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:
- It’s a mild week at Spokane City Council, but a fun one: they’re hosting their District 3 Town Hall style meeting at the West Central Community Center with presentations from neighborhood councils and a light helping of regular business.
- The Public Infrastructure, Environment and Sustainability Committee will discuss what utility rates could look like for city of Spokane residents in 2025 and 2026.
- Spokane city may look into an ordinance on using compost.
- The Spokane Public Library Board will be sharing the statistics from their summer reading program!
- Liberty Lake City Council is having a mysterious ethics complaint hearing — there were no details in the agenda, but if you show up an hour earlier than usual, you can watch it for yourself.
Important meetings this week:
- Spokane City Council (and Study Session)
- Public Infrastructure, Environment, and Sustainability Committee
- Board of County Commissioners - Briefing Session and Legislative Session
- Spokane Valley City Council
- Liberty Lake City Council
- Spokane Public Library Board of Trustees
- Bicycle Advisory Board
- Spokane Transit Authority Board of Directors
Public Input Wanted
The Spokane Regional Transportation Council (SRTC) is seeking public input on a proposed amendment to the 2024-2027 Transportation Improvement Program — a four-year program planning for big transportation projects and funding allocations. The amendment they’re seeking feedback on would alter three existing projects and add two new ones, including a new project by the city of Spokane to study the addition of suicide prevention barriers on the Monroe Stree Bridge. Details about the proposed changes can be found here and you can submit comments before September 25 via email to contact.srtc@srtc.org, by phone to 509-343-6370 or by mail to SRTC, 421 W. Riverside, Suite 500, Spokane, WA 99201.
Spokane City Council
🌶️/5 peppers
Spokane City Council is holding its third Town Hall-style meeting, this time in District 3 at the West Central Community Center’s gym (1603 N. Belt St.) As with the last two town hall meetings, these look a little different: the first hour is devoted to update presentations from the district’s neighborhood councils, residents of the district are prioritized for Open Forum and no live stream is available, although a recorded version will be published for later viewing after the meeting. The legislative agenda for the meeting is pretty light, but there are a few interesting things:
- A contract in the consent agenda with Downtown Spokane Partnership for $469,576 to do alleyway activation, a downtown housing study and provide Clean Team and Ambassador services. This is paid for with the last ARPA allocation, as approved by council earlier this year.
- An additional $50,000 is going to the law firm defending the city against a suit from the estate of Harlan Douglass, a developer, that challenges the designation of 29th Avenue as a pedestrian street, as well as decisions made by the planning department in reviewing building applications and permits. This brings the total contract amount with the law firm to $100,000. Douglass’s estate owns the property on the South Hill that Chick-Fil-A seeks to move into and expressed frustration with council’s vote to change the designation of the street, which would ban new drive-thrus in the congested area. At this time, we don’t know the status of Chick-Fil-A’s permit application as it was submitted before the designation was approved.
- The first reading of an ordinance that would make Lunar New Year, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth official city of Spokane holidays. We covered this in a previous edition of CIVICS, but it got deferred at a briefing session. Now it’s back on the agenda for a reading, and will likely be voted on next week.
Agenda here
Monday, September 16 at 6 pm
West Central Community Center’s Gym
1603 N. Belt St
Spokane City Council Study Sessions
Agenda here when available.
Thursday, September 19 at 11 am
City Council Chambers – Lower Level of City Hall
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Public Infrastructure, Environment, and Sustainability Committee
🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
The PIES Committee looks like it will be relatively mild today, but there are still a few items we wanted to highlight:
- The presentation isn’t included in the agenda packet, so we have no clue what the findings were, but the committee will receive a presentation on the findings from the Washington State Auditor’s Office annual single and financial statement audits for 2023. For those of you with questions about the budget, this might answer some of them, but we can’t make any promises.
- A request from Mayor Lisa Brown’s office to put in place an ordinance to begin collecting compost and reporting compost procurement activities in 2025. This ordinance will put the city in compliance with a 2022 state law to reduce the emissions of methane creed in organic materials like food and yard waste. The ordinance mainly impacts new project proposals and bids for construction, adding an extra step where the city should consider if compost can be used and how it should be obtained.
- The city’s utility rates are set to expire at the end of 2024, so at today’s meeting, Public Works will present a proposed approach to utility rate setting for 2025 and 2026. Watching this meeting could give you a heads up on what your utility bill could look like in the coming years!
Agenda here
Monday, September 16 at 1:15 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.
Board of Spokane County Commissioners Briefing Session
🫑/5 peppers
Evaluating HUD projects
Each year, Spokane County’s Department of Housing & Community Development reports the status of its housing goals to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and that report will be presented to the BOCC Tuesday. It outlines goals established in the Spokane County five-year Consolidated Plan and compares outcomes to the goals. The county exceeded goals in some areas, like area revitalization, and fell short in others, like affordable housing. Read the report here.
Board of Spokane County Commissioners Legislative Session
🌶️/5 peppers
Airport property purchase
The BOCC will vote on a resolution allowing Spokane International Airport (SIA) to purchase three plots of land totaling approximately 88 acres near Airway Heights from the developer West Plains Development, LLC. The sale has to be approved by both the county and the city of Spokane, which jointly own SIA. The agenda sheet says the fiscal impact to the county is not applicable, meaning the airport will purchase the land with its own funds at a purchase price of about $6.2 million.
Sorting the compost
The county’s Public Works Department is looking at contracting with BarrTech LLC to process composting for its solid waste management operations. BarrTech is the only industrial composting facility in Spokane County “able to accept commingled food waste and yard waste.” The contract would cost around $2 million (up from $1.6 million as described in the briefing session agenda from last week), which would be appropriated from the solid waste fund. The county says this would align with goals established in state code.
Agenda here
Tuesday, September 17 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
State law requires a public hearing on estimated revenue and expenditures, so Spokane Valley City Council is having one on the estimated budget for 2025 this week. The projections currently look good with revenue outpacing projected expenditures. If you want to review the budget in whole before providing public comment on it Tuesday, you can do that here.
Agenda here
Tuesday, September 17 at 6 pm
City Hall 10210 E Sprague Ave
Spokane Valley, Washington 99206
Virtual attendance here.
Liberty Lake City Council
🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 peppers
At 6 pm, an hour before the council meeting usually starts, there will be a public hearing on a Code of Ethics complaint. No details were included in the agenda.
During the regular 7 pm session, there were a few other items of note:
- The council will be holding a workshop discussion to hear public comment on the Library Design and Construction Project, the Community Engagement Plan for the Comprehensive Plan Update and the city’s position on statewide initiatives.
- There are a bunch of ordinances up for a vote that would repeal or amend old ordinances from 2023. Salary schedules, stormwater management, development code and city holidays are some of the ordinances that could be changing, pending a vote this week. Some of the changes include an update to what hours sports arena lighting can be turned on and moving a reserve police officer to a full time officer.
Agenda here
Tuesday, September 17 at 7 pm
22710 E Country Vista Drive, Liberty Lake, WA 99019
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Public Library Board of Trustees
🌶️/5 peppers
If you love reading as much as the RANGE staff does, you might be curious to know how the Spokane Public Library’s Summer Reading program went! There will be an update on the participation statistics at this week’s meeting.
Agenda here
Tuesday, September 17 at 4:30 pm
Shadle Park Library
2111 W. Wellesley Ave, Spokane, Washington, 99205
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Bicycle Advisory Board
🌶️/5 peppers
The big thing on the Bicycle Advisory Board (BAB) agenda is a vote on whether or not to support the adoption of a resolution that would add the Bicycle Priority Network into the Bicycle Master Plan as part of the 2026 update of Spokane’s Comprehensive Plan. If approved, the BAB would send a letter to the Transportation Commission stating their support for the initiative because it “represents a critical step toward enhancing safety, accessibility, and quality of life for all Spokane residents.”
Agenda here
Tuesday, September 17 at 6 pm
City Council Briefing Center
808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Spokane Transit Authority Board of Directors
🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers
Spokane Transit Authority Board meetings are usually spicier than we anticipate, but only a few items jumped out at us this week:
- Board Chair and County Commissioner Al French will be presenting an update from the CEO Search Task Force, which is the group of four STA board members guiding the hunt for the new CEO.
- There will be a 10 minute public hearing on revisions to the Connect Spokane Comprehensive Plan, which is the plan that sets forth a guiding vision and policy framework for STA for the next 30 years. You can view the plan here, and we recommend all transit-passionate advocates with thoughts to share participate in the public hearing!
Agenda here
Thursday, September 19, at 1:30 pm
STA Boardroom
1230 W Boone Avenue, Spokane, WA 99201The meeting is also live streamed here.
