How to speak at Spokane City Council after the NEWEST rule changes

If you’re feeling a bit of deja vu, it’s because you’ve seen this story before. Or, roughly this story. After multiple rules clarifications and suspensions, including an indefinite suspension, and two full months of debates about decorum dominating time at Spokane City Council meetings, the council has passed an updated slate of rules. So, we’re updating our story. Here’s the do’s and don’ts of civic engagement under the new council rules, part two.

Definitions of decorum

Spokane City Council meetings have always had rules of decorum that define what is and isn’t allowed in the chambers. Those rules get updated and voted on every year.

In the past, those rules have included banning “demonstrations, banners, signs, applause, profanity, vulgar language, obscene speech, physically pounding the dais or other furniture, yelling, or personal comments or verbal insults about any individual.” In the first batch of rules, council expressly forbade standing up in the chambers , after some council attendees took to standing to show support — and turning their backs to show disapproval — for public testimony or council comment. That rule has been continuously protested from the moment it passed. Letters were sent from both ACLU Washington and Natasha Hill, a local attorney (and interim editor-in-chief of The Black Lens and political candidate), to encourage council to reevaluate this rule, alleging it was an unconstitutional prohibition of speech. At last night’s meeting, the rules were changed to allow standing, with some qualifiers: anyone standing must comply with fire code and the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), take care not to interfere with the two seating rows reserved for city staffers and guests, not limit access to entrances, exits, aisles or pathways and not obstruct the views of others.

But people providing public testimony said the qualifiers were vague and would lead to subjective enforcement — a point that was proved immediately: one audience member got hit with a point of order and was told to stand in a different seat because they were obstructing views, but others were allowed to stand in the front rows and the aisles. The do’s and don’ts of this one look something like: DON’T stand in a “disruptive” way, in front of other people, or join so many other people in standing that an aisle gets blocked. DO stand as a form of silent expression of speech, or if you need to for your comfort or safety.

We anticipate tussles about where exactly people can stand will continue, especially as folks, including city council members, seemed confused about how exactly this rule should be applied.

The other big don’t in the first draft of the rules package was a new prohibition on photography and filming. This was another sticking point for free speech advocates, and was listed as a constitutional freedom in both of the letters sent to council. Since the first rules package passed, this rule was continuously suspended as the council said it was the result of a stray clause and that they hadn’t actually intended to prevent people from taking images or video. In the updated rules package, that stray clause went away, replaced by a paragraph clarifying the rights of the public: DO feel free to photograph or film council proceedings. There are a few qualifications, though. DON’T obstruct others’ views, impede access to the aisles or violate fire code (although it is again unclear exactly what the fire code is).

Testimony on legislative items

One of the most important avenues for public participation at city council meetings is the time to testify on agenda items before they are voted on. In the updated rules package, testimony on legislative items stayed largely the same, with a couple of small technical tweaks to make the language clearer, so our explainer language will also stay largely the same. When it comes to legislative testimony, folks can speak for three minutes on each item, and there is no limit to the number of people who can sign up to speak. While most of the rules for public legislative testimony stayed the same, we wanted to lay them out anyway.

DO read the agenda when it gets posted the Friday prior to the meeting, or give our CIVICS section a skim on Monday, to see if the city council will be voting on anything that you want to share testimony on. If you have an extra second, you can also peruse the advance agenda, which is a draft of what will probably get voted on at meetings two weeks out.

DON’T sweat it if you can’t get down to City Hall before 6 pm on Monday to sign-up. Thanks to an amendment introduced by freshman Council Member Kitty Klitzke, those planning to speak can sign up online after 5 pm on the Friday before the meeting. Sign-ups will also be taken at an iPad kiosk in Chase Gallery, located in the basement of City Hall starting at 8 am Monday morning all the way until the meeting starts at 6 pm.

DON’T feel limited to speaking on just one item. Folks can, and have, testified on every single agenda item. You get three minutes of testimony for each item on the agenda that you have signed up for.

DO identify yourself by a name and city of residence before speaking. Lovingly referred to as the “Dave M. rule” by Council Member Jonathan Bingle, this language used to ask folks to sign up with their “true name,” but after repeated clashes with speaker “Dave M.”, who chose not to provide his last name when testifying, council gave up on enforcing any kind of need for a true name. However, they do still ask that speakers share their city of residence so that the city can track which concerns are from constituents.

DON’T plan on using any visual media to help illustrate the point you want to make. This was one of the biggest shifts to legislative testimony rules. Previously, speakers could send in videos, diagrams, graphs, photos and other forms of visual aid into the city council director that would be projected onto a large screen for the public to see; this is no longer allowed. Citizens can still email these things to citycouncil2@spokanecity.org for the council members to view later. According to Bingle, if your email includes a request for your comments or visuals to be included in the public record, they will be included in the agenda packet that is available online and for the public to take in person at meetings.

Open Forum

Previously, Open Forum was scheduled for the beginning of the Monday meetings, sandwiched between proclamations and the consent agenda. This is the space where the public can bring up issues to council members that aren’t listed on the agenda. Effective January 29, it now begins after the city council has voted on all items in the legislative agenda, with space for 20 people to speak for two minutes each. Despite repeated requests to move Open Forum back to the beginning of the meetings, it’s staying at the end.

If you’re hoping to speak, here’s what you should plan for:

DO sign up before the meeting. Open Forum was also included in Klitzke’s amendment, so sign-ups will begin digitally on Friday after the agenda is posted, and on Monday morning in-person at an iPad kiosk in Chase Gallery, located in the basement of City Hall starting at 8 am Monday until the meeting starts at 6 pm.

DO tune into the beginning of the meeting virtually to see if you received a slot. There are 20 total speaking slots available. Instead of being assigned on a first-come-first-served basis, these will instead be assigned via random generation that will be projected onto the visual aid screen at the beginning of the meeting in order to preserve transparency.

Council members pitched this as a way to keep people from having to rush down right after work, or sit through a whole meeting waiting for Open Forum without knowing if they’d received one of those 20 slots. So, if you aren’t selected and you don’t want to hang out for the whole meeting, you can stay home, and if you are picked, you can mosey your way down to City Hall in time to speak after all legislative business is finished.

DON’T plan on using any visual media to help illustrate the point you want to make. This rule change also applies to Open Forum. While Open Forum speakers could previously send in videos, diagrams, graphs, photos and other forms of visual aid into the City Council Director that would be projected onto a large screen for the public to see, this is no longer allowed. Again, citizens can still email these things to citycouncil2@spokanecity.org for the council members to view later and ask the clerk to include them as part of the public record.

DO check both the current and advance agendas prior to the meeting to see if the item you’re planning to talk about is coming up on the docket in the next two weeks. Per the council rules, open forum time cannot be used to speak on items the city has on the current or advance agenda.

This has led to a lot of confusion in the past, where folks have signed up to speak at Open Forum only to be stopped. When Open Forum was at the beginning of the meeting, it was easy for the council to move speakers from Open Forum to the list of folks testifying separately on the agenda item of their choice, but with Open Forum moved to the end, we’d hate to see folks wait all meeting only to get hit with a “point-of-order,” — a term that stops a speaker from talking due to a rules violation.

This rule came into conflict last night as some speakers at Open Forum who tried to speak on the vote on the rules change vote that had happened earlier that evening were hit with a point of order. However, the rule was inconsistently applied and not every person who complained about the rules was asked to stop. The rules DO expressly allow folks to comment on all decisions made by their council, but it also asks them not to speak on items on the agenda, so it’s unclear if they’ll have to wait a week to voice criticism of decisions made that evening. It seems like a weird hill to die on — preventing folks from commenting on decisions voted on earlier in the night — but because of the inconsistent application, we DON’T have a clear answer on this point.

We know the agendas are a lot to review, and it can be hard to know if the item you want to speak on is one. You can always find the current and advance agendas on the city website. We also do our best to highlight important items for the week in our CIVICS section, which – shameless plug – you can have delivered straight to your inbox every Monday morning by signing up here.

DON’T plan on talking about items that are outside the “affairs of the city.” What exactly is within the affairs of the city? Good question. In 2023, the council’s rules had no definition for this language, instead relying on subjective judgment from the council president, leading to an argument in June about whether or not folks could use their time to read scripture from the Bible. This year, “affairs of the city” has been further spelled out — which we’ve broken down into common language with examples — to include:

Anything the city has legislative, financial or regulatory authority over. Examples would include the condition of the roads by your house, contracts the city might be debating signing or whether or not fluoride should be in the city’s water.
Any ordinance, resolution or official act adopted by the city council. Examples would include anything the city council passed previously that has impacted you or that you still have thoughts about, like the pro-Israel resolution passed on October 9 or the ordinance over the summer that prohibited being in the parks after certain times.
Any rule adopted by the city. Examples include new building or development codes and water rationing rules in the summer.
Anything about the delivery of city services or the operation of city departments. Examples would include garbage pick-up times, complaints or compliments of code enforcement and the cost of city water services.
Any act by a member of the city council, the mayor or the mayor’s administration. Examples would include the comments last year about former Mayor Nadine Woodward hanging out with white nationalist Matt Shea or making complaints about a council member’s conduct.
Anything else the city council president deems within the affairs of the city. This leaves a little bit of subjective space for anything you can make a case for being the business of the city. It is worth noting that the council president can be overridden by a majority vote of the council members in attendance.

And those are the basics.

Remember, the city council adopts new rules at the beginning of each year, and can vote to make amendments to the current rules at any time, as they did this week, so if these rules don’t cut it for you, you can always bring them up at Open Forum.