Will Spokane’s public opioid treatment services continue down the road to privatization?

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 Regional Health District will be voting on whether or not to move forward their study on whether or not to privatize their Treatment Services Division, which handles methadone treatment and mental health services.
Spokane City Council has a series of controversial first readings scheduled for tonight, including an ordinance that would expand sit-and-lie prohibitions through the whole city and an ordinance that would prohibit landlords without business licenses or proper rental registration from raising rents or evicting tenants.
Spokane Valley City Council will make a decision on how to spend opioid settlement dollars and discuss whether or not to raise property taxes for next year.
Spokane County Commissioners are holding a public roundtable hearing on Tuesday to get the public’s input on the proposed 2025 budget.

Important meetings this week:

Spokane City Council

🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Affordable housing contracts

Council is scheduled to vote tonight on whether or not to approve over $4.5 million in funding from the 1590 Sales Tax and Uses revenue on projects that increase affordable housing access.

The contracts up for approval were chosen through a Request for Approvals process that ran from late May to mid-June and received eight eligible applications, all of which are recommended by the CHHS board for some level of funding. Some of the projects slated to receive funding, if council approves the applications, are:

$1 million for Thrive International to do supportive services for up to 350 households, with a focus on households that are homeless and at-risk of homelessness
$428,677 for YWCA to do supportive services for up to 260 households fleeing domestic violence who earn 60% of the average monthly income or less
About $70,000 for the Volunteers of America’s Hope House Emergency Shelter to do supportive services for 461 individuals

The full list of projects can be found on page 562 of the agenda.

Flurry of first readings

A few ordinances — some particularly controversial — will receive their first reads and first chance for community feedback at tonight’s meeting. Among them are:

~~An ordinance we covered previously that would prevent landlords who have not secured business licenses and/or registered their rental units with the city from evicting tenants or raising rents.~~
~~An ordinance that would expand the sit-and-lie prohibitions beyond the downtown core to the whole city.~~
An ordinance expanding the Spokane Human Rights Commission to include a youth representative from each city council district.

Because these are first readings, they will not be up for a vote at tonight’s meeting, but we anticipate discussion and commentary will be spicy, particularly on the rental registry and sit-and-lie ordinances.

Nuclear waste concerns

Nuclear waste from the Hanford site in Richland may be shipped through Spokane on a train next year to disposal sites in Utah and Texas, after Oregon protested the original plan to ship it through Portland. Mayor Lisa Brown has expressed her disapproval of the plan, stating in a letter to the state that, “This plan poses an unacceptable risk to our city, as both rail and truck traffic passes through the heart of downtown Spokane over high bridges and elevated viaducts.” Tonight, Spokane City Council will vote on whether or not to send a letter to Governor Jay Inslee and other officials asking for more public engagement on the proposal. There is also a second draft of the letter, submitted by Council Member Zack Zappone that would request the solidification of the nuclear waste prior to transport.

Editor's Note: Sometime today, Spokane City Council replaced their digitally available agenda with a new version that had the first readings on rental requirements and sit-and-lie expansion deferred.

Agenda here
Monday, September 23 at 6 pm
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane City Council Study Sessions

Agenda here when available.
Thursday, September 26 at 11 am
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Finance and Administration Committee

🌶️🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Like a good neighbor…

Two weeks ago, we covered an emergency ordinance that would have created expanded requirements for organizations providing comprehensive support services and receiving city funding who want to open or relocate. That ordinance was deferred at a briefing session, but it’s back up for discussion at today’s committee meeting. We covered it pretty in depth before, and we don’t want to self-plagiarize, so go check out our write-up on the policy here.

Sunset on sales tax

Also up for discussion is a resolution that would express the council’s intent to create a sunset date for Brown’s proposed sales tax, should voters approve it in November. The council’s resolution would state their intent to stop collecting the tax in 2035 and to create a special revenue fund to manage the uses of all money collected from the sales tax. This is a resolution, and would not be binding — because the sunset date and revenue fund were not written into the language that will appear on voters’ ballots, future councils could change their minds about the sunset date and revenue fund.

An update on lawsuits

Lawsuits continue to cost the city money — council will discuss contract amendments to pay an additional $100,000 to legal representation. $50,000 will go to the Pacifica Law Group to fight the lawsuit by Sean Feucht against current and former council members for their 2023 resolution censuring former Mayor Nadine Woodward’s appearance onstage with Sean Feucht and alleged domestic terrorist Matt Shea, bringing the total contract amount to $100,000.

An additional $50,000 will go to Carl P. Warring, Evans, Craven & Lackie to fight a lawsuit brought against the city for alleged sexual assault by former SPD officer Nathan Nash, bringing the total contract amount to $100,000.

Money talks

It’s time to talk budget. Council is scheduled to have a 2024 Budget discussion, an update from the mayor’s administration and a review of City Council Budget Principles. They’ll also be setting public hearing dates for a few budgetary items, so if you want to give your opinions, stay tuned for those dates.

Agenda here
Monday, September 23 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

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 24 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

Come to the table to talk 2025 county budget

The Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) is set to hold the first of three public roundtable hearings on Tuesday to get the public’s input on the proposed budget for next year to see if commissioners need to make any changes. Each day will focus on a different topic, though only one hearing is held after many people’s working hours. Anyone can come to the hearings and share their testimony for three minutes on the topic of that day’s hearing.

September 24 at 2 pm: review and discuss the 2025 General Fund Revenues
October 15 at 5:30 pm: review and discuss the 2025 General Fund Expenses
November 5 at 2 pm: review and discuss proposed 2025 County Budget

The final required public hearing will be on Monday, December 2. You can also participate remotely via conference call by calling 1-877-853-5257 (MEETING ID: 856 7484 5677) or view the meeting through Zoom.

Healthcare for after incarceration

The BOCC is set to accept two big chunks of money from the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA) for the Reentry Demonstration Initiative Project, which is a new Apple Health/Medicaid initiative that provides prerelease services for people leaving incarceration. The initiative allows Apple Health-eligible incarcerated people to get health services up to 90 days before their release to help them successfully reenter society, reduce recidivism, emergency department visits, overdoses and death.

Spokane County Detention Service is part of the first cohort of facilities that will launch in July 2025. The county is set to get $5 million from HCA for adults and $2 million for the county’s juvenile court.

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 24 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

Property tax discussion

Spokane Valley City Council will discuss whether or not to increase 2025 property taxes by 1%, which would raise an additional $135,000 for the city. They won’t be making any decisions this week, but will hold a first reading of an ordinance to either increase tax or hold the tax rate steady on October 8th.

Opioid settlement funds update

Spokane Valley City Council will be making a decision on what to do with the $102,121.63 in funding they have received from settlements on opioid lawsuits. They have identified eight options to choose between:

Spokane County stabilization facility expansion capital and operations
Spokane County stabilization facility expansion operations
Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) enhanced dataset analysis
SRHD needs assessment
transportation to services
Telehealth
additional K9 units
other; or take other action as deemed appropriate.

They’ll be discussing the merits of each of these options and deciding where to allocate funds this week.

Agenda here
Tuesday, September 24 at 6 pm
City Hall
10210 E Sprague Ave
Spokane Valley, Washington 99206
Virtual attendance here.

Spokane Housing Authority Board

🌶️/5 peppers

Public Hearing

Spokane Housing Authority has completed a draft of the 2025 Public Housing Authority Annual Plan and two other plans they have to submit to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development in October 2024. They are seeking input from clients, residents, landlords and the general public this afternoon on the plans, which can be reviewed here.

Agenda here
Monday, September 23 at 3:30 pm
Meeting Room 25 W. Nora Ave, Spokane, WA 99205
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane School District Board of Directors

🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Special meeting

The Spokane Public School District Board of Directors will be holding a special meeting on Tuesday at 5 pm to select two students to serve as advisors to the board for the 2024-25 school year.

Agenda here
Wednesday, September 25 at 6 pm
Spokane Public Schools Administration Building
200 N. Bernard, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane Regional Health District Board

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Feasibility Study Decision

We’ve been covering the Spokane Regional Health District’s Feasibility Study on whether or not to privatize their Treatment Services Division in depth (see here and here.) This Thursday, they will make the first decision of the process: voting on whether or not to advance the study to the next step.

Dr. Alica Thompson, SRHD’s administrative officer, has been conducting staff and client interviews to determine whether moving forward is a good idea, as well as collaborating with independent facilitator hadley morrow. Their findings were attached in the meeting materials for this week. The TLDR: overwhelmingly, staff and clients thought moving the program was a bad idea and would put clients’ treatment at risk.

Also in the materials is a list of the issues with agility that the division has because it is public health instead of private health, like the inability to seek direct federal grants or retain extra dollars at the end of the year.

This is one of the biggest decisions that SRHD will have to make all year, and we highly recommend tuning in and offering public commentary if this issue is important to you.

Agenda here
Thursday, September 26 at 1:30 p.m.
Auditorium, First Floor
Spokane Regional Health District
1101 West College Avenue

Editor's note: this meeting is starting an hour later than usual because of the State of the County event and the story has been amended to reflect that.

Mead School District Board of Directors

Agenda here
Monday, September 23 at 6 p.m.
Union Event Center
12509 N. Market St. Bldg. D, Mead, WA 99021
Watch via Zoom here.

Central Valley School District Board of Directors

Agenda here
Monday, September 23 at 6 p.m.
Learning and Teaching Center (district office)
Board Room at 2218 N Molter Rd, Liberty Lake
Watch via Zoom here.

Spokane Plan Commission

Agenda here
Wednesday, September 25 at 2 pm
Council Briefing Center
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.