Get ready for potentially the spiciest City Council meeting of the pepper-meter era

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. And, something new this week: the pepper meter! 

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. It is the rare fifth Monday and Tuesday of the month, which means the meeting schedule is a little funky for some of the agencies. We also continue the pepper meter, which is good because tonight’s Spokane City Council meeting is looking like it should probably come with a warning label on the bottle.

Some things that stick out to us this week include: 

• Spokane City Council will vote on the rental ordinance, which will likely see a lot of spicy public comments
• There could be a change in language for the public safety levy, which will specifically include traffic safety as a priority at the Spokane City Council meeting
• Spokane County could get slaughterhouses as the BOCC considers zoning changes

Important meetings this week:

• Spokane City Council (and Study Session)
• Spokane City Council American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funding conversation
• Board of County Commissioners – Briefing Session and Legislative Session
• Spokane Valley City Council 

May Day March

Latinos en Spokane are holding a May Day March on Wednesday to “celebrate workers, connect collective struggles and demand our rights to dignified work, fair wages, safety, racial/immigrant justice, 2SLGBTQIA+ rights, housing, health and education.” They’ll be gathering at the Riverfront Clocktower at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 1 and holding a taquiza potluck after the march to celebrate workers.

Wednesday, May 1 from 5-7pm
Riverfront Clocktower
4 E. 5th Ave., Spokane, WA 99202
For more information, contact info@latinosenspokane.org

Spokane City Council

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

Trent Shelter contract renewal

The city’s current contract with the Salvation Army for the operation of the Trent Shelter expires tomorrow, so tonight is their only chance to approve a new contract. We covered the proposal for the new contract — a $700,000 one-month renewal — in depth in our last edition of CIVICS, which you can read here. If the contract passes, which it likely will since no other options have been presented, it will bring the total amount the city has spent on the Salvation Army’s operations of the shelter to over $13.5 million.

Park levy pushed?

At last week’s Finance and Administration Committee meeting, there were discussions around postponing the planned $225 million, 20-year parks levy from August until November. That proposal has made it out of committee and City Council will vote tonight on pushing the parks levy in favor of running Mayor Lisa Brown’s proposed public safety levy on the August special election ballot. 

Council members had worried that with the passage of the levy to fund the library system in February — and two more levies on the way — voters will be unwilling or unable to support any more property tax increases. The consensus seemed to be that whichever levy ran first (parks or public safety) would have a better chance of passing. It looks likely that tonight they’ll decide to prioritize the mayor’s public safety levy. 

Property tax for public safety

In tandem with the item to push the park levy back is the official vote to put Brown’s $192.5 million public safety levy on the August 6 ballot. There are two different versions of the public safety levy on the table, however, and which one gets voted on tonight will depend on what council decides at its briefing session prior to the meeting. 

The first option is the original public safety resolution, stating the purpose of the levy is “to fund public safety operations.” In that draft, the language that would appear on voters’ ballots states that 100% of the funds collected would be allocated to “public safety operations.” What exactly “public safety operations,” are, has been up for debate. 

While Brown’s initial pitch focused more on staffing for the Spokane Police and Fire departments, emergency services and improving municipal court services, activists argue that traffic injuries and fatalities are one of the biggest threats to public safety in Spokane. They were frustrated by the lack of funding for better traffic infrastructure in the original levy pitch.

Council President Betsy Wilkerson has submitted an amended proposal for the public safety levy that includes more details on the purpose of the levy, and specifically names traffic safety and safe streets as funding priorities. 

Wilkerson’s amendment expands the purpose of the levy from simply “public safety operations” to “community safety operations, including capital and operations enhancements for the Spokane Police Department, Fire Department, Municipal Court, Office of Police Ombudsman, and Community Resiliency, which includes emergency management, traffic safety and safe streets.” 

If Wilkerson’s amendment is voted through at the Briefing Session to replace the original proposal, the language voters will see on their ballots will also change slightly, stating that 100% of the funds collected would be going toward “community safety.” The Wilkerson amendment could be a major victory for traffic safety advocates who have been increasingly vocal about their desire for safer streets and better infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists.

A vote for renters

The big ticket item this week is the vote for the ordinance that would require landlords to provide either 120 or 180 days notice before raising rents, depending on how much they want to raise rents by. At the first reading of this ordinance last week, there was already a lot of public testimony, both from landlords who opposed it and renters who were in favor of the increased notification period. 

Last week, we published an in-depth explainer on what the ordinance does and doesn’t do, which we recommend reading before the meeting. There has been a lot of fiction and misunderstanding surrounding the ordinance, especially by members of the landlord crowd who showed up to testify against it last Monday and likely will again this week. 

There could be one small change to the ordinance, if an amendment submitted by Council Member Jonathan Bingle passes in the briefing session. The Bingle amendment states that any tenancy may not be terminated by either the landlord or tenant unless 180 days of written notice are given. While on its surface this looks like a pretty standard way to make sure that landlords get the same level of notice of a potential loss of income, it also seems somewhat unnecessary — most, if not all, leases already include stipulations that tenants cannot break leases. 

It’s also a little unclear whether the Bingle amendment would apply to a tenant having to give notice if they’re going to sign a new lease, or just if they’re planning to break an existing lease. If the former is the case, that’s also confusing because it seems tenants would have to decide if they’d be staying in the property the same day they found out about a rent increase, or even 60 days before they’d be notified of a rent hike if that rent increase was less than 3%. 

Our prediction is that it’s not likely this amendment will pass the progressive council. 

Clarity on emergencies

After tonight, we could finally know exactly what constitutes an “emergency” — at least at the city council level. This ordinance, submitted by Council Member Michael Cathcart, saw its first read last week and while there wasn’t much public comment on it, there was a bit of controversy. During the Briefing Session prior to last Monday’s meeting, Council Member Zack Zappone moved for the ordinance to be deferred indefinitely, effectively killing it. That motion failed and the ordinance will receive a vote tonight, but it’s unclear if it has the votes to pass. 

Transportation Avengers, assemble

We continue our pop culture references, and Spokane City Council continues to move toward establishing a transportation super group called the Transportation Commission. While it’s been discussed at length in committee, tonight will be the official first reading of the proposal to create the commission, which would provide advice and recommendations to the mayor and City Council on the plans and programs necessary to achieve a safe and equitable multimodal transportation system. 

A couple of amendments are on the table — one from Wilkerson and one from Zappone — which will be discussed at the bBriefing session prior to tonight’s meeting. It’s going to be a busy week, but once we see how things shake out tonight, we’ll give you a detailed breakdown on how things ended before it goes up for a vote next week.

Agenda here
Monday, April 29 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, April 25 at 11 am
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall 
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.

ARPA Dot Exercise (Spokane City Council)

🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers

More funding discussions

Because the usual committee meetings are scheduled for the first, second, third and fourth Mondays of the month, respectively, on months with five Mondays — like this one! — the usual 1:15 pm committee slot is free. 
Instead of taking a break, the council is using the time to continue conversations around American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds and how they should be allocated. We’ve covered some of the background on that here and here, but if you’re interested in getting a peek behind the curtain on how these decisions are made, you can attend today’s dot exercise in person or remotely by calling in. Details on how to do that are here. City officials say they have roughly $9.5 million of ARPA funding left to allocate.

Agenda here 
Monday, April 22 at 1:15 pm
Council Chambers in the Lower Level of City Hall.
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201

Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session

🌶️🫑/5 peppers

Proposed zoning changes may allow slaughterhouses in county

According to the agenda sheet for the proposed changes, Spokane County zoning does not currently allow slaughterhouses to operate within its borders. Local farmers and ranchers asked to change that rule to allow a “boutique slaughterhouse and butcher shop” in places currently zoned for agriculture, logging and rural activity centers.

Agenda here 
Tuesday, April 30 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

Millions to address opioid crisis

We covered this last week, but now the BOCC is going to hold an official vote on whether to accept a settlement from a lawsuit against opioid distributor Janssen Pharmaceutical, more commonly known as Johnson & Johnson. The one-time payment is estimated to be almost $3.5 million dollars, which is intended to be spent on “opioid remediation,” which is defined as care, treatment and other programs that address the misuse of opioid products and mitigate the effects of the ongoing opioid crisis.

County eyes $1M relocation of its Parks Administration offices 

The Parks Administration is looking to award a grant of $1 million from American Rescue Plan Act funds to relocate its offices to a new facility on North Havana Street near Avista Stadium. The new location will be in the old Spokane Conservation District Office Building. The money would be spent, at least in part, on constructing a new security fence and relocating the main entrance to the west side of the building.

Agenda here 
Tuesday, April 30 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

🌶️/5 peppers

Opioid Settlement Agreement

As with the County Commission, Spokane Valley City Council is considering whether to participate in the final of a series of opioid settlements between local governments and the opioid manufacturer Janssen Pharmaceuticals, or Johnson & Johnson. If all local governments participate in the settlement, the city of Spokane Valley expects to receive more than $35,000, which would be allocated to addressing the opioid epidemic in the city.

Agenda here
Tuesday, April 30 at 6 pm
City Hall
10210 E Sprague Ave
Spokane Valley, Washington 99206
Virtual attendance here.