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:
- The purchase of Long-Range Acoustical Devices, which can be used for crowd dispersal in protests, are on the consent agenda for city council, but will likely be taken off. Protesters are still planning on being at city hall.
- Punny “slow down” signs are out, but bird signs might be in.
- An ordinance to ban price-fixing software by landlords is getting a first read.
- The Urban Experience Committee is considering a slate of policies and funding focused on eviction prevention and millions of dollars in city shelter programs.
- The city may extend contracts for service providers that operate the scatter site homeless shelters by three months to avoid a gap in services.
- Spokane County will likely waive the contract bidding process to install well filters for West Plains residents whose drinking water is contaminated with “forever chemicals.” (This will happen Monday during a special meeting because the BOCC is off for Veteran’s Day.)
Important meetings this week:
- Spokane City Council (and Study Session)
- Urban Experience Committee
- Spokane Plan Commission
- Board of County Commissioners – Legislative Session (Special Meeting)
- Spokane Regional Transportation Council
- Spokane County Planning Commission
- Spokane Airport Board
- Central Valley School District Board of Directors
Veterans Day closures
Tuesday is Veterans Day, but not everything is closed:
- Garbage services are on their normal schedule this week, so put your bins out.
- The North County and Spokane Valley Transfer Stations will be open.
- City on-street parking meters and kiosks are free on Tuesday.
- Spokane Public Library branches will be closed.
- The Spokane Municipal Court and Community Justice Services will be closed.
- Spokane County offices will be closed, including Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service (SCRAPS).
If you’re an active or retired military member, Riverfront Park is offering complimentary Looff Carrousel rides to you and your families.
Spokane City
Spokane City Council
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
Long range acoustical devices, scrapped?
Nestled in this week’s consent agenda is the approval of the purchase of two Long-Range Acoustical Devices (LRADs) for $88,045 “to enhance public safety communication, emergency response, and lawful notification capabilities” for the Spokane Police Department. This item was deferred from the October 27 agenda after growing pushback from the public. Council Member Paul Dillon posted on social media on Friday that he will be requesting it be pulled from the agenda and that Police Chief Kevin Hall agreed. It’s unclear if it will be killed entirely or deferred again.
It will likely not be up for a vote tonight, but the Inland North West Coalition for the Liberation of Palestine is planning a protest Monday night because, had no one noticed the item in the agenda, it likely would’ve gone through, hindering the community’s right to protest.
While the agenda item states LRADs “allow de-escalation messaging to travel across large areas to give warnings and try and gain voluntary compliance” for rallies and protests, giving warning before more violent crowd dispersal tactics are used, the coalition protesting them notes that “these devices act as weapons, emitting loud, painful and even dangerous levels of noise, which can lead to serious health issues (potentially including permanent hearing loss) in individuals exposed to them.”
Operator for tiny home project
Each week, the city council approves contracts, payments and other usually non-controversial items in batches called Consent Agendas. This week, council is set to approve Compassionate Addiction Treatment as the operator of the New Roots Village, the tiny home project on the West Hills.
Flocking prudes
Community commentary caused the council to defer a resolution to approve $6,000 in spending on neighborhood signs encouraging drivers to slow down — which would have read “Slow the Flock Down.” Council Member Zack Zappone is proposing to use different signs that would instead read “Slow Down, No Need to Speed” with pictures of birds. Sad day for people with a sense of humor.
No more rental price fixing
The council will hear a first reading of an ordinance to ban landlords and property management companies from using algorithmic price-fixing software to price gouge tenants and manipulate the market.
A 2024 report from the federal government found that these software companies can cost renters an average of $70 per month. Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown recently filed a lawsuit against one of the software companies, called RealPage, alleging the company and the landlords who used it violated the Consumer Protection Act. If passed, this could be the latest move in the council’s quest to protect renters in the city.
Extending scattered site shelter contracts
The city may waive the bidding process for contractors operating the scattered homeless shelters across Spokane, saying the organizations currently operating the shelters are “ideal candidates to maintain their services.” An emergency resolution would allow Mayor Lisa Brown to extend contracts with Truth Ministries, Family Promise, Compassionate Addiction Treatment and Jewels Helping Hands to run the shelters until the end of 2025, three months longer than the current contract allows. The city had a contract with Waters Meet Foundation (formerly known as Empire Health Foundation) to run the program, but it was supposed to end in late September and the city was supposed to take over. The city ran out of time to absorb the contracts and the program responsibilities, triggering the emergency.
Next week’s sneak peek:
- The city wants to buy two new Chevrolet Blazers for the Fire department’s CARES Team, which connects people in need of community aid with available resources. The vehicles would be purchased from Bud Clary Chevrolet in Longview for $94,158.41
- The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) awarded the Spokane Police Department a $620,000 grant to fund its mental health field response, formerly known as the Behavioral Health Unit — the council will vote on accepting the funds.
- Some landlords use algorithms to set their rental prices, which can drive the rent up in a local renter economy, disproportionately affecting underrepresented communities. The council will consider a resolution that would ban this kind of rent fixing.
Agenda here
Monday, November 10 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, November 13 at 11 am
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Urban Experience Committee
🌶️/5 peppers
This week, the committee is laser-focused on anti-eviction provisions and wraparound services for unhoused people in Spokane — each item we’re highlighting deals with some aspect of those programs.
Eviction diversion program
City Council Member Paul Dillon is leading an effort to create new requirements to keep landlords accountable for eviction prevention, directing them to give tenants “written notice of contact information for all city-funded eviction prevention programs” when a lease or rental agreement is signed and when the landlord issues a notice to pay or vacate. It would also require landlords to participate in an eviction diversion program in good faith for 30 days before being able to evict a tenant.
The ordinance would exempt landlords from these rules when a tenant has broken state rental laws, presents a threat to their neighbors or is committing crimes on the rental property.
Funding for inclement weather shelters and scatter site operators
The committee will review recommendations from the Community, Housing & Human Services Board (CHHS) identifying potential operators of the homeless shelters scattered throughout the city established by Mayor Lisa Brown and shelters that open to protect unhoused people from dangerous weather in the next year.
Inclement weather operators: CHHS allocated $1 million in local sales tax revenue for Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army to keep up to 60 beds for single people and some family beds open during periods of dangerous weather. The funds would be broken down like this:
- $650,000 to Catholic Charities for all its beds
- $400,000 to Salvation Army for all available beds, House of Charity Shelter for up to 35 beds for single men and St. Margaret’s for up to 10 beds for families with children
These beds will open when the National Weather Service predicts the wind chill to drop to freezing.
Scatter site operators: Also up for committee review is a total of $5,461,143 to be distributed to scatter-site operators along the like this:
- $3,951,239 for four sites operated by Jewels Helping Hands (4 sites), 30 beds at Cedar Center for single adults, 30 beds at Morningstar Baptist Shelter for single adults, 30 beds at Knox Women’s Shelter and 30 beds at Healing Hearts Medical Respite for single adults
- $573,445 to Compassionate Addiction Treatment for 24 beds at the Recovery Options Center
- $936,459 to Family Promise of Spokane for 15 beds at the Family Promise Center and two additional locations for families with children
Funding for eviction prevention
The Washington Department of Commerce received $3,462,099, distributed through Spokane County to prevent renters from being evicted. CHHS wants to spend $2,942,783 of that money on eviction services by the following organizations:
- $202,980 for Career Path Services
- $900,000 for the Carl Maxey Center
- $241,116 for Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington
- $482,078 for KCBA Housing Justice Project
- $151,648 for Nuestras Raices
- $713,700 for Spokane Neighborhood Action Partners
- $250,261 for Transitions
Agenda here
Monday, November 10 at 12 pm
Council Briefing Center in the Lower Level of City Hall
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Plan Commission
🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
At heart of growth options: density
There are three levels at which city planning officials are looking at developing the city as its population grows:
- Status quo: keep growing under the city’s current model, which focuses growth downtown, in existing development hubs and along development corridors, like the long, fast-moving and north-south stretch of Division Street, which is very dangerous for walking and alternative forms of travel. This option has “insufficient” housing for people who earn between 0% and 80% of the average Spokane wage.
- Distributed and balanced: focuses development away from long corridors to downtown and allows more flexible commercial activity in neighborhoods. This provides housing for all income levels.
- Center city and regional hubs: focuses development downtown and around “regional hubs” and areas where transit is already heavily invested in (meaning new housing would be located along heavier bus routes). This also provides housing suitable to all income levels.
The Plan Commission will hear a presentation based on an October memo by a development consultant.
Agenda here
Wednesday, November 12 at 2 pm
Council Briefing Center
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane County
Board of Spokane County Commissioners Legislative Session (special meeting)
🌶️/5 peppers
Waiving bids for PFAS filters
The Spokane County PFAS Task Force is trying to fast-track the process of getting filters installed in the homes of West Plains residents whose wells are contaminated with “forever chemicals” the common term used to describe per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). As part of this, the BOCC will vote on a resolution that would waive the normal contract bidding process to name a contractor to perform that work.
Agenda here
Monday, November 10 at 1:30 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 Transportation Council
🌶️/5 peppers
Agenda here
Thursday, November 13 at 1 pm
Spokane Regional Transportation Office
21 W Riverside Ave, Suite 504, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane County Planning Commission
Agenda here
Thursday, November 13 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.
Spokane Airport Board
🌶️/5 peppers
Agenda here.
Thursday, November 13 at 9 am
Airport Event Center
9211 W. McFarlane Road, Spokane, WA 99224
The meeting is also live streamed here.
School Boards
Central Valley School District Board of Directors
🌶️/5 peppers
Agenda here
Wednesday, November 12 at 6 pm
Learning and Teaching Center (district office)
Board Room at 2218 N Molter Rd, Liberty LakeWatch via Zoom here.
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