New homeless ordinances headed to debate at council committee.

Welcome to CIVICS, where we break down the week’s municipal meetings throughout the Inland Northwest, so you can keep track of and fight for the issues you care about. 

Here are highlights of what’s coming up:

• The joint Spokane Parks levy and Spokane Public Schools bond proposal could get one step closer to appearing on your ballot this fall as Spokane City Council takes a vote on approving ballot language for the Parks half. 
• The city council is also scheduled to vote on two urbanist ordinances, one that lays out their goal to reduce car commuter trips by 6% and one that shows which bicycle and pedestrian route improvements are getting prioritized for funding. 
• Last week, Mayor Lisa Brown announced a sweeping plan for changing homelessness enforcement and services across the city. The council will get their first chance to debate and discuss Brown’s proposals at the Public Safety and Community Heath Committee.

Important meetings this week:

• Spokane City Council
• Public Safety and Community Heath Committee
• Community, Housing, and Human Services Board
• Spokane Valley City Council
• Liberty Lake City Council

Spokane City Council

🌶️/5 peppers

More bang for your buck?

Spokane Parks and the Spokane Public School District have already announced their plan to put coordinated joint levy and bond proposals before voters this fall that would pool resources to improve both parks and schools across the city.  

If both proposals pass, it would bring in $440 million over the next 20 years. The parks levy would raise property taxes by 27 cents per $1,000 of assessed value and the school bond would raise property taxes by between 6 and 31 cents (an average of 23 cents) per $1,000 of assessed value. Someone owning a $300,000 home could expect to pay an additional $150 a year if both of these proposals pass. 

It may sound like a big price tag, but the plan has bipartisan support and the schools and parks have pretty detailed plans for what they’d do with your money. Some of the projects that caught our eyes include a new Spokane Public Schools Trades training program on Spokane Community College’s campus, auditorium improvements for the theatre and music kids out there, three new neighborhood parks and upgrades to parks (and park bathrooms) across the city. 

(Editor’s note: this section has been updated to clarify the amount to be charged per $1,000 of assessed value.)

Bike networks and commute reduction

The city is required to do an update to the citywide Commute Trip Reduction Plan at least once every four years, and tonight council is set to pass the 2025-2029 plan. It’s a lengthy plan, but we were drawn to the section that lays out the issues throwing up barriers to reducing commute trips in the region, including a lack of transit connectivity in the West Plains region, urban sprawl, an uptick in fatal crashes and gaps in the current bicycle/pedestrian network. The city hopes to address those issues over the next five years, and reduce car commutes by 6%. If you want to read the plan in full, it starts on page 296 of the agenda.

The city is also planning to adopt the Bicycle Priority Network (BPN) as a guide for updating elements in the city’s Comprehensive Plan. The goal of the BPN is “to identify routes that, with targeted investments, are most likely to provide the optimal biking and rolling experience for safety, user experience and route directness,” so routes on the list are prioritized for city funding. You can read the whole BPN starting on page 371 of the agenda, but here’s a preview of the routes on the network:

Next week’s sneak peek:

• Council could accept a $650,000 grant from the state Department of Ecology — it comes from Climate Commitment Act funding — that would pay for a carbon capture study at the Waste to Energy Facility.

• The city could approve the removal of the Monaghan statue, which would be done in tandem with a traffic safety project to slow speeds at the intersection of Riverside and Monroe where the statue is currently located. 

• Block parties in your neighborhood could get a whole lot easier! One of the promises from Mayor Lisa Brown’s most recent safer streets press conferences is a step closer to fruition as council has a first read of an ordinance that would make it easier for neighborhoods to shut down their streets for block parties. 

Agenda here
Monday, May 5, at 6 pm
808 W. Spokane Falls Boulevard, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Public Safety & Community Health Committee

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Our favorite data reports

This committee always has the most interesting presentations because it’s where various departments in the city give updates. Sometimes they link their slides in advance so we get a sneak peek, and sometimes they don’t, but here’s a preview on what to expect:

• The Office of Police Ombuds is giving a report on their March activities. They’ve had 678 contacts so far in 2025, and received four complaints in March, down from 6 complaints received in March of 2024. 
• The Spokane Police Department (SPD) is reporting on assets they seized during the first quarter of 2025, police contacts with people violating sit-and-lie laws, strategic initiatives and tickets from the speed and red light cameras. One thing we noticed — violations from the red light cameras were up by 37 from March of 2024. Speed camera violations were down by 162 tickets, but one camera is still not operational 
• SPD and Spokane Fire Department are presenting on overtime spending. According to the agenda, SPD is $531,150 under budget and SFD is $290,144 over budget.

Harm reduction

There’s no additional info in the agenda, but the committee will be getting a presentation on Harm Reduction from Dr. Luis Manriquez. The concept of harm reduction has been a bit of a controversial topic on council, with some council members arguing against effective harm reduction measures, like needle exchange sites, and others in favor. Manriquez’s presentation will likely be an interesting watch. 

A new armored vehicle for SPD

SPD’s armored vehicle was damaged beyond the point of repair in a crash (we think it’s this crash from 2024?), and they’re looking for the council to approve $430,000 by special budget ordinance to replace it. The last vehicle went out on over 130 calls over the last two years, and SPD says it’s a “de-escalation tool” that brings “safe resolution to high-risk incidents in the community.” 

All the mayor’s homeless ordinances

Late last week, Mayor Lisa Brown announced a slate of new homelessness laws (we’re planning on covering them in depth but this reporter got a sinus infection) in response to the fall of Proposition 1. They still need to come before council for approval, though, where they could face amendments and changes. Here’s a summary:

• HOME Starts Here ordinance: lays out the city’s support network for people experiencing homelessness.

• Siting and inclement weather activation ordinance: adds a requirement for any new city-owned shelter or shelter receiving over $50,000 of city funding to sign a “Good Neighbor Agreement” with the city and hold an open house or public community meeting prior to opening. It also changes the city’s criteria for opening inclement weather sheltering to be oriented around predicted wind chill and heat indices — how a temperature feels — rather than the predicted actual temperatures. For example, if a temperature was predicted to be 34 degrees but the wind chill is predicted to make it feel lower than 32 degrees, the city would open emergency shelter. 

• Obstruction and Unauthorized camping ordinance: Perhaps the most controversial on the list, this ordinance would repeal the city’s former homelessness-related laws, like sit-and-lie, pedestrian interference and unlawful camping, and replace them with one law encompassing obstruction and unauthorized camping. It would ban obstruction of public property and sidewalks and unauthorized camping on public lands citywide, going a step further than Prop 1 in the geographic respect. However, the remedy is easier: complying with orders to move or taking the city up on a connection to resources like shelters or medication assisted treatment would result in no citation being given. 

• Aggressive solicitation ordinance: bans “aggressive solicitation” citywide. Aggressive solicitation is defined as “to solicit anything of value and intentionally engage in conduct that would likely intimidate a reasonable person, including but not limited to touching, following, persistently soliciting anything of value after being refused, using violent or threatening language or gestures, or taking similar actions to induce compliance with the solicitation.”

We anticipate a *rigorous* and potentially heated debate around the ordinances, so stay tuned. 

Agenda here
Monday, May 5, at noon
808 W. Spokane Falls Boulevard, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.

Community, Housing, and Human Services Board

Agenda here 
Wednesday, May 7 at 4 pm
City Council Briefing Chambers
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
Virtual attendance link included on their agenda when available.

Spokane Valley City Council

🌶️/5 peppers

Fentanyl ODs endangering youth

The city council will hear a presentation from staff addressing the scope of the opioid crisis in Spokane Valley. City staff will give a presentation outlining how the city plans to address the fentanyl crisis in the future.

Agenda here 
Tuesday, May 7 at 6 pm
City Hall
10210 E Sprague Ave
Spokane Valley, Washington 99206
Virtual attendance here.

Liberty Lake City Council

🌶️/5 peppers

Most satisfied in Liberty Lake

City staff will present the council with an optimistic view of Liberty Lake, just to the east of Spokane. Of the 226 households that took a Community Satisfaction Survey administered by the city earlier this year, 98% said they feel “somewhat satisfied,” according to the report.

Agenda here
Tuesday, May 6 at 7 pm
22710 E Country Vista Drive,
Liberty Lake,
WA 99019
The meeting is also live streamed here.