Transportation consolidation

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:

A possible new commission to consolidate Spokane’s transportation-related boards.
The STA Board will be figuring out if we get free or reduced bus fare for the 50th anniversary of the Expo.
New decorum rules for Spokane Valley City Council Members.

Important meetings this week:

Spokane City Council

Defending employees

We have a relatively light week for Spokane City Council, which is good because our intrepid city council live-tweeter, Erin Sellers, is out for the day.

One interesting item the city council will consider tonight is to approve the “indemnification and defense” of eight city employees who, along with the city, are being sued by the owner of Wall Street Apartments. The city shut down the building and kicked out the 24 residents, most of whom were low-income, in September over code violations and unsafe living conditions. We have not yet seen the lawsuit, but the landlord and owner of the building, Dr. Alaa Elkharwily, said previously that he feels he is being treated unfairly by the city and alleged the entire year-long process to bring the building into compliance was filled with underhanded treatment by specific city employees named in the suit.

The resolution will basically formalize that the city will provide defense and legal liability for the employees who were “engaged in the good faith performance of their official duties.” The suit names Director of Code Enforcement Luis Garcia, Building Official Dermott Murphy, Fire Marshal Lance Dahl, former Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer, Fire Marshal Nathan Mulkey, Code Enforcement Supervisor Jason Ruffing, Fire Inspector Frank Sandall, and Fire Marshal Brett Phebus.

Board appointments

The Spokane City Council is set to appoint five new members to the Community, Housing, and Human Services Board: Caroline Yu, Flor Castaneda, Christabel Agyei, James Randall

and Wes Anderson as the Veteran Representative. This board “makes recommendations about funding priorities for housing programs and projects and social services utilizing federal, Washington State and City resources.” The board is also part of the city’s Continuum of Care.

The council will also make two appointments to the Spokane Human Rights Commission: Kurtis Robinson and Susan McFadden. This commission “makes recommendations to the city council regarding issues related to human rights and unjust discrimination and the implementation of programs consistent with the needs of all residents of the city of Spokane.”

Agenda here
Monday, April 15 at 6 pm
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Public Infrastructure, Environment, and Sustainability Committee

One Transportation Commission to rule them all

We are very familiar with the number of transportation-related boards, committees and commissions for the city of Spokane, so seeing a proposal to condense some of them gives us a little nerdy thrill.

Mayor Lisa Brown’s office is proposing an ordinance that would establish a citizen’s Transportation Commission to unify various existing transportation-related boards, committees and subcommittees and create a more transparent process. This commission would “provide advice and recommendations to the Mayor and City Council on the plans and programs necessary to achieve a safe and equitable multimodal transportation system consistent with the Comprehensive Plan, the policies of the City as adopted by the City Council, and within the parameters set forth in state law.” The four boards and commissions in question include the Bicycle Advisory Board (BAB), the Citizens Transportation Advisory Board (CTAB), Parking Advisory Committee (PAC) and the Plan Commission Transportation Subcommittee (PCTS).

According to the agenda packet the issues are threefold: these groups don’t have a clear process for actually getting their recommendations to the city council and mayor’s office, the city struggles to recruit enough people interested in serving on these boards (CTAB has seven vacant seats, PAC has four vacant seats and PCTS has two vacancies as of now), and city staff don’t even really know which group to go to for a given issue because their responsibilities overlap so much.

The new ordinance would repeal the city code that formed the CTAB and PAC (the PCTS doesn’t need a city code change to be consolidated). BAB appears to be safe from consolidation for now (read more in the BAB section below!) The new commission would be made up of nine commissioners and be set up similarly to the city’s Plan Commission. Its main responsibilities would include the Six-Year Street Program, Transportation Benefit Districts, Bicycle Master Plan and Pedestrian Master Plan, the parking system and traffic safety cameras.

While the mayor’s office is submitting the proposal, it has support from both sides of the political aisle with Council President Betsy Wilkerson and Council Members Kitty Klitzke and Jonathan Bingle signing on as council sponsors.

Fish Lake Trail Phase 1 Design

The city of Spokane has secured grant money to build a hiking trail connecting the Fish Lake Trail to the Centennial Trail at Sunset Boulevard and Government Way and hopes to start construction in February of 2025. But first, it must do a design study to assess the impacts the project might entail for historically excluded communities, whether it will fit with the goals of larger community planning efforts and how the effectiveness of the project will be evaluated.

Construction would be broken into two phases, one in early 2025 and the other later that year or in 2026, according to the Committee Agenda Sheet. The first phase will cost $275,000; the second $78,358.

Agenda here
Monday, April 15 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.

Spokane City Council Study Sessions

Agenda here when available.
Thursday, April 18 at 11 am
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Valley City Council

‘Right-sizing police’

Two special meetings will provide time for the public to comment on the city’s ongoing “Right-Sizing Policing” project, one at 5 pm Monday and another Tuesday at 1 pm. According to the plan’s website, a consulting group hired last year made the following recommendations to increase the size of the police force in Spokane Valley:

an additional 25 new dedicated police positions
three new police positions shared with Spokane County
two civilian positions (staff is recommending a third civilian position)

Relocating Yellowstone Pipeline

A road construction project being planned on Pines Road in Spokane Valley poses a physical conflict with an existing gas pipeline that bisects Spokane and Spokane Valley from the east to the west. Because of this conflict, the city council is considering an amendment to the 2021 resolution that approved the pipeline to allow Yellowstone Pipe Line Company to reroute the pipeline outside of the public right of way. The original resolution allowed the company to operate the pipeline roughly parallel to Trent Avenue and the BNSF Railway. The proposed amendment would allow the company to move the pipeline slightly south for a small section.

Normally, votes follow the council’s “Three-Touch Principle,” which says the public should get at least three chances to speak in or observe public meetings in which such decisions are discussed. But Tuesday night’s reading will be the first, and “staff have recommended that city council consider waiving the rules and adopting the ordinance on a first reading, thus removing one additional week from the required statutory timeline,” according to the Request for Council Action.

The pipeline runs from Montana through Washington, carrying automotive gas to Spokane and Moses Lake. It is routed directly over the largest source of drinking water in the region, the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer.

Governance manual update

The city council will do its third reading of proposed changes to the Governance Manual, which sets the rules for city council members to follow when they are doing public business. Those changes are proposed by the Governance Manual Committee (GMC), one of four of the city’s public bodies that do public business but do not invite the public to their meetings. The changes include significant additions and revisions to the rules for decorum and behavior during city council meetings, among other changes.

The changes are color coded in the agenda packet. Here are a few that caught our eye:

Addition of a policy barring council members from arguing with staff and confining their comments during staff presentations to “relevant facts” that are determined by the mayor (referred to in the manual as the Presiding Officer). The mayor’s determination of relevant facts would be subject to appeal by the full city council.
Addition of a policy that prohibits council members from posting false information to social media and from deleting their own or third parties’ social media posts, unless content violates the city’s Social Media Policy.
The revisions change the vote threshold for closing debate from simple majority to a two-thirds.
Addition of a new chapter allowing the council to hire outside investigators to probe harassment complaints. These guidelines follow a faltering investigation into freshman Council Member Al Merkel, who is fielding a complaint that he harassed an unidentified city staffer. City Manager John Hohman, who presented the investigation to city council on March 5, declined to answer questions from RANGE about the nature of that complaint at a council meeting earlier this year.
Addition in Meeting Rules and Procedure, p. 26: “Councilmembers shall not leave a meeting without being excused by the Presiding Officer, except in emergency situations. Councilmembers shall not encourage or participate in disruptive behavior originating from the public seating areas.”
Addition of a description of the Public Safety Committee (PSC) as a five-to-six-member “ad hoc committee that meets on an as-needed basis to discuss and provide input into critical pending public safety issues.” (The PSC, like the GMC, meets in private.)

Agenda here
Tuesday, April 16 at 6 pm
City Hall
10210 E Sprague Ave
Spokane Valley, Washington 99206
Virtual attendance here.

Spokane Public Library Board of Trustees

Agenda here
Tuesday, April 16 at 4:30 pm
Shadle Park Library
2111 W. Wellesley Ave, Spokane, Washington, 99205
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Bicycle Advisory Board

One commission to rule them all (except bikes)

The BAB is also talking about the proposal for the new Transportation Commission this week and we assume they’re taking a sigh of relief that this bike-focused board isn’t on the consolidation chopping block. The BAB is a relatively active board with only one vacancy on it right now for the under-18 member seat.

According to the proposal, the BAB will continue to work in its current format, but will pass recommendations to the Transportation Commission, which will then formally pass them to the city council and mayor.

Agenda here
Tuesday, April 16 at 6 pm
City Council Briefing Center
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Transit Authority Board of Directors

A special Expo ‘74 fare?

At the March 21, 2024, STA Board Meeting, members discussed a promotional fare to pair with the 50th anniversary celebration of Spokane’s Expo ’74, which will be held May 4 through July 4, 2024.

The board members discussed the following options, listed from most conservative to most generous:

Free fare only on the opening and closing days of the celebration.
Free fare on just Route 11,
Free fare only on Saturdays,
50 cent fare on Weekends and holidays
50 cent fare on all days
Free fare every day. (We vote that one)

At the direction of the board, staff have compiled an analysis of the different options. Each option was assessed on the following categories:

Nexus to Expo 50th events
Impact to employees
Passenger comfort
Other operational considerations
Foregone revenue
Implementation requirements
Messaging/communication
Impact on existing contracts, systems and infrastructure

Not included in the analysis though is how much offering free or extremely low cost bus fare might increase bus ridership in the long run: If people can use these 32 days to explore Spokane’s bus system at low or no cost, they may realize they can use it more often, or use it for short trips. And, as Anthony Gill pointed out in last week’s Inlander, free fares actually have the potential to increase rather than hurt revenue for public transit systems. Read the analysis in the board agenda packet.