You can apply to be the next Spokane District 2 City Council Member

Applications are due January 5! (Photo illustration by Valerie Osier)

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:

Apply to be the next city council member for District 2 in Spokane
Discussions on the future of TRAC
Big budget decisions for the Mead School Board
New board members for Central Valley School Board
A Logan Neighborhood transit-oriented development project is holding a public hearing

Important meetings this week:

Spectrum Center winter clothing drive

For those looking for ways to participate in mutual aid and keeping our community warm as temperatures continue to drop and shelter beds are consistently full for the night, Spectrum Center is taking donations for a winter clothing drive this week. New and gently used winter clothing, tarps, sleeping bags and tents can be dropped off this week at a few locations, listed below.

Tuesday, December 12 from 10 am – 1 pm
Spokane Public Library – South Hill, Study Room B
3324 S Perry St, Spokane WA 99203

Thursday, December 14 from 3 pm – 5 pm
Spokane Public Library – Hillyard, Study Room C
4110 N Cook St, Spokane WA 99207

December 12 – 15 from 2:30 pm – 6 pm
Spectrum Center
1514 N Monroe Ave, Spokane WA 99205

Apply for the open Spokane City Council seat

With Betsy Wilkerson moving into the position of Spokane City Council President, there’s a seat open on city council to represent District 2 and they are taking applications.

The person appointed to the position will be serving until November 2025, after the next general municipal election is certified.

Applicants must have lived in District 2 since at least January 22, 2023. Applications are due by Friday, January 5 at 5 pm. The council is planning to interview applicants in a meeting open to the public on January 18, 2024. They can then hold an executive session to evaluate the qualifications of the potential appointees. Then the council will vote in open session to fill the vacancy on January 22, 2024.

The posting doesn’t say how much the salary for the position is, but according to the Spokane Salary Review Commission 2022 report, council members will be making $49,799 starting January 1, 2024.

Apply here or at the city council offices on the 7th floor of City Hall.

Spokane City Council Study Session

The agenda for it isn’t out yet, but with their Monday legislative sessions canceled for the rest of the year, Spokane City Council will be making the last few big decisions of 2023 during a lengthy meeting on Thursday. Starting at 11 am, they’ll be discussing the future of the TRAC shelter. Multiple versions of a contract renewal with the Salvation Army have been floated, but because the agenda isn’t up yet, we aren’t sure exactly what will get voted on.

The process of securing an operator for 2024 has been a mess since a Request for Proposals put out to find a cheaper operator for the shelter was unexpectedly canceled and has only continued to be messy as Kim McCollim, one of the top officials responsible for securing the 2024 operator, resigned last week. We’ll be keeping a close eye on a couple of things during TRAC discussions, including whether the contract renewal is for four months, or a month-by-month lease, whether the city has plans and specifically identifies funds to contract Revive Counseling as the service provider at TRAC for the next few months and whether or not the council calls for an investigation into how the whole process was handled.

Besides lining out the future of the TRAC shelter, the city council will also have to make a couple of other big decisions, including finalizing legislative priorities for the 2024 state legislature session and taking a final vote on whether Council Member Michael Cathcart’s measure to create a 7-person redistricting committee will appear on the February special election ballot, or be replaced with a plan by Council Member Zack Zappone to instead do a full update of the City Charter with involvement from community groups. This is all in response to claims from last year that election maps Zappone helped create were illegally gerrymandered.

Though a judge upheld the maps, he also stated that council members should not be the ones drawing the maps. Replacing Cathcart’s ballot measure requires a rules suspension, which needs a majority plus one vote. With the council currently sitting at six members, the math makes it unlikely that Zappone’s City Charter review will replace the measure right now, but we’ll also be paying close attention to the decision here as it will affect what appears on the February ballot.

Agenda here when available.
Thursday, December 14 at 11 am
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session

Agenda here
Tuesday, December 12 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

Agenda here
Tuesday, December 12 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

TBD tabs, part two

Despite some heated discussion at the first reading of an ordinance to fund Spokane Valley’s new Transportation Benefit District (TBD) via vehicle tab fees last week, the council voted to send the ordinance to a second read. Though the council voted 4-3 to advance to the second reading, which will happen at Tuesday’s meeting, there is another option on the table — instead of funding the TBD through the $20 tab fees that Council Member Laura Padden said only impact residents and can disproportionately affect lower-income folks (though sales tax increases also disproportionally affect lower-income folks too), council discussed implementing a 0.1% sales tax instead. This seemed to have a wider council appeal, with one of the four members who voted to advance the current ordinance stating she’d prefer the sales tax option. We’ll be looking for whether any last minute amendments to the ordinance are proposed, or whether the vote happens on the ordinance as written.

Sports sports sports – specifically cross country

With all this talk of the TBD, Spokane Valley hasn’t forgotten about their TPA (Tourism Promotion Area). As part of making Spokane Valley the next hit tourism destination — see their rebrand from earlier this year — the city will be voting on a $400,000 sports recruitment and marketing services contract with Spokane Sports, a non-profit “responsible for recruiting, retaining, and facilitating sports events for the Spokane region, according to their website. Some of the projects in the scope of work include planning a cross-country course at Flora Park and event scouting for NCAA regional and national cross country championships.

Agenda here
Tuesday, December 12 at 6 pm
CenterPlace Great Room
2426 N Discovery Place, Spokane Valley, WA 99216
Virtual attendance here.

Mead School District Board of Directors

Citizen’s Guide to the Budget

A handful of reports are slated for presentation at this week’s Mead School Board meeting, including the Citizen’s Guide to the District Budget. The Citizen’s Guide, which starts on page 55 of the agenda, breaks down the budget for the next year for interested community members. It also begins with a letter from Travis Hanson, the current superintendent, who highlighted the economic impact of COVID-19 on the district. Citizens who still have questions about the budget are encouraged to call Hanson at 509-465-6014 or Mead’s Chief Financial Officer, Heather Ellingson at 509-465-6048.

Agenda here
Monday, December 11 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

Positions of power

This week, the Central Valley School District (CVSD) Board of Directors will swear in the newly elected directors, Anniece Barker and Stephanie Jerdon. Both Barker and Jerdon were endorsed by Citizens for CVSD Transparency, a Political Action Committee (PAC) co-chaired by Liberty Lake citizen Erin Zasada, the woman who filed to have the book Gender Queer removed from the city library’s shelves. After Jerdon and Barker are sworn in, the board of directors will vote on leadership positions for the board, including the president, vice president and legislative representative.

Agenda here
Monday, December 11 at 6:30 p.m.
Learning and Teaching Center (district office)
Board Room at 2218 N Molter Rd, Liberty Lake
Watch via Zoom here.

Spokane Plan Commission

Public hearing for Logan neighborhood project

The plan commission will hold a public hearing for the South Logan Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) project on Wednesday, after public feedback asked the city to prioritize affordable housing and anti-displacement measures in plans for future development. According to the packet, transit-oriented development is “an urban planning strategy that encourages development near high-capacity transit infrastructure.” With the City Line now running through the Gonzaga University campus squarely in the middle of the the South Logan neighborhood, this TOD project seeks to improve walk and bike-ability, continue to invest in public spaces and transit infrastructure and strategically update zoning and design standards in hopes of encouraging investment in homes and businesses in the area.

Citizens interested in providing feedback on the project are encouraged to attend the meeting or submit written comments via email to southlogantod@spokanecity.org or via snail mail to City of Spokane Planning and Economic Development Services; Attn: Maren Murphy, Senior Planner; 808 West Spokane Falls Boulevard; Spokane, WA 99201-3333.

Pedestrian street designation consideration

Spokane City Council passed a resolution in October to add a consideration to change a section of 29th avenue to a “pedestrian street,” in the Plan Commission’s work plan for 2022-23. This was driven by conversations with the local Neighborhood Council, which wanted more pedestrian-oriented design for the future of the section of 29th stretching between Martin Street and Fiske Street. At Wednesday’s meeting, the Plan Commission will hold a workshop on the zoning change, which would incentivize higher density housing and walkable businesses in the area. The full background packet can be found starting on page six of the agenda for the meeting.

Agenda here
Wednesday, December 13 at 2 pm
Council Briefing Center
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Park Board

Agenda here when available
Thursday, December 14 at 3:30 pm
Council Chambers in the Lower Level of City Hall.
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed via WebEx,
Call in: 408-418-9388 Access code: 2491 764 3350

Spokane Regional Transportation Council

Agenda here
Thursday, December 14 at 1 pm
Spokane Regional Transportation Office
21 W Riverside Ave, Suite 504, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Edited to clarify that the criticism of the Spokane Valley City Council’s TBD plan stating tab fees disproportionately affect lower-income people was the opinion of Council Member Laura Padden, not RANGE, and to add the context that sales taxes also disproportionately affect lower-income people.