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: 

• Tonight, Spokane City Council could pass an emergency ordinance that makes it easier to fire their own staff, putting that power solely in the Council President’s hands, instead of requiring the vote of a supermajority.
• At their Public Safety & Community Health Committee meeting, Spokane City Council will discuss an ordinance to increase the penalties and enforcement for visible homelessness.
• Spokane County is set to vote on next year’s airport budget, which does not mention the expensive state-mandated cleanup of “forever chemicals” it started two years ago.
• The state has started requiring local governments to factor climate change into their long-term planning, and the Department of Commerce has awarded Spokane County $800,000 to accommodate the mandate.

Important meetings this week:

• Spokane City Council (and Study Session)
• Public Safety & Community Health Committee
• Finance and Administration Committee (canceled)
• Spokane Housing Authority Board
• Board of County Commissioners – Briefing Session and Legislative Session
• Spokane Valley City Council 
• Spokane Regional Health District Board
• Central Valley School District Board of Directors
• East Valley School District Board of Directors

Spokane City 

Spokane City Council

🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Long range acoustical devices

It’s a mouthful of a name, but nestled in the consent agenda is an $88,045 contract for the Spokane Police Department to purchase two long range acoustical devices (LRADs). They say it’s to enhance communication at protests, like a really loud bullhorn, allowing police orders to travel long distances and actually communicate dispersal orders (which many members of the community said they couldn’t even hear at the June 11 protests before officers started using less lethal weapons on the crowd.) 

However, the specs for the system the city intends to buy also describe it as a “Safer alternative to non-lethal and kinetic measures,” and reports from places it has been used, like Serbia, describe it as “a sound from hell.” The same system has also been used on migrants in Greece to deter border crossings. So while it could be used to more effectively communicate with protesters, it could also be used to cause them extreme pain. 

Firing their staff?

Amidst a budget crisis, the Spokane City Council is exploring cutting down on city council staff. Currently, firing a staff member requires a vote of a five-council member super majority, a protection established by former Council President Breean Beggs to ensure council staff had job security and weren’t subject to the political whims of the council. 

Tonight, the council is looking to pass an emergency ordinance — which also requires five votes to pass — that would give the Council President the sole authority to hire and fire council staff, except legislative assistants, which would answer to the individual council member they work for. 

Removing these protections would give the council more flexibility to make position cuts and reduce spending, but it would also leave the entire council staff at the whim of just one person, who is up for election every four years, creating uncertainty for the workforce and making city council staff jobs less attractive.  

Next week’s sneak peek: 

• The council’s second try at a stricter response to visible homelessness will be up for a vote as an emergency ordinance. For more details, see the Public Safety & Community Health Committee section.

• There will also be a hearing on the 2026 Mid-Biennum Budget modifications, so if you have budgeting thoughts or questions, it might be the meeting to attend. 

Agenda here
Monday, October 27 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, October 30 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

The regularly scheduled Finance and Administration Committee meeting, which is typically held on the fourth Monday of the month, has been cancelled. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 3, 2025 at noon in City Council Chambers.

Public Safety &Community Health Committee

​​🌶️​​​​🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Usually the first Monday of the month, the Public Safety and Community Health committee was rescheduled for today. There are a few really big items on the agenda, all related to homelessness and mental health responses.

Prop 1 replacement, part 2

For the last few months (and honestly, way longer than that), city officials have been grappling with how to address enforcement of camping on public property. In short, how does the city want to handle visible homelessness? 

After the Washington State Supreme Court overturned Proposition 1 — which banned camping near parks and schools — the city came up with a replacement. The HOME ordinance: a law that banned camping citywide, but also made it harder to arrest people. Rather than blanket issuing a citation or an arrest, HOME instead treated unhoused people moving camp when asked by authorities as compliance. 

News recently broke that the HOME ordinance wasn’t really working for anyone. Enforcement had resulted in zero arrests and zero people taking officers up on offered services, which meant unhoused people were just getting moved around the city. 

Now, liberal Council Member Zack Zappone, who is up for reelection, is partnering with conservative Council Member Michael Cathcart and Council President Betsy Wilkerson on an emergency ordinance to do stricter enforcement, which is up for discussion at the committee meeting. Here’s the gist of what it would do if passed:

• More proactive enforcement from officers and a request of city employees to report visible encampments to the police

• Those contacted by police will be offered services initially, but will be met with “graduated consequences” for each additional contact.

• It gets rid of compliance as a cure; unhoused people can’t just move now, they will either be taken to services or cited.

• Instead of being cited and released, unhoused people are going to start being charged with misdemeanors. 

This ordinance, which would greatly increase the consequences for being visibly homeless, is scheduled for a vote at next week’s council meeting.

Camping clean-up

Folks from the Code Enforcement team will be giving the council a presentation on “Outreach Requests and Unauthorized Camping Removal and Abatement Procedures,” which could be an interesting watch for anyone who wants to know how peoples’ property is handled and how code enforcement responded to encampments.

Mental Health Grant Funding

The Washington Association of Sheriffs & Police Chiefs has given Spokane a $620,000 grant to “assist law enforcement in establishing and expanding mental health field response capabilities.” Spokane plans to spend that on our co-response model, which sends mental health professionals from Frontier Behavioral Health out on calls with  Spokane Police officers to help address crises with care rather than criminalization. Frontier Behavioral Health has been fronting the costs on behalf of the city since June 2025, and the grant will go to retroactively reimbursing them for the costs. 

Agenda here 
Monday, October 27 at 12 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.

MISC City

Spokane Housing Authority Board

​​🫑/5 peppers

Agenda here
Monday, October 27 at 3:30 pm
Meeting Room 25 W. Nora Ave, Spokane, WA 99205
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Spokane County

Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Airport budget does not mention PFAS cleanup

The BOCC will hear a presentation on the budget for Spokane Airports, the independent body that includes Felt’s Field, Spokane International Airport (SIA) and many infrastructure developments on the West Plains, where SIA is located. In 2023, SIA became liable to clean up years worth of “forever chemicals” it polluted West Plain aquifers with. It’s an expensive stat-mandated process to locate and isolate the man-made compounds, called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (commonly shortened to PFAS). The budget presentation does not mention the cleanup.

Assessor received $5,000 grant to study property value impact of ‘forever chemicals’

The Spokane County Assessor’s office, which determines property values of homes in the county, has received a grant to study the impact of PFAS contamination in private wells on the West Plains. Fairchild Air Force Base and the Spokane International Airport unknowingly contaminated the West Plains aquifers with the mad-made chemicals by conducting firefighting drills with a compound that used them. As a result, many rural drinking water wells between Spokane and Airway Heights have dangerous levels of PFAS, and owners of them worry they won’t be able to sell their properties.

Agenda here 
Tuesday, October 28 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

$800,000 in state funding for climate planning

The Growth Management Act was amended last year to require counties to factor in climate change to their long-term development planning. To accommodate this in Spokane County, the state has awarded $800,000 from the Department of Commerce, and the BOCC will vote to accept the award Tuesday.

Fee hikes set for public pools and parks

Fees for swim lessons and lodging at parks in Spokane County are set to increase, pending approval by the BOCC Tuesday. Public swim entry fees for both adults and children are set to be hiked $1, from $7 to $8 and $4 to $5 respectively, and lodging at Camp Caro is set to increase from $350 to $425 per night, among other increases.

$6M in TIF reimbursements due for Beacon Hill

The Beacon Hill housing development in Northeast Spokane has completed some of its home, road and services construction — a water booster station and water runoff infrastructure — and the developer is asking for the first installment of public reimbursements on those costs. The BOCC will vote on this Tuesday. The money would come from tax increment financing, which are essentially tax revenues generated by the improvements to property values generated by the development. The developer, the Beacon Hill TIF, LLC, is asking for $6,057,759.13 for this phase, out of a $20 million in total TIF funding to build about 140 housing units. 

Agenda here 
Tuesday, October 28 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 Regional Health District Board

🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Looking for a new Administrative Officer

After firing their previous Administrative Officer Alicia Thompson — a move that called up memories of the unlawful termination of former Spokane County Health Officer Bob Lutz — the Spokane Regional Health District could form a transition committee to look for a new Administrative Officer. It would be an interesting time to join the Health District, as it has recently rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion protections and terminated a health equity position. 

Agenda here 
Thursday, October 30 at 12:30 pm
Auditorium, First Floor
Spokane Regional Health District
1101 West College Avenue

Other Cities

Spokane Valley City Council

🫑/5 peppers

Agenda here
Tuesday, October 28 at 6 pm
City Hall
10210 E Sprague Ave
Spokane Valley, WA 99206
Virtual attendance here.

School Boards

Central Valley School District Board of Directors

🫑/5 peppers

Agenda here
Monday, October 27 at 6 pm
Learning and Teaching Center (district office) 
Board Room at 2218 N Molter Rd, Liberty Lake
Watch via Zoom here.

East Valley School District Board of Directors

🫑/5 peppers

Library policy tweak

The East Valley school board will hold a first reading of some small changes to the district’s Library Information and Technology Programs policy, which was last reviewed in 2022. Most of the changes appear to be small edits that leave the policy with essentially the same meaning, but cuts the line “The district’s library and technology programs are staffed by teacher-librarians.” The rest of the policy still mentions teacher-librarians and details their duties, however. The only tweak that caught our eye is to how the public can influence material choices, changing “residents or staff members of the district who wish to express a concern about specific material … ” to “parents who wish to express a concern about specific material …” 

Agenda here
Tuesday, October 28 at 6 pm
EVSD Administration Office
3830 N Sullivan Rd, Bldg 1
Spokane Valley, WA 99216