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:
- Spokane City Council has a long night ahead of them. They’re scheduled to vote on a $100,000 contract to support immigrants and refugees, an ordinance to change council meetings from Mondays to Wednesdays starting later this year and potentially a slate of new rules, depending on what happens at Agenda Review.
- Spokane City Council will be doing first readings on a few high-profile things too, including a kratom ban and an ordinance to bar ICE from using public property for any immigration enforcement activity without a judicial warrant.
- The council’s Finance and Administration Committee is set to discuss an ordinance to help get more sidewalk cafes, parklets and streateries in the city, plus affordable housing spending, Mayor Lisa Brown’s ordinance to ban detention centers in Spokane and a consulting contract for analyzing the council staff structure.
- The county health examiner will present numbers to the BOCC that show drug deaths in Spokane County are still very high but are leveling off.
- The East Valley School District board is considering cutting affirmative action from its nondiscrimination policy. This cuts language that commits the district to make no difference in pay scale based on sex, for example.
Important meetings this week:
- Spokane City Council (and Study Session)
- Finance and Administration Committee
- Spokane Housing Authority Board
- Spokane Plan Commission
- Board of County Commissioners – Briefing Session and Legislative Session
- Spokane County Planning Commission
- Mead School District Board of Directors
- Central Valley School District Board of Directors
- East Valley School District Board of Directors
- West Valley School District Board of Directors
- Spokane Valley City Council
Spokane City Council
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers
Support for immigrants
Tonight, the council could approve a $100,000 contract with the Spokane Immigrant and Refugee Coalition (SIRC), which would put 92% of that funding towards direct emergency assistance for immigrants and refugees in need. SIRC is made up of a coalition of local nonprofits and organizing groups: Nuestras Raices Centro Comunitario, Mujeres In Action, Manzanita House, Refugee and Immigrant Connections Spokane, Fuse Washington, Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane, Creole Resources, Muslims for Collective Action and Asians for Collective Liberation. The fiscal sponsorship for the group is hosted under Muslims for Collective Action. For all the deets on the contract in Daisy Zavala Magaña’s first story, read here.
Council Rules
Council could adopt their new rule package tonight, and it’s going to be wildly complicated. There are a lot of amendments on the table and we won’t know which ones survive the amendment Hunger Games until after the 3:30 pm Agenda Review. Council has the option to suspend the rules to adopt the amendments, which means the rules would be voted on tonight, but if they don’t suspend the rules while adopting amendments, the vote will be automatically deferred until March 2.
Potentially the most controversial amendment on the table is a proposal from Council Members Zack Zappone and Kitty Klitzke, originally floated by freshman Council Member Kate Telis in a committee meeting, that would sharply reduce public testimony options. Currently, anyone can sign-up for a three-minute testimony slot for each legislative item up for a vote that night, with an additional two minutes upon request. The Zappone/Klitzke amendment would cut that down to each person getting three minutes total to testify on all legislative items…