, so we don’t know what’s scheduled for this board.

Agenda here
Monday, April 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

The agenda viewing software that most school districts in our area use appeared to be down this morning, so we don’t know what’s scheduled for this board.

Agenda here
Tuesday, April 28 at 6 pm
3830 N Sullivan Rd, Bldg 1
Spokane Valley

West Valley School District Board of Directors

?/5 peppers

The agenda viewing software that most school districts in our area use appeared to be down this morning, so we don’t know what’s scheduled for this board.

Agenda here
Wednesday, April 29 at 6:30 pm
District Conference Center
8818 E. Grace, Spokane
Watch via Zoom here.

Spokane School District Board of Directors

?/5 peppers

The agenda viewing software that most school districts in our area use appeared to be down this morning, so we don’t know what’s scheduled for this board.

Agenda here
Wednesday, April 29 at 6 pm
200 N. Bernard, Spokane
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Valley City Council

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

City may dedicate more than $12M to ice sports facility

The Innovia Foundation has approached Spokane Valley about building an ice sports complex at Sullivan Park. The council is scheduled to vote on funding for the project, which includes a $9 million facility and $3 million worth of public infrastructure for the facility.