Thread by @RANGEMedia4all

Settled in for a sweaty City Council meeting...it's going to be a long one. Do your pre-read now: rangemedia.co/spokane-safe-s…

Bingle has started the night off with a little joke - he's also accepting Council Member Hooptown USA as a title today, because the banner is in front of his seat in the center.

Giacobbe Byrd, Spokane City Council Director, is being honored by the council for his five years of service to the city. Council President Wilkerson described him as "dedicated, hard working, collaborative and knowledge. I'm talking about our council's MVP: Giacobbe Byrd."

Wilkerson also acknowledged he hates public recognition (he is blushing up a storm) but she said they would be remiss to not honor him. Bingle started an "MVP" chant, and Cathcart thanked Byrd for never letting politics or personality conflicts get in the way of work.

Byrd grew up here in Spokane and says he loves serving the community and working with all of them. Moving onto two appointments to the Plan Commission: David Edwards and Amber Lenhart from District 1. Cathcart asked to split the nominees and vote separately.

Bingle says he's going to be voting no on both because though he likes District 1 representation, he didn't get satisfactory answers to questions on height restrictions in development earlier today. Wilkerson and Zappone spoke in favor of Edwards. He was approved 6-1.

Bingle gave his no speech on Lenhart, and Wilkerson asked, "Are you talking to us or are you talking to the camera?"

Cathcart is going to be voting against Lenhart, he thinks she should be on a health related committee because that's where her expertise is, not in planning. Dillon has arrived to the meeting, and supports Lenhart. He says health equity is a core component of planning.

Klitzke wants to see health impact assessments on larger decisions that the city makes, which is part of why she's in support. Navarrete says she's in support of Lenhart. Lenhart was approved 5-2.

it's World Refugee Day, so folks were tabling outside and have been invited to speak. Diana, from Venezuela, is here to talk about World Relief. She is here with an interpreter who is translating for her. She arrived in Spokane 9 months ago.

Diana wants to thank World Relief for the help it gave her family. Diana said she doesn't have her dream job yet, but she's happy working at Amazon for now and World Relief is helping her get certifications to be a manicurist

"It's difficult, but not impossible," Diana finished.

Abdul is speaking now. He moved here about ten years ago and received a special visa after working for US special forces in his country. He says it takes a lot of time and effort to adapt to a new community and country,

"When I came here I was like a small child in a desert with no parents," Abdul said. He thanked World Relief for all the support they gave him to get on his feet. He now works as a case manager for the organization. He thanked all the other agencies that help support immigration.

Abdul finished by thanking Spokane for being a safe and peaceful community. Wilkerson thanked him for being part of the community.

Moving onto the consent agenda. They'll be taking 1,2, 5 and 17 seperately. Those are recommendations for homelessness funding, the purchase of two vehicles for the CARES team, a contract with the False Alarm Program for SPD and the acceptance of $9 million for homelessness.

I missed the first testifier, but Will Hulings is up testifying against the purchase of vehicles for the CARES team. He said he's against it because the vehicles are 2023 Mach E vehicles, which are EVs and cost over $50k each.

Justin Haller is up next but nobody sees him so we're moving on. Dennis Flynn is testifying virtually now. He thanked Giacobbe Byrd. Flynn thanked the council for their work, "despite his frequent criticism."

Flynn wants more details on this wrongful death suit: . He says he wants more context because it seems like SPD was taking away Bradley's 2nd amendment rights, which caused the conflict to begin with.spokesman.com/stories/2024/m…

Bradley was shot nine times by SPD. His family said he was not given enough time to register and comply with SPD's orders, given that he's hard of hearing. Officers said he was reaching for a rifle. Instead of settling with the family, the city is fighting a $250k legal battle

Joe from Family Promise thanked council in advance for their vote to fund the organization.

Dream is up to talk about Bradley's case. Dream says this is another case of "extrajudicial execution" by SPD.

Dream claims that this year alone we've spend over a million dollars in settlements and legal fees for SPD. (I'll try and fact check that number later, off the top of my head it feels a little high but close to accurate."

Dream says we keep wasting money because cops "keep killing people."

A protest letter was received on June 19, which is two days after the protest letter period, challenging the CHHS recommendations of funding. Jason from the city said they reviewed the letter anyways and couldn't find any evidence the city had failed in their process.

Navarrete said she was under the impression the letter was late because the organization that filed it was waiting for details on how to proceed. Jason said that's correct which is why they chose to review the letter.

Bingle said he's had concerns with the process (it was reopened, but only to existing applicants). He said there may have been ethical concerns, there were murky timelines, and he thinks the city needs to transition to funding based on outputs.

Bingle won't be voting yes on this until he gets clarity on what went wrong with the process. Cathcart seems to be in the same boat; he says there are conflict of interest concerns with the process the administration is trying to work through.

There is $1.7 million coming out of the General Fund to go towards some of these projects, and Cathcart doesn't want to be spending General Fund money when we're in a budget crisis, especially without clear outcome benchmarks. His amendment, which failed, cut those dollars.

A note - this is not the first RFP process that seems to have gone done in flames, just in the six months I've been covering the City Hall beat. rangemedia.co/retracted-rfp-…

Navarrete said she also felt like the entire HHOS process was shaky and her concerns were never addressed by the administration. She wants to see yearly performance reviews to ensure the money is being spent "responsibly and effectively."

Klitzke said she shares a lot of concerns about the process but feels like once the admin has put out an RFP, it's a little bit too late for council to litigate the process. Moving forward she wants a process "that is clear, that is transparent and that is fair."

Wilkerson said she's going to support the funding because she doesn't want to penalize providers by not passing the funding. The item passed 4-3 with Bingle, Cathcart and Navarrete voting no.

The item purchasing EVs for the CARES team passed. There was a no, but I'm not sure by who.

Cathcart said he's voting against the False Alarm contract because he thinks it's not effective and crime victims get charged for false alarms. Bingle shares those concerns as well, but is going to support it and keep a close eye on it.

Dillon said he once got a false alarm for cooking a steak in a cast iron that was emitting too much smoke and he says he's happy those days are over. There was two nos, Cathcart and either Navarrete or Klitzke, but couldn't tell who.

No council commentary on #17, to accept $9 mil in funding, but Bingle voted no. It still passed. The rest of the consent agenda passed unanimously.

We're getting a Hearing presentation requesting council adopt the 6 year Streets Program.

Nine new programs are going into the program, seven of which are grant funded.

Justin Haller was signed up to testify. He asked what it was he signed up for. Byrd told him it was the street program. Haller responded, "do we have to do a grind and overlay everytime?"

The hearing has been closed and adopted after the city staff explained the point of grind and overlays.

Moving onto an SBO to increase appropriation of Housing Sales Tax Fund by $2,581,320, related to the Hifumi en project. Haller had a virtual comment but it was not actually related to the item, which passed 5-2 with Bingle and Cathcart voting no

They're now voting to increase revenue of $405,000, provided solely for grant revenue from the STA’s Federal Transit Administration’s Pilot Program for Transit-Oriented Development Planning grant in the Planning Services department.

Haller is going off again about how the city is wasting money and district 1 has no representation on the board. Bingle says he agrees about the representation but said this is a grant going out and not money from the general fund. It passed 6-1 with Bingle voting no.

They're on to the emergency ordinance of the night: moving to the city to a biennial budget. rangemedia.co/spokane-safe-s…

Flynn is confused how this is an emergency ordinance because somewhere in the ordinance they use the word "may."

Haller said he doesn't know what the advantage is here. He said that three times. "You screwed off countless amounts of money so far, wasting money on homeless people." He wants them to tighten up the budget instead of changing how often they do the budget.

Cathcart said he's wanted a biennial budget for a while but couldn't get buy-in from the previous admin. He strongly believes in a biennial budget process because "we need to start thinking long term. We need to start thinking sustainably."

Cathcart thinks moving to a biennial process will force them to be more responsible and forces the city to consider future ramifications of their decisions. He does wish the conversations with the admin would have been more collaborative but he's in support of this.

Bingle thanked Cathcart and Wilkerson for their work on this, and Mayor Brown for seeing the benefit of a two-year budget. He'll be opposing this tonight because he doesn't think it's an emergency and they should have gotten the ordinance in earlier.

The emergency biennial budget ordinance passed 6-1 with only Bingle opposing.

We're on to the Safe Streets Now! Resolution, which has gotten a lot beefier and more specific since the first time we covered it. rangemedia.co/spokane-safe-s…

Erik Lowe, from Spokane Reimagined, is testifying first. He sent me his full testimony in advance, but here's the gist: he's very, very much in support, especially since the recent draft has specific deliverables.

Rick Bocook wants to see traffic calming all the way down to the library, regardless of what the mall thinks. He wants people to slow down while driving downtown.

Hulings is back. He's wearing a fresh white button covered in pictures of guns. He is strongly opposed to the resolution. He says regardless of the high death statistics citied by the resolution's proponents, the adaptive design strategies proposed are only temporary fixes.

"They may provide quick and low cost solutions but are they sustainable in the long term?" Hulings asked. He has a problem with "this traffic calming stuff," including the rainbow crosswalk downtown. He thinks this is all part of the big paint agenda from Zappone

Hulings said he does want people to do something about the streets and said "RIP Janet Mann," but I guess not this? Just something else.

Dream is speaking in support of the resolution. They thanked Zappone for meeting with members of Spokane Reimagined and said while they'd like to see changes go further, these strategies will make streets safer right now, which is important

Dream says if these cheaper, quicker strategies work now, they can be made permanent later when we have more of a budget. They think this project will work well and can be transformed into more permanent infrastructure in the future and if it doesn't work, they can be removed

"We can do more," Dream said. "I want to encourage you to reach out to neighborhood councils and look for projects in your districts in addition to the ones that are gonna be done under this resolution."

Ben Hargreeves is up now. He is also a member of Spokane Reimagined, and lives in one of the most walkable areas of Spokane. "But every time I walk down Grand, it feels like I'm walking on a tight rope," he said.

Hargreaves said Spokane Reimagined spent time filming high traffic crosswalks near schools and found a bunch of examples of students almost getting hit by speeding cars. He is in favor of these quick, temporary and cheap fixes that can bring down traffic deaths.

Sarah Rose is up now. She said, "A single death due to our transportation, either as a city or as individuals, should be mourned, taken seriously, assessed and investigated to prevent a following loss."

She led the room in moments of silence for Janet Mann, who she described as "a wife, a mother and grandmother, and a true asset to Spokane," and for the other victims of traffic violence.

"What’s being proposed tonight isn’t expensive, groundbreaking technology," Rose said. "It’s using tested and proven measures other cities have seen great success with and implementing them quickly in Spokane."

"The urgency of this crisis cannot be understated," she finished. "Thank you all for working together on this resolution and making it happen in a timely manner. I look forward to seeing positive changes in Spokane thanks to your collaboration."

Rachel Young is up now. She primarily uses cars for transportation and while she is not a member of Spokane Reimagined, she is "enthusiastically in support" of the resolution.

She said she got to visit London, England earlier this year and felt far safer as a pedestrian in urban London than as a pedestrian in downtown Spokane.

Young said that painted crosswalks and marked crosswalks are a clear indicator to cars that they're entering new territory, they're not the only things on the road and they need to pay better attention.

Young wants to see council start with what they have now and build a safer city for bicyclists and pedestrians

"If you build it, they will come," said Lauren, who is testifying now. She wants to see induced demand for bicycling, which will reduce water, air and sound pollution, as well as wear and tear on roads. She said many people who might cycle, don't because they have safety concerns

"Paint isn't infrastructure," Lauren said, urging council to quickly build protective bike infrastructure and induce some demand.

Justin Haller is up now, saying that "according to RANGE Media, I'm not allowed to have an opinion on this." He continued, "Maybe if more people would just start to ride a bike we wouldn't have to worry about all this infrastructure nonsense."

Haller rides his bike regularly. He also hit a woman with it while yelling Hot Pizza. spokesman.com/stories/2017/o…

As a bicyclist he thinks this is a waste of money. "Why build more infrastructure for people who don't even ride?" he finished.

Flynn is testifying now. He says he's in favor of using less costly, temporary means which will five council time to reassess and replace when the life cycle is complete.

Zappone brought some slides to explain what adaptive design strategies are. They've also changed the name of the ordinance to the Janet Mann Safe Streets Now! ordinance in honor of Mann, who was killed in a hit and run on June 11.

According to Zappone's slides, every speed increase of 10mph doubles the odds of a pedestrian fatalities. Adaptive Design strategies are specifically quick, low cost strategies to slow vehicles.

They can also be removed if they don't work - they're not permanent and allow the city to experiment in a low cost way. What the resolution does:

Some examples of adaptive design strategies: curb bumpouts, asphalt art, armadillos (which separate bike lanes from car lanes), speed tables, wheel stops and bollards.

Dillon thanked everyone for their work on this and everyone who testified. "Janet's death,I think it's ripped a lot of the community apart, quite frankly," Dillon said. "She biked 20 miles a day, she walked everywhere and she had the signal when she was crossing."

Dillon said the project that's going to happen in his district is one that the neighborhood council has been asking for for ten years. He hopes this will be part of Janet's legacy.

Bingle said he thinks there are good ideas in this and he appreciates the name change. Klitzke thanked Zappone for all his hard work and said there's some buy-in from the admin to support it to.

Wilkerson said she's been hearing about adaptive design strategies in conferences and she's excited to support this. The resolution passed unanimously.

Council is voting on whether or not to appoint Katherine Fairburn (sp?) as the Budget Director for the Spokane City Council. Haller had a comment, "stop wasting money, you're $50 million over budget. that's it."

Cathcart said they had some outstanding candidates and thanked Byrd for running the process. He thinks Fairburn is going to do an amazing job. "Obviously the budget is a huge aspect of council so this is a pretty important position."

Wilkerson thanked all the applicants and said it was amazing to see all the people who wanted to make the city better. Fairburn was unanimously approved as the new council budget director.

They're now voting on a $59,990.96 settlement with Wayne Stronk for water damages to Stronk's home. Hulings is testifying in support of the resolution.

Hulings also alluded to the Sean Feucht lawsuit and said it's going to be juicy and he can't wait to talk about it. Haller is testifying now, "it's cut and dry - pay the guy."

A voting button malfunction - the resolution passed 2-0 with Dillon and Bingle voting yes. Then the buttons failed on the revote and Dillon and Klitzke's buttons didn't work. Verbal affirmation that it passed unanimously

A resolution approving contracts arising from the HOME-ARP grants passed 6-1 with Bingle voting no. Haller was signed up to testify but waived it.

Moving on to the appointment of new members to the Equity Subcommittee. John Alder is testifying now. He's a member of the subcommittee and things the folks nominated have already been showing up and will provide valuable insight.

Hulings can't find his speech but he's against this. "The title alone is a big turn off: Equity Subcommittee. I have a nice speech written about this but I can't really talk too much about this because I don't have my speech."

He's against it but he's going to email them his speech.

The four members to be appointed: Ana Trusty  Lindsey Shaw  Tyler Tamoush  Wendy Schatz

Haller is testifying now. He doesn't understand why the city has committees. "Just make a decision. You don't need to be so indecisive. You're supposedly in charge and then you got the mayor so why do you need all these subcommittees?"

"There's all these people with diversity, equity and inclusion. How about we just hire qualified people?" Haller said. "Are they good at their job?" He said he doesn't know if they're getting paid, but if they are it's a waste of money. They are not getting paid, it's volunteer.

Navarrete said two of the candidates are from district 1 and two are from district 2. She clarified they're all volunteer and while she knows it's hard for people to accept equity and inclusion, "We are a city where we all belong."

Cathcart said he had intended to vote no not because of any person (Shaw was his opponent) but because he's frustrated with the subcommittee system. He thinks subcommittees are a drain on the budget and wants a closer look at whether we should even have them.

However, Cathcart is ultimately going to support the appointment because he doesn't see a harm in adding members. He does want a review of the committee process later.

Klitzke said this is part of the important and longstanding tradition of citizen involvement, public outreach and open government.

The appointments passed unanimously.

Moving onto the ordinance to establish a Transportation Commission in a move to consolidate. Not sure which version of this was passed through at Briefing.

Hulings is testifying again. He's in strong opposition. He doesn't like that the word equitable is included in the ordinance.

"I have serious concerns about the underlying intentions and the necessity of this new commission. The city already has four transportation related boards and commissions," Hulings said. (a note - the new commission is combining these into one, so actually shrinking the amount.)

Hulings also insinuated that he isn't on any of these boards and commissions because he's a Republican. One time he showed up when he thought the Bicycle Advisory Board was meeting and there was no one there. It's unclear if he actually applied for any of these.

Haller said the commission is "an abundance of redundancy." He thinks people are getting excluded from "the club" based on their ideology and he doesn't see how that's inclusionary.

"Much like the rainbow crosswalks which only help a small percentage of people versus fill up potholes which helps everybody," Haller said.

Haller also wants there to be no more committees and wants council to instead take decisive action, but not waste money on "stupid projects like the rainbow crosswalks."

Klitzke is clarifying. "In case this isn't clear from the title, this is a consolidation of the transportation committees, so we actually are eliminating redundancies."

Bingle says anything transportation related is under-represented by district 1 and he's going to continue voting no on anything transportation related until district 1 has a seat on STA.

Klitzke urged Hulings to actually apply for the boards and commissions. Wilkerson clarified applications don't ever have political affiliations on them. The ordinance passed 5-2, with Cathcart and Bingle voting no.

They're voting on whether or not to streamline licensing requirements for entertainment facilities and all ages venues. Haller signed up to provide comment but passed.

Zappone says this is a good example of cleaning up redundancies and getting rid of old code. Dillon said he's in support but frustrated it wasn't called the Footloose ordinance. (Us too, Dillon, us too.) It passed.

Onto the first readings: code of ethics clarifications, whistleblower protections, gun violence prevention and overlay zones.

Terry Hill is up to provide comment. He is in support of the gun violence prevention ordinance. He thinks it's all pretty common sense. He says people who want to bring guns to public meetings scare him. "Keeping these meetings sage is the job of law enforcement officers."

Hill said it doesn't hurt to ensure statewide laws are codified in the city.

Deena Ogden is testifying now, she's also in support of the gun violence prevention ordinance. "I would like to remind everyone here that guns are the leading cause of death for American children and teens," she said, citing CDC statistics.

"The 2nd Amendment starts with the words 'well regulated' so there has always been room for these kinds of reasonable common sense guidelines," Ogden said.

Kate Telis is here to talk about the gun violence prevention ordinance as well. She's a co-chair of the Spokane chapter of "Moms Demand Action." She said staying at a council meeting late is hard for moms, but many in her group will be emailing the council.

Telis wants to see more common sense public safety measures. She talked about her young children and said her greatest fear is a mass shooting.

Telis is also a former assistant district attorney who prosecuted domestic violence felonies, and said she appreciated that it allowed SPD to retain confiscated firearms.

Hulings is back. He said, "I love guns. I think everybody should have guns all over, event at this meeting." He's clearly in opposition to the ordinance.

Hulings wants to see Dillon and Klitzke focus on something else. "First and foremost, why are these Democrats suddenly focused on gun violence? The trail of gun violence in our community is greatly exaggerated," he said.

Hulings says he can walk down the sidewalk with his AR-15 and "there's nothing that you can do. It's legal." He wants council to focus on fentanyl instead of gun violence and the rainbow crosswalk. Note his shirt:

Haller echoed much of what Hulings said. "A good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. The fact that you don't know if someone's carrying means that there's a more polite society." That knowledge didn't stop him from hitting a woman with his bike & yelling hot pizza, though

Haller said "How bout you focus on criminalizing criminal behavior again?" He says everybody is bowing down to Brown's idea about gun safety (a note: this was not proposed by Brown.)

Dennis Flynn is up now. He has says that Washington, Idaho and Oregon have had zero mass shootings combined. He also says a lot of child and teen gun deaths are suicides and including that in this is "gross."

Washington had 15 mass shootings last year alone. axios.com/local/seattle/…

We're moving into Open Forum. Wilkerson is reminding everyone about the rules.

Lynn Peterson is up now. She owns Heartland Coffee in Spokane and says raising channeling on Geiger Blvd. would reduce access to her business. She's proud to be "a young female business owner," and to work with other local businesses.

Peterson said that eliminating a left turn in and out of their driveway could be "devastating" because their customers "need and rely on the ability to exit left out of our driveway."

Klitzke said that the property in Peterson's letter is outside the city jurisdiction which means they can't influence the construction and she should connect with county instead.

Klitzke got point of informationed by Zappone - she's not supposed to chime in.

John Harp says that the building is on county property but it's a city street and it's the city's effect on them. He's also testifying on the same thing - not wanting the channeling to impact Heartland Coffee.

Chris Savage is up now. He is confused as to why council didn't meet last week in observance of Juneteenth, which was on Wednesday, not Monday. He said last year, they had a meeting on Indigenous Peoples' Day last year. "Are you saying Junteenth is more important?" he asked.

Savage said that council needs to be meeting and discussing city business every week, with "the dramatic increase with the council's salaries." Can anyone tell me, did their salaries actually go up to $62k? I might've missed that.

Rick Bocook is up now, thanking panhandlers and street people for "keeping the sex offenders out of the downtown area." He said wherever you see a panhandler, there's no sex offender there, and we should thank them for that.

Hulings is back. He wants to testify on the "contentious history of the rainbow crosswalk." He says it's become a symbol of division in the community and is mad that juveniles may face jail time for vandalizing the mural with scooters.

Hulings said the crosswalk looks "terrible, worse than before they touched it up." He's mad that they shut down Spokane Falls Blvd, mad that the Dems were doing "little photo opportunities, and I'm sitting here watching in shock with my MAGA hat on."

Jay McPherson is up. He wants to talk about hypocrisy in the city motto - in Spokane We all belong. He said it's not being practiced -- he's talking about abortion and compared it to the displacement of indigenous people.

McPherson said unborn children are the most discriminated against in Spokane. "We kill more unborn children than we do with guns and fentanyl combined," he finished.

Dan Dubois is up now, reading from Ephesians. He then read the definition of traffic calming. He's upset that traffic calming money went to "the support of your LGBT agenda."

He says regardless of paint on roads is effective traffic calming, the paint shouldn't be used to promote any social agenda. "This is your agenda and has nothing to do with traffic and nothing to do with calming," he said.

Lewis Arthur from the Arizone border is testifying. He says he's been living on the streets for a few months. He saw a 16 year old girl raped and children dye. He says there's a Narcan shortage and children are being terrorized by predators.

"Your crosswalk is a grooming center," Arthur said. "You have staff having sex with minors and they want to cover it up." He said he came up her to "find missing border children" Some info on Arthur: inlander.com/news/an-anti-g…

He may have threatened council, he asked for their forgiveness for what he is about to do, he's going to bring the problem to their homes, Arthur said.

I missed the testimony from the guy who is currently up. He's saying the Pride crosswalk is a religious symbol and we should paint intersections with all different religions.

Sunshine is up now, wearing angel wings and a halo. She said she's encountered a lot of trauma in her life, like when her child's father was robbed. She said she's grateful for the cops, even the one that hit her with his car.

She said cops need better tools to help them with their mental health and she wants to see funding going towards that.

Christopher Wall is up now. He has been homeless for nineteen years. He says the Catholic Charities buildings are cool but people at the top treat people at the bottom like prey and it should be a hippie commune instead.

"I've seen more bodies on the street in the last four days," he said. 'I challenge you all to actually join me on the street and walk through the people."

Wall also wants to get PVC foam covered in duct tape so the youth can play with swords instead of guns and finished by saying "donate to your local musicians."

Eugene Knowles is up, he said talking about the issue of guns and rainbow crosswalks make people tense up. He says fentanyl is all over the country but Spokane is getting burnt out over homelessness.

Dream is up now. They started by saying "I love rainbows. I love when the sun is shining and it's raining and I can go outside and look at Friendship Park and see a rainbow over it."

Dream wants more bus lanes that are fast and convenient to incentivize folks taking public transit. Dream also wants to talk about safer youth sites to reduce public drug use which is "not fun to see."

They ran out of time but they were saying that giving people a safe place to go could reduce public usage of drugs.

Dennis Flynn is up now. He's citing all the proclamations city has given. He's frustrated that the city hasn't done proclamations to honor Mother's Day or Father's Day.

"Wondering if anyone on the council has considered making a submission to the Wikipedia page for Wokeism requesting we all belong be added to the tagline for the page," Flynn said. He also called the rainbow crosswalk a religion and abortion racist.

Meeting is over. What a doozy.

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