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. Good evening everyone and welcome to Spokane City Council agenda for July 29th the summer is fast winding up. We will start with our land acknowledgment. We acknowledge that we're on the unceded land of the Spokane people and that these lands were once the major trading center for the Spokane's as they shared this place and welcomed other area tribes through their relations history, trade and ceremony. We also want to acknowledge that the land holds the spirit of the place. There was knowledge culture in all the original people since time immemorial. As we take a moment to consider the impacts of colonization may we also acknowledge the strengths and resiliency of the Spokane's and their relatives as we work together making decisions that benefit all. May we do so as one heart, one mind and one spirit. We are grateful to be on the shared lands of the Spokane people and ask for the support of their ancestors and all relations. We ask that you recognize these injustices that forever changed the lives of the Spokane people and all their relatives. We agree to work together to stop all acts of continued injustices toward native americans and all our relatives. It is time for reconciliation. We must act upon the truth and take actions that will create restorative justice for all people. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
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United states of america and together with one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Byrd, you call the roll Council President Wilkerson present Council Member Cathcart president Council member Dillon here Council member tell us present Council member dixit here Council member clint ski present Council members upon here let the record reflect that all Council members are present. Thank you and thank you again. I think this is our third Wednesday night as we continue to work through the changes at our meeting. So thank you for your patience and thank you for coming out. One of our changes is the testimony so speakers may address any item on the entire Council agenda including any ordinance resolution appointment and special consideration and may speak up for three minutes. Speakers who opt to speak during this time may not speak again during the legislative session except for hearings in open forum. So who do we have for express testimony? Up first I have amber johnson g again. My name is amber johnson. I am here tonight in my capacity as the incoming ceo for Spokane neighborhood action partners or snap. Last year we served over 48,000 of our
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Neighbors including serving them with affordable rental housing. I'm here tonight to thank you all for taking time to circle back to affordable housing providers on ordinance c36877 regarding cooling snap deeply appreciates the consideration given to our concerns and the resulting amendments. We look forward to continuing to work together on identifying funding mechanisms that are to make the necessary electrical distribution upgrades which we estimate to be over $1,000 or over a thousand over $1 million for our Spokane City portfolio. And we look forward to continued to work with community partners to address affordability concerns for our tenants related to increased utility usage. Well no ordinance is ever perfect all in all the amendments to the ordinance will provide snap the necessary time to secure the necessary funding to make these improvements in our housing portfolio. And again I just wanted to say thank you for your time and your consideration.
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Thank you. Up next I have josie helton. So she's online but I don't see her. So we'll go to chris batten. And then next will be will healings good evening Council. My name is chris barton with rand corp realty. We own a number of downtown historic properties both residential and commercial. One of my primary concerns are that these buildings were never designed to accommodate this use. Frankly, even with the extension it'll cost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. We don't even know if the service to the buildings is sufficient to be able to accommodate it. In many cases, you know, the panels are not up to whether up to code but they're just not they're not capable of handling the additional load the distribution wiring and such are also dated in that regard.
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But you know, I think my biggest concern really is the definition of adequate heating. I don't think it is. There is no definition. It's subjective. It's whatever one person thinks is adequate and that causes a real problem especially when the remedy is that they can unilaterally terminate their lease. Okay. What's adequate for one person is not adequate for another. And somebody can literally say I want my unit at 68 degrees and if you can't do it then I'm going to walk and terminate my lease. And there are literally is no there is no process. There's no. You know no I don't get a court hearing. I don't get anything. It's just you're unilaterally terminating a binding contract. So those are my concerns. I agree that something needs to be done. In my opinion personally I believe it's a reasonable accommodation issue where somebody has a legitimate medical issue. I think most landlords are willing to accommodate them. And I think that there's already laws in place that could be adapted to fit that particular definition.
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So with that I would ask you to oppose it. And I also believe that this does nothing for affordability and will ultimately raise cost cause rents to go up ultimately to cover the costs. Thank you. Thank you. Will hearings. Then next will be jake mason. Good evening. My name is will huling and I live downtown Spokane. So I'm going to ask you to pretty much repeat what I repeated last time you guys heard from me. But under Spokane municipal code 16 a point six 2.040 it is unlawful to operate a motorized personnel personal transportation device on sidewalks within the retail zone of the congested downtown district. So in plain english and this is for Spokane, the downtown police precinct. Um let's see. Riding line scooters on downtown sidewalks is prohibited outside of that zone. Electric scooters may be allowed on the sidewalk but riders must follow bicycle rules. In our limited to a maximum speed of ten miles per hour. I'm pretty mad about this because I just had to go to court because two privileged
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Females on one lime scooter almost ran me in my dog over and we were just out enjoying our evening. But here come two females on a lime scooter at nine in the evening. And instead of slowing down they decided to squeeze between me and a wall and then they crashed and then they tried blaming me for it but it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous that we have to deal with this on the weekends. And as you know, I talked to you earlier, betsy. There's lots of complaints about these like you mentioned. Yeah, I've seen 1020 lime scooters on the sidewalk. And these are all younger people. It's you're supposed to be 18 and upright lime scooters. So guess what?
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Every time I see that I'm going to be calling crime check because it's against the law. It's actually a $118 fine. This needs to be talked about more. I mean you guys just keep on renewing the contract when you know that these lime scooters are nothing but problems. I mean they throw them in the river almost running over people. I mean they've hit friends of mine with service animals. But anyways, that's all I got. Thank you. Thank you, will. Next I have jake mason online. Jake, I'm going to meet you and then you can start whenever you're ready. Great. Thank you so much. Good evening. Council President Wilkerson and members of the Council. My name is jake mace and I'm here on behalf of the Washington multifamily housing association. First I want to acknowledge that the right to coin ordinance is substantially better than where it began. We appreciate the time Council spent engaging with stakeholders and making revisions over the past several months. These contributions have resulted in meaningful improvements for implementation. Despite those changes we continue to have grave concerns about the ordinance and its long term impact on Spokane's housing market. Housing providers share many of the goals of Council when it comes to rental housing. We want everyone to be protected from extreme heat. We want everyone to have a safe place to call home. And we believe that everyone should be able to afford their rent. When new housing regulations are developed without full collaboration from those responsible for implementing them, the result is often greater costs, more complexity and unintended consequences that ultimately reduce housing affordable affordability harm tenants and discourage housing supply. There are two truths
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That remain when it comes to housing in Spokane. First that the rent is too high making it more expensive to provide housing keeps rents high. Second, Spokane needs more housing making it harder to operate here means fewer homes will be built here. The impacts of both of these truths will continue to harm renters and Spokane nights and how we can fix how we approach problems. This ordinance exasperates both of these issues with Spokane housing. We believe the better model is a collaborative one. My members are experts in attracting more housing. My members are experts in providing clean, safe and affordable housing. They've earned a spot at the table beyond my membership. Nonprofit organizations utilities building experts and tenant advocates all deserve to have a real hand in finalizing policy. That kind of partnership leads to solutions that are practical, durable and targeted to residents who need the most. We appreciate the Council has moved in the direction during that during this process. Our hope is that a more collaborative approach becomes the standard not the exception for future housing policy.
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Housing affordability and resident safety are not competing priorities. Spokane can achieve both but only if we work together. Thank you so much for your time and thank you again. The approach to this ordinance next I have dana harbor and then rick walters will be next. Good evening Spokane City Council members. My name is dana harbor and I currently serve as the chair of the downtown Spokane partnership and I'm here to testimony also on the cooling ordinance. I appreciate the intent behind this ordinance extreme heat is a serious concern and all of us want residents to be safe and healthy. The question before us is not whether cooling access matters. The question is whether the right to cooling ordinance is the right solution for Spokane.
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Downtown Spokane's housing stock is different from much of the City. As chris said, many of our apartment buildings were constructed in the early 1900s. They were simply not designed for modern cooling systems. This historic buildings often lack the electrical capacity, structural configuration and mechanical infrastructure needed to accommodate permanent cooling installations. Retrofitting them is not as simple as installing an air conditioner. In many cases compliance could require building wide electrical upgrades, rewiring reconstruction of units, new mechanical systems and ongoing maintenance. For owners of historic workforce housing these costs can quickly become prohibitive. My concern is that this ordinance could unintentionally undermine one of Spokane's most important affordable housing resources and that is our existing historic apartment buildings.
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Many downtown residents are seniors, students service workers and people living on fixed incomes. These buildings provide naturally affordable, affordable housing precisely because they already exist. Every new regulatory requirement increases operating costs and compliance burdens. Those costs ultimately show up in higher rents, deferred maintenance, reduced investment or in some cases the loss of housing units altogether for this proposal also comes on top of numerous other mandates including energy code requirements, electrification requirements and compliance obligations under the clean building act. Viewed individually, each requirement may seem manageable however viewed collectively they create significant financial pressure on the very buildings we are trying to preserve. Importantly, Washington already has taken action by protecting tenants rights to install portable cooling. That approach provides flexibility while recognizing the realities of older buildings. I would encourage the Council to pursue solutions that expand cooling access without jeopardizing housing affordable. City compassion and practicality are not opposites. We can protect vulnerable residents from existing from extreme heat without creating policies that unintentionally reduce affordable housing opportunities.
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Thank you. Thank you, rick walters. And then next will be matt walsh. Good evening, Council. I want to say hello to Mr. Hillis. You're him. You're my representative. Kenneth addition. I run holy ghost transitional housing llc. And I would like to make a proposal to the Council. I'd like to save 10,000 dollars. I'd like to underbid the navigation center for homelessness in my 1904 craftsman. I'm also opposed to the resolution about maintaining a 1904 craftsman which I did myself. I operate coed low barrier housing and I would like the opportunity to serve Spokane in a bigger light. Thank you for your time. Matt walsh. Then next will be jared goode.
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All right. Evening everyone. Council President Wilkerson, member of the Council. Thank you for allowing me to testify. So as we've all kind of said, I mean certainly we can all agree that cooling is important for everybody. We've got vulnerable members and even those that may not be as vulnerable. You still we all still need to get out of the heat. So I think we're all in line on that. As was said also I mean our State clearly agreed with that. They've made it so that tenants can install their own portable cooling units or install their own units in their units, their suites or apartments or whatever units. So that said, by doing this ordinance, what's the real purpose of it? Because if we're creating an ordinance for something that's already been allowed and we're putting more teeth in it that are in favor of one side rather than, you know, making it fair for both, that's not really accomplishing much. Now in this case the thing that's really one of the things that's concerning because the amendments you guys have put forth have been great.
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So thank you for doing that. Thank you for your efforts with that and for collaborating. But if a tenant can walk after 72 hours written notice I mean if they send us an email on a Friday night when everybody's gone nobody's checking their emails on saturday, sunday you get back to work on Monday and you have to walk you looking are you going to be able to get a tech out there? That's a question when it's 95 or 100 degrees out there are technicians all over the City but there aren't enough to go around for every single emergency that happens. And so that means a tenant can just go break a binding contract. That's not right. So if they're allowed to install a unit in their apartment and they elect not to do that and they write the landlord and say you need to do this, they're going to need a lot more than 72 hours to make it feasible. He's got to go out and get pricing. You've got to contact vendors. You got there's a lot of things that go into it. So with that being said can create unintended consequences. You have tenants that'll be vacating. You know some of them may use that as an excuse to vacate. I'm not saying that they will but some could create unnecessary legal fees. This is kind of open ended for both sides for the landlord and the tenant. The other part as chris boughton said and he is spot on right with some of these buildings that historically you may have to rewire. There could be issues with switchgear issues with panels, issues with transformers depending upon what the load is of these buildings. These are all things that need to have mechanical engineers brought in fact specialists and studies done to really go forward and see what feasibility looks like because from the costs of it and looking at it just initially a lot of this is very cost prohibitive. Well, we're all for cooling and making sure everybody is safe for sure. You know, there are other ways to go about it than this one for sure. All of the amendments
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Are great but there's still work to do. So I would urge for tonight please vote no on this. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. I have jared good. And then steve corker will be next d evening members of the Council. My name is jared gooden. I am currently a student over at gonzaga university college of law and I am also a summer associate at the gonzaga environmental and climate law clinic. Today I stand in support alongside my clinic of ordinance c36 877. As I'm sure you all are adequately aware especially with the past few weeks summer temperatures are only rising. Furthermore, this ordinance would be a step towards addressing this direct climate challenge. We currently see a similar ordinance being passed in new york City as well as the State of delaware.
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And as has been mentioned previously in our own State, this ordinance would allow us to begin taking the first steps of establishing cooling as a necessity for tenants and homeowner and dwelling occupants moving forward. We have a chance for Spokane to be at the forefront of legislation history and ensuring that this goes properly for future generations. I urge you all to consider this and to pass the ordinance. Thank you. All right, steve caulker, Council President members of the Spokane City Council. It is often said that the best legislation occurs when both sides of an issue are pleased made happy. The cooling ordinances resulting in the fact that no one is happy not the tenants, not their advocates, not the private property owners, not the nonprofit housing property landlords, not our Mayor and not even the many members of the City Council. I had hope that the passing of senate bill 60 200 which went into effect in July would have had an opportunity to allow the City to observe a lot of the issues that were involved in the cooling ordinance itself. I recognize that there is still much more that needs to be done. When you decide to implement this ordinance, the ordinance needs better policy definitions. Adequate cooling
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Is still subjective and difficult to measure. The 72 hour response period may be unrealistic especially during the time when this region is facing like they did last year a major heating crisis and the local supply of air conditioning units was exhausted. In addition, I think the mayors concerned with certain financial associated with issues with this ordinance. First the impact on the staff of the code enforcement office which is already under staffed. And second, some of the long term issues and the need for weather resolution and funding and things that can help all properties in Spokane meet these improved standards. As president of the enderlin north end, an association of landlords and as current president a member of the board of regents for the rental housing association. I do want to thank ben stucker gonzaga university for approaching paul Dillon with their concerns and with the input. I saw that the Spokane low income housing consortium, catholic charities and other low income housing providers made discussions that really allowed for a full involvement of the private sector of our industry. I want to give special thanks to betsy Wilkerson and Council member michael Cathcart for recognizing early some of the concerns in the process and I deeply appreciate all of the Council members who took time
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To meet to listen to the concerns of our industry over the past three months. It has been appreciated. I really urge a postponement of this issue so some of the other issues can be addressed. We're almost through the summer session in terms of implementation and I think that full considerations of the concern are by the office of the Mayor should be part of a formal process. Thank you. That's it. That concludes our express testimony. Thank you all. Next we're going to go into a final hearing. Mr. Burgess, we're going to read the hearing. Final hearing on ordinance c 36 887 passed as amended on 622 2026 imposing an immediate one year citywide moratorium on the filing acceptance processing review and approval of applications to establish or expand data centers. Setting a public hearing and declaring an emergency continued from 720 to 2026.
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This is the time and place set for the hearing on the matter of ordinance c three 6887 the moratorium on data centers. I will now call this hearing to order. First we have a staff report from Adam McDaniel. Council members and media in the Mayor's office here to present just a quick overview of the City's next steps during this moratorium period. As a reminder, the moratorium directed the work plans to the climate resilience and sustainability board and Plan Commission to be amended to create essentially a impact review and policy framework that ultimately be recommended to Council. So over this moratorium period we have two fundamental goals. The first is to maximize opportunities for community and stakeholder engagement and we'll talk about how to do that here in just a second.
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And then the second is to let the science best practice in City guiding plans for the climate plan water conservation plan laid the policy development. So there's a few fundamental questions to guide part of this framework. You know, I won't go through each of these but you know, are there opportunities that data centers would align with our conservation and sustainability goals? What is the definition of a data center? What is the definition of a large data center? Are there differences in type and uses? What are the economic and workforce benefits and impacts and how? What are the regulatory levers for ensuring those benefits? And then what's the regulatory authority of the City of Spokane and what are the regulations or the regulatory authority that is outside the scope of the City's regulatory authority? The Mayor has tasked City administrator alex scott and myself to pull together an internal City workgroup cross divisional to kind of address some of the questions that I'm assuming that the crc and the planning commission will have in the help guide them in their data and policy research. So that's going to include folks from public works, environmental programs, water integrated capital management, transportation and sustainability and planning and economic development.
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And Council President if you if there's councilmembers or Council staff that are interested in working on that workgroup, we would love to have you. So the work of the climate resilience and sustainability board is essentially first what we're envisioning there is to have a series of workshops on the specifics impacts related to data centers and kind of do a deep dive into each of those front loading water and wastewater regulatory constraints duty to serve State policy considerations that were State legislation last year did not pass. What do we expect to see over this next session? Noise mitigation decommissioning of stranded assets in a few of those different things. And the intent is to begin this work actually as soon as August. So the meeting in August I think is the first workshop after the climate resilience and sustainability board does their work.
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They will present those inputs and recommendations to the Plan Commission. They'll incorporate the incorporate those recommendations into policy recommendations and ultimately Council has the final word on what that policy looks like. So here's just a tentative timeline. As I mentioned, the August climate resilience and sustainability board meeting should start those workshops and data centers where the planning commission we're anticipating would start their workshops and public hearings in quarter 1 to 2027 and we expect that will overlap with the State legislative session. The moratorium expires on June 22nd 2027. We do not consider that a deadline. We consider that a due date. So if there's opportunities to take action before that we certainly will and there are some things outside the scope of the moratorium. Water, etc. That you know that is not addressed to this moratorium. So those are things that could go a little bit earlier. So there's two. Like I said, the two boards that have been tasked for some of this work the climate resilience the sustainability board planning commission their meetings are all public meetings. There's an opportunity if you go on the website to join their email list there you can get agendas, you can get the documents that are shared with these boards and ways to engage and attend their meetings and that's what we all have for the next steps.
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Happy to take any questions? Thank you Council rick eckhart good customer check out. Adam could you hang around? Can we go ahead and take public testimony? Sure. Councilman can't control that testimony. He missed this. Yeah. First I have breean mcgee. And then rick testified last week. Then we'll go to catherine alexander. Great. You have three minutes. Great. Thanks, Council. Appreciate you holding this space again and thank you, adam, for that report. That was really informative for me as well. I'm actually really glad that you said lead with the science as a core pillar in the City's year long look into how to best address data center moratorium because one of my biggest concerns around data centers as I stand here before you talking as a board member of the Spokane riverkeeper is of course water. But I want to talk about something that is an emerging science relating to human health impacts and that is noise pollution. So there has been emerging research on noise pollution, particularly and its impact on human health and wildlife health particularly about impact in cardiovascular health from noise pollution. There are numerous studies coming out.
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There is a really large metadata analysis study in 20 23 that links adverse health effects such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hearing impairment and reproductive outcomes to noise pollution. There's just from a survey of research that I did over the past couple of weeks really last week, the noise pollution impact seemed to impact women more so than men. That was a common thread throughout the research that I found which I found to be really concerning among many other things. But I bring all of this up to say that it doesn't take very much research to also see how noise pollution impacts from data centers have been impacting communities throughout this country just as a case study that I would encourage the Council and the climate and resiliency board and the planning commission to evaluate is the case study in chandler, arizona from 2014 the City of chandler, arizona put in a proven data center that got built adjacent to a neighborhood. There were high frequency noise emitted throughout its construction and then finally during its actual finished phase during production on impact quality of life substantially of those communities across a wide continuum. This led to a strengthening of protections that their City Council passed and those regulations went into effect in 20 22 or 2023 I should say. And they were influential in the Council's unanimous rejection in 2025 of another proposed
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Data center. And I want to bring all this up to say I think we have an opportunity here to avoid eight years of really awful impacts to human health and I really would encourage the Council to during this data center moratorium really lean into the science and the negative impacts that data centers have in their current form on human health and decide that data centers in Spokane County and Spokane are not for us. Thank you. Thank you. Up next is Katherine Alexander and then we'll go down to James Daniels next. Council President and Council. I really want to segway a little bit off of what's just been said in many ways. My name is Katherine Alexander. I live at 2311 west 16th avenue number 50 in Spokane. 99224. My company is the living ground collaborative. Org we have focused on solutions addressing the pressing issues of heat on our planet and particularly in cities and I have shared with some of you a paper that we have written on the research where people around the world have addressed the many issues including the ones that were just spoken of by working with nature. This is not the normal way we take. We do things. What we do is say not in my backyard which does not mean a data center won't be done. It means it won't be done here maybe or
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We say sure we'll have it but you're going to pay for all the bad things you do but you're still going to do bad things and we're still going to have to bear the brunt of that. I'm here to suggest there is a third issue and a path forward and that is by working with nature. Easy to say and not so obvious to do. Which is why I sent you that paper. That paper details the research that we've done around the world where all of these issues every single one has been addressed someplace in the world with other countries doing data centers in a different way. To my knowledge there is no one who has taken all of these to address all of those issues. Spokane could be the first if we chose to do that. There are paths forward but you have to really think you have to really plan and you have to really work with nature not run roughshod over it. So I really encourage you to read that paper and then to really think more deeply about the possibilities that we have here. There are some opportunities that we shouldn't miss. Thank you. Thank you.
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Next I have James Daniels and then we'll have jason ben weigh a little castle. This is my first time speaking. I'm not a public speaker. I'm actually a christian. So that's why I'm here today is to talk in favor of data centers. I know there's a moratorium passed and it sounds like a great report talking about ways to progress and move forward in a positive way. Ibew electricians in 73 I represent about 1000 members and retirees 700 and 50 active 800 active members and of those 550 ish are electricians and apprentice electricians and these are great high paying local jobs currently we probably have 200 members a year that are traveling to oregon and central Washington doing the work on these data centers for probably the last 20 years these things have been developed and built and we understand a lot of the concerns and we handed out a packet of information in Washington State labor Council and that's a resolution that was passed by basically all of the labor organizations in the State talking about pro data center construction in a responsible fashion and it's really well put together and we're not going to say there isn't concerns which clearly there are but new technologies have advanced and these things are going in with the new technologies liquid cooling systems in closed loop design that don't have an effect. I do believe that there is a responsibility for developers when they come in to bear that cost of the expansion of the grid if needed for their use and it shouldn't be put on the residents to increase their power bills you know to make up for that. So I think that there's positive
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Ways to move forward with it and hopefully the big ask is this moratorium doesn't become an absolute no forever. There's a path forward that's reasonable, makes sense. Our members are pressing us every day new construction opportunities to grow our economy and have them strive locally versus having to travel. So that's that's my quick piece. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Did a great job for your first time. Next I have jason ben where. Good evening Council and thank you for your time. I'm jason greenway, assistant business manager with ibew local 73 here speaking in favor of responsible construction of data centers. A lot of what I'm going to say is probably going to mirror a little bit of what james said but we do need these work opportunities here rather recently there was an article in the spokesman-review reflecting on the decline in jobs and in Spokane area and excluding two particular industries. You know we've done a lot of work over the last several years within the City of Spokane to increase apprenticeship opportunity through ordinances such as apprenticeship utilization.
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Great work on that. Very glad to see that happen. Now we need those opportunities for those apprentices we hear all the time we need to be building more tradespeople. We need to give them a chance to learn these trades. We need the jobs to put them on right. I hear from a lot of people that think there's a shortage in this area. There is not a local 73 in particular in our apprenticeship program we take 300 to 400 applicants per year on average where accepting 30. All right. So there is not a shortage of apprentices for electricians. There's a shortage of opportunities for us to bring more people into the trades and more opportunity for them to learn a trade that they can support their family with the living wage. So I'd encourage the Council similar to this has been spoken already to please take this time recognize the moratorium is already in place to address this in a logical way. There are ways to mitigate the impact of the data centers. A lot of those are already being used and already being put into the design of data centers at this point. We've come a long ways in 20 years, right? This is not the data center that we started with 20 or 30 years ago and we have the ability to continue to improve on that. So please look into those opportunities and I personally would be happy to have those conversations deeper one on one with each and every one of you and be able to talk through what some of those opportunities are. Thank you.
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Okay devin, I apologize I wasn't able to connect with you. You testified last week so I've to skip you and we'll go to ada camacho. Good evening. I made a camacho, a resident of Spokane. I'm here to protest the existence of the databases being considered to be housed in Spokane. I recommend an amendment to the August ballot to be sent out to the voters of Spokane so that we the people have a right to vote on this subject and to allow to protect Spokane's river air and its environment. The Spokane river keepers has submitted numerous reports bringing attention to the City Council regarding our drought including the increasing air quality conditions that we currently face. That said, the future of Spokane should not be in the hands of companies, City Council or governments but to the people of Spokane. We the people should determine what is beneficial to the land especially if it endangers the beauty of Spokane's natural resources. The value of our historic properties including that of our property owners please reconsider and recognize that there is no substitute for water once it is eliminated by the first of these databases there is no resources to quench
[00:43:23]
The thirst of its people. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next is churchill and air. He uh. Hello. My name is sochi and I, um I'm here today to oppose the data center tech hub that seems to be the chosen term for here. Spokane has been growing in the arts and culture for a minute now and has been trained by the work of artists without their consent. This is now taking away from artists. How can we be an art hub City when we have allowed data center into the County? I don't believe having a data center represents the image of this City whatsoever.
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We have talked about the water and the dangers that it comes to that with fear environment and the people and to risk to go back to what devin had said with the electricians. What happens when the wires are installed and all of that is done. All that's going to be is going to be a smaller group of ai techs but not electricians. How are they going to play a role in the long run in this? So you know, why can't we start installing more green energy or efficient electricity and put that resources to that? Thank you. Thank you.
[00:45:20]
Lastly, I have nicholas williams. Good evening. My name is nicholas and I'm here to testify in favor of the continued moratorium. I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said in against the data centers except that I don't believe at this time that the stakeholders in data centers across the united states are aligned with human values and any further in and any further data center built is almost certainly going to serve the interests of those who are actively stripping away our civil liberties. Thank you for that. Thank you for your time. Thank you. That concludes testimony on the hearing. I'll entertain a motion to close the hearing so move second just been moved and seconded any Council commentary?
[00:46:40]
Councilmember Cathcart yeah I guess I would just very quickly because I know we're going to have a conversation here but do we need to if we're going to ask questions regarding the work plan should that occur before we close the hearing or does that need to occur after we haven't bothered to actually close the hearing just to close testimony. So adam's coming up. I think I just I ask that because the work plan is I think part of the hearing and so I want to make sure we're doing the right water operations so we can make possible a motion to amend or add findings to the work plan elements at this time. So go ahead comes from the coast guard. Thank you. Can we put the slide back up just by make sure I have the impression out of it? Just a couple questions for you just real quick so we talked about a City internal City work group to look at this stuff. There wasn't any conversation about external and obviously with these there is a number of things that folks here have raised. I mean obviously labor huge one. Will there be representatives from labor economic development, energy, health you know there's different sectors that are outside the City apparatus to have input certainly we certainly intend to engage external stakeholders both through the series b process and through the planning commission process as well and then from a conflict of interest perspective I guess you know we've got a vista on the climate resilience board and since they're going to be making these regulations, is a vista going to be conflicted out of being able to participate in this?
[00:48:10]
I mean that's probably more of a question for the City attorney's office but I would just note that they don't make the regulations, they make recommendations and ultimately the Council is responsible for adopting those. And I just say that because obviously if we're going to talk about rates and how it affect rate payers, you can't do that without having the utility at the table obviously. So I just want to make sure that they're going to have a voice to at least articulate what those impacts would actually be and then you had mentioned one of the questions if we go to the slide with the question sorry do size type use case make different impacts you know what condition standards, etc. Well yesterday obviously we heard that we will ourselves have a version of a data center right with our p set as we establish that now not to the scale of course but if we're going to have a regulation on this, are we going to look internally as well on just even our own operations in terms of what is a data center and how we're defining that?
[00:49:14]
Yeah, I think certainly one of the questions or fundamental policy questions that's going to have to be answered is what is the actual definition of a data center? There's obviously something that's adopted in the moratorium itself essentially as a placeholder but I think that's one of the questions. And then my last question is, you know, one of the big concerns I've had in this is not so much a moratorium on data centers across the City but it's specific to the tech hub and I don't think we still know exactly the impacts of this moratorium on the you know, 60 to $80 million that the federal governments can invest in the tech hub and that you know, potential thousands of jobs that will create. And so what I'm hoping asking wondering is can the process begin with a look at specifically the tech hub, how this might impact that and in particular and this is actually the Mayor's own plan from 2024 consider an overlay zone, a tech hub overlay zone where perhaps the regulations might be different if necessary to ensure that the tech hub which are data centers only a piece of but to ensure that tech hub can move forward I think all that's going to be part of the policy evaluation process. But is that something you envision could be a part of that process, an overlay zone, some version of regulation as it's specific to attach to the tech hub? That would be premature for me to speculate on what the recommendations of that the crc being the planning commission would have for Council but I'm not sure but and I'm not I'll just offer up here not speculating on what their outcomes might be but perhaps just a encouragement
[00:50:53]
Facilitation that would be one part of the work plan that they're going to consider as they move forward. Sure. I mean one of the things obviously that we're trying to address the some of these questions is the economic and workforce benefits and the levers for ensuring those economic and workforce benefits if data centers are permitted. So I think that would be something that would be captured through that. Okay. Thank you, councilmember. Tell us. Mr. Mcdaniel I would very much like to be on that work group are we call your workgroup but I also wanted to say to councilmember Cathcart I think there's already internal discussions on Council about getting those external stakeholders together, some of them being in this room here tonight we have labor, we have environmental activists of course we need power suppliers, public utilities but it's the goal of this is the goal of this was always not just a year pause but a pause to leave with the science and figure out what the pros and the cons are and really be going into it any decision we have with eyes wide open the City does currently have data centers. I don't want anyone to be shocked by that but the truth is data centers vary so much in size and so the this size matters a lot when we're thinking about effects to our electrical grid and rate payers and noise pollution and water consumption. So all of this needs to be addressed and we all need to have a lot of transparency and eyes wide open going forward as we consider any of this right.
[00:52:31]
I'll just say for the for our citizens out there your Council is the water board for the City of Spokane. We will be having a study session. I requested that from legal. Just what are the ramifications and what authority do we have in regard to so they consider and planning and policy going forward. I want to remind everybody this is just a City limits of Spokane. A lot of this activity can happen outside the City that will still impact us and a lot of it could also happen on tribal sovereign land that we have absolutely no control over. So I just want to keep put it out there to the people. We are not the ones that shop to approve or disapprove data centers in our region. So more to come on that and you will be notified when we have a workshop around water and what that looks like for the City. So if there's no more comments I'm going to entertain a motion to either continue the hearing or to close the hearing. I think there is a motion on the floor actually close to hearing there's a motion to close the hearing. All those in favor please indicate by saying I, I you know the hearing is now closed.
[00:53:47]
Thank you Mr. Really yay or nay. Yeah. Okay so that passes seven zero. Thank you Mr. Byrd and just couple present let's be clear that's just a motion to close the hearing is all we were at the hearing correct proposed legislative items resolutions under the proposed section resolution 2020 are 2026 0056 approving a development agreement for five parcels in balboa south indian trail neighborhood owned by excelsior wellness located on west indian trail road. This resolution approves the development agreement required by ordinance c 36 613 as a condition of approval for a comp plan comprehensive plan amendment file z 20 3-479 comma copy resolution 2026 0057 approving the appointment of megan duvall as the director of the arts, culture and historic preservation department for the City of Spokane. Resolution 2026 0058 adopting a Council operations guide pursuant to section nine of the Spokane City charter and chapter 02.005 of the Spokane municipal code resolution 2026 0059 directing transfer of City Council funds to finance Council operations in 2026.
[00:55:02]
Further action is deferred on the proposed resolutions proposed ordinances ordinance c 36 914 relating to adopted ordinance c 36 613 concerning the required development agreement for the comprehensive plan amendment file z 20 3-479c of extending the deadline for approval of the development agreement by two years and instructing staff to include the land use designations called for in that ordinance and the draft future land use map under development for a periodic comprehensive plan update due later this year. Ordinance c 36 915 to extend the duration of interim zoning ordinance c 36 742 concerning child care center setting a public hearing for August 26th 2026 and reiterating a work program ordinance c 36 916 to adopt an overlay zone for property located approximately at 3929 west grandview road in the City and County of Spokane State of Washington by amending the official zoning map to show a planned unit development overlay zone for said property beard addition further action is deferred on the proposed ordinances.
[00:56:15]
Council President I have no one signed up for proposed legislative items. No proposed legislative items will go on to any testimony for pending legislative items e no one signed up for any pending legislative items. Okay, then we will move on to our legislative agenda. Speakers will have two minutes to address final legislative items which will be grouped for public comment in the following manner boards and commission appointments two minutes reports contracts and claims two minutes budget ordinances resolutions two minutes to speak to all items in this section ordinances two minutes and special consideration two minutes. Are there any? All I have is five people registered for final ordinances.
[00:57:17]
Okay then I would like to take our vote on boards and commissions. I'm any Council commentary on boards and commissions there. Dean davis and gregory gordon. See none. All those in favor please indicate by saying I any nos abstentions that passes seven zero on reports contracts and claims any Council commentary Council President yes councilmember Cathcart can we take a pr? 2020 6-0 649 separately please could you read that one out? Mr. Byrd if you follow that I think it's a purchase from ferguson's water yeah.
[00:58:16]
I have open 2026 0649 that is purchase from ferguson waterworks Spokane valley Washington of three fourths and one inch copper pipe for water department inventory $329,580 plus tax. We will take that one right now I see in commentary on all 649 all those in favor please indicate by saying I now those opposed no that passes six one. For the rest of the contracts and cleans any Council commentary saying that councilmember I'm sorry councilmember Dillon you're good you're just a couple of items that I want to highlight in here sometimes they can tend to get buried but very excited about the bid for the fish lake trail phase one and that connection that is going to be a wonderful extension and it'll improve access down to the centennial trail across the sand of her bridge and have a new bike path that goes near highbridge park which is really exciting because we know that sometimes accessing the fish lake trail can be a challenge coming off of sunset and government also we'll be talking about this a little bit later on the agenda with an ordinance but the chip grant funds to help support utility improvements for affordable housing as well as the grant for our therapeutic
[00:59:55]
Courts and all the great work that they do in the other Council country. See none. All those in favor please indicate by saying I in those abstentions that passes seven zero Mr. Byrd there are no emergency ordinances in the final legislative agenda section. Special budget ordinances special budget ordinance c 36 906 amending ordinance number c 36 794 entitled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennial modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to accept grant funding from the administrative office of the courts to support the community justice services department for pretrial and conviction services and declaring an emergency ordinance c 36 907 amending ordinance number c 30 six 974 794 entitled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennial modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to accept grant funding awarded by the department of commerce's connecting housing to infrastructure structure program chip 200 and $89,000 in declaring an emergency ordinance c 30 690 eight and an ordinance number c 36 794 entitled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennium modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to authorize the addition of three positions and increase the budget for debt service payments and declaring an emergency ordinance c 36 909 amending ordinance number c 36 794 entitled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennial modification budget for the City of Spokane
[01:01:34]
And amending it to accept grant funding from the idaho office of emergency management to provide hazmat response services and training to the State of idaho and declaring an emergency ordinance a number of c 36 910 amending ordinance number c 36 794 and titled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennial modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to accept an administrative office of the courts grant to supply therapeutic courts for State fiscal year 20 27 and declaring an emergency ordinance number c 36 911 amending ordinance number c 30 69c 36 794 and titled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennial modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to accept a department of justice grant to purchase two evidence freezers for the Spokane police department and declaring an emergency ordinance number c 36 912 amending ordinance number c 36 794 and in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennium modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to add one geographic information systems gis analyst one and one wastewater inspector to the water wastewater fund and one waste to energy power plant operator and one t utility operator to the solid waste fund and declaring an emergency any commentary public comments on the special budget or no Council President all right.
[01:02:58]
Ordinance 36906 Council commentary see none prepared to vote I thank you that passes seven zero awnings 36907 adopting e modification budget for the City of Spokane any Council commentary see none prepare to vote I thank you that passes seven zero or in this 36908 the made by a modification budget to authorize three positions in the Council commentary. Seeing none prepare to vote I thank you that passes seven zero ordinance 36909 accepting the grant from the office idaho office of emergency management to provide hazmat response services any Council commentary see none prepare to vote I thank you that passes seven zero ordinance 36910 to accept the administrative court's grant to support therapeutic courts any Council country seeing none prepare to vote I thank you that passes seven
[01:04:37]
Zero ordinance 36911 to purchase two evidence freezers for the City of Spokane police department I'll just make a comment those freezers were added for rape kits which is critical to preserving the evidence and we are happy to have those resources available prepared to vote I. I thank you that passes seven zero in ordinance 36912 adding the gsi endless and one waste to water inspector in Council commentary. Seeing none prepared to vote I thank you that passes seven zero Mr. Byrd no final resolutions on tonight's agenda vital ordinances and Council President forgive me I read all of those at once. Would you prefer that I get that?
[01:05:43]
That was great. Well, if you take them as we vote Mr. Burr, I think that be helpful. Okay. Ordinance c 36 903 adjusting the remittance date of the local option parking commercial parking tax to better align with the Washington State filing deadlines amending section 08.22.040 of the Spokane municipal code Council President do you want to take testimony before Mr. Byrd reads the ordinances individually as we work through this is kind of challenging as to which one they're actually speaking to but we can go ahead and take all the testimony at this time. I think that might be all then. Yes. Thank you. Council President so that was ordinance c 36 903. Next up is ordinance c 36 902 to adopt an overlay zone for a property located at four nine zero valley springs road in the City and County of Spokane State of Washington by amending the official zoning map to show a planned unit development overlay zone for said property and lastly under the final section for ordinances ordinance c 36 877 creating a rate for cooling for residential tenants and requiring that adequate cooling be provided by January 1st, 2031 amending section 10.57.140 enacting a new section 10.57.175 of chapter 10.57 and repealing section 10.57.170 of the Spokane municipal code a first for testimony I have sean pelfrey
[01:07:26]
Okay we'll skip shawn and go to sophie von all right we'll skip sophie von and go to dante jester. Good evening Council members Council President my name is dante jester I'm a district one resident and climate resilience program manager at the gonzaga climate institute. For full transparency my team conducted some of the research on which the cooling ordinance was built improving Spokane's community safety in regard to extreme heat and wildfire smoke is my job. I am more aware than most of the complexities involved in solving the issue of extreme heat illness and death in our community.
[01:08:22]
One of the organizations we've partnered with in this work is meals on wheels Spokane. As you probably know, meals on wheels is a small nonprofit that serves hot meals to homebound seniors a population those particularly vulnerable to extreme heat. Many people who testified during the first reading of this ordinance mentioned the deadly 2021 northwest heat dome that killed 19 people in Spokane County. And I want to share that of those 19 people that died, 11 of them were homebound seniors and of those 11 meals on wheels volunteers found nine of them installing cooling infrastructure in the homes of these 11 older adults likely would not have solved the problem at least not entirely. Meals on wheels who shared with me that even if they had access to a free cooling device, low income older adults need additional support for installation maintenance and energy bill costs. But that doesn't mean that they don't need cooling. This work is complex but just because it requires multiple streams of action does not denote the importance of any one action. Spokane policymakers do not act in isolation nor should they. My team is working with community based organizations in preparation for the passing of this ordinance. We are preparing a renter's rights education campaign, creating educational materials for housing providers and staff trainings for nonprofits. We're designing a neighborhood leader program that would empower people to check on their neighbors during extreme weather. And we're working with snap and avista to connect community members to programs that reduce their energy bills.
[01:09:45]
This problem requires a multifaceted solution. Those of us on the ground will continue to do our part and you must do yours. I ask that you pass this ordinance. Thank you. Next I have larry lewton and after larry we'll have tomorrow. Good evening. My name is larry luton. I'm a member board member of 350 Spokane. A retired professor of public administration at eastern Washington university. I've lived in Spokane for over 40 years and over 30 years in the perry district. Tonight I'm speaking on behalf of 350 Spokane, a local climate action nonprofit. We are in favor of the right to cool ordinance in late June. This summer's been one heck of a summer. In late June, europe suffered under extreme heat. It's been estimated that over 20,000 people in europe died in the heatwave around the 4th of July weekend. Much of central and eastern half of the us suffered from extreme heat.
[01:11:17]
Heat records were broken or tied and at least 148 cities early reporting from new jersey indicated at least 44 deaths in that State alone. This week at least 40 million people were under extreme heat warnings across central and southern parts of the united states. As you know, we had a heat dome here in 2021. We know what happened in Spokane. Do you remember that in portland? A hundred people died. And according to national public radio, no access to air conditioning was the most common factor among those who died from an average of three extreme heat days per year from 71 1971 to 2021. The State of Washington is projected to have 20 to 30 extreme heat days by the 2050s. And thank you, larry. Your time is up. My point is this is what climate change does to our weather.
[01:12:32]
Lastly, I have tomorrow hello. Excuse me. Hello, Council members. Nice to see you in person today rather than in your email inbox. Yeah I don't have a bunch of flowery language like I typically want for you. Ultimately this ordinance really could have been called the renter's right to life, couldn't it? It's honestly a simple matter. I did hear a lot of concern about energy usage and wiring. There are lower usage options rather than refrigerator days. They were all the landlords will figure it out. They'll be okay. I truly believe in doing the right thing rather than what is most profitable and passing this ordinance which you will hopefully do will be a big step forward. I think for the most vulnerable communities that we have and then I did want to also Council President if I may ask a quick question about the moratorium workgroup.
[01:13:47]
We can speculate if we don't answer questions from the dais. Okay. Thank you. Yes. All right. Well, other than that, that's really what I want to get across. I'm just really proud of those who have been willing to step forward and set this ordinance into place and I hope it does pass in a few seconds here moments minutes either way. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public testimony and it has come to councilmember Dillon. I believe before we begin we have to make a parliamentary procedure here to change the title for the clerk's. You know, you do have two other legislative items ahead of the cooling ordinance. Do you want to dispense with them first? Thank you, Mrs.. We were so focused on that testimony. Let's do take ordinance three six 903 the commercial parking tax and the alignment of dates. Any Council comments on that? Seeing none prepare to vote I thank you that passes seven zero and then ordinance 36920 to adopt the overlay zone for the property located at 4900 belly springs.
[01:15:04]
Any Council commentary seeing none prepare to vote I thank you I we have passed seven zero and then on to ordinance 36877 in additional Council and now the amendment or the adjustment to the title I yes so first we need a motion to suspend the rules and a motion to suspend the rules for the purpose of amending the title entertaining amendment to the title to suspend the rules for a purpose of amendment to the titles act is been moved and seconded. All those in favor please indicate by saying I I my nose abstention the rules have been suspended.
[01:15:59]
Council President can I ask councilmember Dillon seconded that motion grant was suspended. Go ahead councilmember Dillon you yeah I will make a motion to change the title which I assume has been sent to the clerk's already or do I need to read it? The dust if you read it I think okay, well I'll so I'll make a motion to change the ordinance title to an ordinance creating a rate for cooling for residential tenants amending section 10.57.140 enacting a new section 10.57.175 of chapter 10.57 and repealing section 10.5 7.170 of the Spokane municipal code. All right. Do you think it's the right once I get this moving the second the technicality councilmember misread you don't speak to the technicality of the amendment or explain it if you want I mean it was an error we discovered a while ago and simply forgot to correct in the various iterations of the ordinance. It refers to a January 2032 date is no longer part of the ordinance so this would just simply strike the reference to that date from the title itself. So there's a motion was there a second all those in councilor mcvicar yeah
[01:17:40]
I'm going to oppose this. I realize it's technical that's just fixing the title but I'm going to vote no because what one we should have fixed it 2 or 3 iterations of this ago. This has gone through a number of drafts and I think we should have fixed it then. But secondarily there was an opportunity yesterday to defer it so we wouldn't have to suspend the rules. We wouldn't have to make a change on the fly like this. Now granted that deferral was not necessarily for this purpose. It was to help address the concerns of the Mayor with regards to the costs of this ordinance. But I think, you know, even consideration of a modest deferral to it to address this let alone her concerns would have been warranted. And so for that reason I'm going to vote no in the Council commentary on that. So all those in favor of the amendment please indicate by saying I, I, I know that passes six zero now onto the ordinance come from 61361 I'm sorry six zero how later what time is it to have Council commentary. Yes thank you. She has been noted five years ago we had a historic heat dome tell you firsthand the impacts of what it's like to experience that and climate change and I remember rushing to get ice cubes out of the freezer at night to put it on myself, to put it on our dogs. I've lived in places where the windows were painted shut. I've also lived in places where the bedroom was kept cool because of a newly installed ac unit
[01:19:17]
That created a central airflow and so that was part of the impetus behind some of these amendments. I want to read from State law just around the right to heating if you will because we have had this for a while and I imagine a lot of the advocacy and discussion it took to get this passed I as having a right to hear heating but not a cooling again was a big part of the origin behind this ordinance and the State law says when the winter temperature is below 60 degrees every dwelling unit shall be provided with heating facilities capable of maintaining a minimum room temperature of 60 degrees at a point of three feet above the floor and two feet from exterior walls in all habitable rooms at design temperature the installation of one or more portable heaters shall not be used to achieve compliance with this section and I read that in the context for this ordinance and how I think that this ordinance really is a beginning and part of it is again to address our new reality which is climate change and it was mentioned before about sb 60 200 which allows the installation of a cooling device. This is really going beyond that to help support
[01:20:57]
Access. And so again a little bit more about what this ordinance does because there has been so many iterations so it does make adequate cooling a basic right for tenants in Spokane. We've amended this multiple times in response to community input. A lot of folks who testified tonight I do think the definition of adequate cooling it really is trying to make sure that it is sufficient to prevent risk to tenants health and again requiring that all dwelling units have adequate cooling and at least one room where you would use for sleep and then again the right to install cooling equipment but have the cost deduction of up to $500. And then coming up with a simplified index for that installation based on inflation as well as addressing new construction. If there are challenges that would be posed with undue hardship from electrical upgrades or historic building. And then the other component to that we discussed yesterday and I want to clarify you know the Mayor is not opposed to this ordinance certainly brought up some concerns with code enforcement capacity and costs. There's always concerns with code enforcement capacity and costs. I understand the concerns about this adding to
[01:22:35]
That. But I think that we asked code enforcement to do a lot. That's not going to change and I think that we have to have a bigger conversation about the role of code enforcement in this City and some of those expectations as well as funding. But the trailer ordinance really does get to that. We talked about yesterday the funding the weather is ation grateful for a vista leaning into this conversation and how we can discuss some ways to partner and match funds and I think that's going to go a long way. Right before this meeting I had an email from a constituent saying that, you know, they were not a renter but they owned a home that was in really, you know, a challenge to do some of these upgrades and that's exactly what this kind of programing could do. Heat related deaths have been increasing outside of just the heat dome especially in our older apartments as average temperatures have risen and it's only going to continue to rise. Extreme heat is the leading weather related cause of death in the united states and so this ordinance and again I really want to thank the gonzaga climate students for using evidence based approach to look at this as a public health response after we have lost lives, this risk is going to continue to grow. We know that extreme heat exacerbates
[01:24:15]
Heart disease, respiratory illness, mental health conditions, pregnancy complications as was mentioned to our elderly residents young children, people with disabilities are especially vulnerable and many of these are renters. Looking at some of the studies from the after the heat dome and with more heat related illness from the gonzaga climate students, many residents do not want to leave their homes during extreme heat because they cannot again because of ability and nearly 1 in 4 lack access to air conditioning. So this isn't just an inconvenience. This is a life threatening condition.
[01:25:09]
So yes, access does certainly matter. I think we've had a really good discussion about the impacts to affordability and costs and how to navigate those. I am again I'm grateful for a lot of the feedback that we got ultimately to throughout those discussions it's come back to how much is a human life worth? What is the cost of doing nothing? I met with the first responder who's been on the scene of these deaths and illnesses. He said this ordinance makes sense but he also said you're not going to look back at the end of your life saying you didn't advocate enough for poor people and I hope that we can create more policies in this City with that in mind to build a safer, healthier City for all people.
[01:26:02]
Again, I just I want to thank a lot of our tenants landlords, housing providers, the gardens and climate students and all the Council members up here even though we might come at this with different viewpoints there was a lot of good dialog and feedback that was taken here to create this policy and so regardless of where people land I think that we ended up in a good spot and I'm grateful for that as well. Thank you councilmember jones and yeah, thank you. I am happy to support proud to support this ordinance as someone who's been working alongside my colleagues with various editions or revisions, this is by far the most collaborative effort on Council that I have witnessed to date.
[01:27:01]
I've I've actually lost count of the amount of amendments that have been made at this point. But I think that is a testament to our community and how much our community cares. We are with this ordinance trying to make sure that what happened in 2021 doesn't happen ever again. How much is a human like life worth? What are the realistic implications to Spokane's housing stock? What can it handle right now? What is it need a few years to get to? These were all meaningful discussions and I think ultimately we came away with a really good first step. As dante said, this is a very complex problem. It requires a multifaceted approach. I'm very happy to be sponsoring you on Council President the trailer of ordinance that will deal with weatherization and address some of the funding issues here. But this is in my opinion the step in the right direction.
[01:28:02]
It is not the end goal. We need to have a much longer conversation to guarantee that all residents of Spokane remain safe in cases of extreme heat. I was just going to briefly touch on although councilmember Dillon already mentioned it there's been a lot of said about the Mayor's letter she was not asking for a deferral. I had a conversation with her myself today that only reaffirmed that but rather pointing out the need to better fund code enforcement which I think is something that a lot of us have seen and it's something that we will address during the budget season. In fact, quoting from her email says as we continue budget conversations over the next month I look forward to continuing the conversation about financial implications and resources necessary to enforce and implement policy priorities and that all makes sense and that is something that we will be doing. But I am just very proud of this ordinance. I think the adequate cooling is a subjective rather than an objective test.
[01:29:08]
It is encouraging us to deal with this issue by having tenants and landlords speak to one another and figure out who is at risk of extreme heat related incidents and who is doing okay. And that is a humanity that is a question of humanity that I don't think should ever be questioned. I want my landlord to ask me if I'm doing okay in my current sort of set of circumstances. I want my tenant, I want as a tenant to be able to tell my landlord I'm not being adequately served because what is the point of a roof over someone's head if they can't live there safely? So with this ordinance like I said there it's not perfect. There are many revisions and some people would have preferred others to this revision but I am very proud of the collaborative effort that has come about from the entire community and this work is not over and the conversation will continue.
[01:30:04]
Thank you. Thank you, councilman burkhart. Yeah, thank you. You know, first and foremost I just want to reiterate how important it is that we have solutions for folks who live in an environment where they don't have a cooling device. They don't have the ability to keep the temperature down to a level that suits their needs. There has been a number of conversations in my six and a half years on this Council around you know, what sorts of plans might we put in place to assist folks not necessarily those experiencing homelessness but those who are housed who don't have access to this. I have brought this up time and time and time again and there has never truly been a plan for them. We did use during the 2021 heat dome I believe it was there was some effort to open up like the carousel space and have some opportunities there. It was underutilized but there were some minor attempts but nothing that was concrete, nothing that said hey, every time we hit this degree we're going to open the school, we're going to extend this community center, we're going to keep the library open 24 hours. There was never a plan like that despite I think a lot of advocacy that we establish a plan like that. So without trying I'll just call it the lower hanging fruit model. We've jumped to this and I'm a little frustrated because you know there's been some references to heating.
[01:31:37]
Well, nowhere in State law does it say it's a right to heating and I do get concerned that we're calling this a right to cooling which is going to end up being a misnomer because people are going to believe that they have a right to cooling which means energy is free, which means that they don't have any responsibility there. Now hopefully there's some folks when we have funded many times utility costs to cover those bills for folks hopefully a visitor would step up and others to help folks who are lower income to cover those costs but they don't have an inherent right to that energy and I believe that the title of this alone is going to give that false impression and I think that is just too bad unless the intent or the next step is to make that a portion of this which be clear that's not in this but certainly there could be steps taken to expand the scope of this idea in ordinance. But I want to agree with what councilmember tell us said this is subjective. It is not objective. It is subjective and that to me is also frustrating because that heating requirement is very objective. Now 60 eight degrees you can measure it. You know you can hit it. You know that the system you've built you know that the heating system that you've installed can meet that requirement here we don't even know what that is. Is it 80 degrees for one? Is it 60 for another? I mean I, I hope there would be some consistency in what is a health related need for degrees and we could just simply codify it whether or not I agree that we should
[01:33:14]
Go down that road at least you could codify it and that would be something that a standard that folks could actually meet. You know if you're well-intentioned you're a good faith developer landlord, etc. And you want to meet this law, how do you do it if it's just a guess it's particularly when it's something that you're building that is to be built down the road. This also applies to new, you know, buildings being built after 2027. It also calls out in here passive cooling well for folks who are really concerned about environmental impacts and impacts of climate, passive is a huge thing but how do you design a building? How do you lay it out? How do you decide the materials when you don't even know the temperature that you're trying to achieve? And that to me at its most core is what is so fundamentally wrong about this ordinance. I may disagree with the idea that we should be regulating this or how we should be regulating it but at least select a standard that folks know that they can me and I think that should just be a basic function of government objectivity, right? Don't leave it up to guesses. Try not to put it in the hands of a judge who might have some wayward interpretation. We've seen that before. Try to decide what it is you want to achieve and try to achieve it. And I think that's that's a frustration of mine. Furthermore, there's just a number of little things in here too. I just I want to point out and call out you know so we talk about the new amended version because we've gone through some varying iterations of this amended
[01:34:50]
Version kind of narrows it down to say okay, you have to provide this in a room. Well there are and I brought this up before but I'm going to say it again you know there are instances where you have you know, a multi tenancy you know, shared spaces, right? Where each person's renting a room within a larger unit. Well if they each have a different health need or more you know multiples of them have these health needs. How does the landlord decide well it's this room and not that room and I don't think that has been thought through. You know, we also talk about we're going to delay implementation if there's a cost impact or if you know, it's just not achievable because of the electrical system in the building for these older historic buildings. But again at its core if the goal is to support lower income people those are the buildings lower income people are living in and so you're not even getting to assisting potentially those individuals with that deferral. So I don't entirely know exactly what we're accomplishing with this when we're going to give those year delays now I appreciate it because there's a lot of buildings in this town.
[01:36:00]
They're not configured to meet the standard but that to me is a challenge I think within this proposed ordinance that we'll be voting on here momentarily. Furthermore, you know, we talk about the Mayor and what her concerns were and I do just want to make sure that I also read what she wrote and here is a little bit more context around what she wrote. Quote as you know, the City like other local governments throughout the country faces significant budget headwinds, adding new enforcement obligations to the code enforcement department without a plan and path to add new resources to the department is not sustainable. As we continue budget conversations over the next months, I look forward to continuing the conversation about the financial implications and resources necessary to enforce and implement policy priorities of both the Council and the administration now correct. She did not ask for a deferral I did because she's saying here we need a plan and I asked for a simple deferral so that we could come up with that plan to make sure that we know how we are going to achieve this version of the code because this version does require the City to be involved. It requires code enforcement to be involved and I just felt that it's a reasonable to say we should do a fiscal note, understand those costs and I know there was an attempt at a previous version or iteration of this and I really appreciate that because we have not been consistent or good about doing fiscal notes on anything that we do. So I really appreciate it but it
[01:37:36]
Should have been updated with the most recent version so that we know exactly what it is the costs are going to be and I think again a delay as we're talking about our biennial budget and what's going to go into that would have been a reasonable step. And so to be clear, the Mayor did not ask for a deferral I did, but it was based on her words that I felt that we needed it so that we knew that we could achieve what it is we're trying to achieve and have the costs identified to do it. Secondarily or lastly I guess I will just want to point out you know we also talk about in this you know that we're not going to mandate the use of materials or equipment that are not legal by State law won't right now there is a building code that says, you know, we have to implement heat pumps in new developments and there has been conversation about making that retroactive. So what happens if that becomes the law at some point? Now I'm not saying it is today. I'm not saying it will be tomorrow but eventually some day that might be we have the clean buildings act which requires a whole lot of retrofitting of buildings and that could very well be one piece of that you have to do in order to achieve the clean buildings act. The goals of that measure. So I want to make sure that we are not requiring, you know, astronomical costs to comply with this and obviously updating the entire electrical grid and all that which some of these buildings and require is going to be a very high level of cost. But even outside of that if that's not even required but you have to install a heat pump, you know, that could be very, very costly. In fact,
[01:39:14]
Spokesman-review did a story not too long ago talking about a grant that we lost from the federal government that would have brought 8 million dollars to serve 300 homes with a heat pump. So you do the math that is substantial cost. Now obviously government is involved. It's all going to get inflated by a lot but that is still you take away the inflator that is still a lot of money and as has been pointed out, we don't even have the personnel and folks in place necessarily to do all the work in a timely manner when we need it to be done well we if we have one you know, degree weather will you even have access to any equipment? All this has to be said. I don't believe this is fair. I don't believe it's fair to the tenants who are going to see potential rate hikes as a result. I don't believe it's fair to landlords who may try with all their might to be a good faith steward and a good faith you know, participate in our community by upholding the law. But they don't even know what to uphold. They don't even know what to achieve and it's just not fair for anybody involved.
[01:40:24]
And fundamentally we don't even know how we're going to pay for our share of this, let alone many of these other costs that are going to be associated. So with that I will cut myself off. I'm probably over my time anyway but I just would love to have more of an objective standard if we're going to do this and something that's affordable and it's not going to cause rate hikes for our low income individuals in this community. So I'll leave it there. Thank you. Council member dixit yes, thanks. Obviously I am a yes on this right. The cooling having been a part of the various iterations that have come through now the main thing that has always been true and that continues to be true that this is a right it's not a luxury and I think some people think about this as oh like ac is nice to have when people's adverse health effects happen way sooner than you think it might. And so it's been an interesting conversation because I doubt many of the people who have testified against this ordinance don't have cooling themselves and so I find that ironic and hypocritical and for me myself I actually don't have central ac in my home because that is expensive and so regularly my house was built back in the day in the early 1900s so it maintains a fair temperature versus at the time but when it doesn't get cool at nighttime my house is regularly at like 80 something and thankfully I am able to put
[01:42:00]
A portable unit in my bedroom so I'm able to go to sleep at night and not have adverse health impacts and so that is my existence and I am someone of privilege who has a home and has a house where I can do something like that and I believe that is something that everyone deserves the right to do. And so you know, with the objective piece that councilman Cathcart had brought up, we had originally had that 80 would be the max temperature that should be allowed in someone's bedroom and that was seen as too strict and then it was like all right, let's do an external trigger. So if it's 95 degrees for more than two consecutive days that would trigger this right to cooling and even that was seen as too much. And so adequate cooling was the definition that folks landed on with collaboration of multiple people whether that was folks from the gonzaga clements or toot slick or other housing providers that was the definition that they had come to and so collaboration was a big part of this and so I don't think it's necessarily a fair dig to say that there wasn't that stakeholder engagement collaboration. I think there's a difference between when you collaborate on a shared goal versus one in which people don't believe that is something that we should be moving towards because then you compromise to a point where what's the point of an ordinance in the first place?
[01:43:23]
And so like was stated earlier this was created in response to the 2021 heat dome but also in anticipation of increasing temperatures. Right because it's not getting any cooler. Right. Every summer we've had very, very high temperatures that continues to happen globally as was stated earlier. And so you know, people died in their homes five years ago and there were hundreds more that were hospitalized. Those numbers are probably lower than we think because of underreporting because people have existing health conditions that can be exacerbated by the heat and likely they died because of that and in that time housing providers have not necessarily prepared for the necessary upgrades. Right. It's been five years. There's been plenty of time to start this work or start doing the retrofitting or whatever has to happen to equip their units with cooling. And so if that hasn't happened in five years it is our job to step in and say this is a right actually that you have to provide this if you're going to provide housing for our community members and you know it is yeah, it's just been really interesting to with some of the confusion that has been brought up tonight with I would say there's been maybe like everyone in their mom has had an amendment for this right the cooling and so I think if there are concerns I would have loved to see a copyright amendment right addressing some of these things and I think the other concern that was brought up was oh, people are just going to break their lease and then move. If you've ever done that,
[01:45:02]
Moving is terrible and it costs a ton of money if you're going to break a lease and move somewhere else you have to have your first or last year deposit and all the moving costs and that's just not something people are going to do. And so I think that's a false argument there as well. And so all that to say I think this is a necessary step and I think I hope we continue to work on making sure that people have basic rights in their housing. And I think as councilman Dillon said earlier, what is the cost of a life councilmember Zappone yeah, yeah. Thanks for all the testimony everyone showing up. Really appreciate it and this long process I think when it comes to it's about some core values that I have and I think some core values that are competing in the community. One is about affordability and wanting to address affordability and hearing about that constraint on people's lives every day and having concerns around being able to afford groceries, being able to pay rent, being able to pay medical bills. I am always concerned when we're adding things to the list of building code or requirements that increase the costs overall.
[01:46:29]
However, at the same time I'm also very concerned about planning for the future and addressing climate change and building more resilient community and I'm deeply concerned about those impacts that it has on people. At the same time. So I think this ordinance in particular was in a moment when those two issues kind of came into tension with each other and I think at the end of the day we see the impacts of affordability on our streets every day and I know people who would rather have a house than have air conditioning as a priority to them and I think that the original versions of this ordinance didn't quite get to the implementation impacts that were raised. And so I think this version of the ordinance now is addressing how that's going to be implemented and how that will be impacting the costs to people to renters and in their houses. And so I think that this ordinance is in a place that I support it now it addresses the affordability aspects and makes it not have such detrimental impacts to affordability while also providing access to cooling to folks who are living in their homes. I definitely am excited and incredibly in support of the future ordinance that will be providing actual units to people and efforts to actually get cooling to people in their houses or in their
[01:48:05]
Homes. I think that path is going to be more direct and quicker to get it. But I think we've got to be addressing resiliency and its different aspects at the same time. And so I think this is important we are in a hotter environment and we need to plan for the future and I think that this longer timeline helps us plan for the future while also addressing the challenges of affordability that we have right now. Thank you. Councilmember lipski oh gosh. Sorry. All my permissions weren't turned on. Yeah. Thanks to everyone who testified and worked on this and provided feedback over the last several months, I just wanted to kind of back up a little bit and talk about how this where this ordinance really came from early in my first term. I'm still in my first term on Council I brought an ordinance that was also called great cooling and it was just the right to buy an air conditioner and put it in your apartment because that wasn't even a thing in Spokane when I started on Council and the climate institute brought that up as an issue and then early this year they came back after we had passed that they passed and we are noticing in the community that still not enough for people to meaningfully have a right to cooling because of all of the other competing forces that are going on in our housing market. So this we tried the easy way to do this
[01:49:41]
The path of less resistance or the low hanging fruit or whatever you want to call it and it wasn't enough at the time. So that's why I introduced another ordinance which was the first version of this ordinance to make that stronger and give people a right to have air conditioning. And it went through a lot of changes as councilmember dixit mentioned, we did have a numeric requirement at some point we the first draft was largely borrowed from oregon and we didn't necessarily have a clear strategy for how to implement that. It would have had more impacts on code enforcement. This one actually has the least amount of impact on code enforcement that I can imagine and the probably the least impact on landlords as well because code enforcement won't be going around and inspecting units and forcing them to add air conditioning. This will be a complaint driven situation where a tenant says that they need the air conditioning because a lot of landlords were saying why are you forcing us to put in air conditioning if the tenant doesn't want it?
[01:50:45]
And of course we don't want to force them to put air conditioning in if the tenant doesn't want it. So this ordinance actually has the flexibility for folks that are interested in air conditioning, for folks who have concerns about the affordability because this does not require the landlord to cover the cost of electricity, then there's an opportunity for tenants to not ask for it. So this is kind of splitting the difference there and compromising from both sides. Also some of the testimony that we heard both online and before the dyess implied that we're forcing landlords to put in fact systems that is not true as you heard from other Council members right now, this just requires some kind of cooling in a room if a tenant asks for it in one room in the apartment down the road I would like to see cooling in every bedroom.
[01:51:42]
And so I think that should be a requirement. And when we passed the early version of this ordinance back in 20 2425, 25, some people testifying against it said it was a slippery like eventually we're going to require cooling. Absolutely because I think at the end of the day we should be asking ourselves what a good community would do and what kind of community we want to build for the future instead of staying stuck and what we had in the past for most of my adult life I did not have air conditioning and I lived in top floor apartments in browns addition and there were nights where I seriously considered going and sleeping in portland park and even back then when we had was challenges in Spokane I didn't feel like that was safe for me but I seriously thought about it several times because it was cooler outside but because of the small size of my apartment and just the dynamics of where the windows that were openable were placed I was not getting cross ventilation. I was not able to cool my apartment at night. It was affecting my sleep. It was affecting my ability to work and that's happening to families in Spokane every day.
[01:52:51]
It's keeping parents awake that have to work to help their kids and support their kids at keeping their kids awake. You also keep the parents awake. It's not good for our community. A good community has habitable housing and that means not too hot and that means not too cold and that might be different for different people whatever you can sleep with I think is a good standard for what it's keeping you healthy. So I hope that clears up why we have the flexibility that we have as far as the electrical situation and whether or not landlords will eventually have to update their electric. I have a lot of confusion about why we think that we're going to keep a paradigm where we're just never going to bring our electrical systems up to like the 1980s we have electrical systems out there that could be classified as antique and I don't think our standard should be those should never have to be updated. Yes, we're working on weatherization trailer ordinance. We're working on assistance for landlords to bring their grids or their electrical systems up to code.
[01:53:59]
But if you're an investment researcher and you have investment property and you're failing to set money aside to do things like bring your place up to code like in my investment property I have updated the electric and we have installed window units in the bedrooms that I think that's just normal. That's what you do when you're investing in something is you keep it up to code, you keep it maintained and that shouldn't conflict with affordability that should be part of your long term business plan. So I am a former supporter of the previous versions of this ordinance and I am supporting this ordinance because I think this is what good communities do. They don't just languish in inertia, they improve and they do what's right for their community. Husband packard yeah thank you. I just want to comment respond on a couple of things. You know there was a comment earlier that most of the folks who are opposing this have ac and while I certainly do have central ac in my house for four years I didn't it didn't work and I couldn't afford to get it fixed. So from 2021 until last fall our ac did not work. We were routinely at 80 degrees and when the heat dome hit we were over 90 degrees and we had a newborn baby in the house at that time. So I am very well aware of the impacts and the feelings and how it can be overwhelming to live and sleep in that environment for multiple nights. You know we had to have the windows open which I don't like to do for safety reasons. We've also got
[01:55:39]
An indoor cat and I'm always concerned that he's going to get out. So there's you know but we did it because we had a newborn baby and we had to make sure that baby was comfortable and you know, even with the windows open it wasn't that great but we had to deal with it. There was a comment about why isn't there a Cathcart amendment? Well, there was an amendment that I supported. It was very quickly withdrawn unfortunately. But it essentially was a pretty significant compromise that I was willing to support that simply said, you had to maintain or provide a device in every room so it didn't it got rid of the definition of adequate cooling and it just simply said you had to provide a device and that to me is more of an objective standard that is reasonable. It's a modest cost that I think landlords can afford. I talked to a lot of lenders didn't like it. I talked to some that were willing to compromise with it but I was willing to support that because I thought that was a much more reasonable way to go about this, you know, especially as we often do things here is a camel's nose and then you know down the road they expand it and it's it's more but I think as a introductory of the concept that to me was sort of a reasonable option but unfortunately they didn't have support. It was pulled very quickly not my amendment. It was customers opinions but I was willing to support it.
[01:56:58]
There's a comment about you know, this is the least the version of it the least impact the well actually there was another version that had no impact to code enforcement. Now the byproduct of that was that it was going to push everything into the courts. So whether that was right or wrong but it did not have an impact on the cost of the City to enforce it. So I just want to make that clear. There was another version that was on the docket that we had considered briefly that it was a little bit different impact and then there was a customer request keeps coming about you know, why aren't folks meeting code? Well they are meeting code. The code doesn't require that they go back and update the electrical. If it did they would be you know we now have the clean buildings act that requires a lot of these buildings to retrofit go back and change things and they are some of them can get deferrals and delays and all that but they are having to meet that code if the mandate was that you had to go and update the electrical in such a fashion as to bring it up to current standards rather than the standards of when the building was either built or last remodeled then you would see that. But whether that's the mandate or whether that's what they want to do just to be a good landlord they got to pay for it somehow and so either they're going to pass those costs along or they're going to sell the property because they can't afford it and the new investor will come in and raise the rents to pay for it. So the costs are going to get passed along to tenants and tenants are going to pay more as a result of that. Now if that's something that we're willing to entertain you know we've been willing to entertain those things with landlord tenant laws. We've been willing to entertain those or at least many have been willing to entertain those things with
[01:58:34]
With all the energy codes, all of these things that have resulted in increased cost of housing and if that's just simply the trade off that we're willing to say okay, well we'll trade higher costs for these certain standards or these certain requirements then that's that's a political decision of this body of the State legislature of the State building code Council. But it's a decision that certainly communities can make but that's not what's required right now. But to meet this code potentially it will be required because this code could in some instances require that these older buildings that are meeting code would have to update to a newer code in order to have the ability to handle that. The energy load and demand. And so I just to make it clear there's you know, I like to provide or you know, look for some kind of amendment that I can support, you know, but I see here just where there's going to be costs added to tenants that always makes me very nervous. But I have like I said, I was willing to be open to a compromise amendment that was on the docket for a brief period of time but there was not the support for it. So I'll leave it there but I just wanted to respond to a few those things have this in with thank you all for the community and really to my fellow Council members this has been quite the exercise of our ordinance. I just want the community you know even though we don't disagree, there's really been done with civility and I really appreciate that the community already has a right to cooling
[02:00:11]
Senate bill six 200 passed that came effective July 1st even while we were still working on this ordinance, tenants had a right to cooling in their homes. I will say I have served on the board of a low income housing organization and I have seen how tight the margins are then and now. They wanted to provide the best they could to the tenants that they provide housing for and no, there is no cost that anybody can come up with a cost of life. So that is not even a discussion for me and yes it is complex because we've had various situations of people living in their environment. I challenged our teachers, talked to me about people on the streets. It's hot out there. We did not expand any capacity. They said the navigation center will the navigation center closes at 7:00 at night and so we know the streets hold the heat at night so that's just as challenging for me. I'm very supportive of the trailer ordinance that brings snap in a vista together we could do that. Well this passes or not.
[02:01:28]
I will say some people laughed at me but it's like we're trying to legislate the heat over the City of Spokane. You can go across the street and you're in the Spokane valley or you can go across the street and you're in airway heights. It's the same heat, the same challenge to people the same way I am challenged with we have laws that are right in the City of Spokane that we control but really this whole heat dome climate thing is a regional issue and for us to try to legislate one side of the street from the other side of the street and this group of people and that group of people or I even went as far as to say if it should happen to be a housing organization that have landlord tenant laws in the City of Spokane and they have different landlord tenant laws in the valley, what they have to comply to I think that's challenging. I think that is not fair to the people that are providing housing to the people that we want to have housed going forward. There's a lot of work to be done on this.
[02:02:41]
I cannot support it the way it is right now because I've been on the other side and seeing the challenges that are faced by landlords especially to the people we want to protect and help. And I've had conversations with code enforcement and yes this will be a burden on them. They're down three people and they say Council President we rather be working on apartments where they can't even open their windows. That's what we'd like to be enforcing. We like to be out enforcing apartments where the roofs are leaking is really not safe and habitable for them to be living in addition to the whole cooling thing. So there are challenges to come on this and the implementation has the votes to pass tonight. But really even with the trailer ordinance that we have, that's not a lot of money. It's some but it's not a lot to get the kind of outcome that I think people would be expecting and I think for them to have the expectations that something will be done by the City and they will call code enforcement and they'll be out there immediately and something will happen that's not going to that's just not going to be the way it's going to be executed going forward. So once again, I don't want to have our citizens with these expectations that we can't meet and there are many of them but this one it will be important but we won't be able to execute I think the way many in the community would like to
[02:04:18]
See us executed so I will not be in support of this not because I don't want people to be cool we all do but challenges this is a very complex even the yearly increase on the rent and how that's figured out and we kind of went round and round about that but going forward I think there are opportunities. Cooling is already a right let's lean in on what exist and how we can make that stronger across the board for everybody not just the people that live within the boundaries of the Spokane City Council member Dillon yeah. First I want to thank you for your amendment that you sponsored to simplify that inflation formula and what Spokane valley does in other cities. Those are things that we cannot control. We were elected to control what's inside our City limits and I also think to if you're a resident out there and this harkens back to something that councilmember glinski said when we took office raise your expectations of us. Yeah, we need to do better. Raise your expectations of us and what government can do for you in the City of Spokane. That is what this ordinance is about.
[02:05:40]
It is trying to do better. I'm sorry it took so long but this ordinance is a meaningful step. Thank you. Thank you. Prepare to vote I oh my bad. Prepared to vote s five zero thank you. That concludes our legislative agenda item 552 that passes 5 to 2. That concludes our legislative agenda. We will now transition to open form and you have two minutes and please address all your comments to the chair. Okay. First I have just steve you know provided last name. Up next will be ricky walters. Now go ahead. I'm speaking to journalists from inland auditing media. I remind the City of case law and acosta versus City of costa mesa and nourse versus City of santa cruz. Personal offense taken doesn't authorize my silence removal under the veil of disruption on July 16th
[02:07:18]
While reporting at the publicly owned esmeralda golf course, a City employee repeatedly hurled anti-gay slurs at me and told me to rape little boys. One of your employees even assaulted me twice first by steering an industrial lawnmower toward me veering away only inches from my feet and later by lunging within inches of me with his fist drawn back preparing to strike me. It's all on video. I know you have all seen it in retaliation the City had officers valencia and lieutenant stevens impose an indefinite exclusion against me. The victim and journalist documenting the misconduct that exclusion facially violates the port the park board's own policy to each of you including Mayor Brown, you support bigotry. You preach tolerance while tolerating bigotry and your employees promotion of child rape while advertising yourselves as defenders of equality, dignity and vulnerable citizens. You take no position on this employee unleashing anti-gay abuse and advocating that children be raped. I wonder why this that is not equality. It's fraudulent political advertising. Your you protected the institution, ignored the victim and tacitly embraced anti-gay slurs and the promotion of child rape through your silence hoping the embarrassment would disappear.
[02:08:28]
Yet here I am delivering the embarrassment to your front door here on open meeting recording as a public record Spokane's message is clear look the boots of the bigot Mayor and the boot licking City Council are risk being life banned from public property. But don't take my word for it. I don't want to get hit by you that way on a matter of you got oh, that's your employee threatening to run over people with lawnmowers that are reporting on stories about maintenance issues. That's your City employee.
[02:09:19]
That's what you support here told me to go rape little boys for your time is up. Thank you s thanks chris spicer okay. First time public speaking. So good evening esteemed Council members. My name is chris spicer. I'm a three year resident of Spokane and several good friends of mine work for the Spokane public library system. This work is something that matters dearly to them and so they have all brought to my attention a grievous shortfall in these libraries budgets the shortfall if not properly allocated foreign funded will lead to a reduction across the board of not just my friends livelihoods but the amazing and life changing services and resources that are public libraries to provide to each and every one of us.
[02:10:26]
And while I can't personally speak for how that loss would affect most of you here today, I can say that there is a group of artists who would lose a dearly beloved and much needed means to build and maintain community because I am a part of that group of artists I don't get out much. I don't have much of a social circle and I would be devastated to lose that little piece of community and belonging. I would be even more devastated if my friends lost their jobs. On top of that, Spokane's libraries are a treasure the literal best I've ever found across the country and as someone who has done a lot of traveling I do not say that lightly. It would be an absolute tragedy and a horrific shame if a lapse in proper funding were to take all that away from us. I hope you the City Council will take that into consideration and I thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Up next is andy phillips and then we'll have james y phillips and I work at the shuttle branch of the Spokane public library. Well, I do not officially speak for a spell. I still wanted to speak as a Spokane City resident of district three to express my support for allocating the bridge funding of $2.3 million to the Spokane public library.
[02:11:45]
I love my job. Every day I get to connect with people, connect them to local resources, legal resources, housing resources, employment, education you name it. Parents come to the library with their kids to have fun in our play areas and leave that and leave with stacks of picture books. But more than anything I get to be a part of something important. We get to provide people with a safe space for teenagers coming to play on our computers after school or our unhoused neighbors taking a break from the elements such as extreme heat. This budget cut could possibly lead to me losing my job. And I am not alone in this fact. Not only would we personally suffer but so would our community. So many members of our community rely on the library lot rely on us for resources, for safe space and of course for good books to read. Please properly allocate funding to the library for my sake for the sake of my coworkers and most importantly for the sake of our community. Thank you. Thank you. Next I have james. And then after james will be rick bowcock hello. My name is james. I'm new here to Spokane. And I have concerns about the funding of local libraries. I chose to move here to Spokane because in part of the libraries and the resources that they offer to newcomers and citizens alike, they're a treasure to any town that they're well funded in.
[02:13:10]
And it would be a big shame to see it then have to close down on certain days or certain hours when it's been such an integral part to my coming here and how I've been funding community so far. What I've seen in the libraries has made me feel like I've made the right decision. My biggest concern with the budget shortfall is that the library will no longer be able to provide the services that it can right now and helping newcomers settle in or find community. In my view this would be a detriment to attracting more folks to live here as libraries tend to be the benchmark for how the City itself is seen and underfunded library usually makes the town as a whole seem a lot worse overall which is something I've noted about all the places that I've been. Please consider properly funding the local libraries for the folks who work here and for the folks who need them and love them. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Rick bookmark. After rick will have kiana mckenna Monday to call the police on the landlord. Can you come storming down into the laundry room? And I tell my girlfriend and she thinks she's doing the laundry, not what he's doing.
[02:14:32]
He was literally going to go into the bathroom while she's taking a shower. The police came. They said it didn't come to the level of voyeurism but harassment. And got the copy of code enforcement. And all this time I've been living at my place. This is everything has been illegal. Illegal? We've been renting a place that is not acceptable even by code enforcement. I'm going to give you an I'm just going to give you a little bit of a rule of the exit that I have. I have to go through a laundry room. See that? That's the distance I have to go through. And they're supposed to have a three foot door. There's washing machines and dryers in there. They're illegal. All this stuff has been illegal and deceptive like it says in the community. I mean the consumer protection act.
[02:15:29]
And I don't know what's going to happen. You know, could pass. I was going to talk to them. But the cons you know, like I don't even have a legitimate fire exit right now. So when you guys are talking about death, you know, every day that I'm at this place it's unsafe. But you get a place to low income. I can't even get it can't even get a regular house or apartment because of the barriers that I go to go across. But these landlords, they need to be held accountable. And I'm going to leave a copy of the letter with betsy. They're not in the picture. You know what I have to go through. Thank you. Thank you. Next is kiana mckenna and then sebastian reese. Hi. Are you gotten a little sleepy? So excuse me. My sleep voice. My name is kiana mckenna. I'm the deputy director at the pacific islander community association, which is the largest serving and nonprofit in Washington.
[02:16:37]
Our local office is located in district three here in Spokane and my family lives in district two. I've also served on the City's equity subcommittee since its inception in 2022. I'm here tonight to address a very unexpired heated and concerning budgeting decision which was made to eliminate the equity manager position within the City of Spokane. This decision is harmful and damaging in a few ways. It leaves the work of the equity subcommittee in a very precarious spot. The subcommittee has been able to carry out its work because of the manager's role which is outlined in our bylaws is something the City would support. I want to remind you that it's not enough to create something that must be sustained. Not only this our subcommittee has been working with only the support of alex and our community based organizations capacity to move our equitable budgeting framework through review with City leaders. This work has taken years and alex has played a critical role in helping us have our voices heard in our ability to advise you all which is why we were created in the first place. We're also bringing you an evidence based budgeting framework which is proven to save costs. So the irony here is not lost on me.
[02:17:40]
Sadly, I do not believe that we would have been able to get this far without the City position. I'm very disheartened and tired as I stand here tonight. And I do believe this is exactly why apathy runs rampant in our communities and why they're left civically traumatized and why we have such a hard time engaging them. By ending this position and losing alex as a City staffer. We are really suffering a lot of critical community relationships which took years to build. One of the handful of people who has created access for our voices to be heard in City hall has been let go. And to be clear, no one has created access to have our voices heard and reflected in the City like alex would really like answers around why this decision was made and how the City will support the equity subcommittee moving forward. I urge you all to act before alex's last day and also examine the status quo you uphold through your budgeting decisions which can be very dangerous and harmful. Thank you. Next I have sebastian online. Sebastian in my meeting you and you can start whenever you're ready.
[02:18:41]
Good afternoon. Council members, members of the audience hope everyone as well. My name is sebastian terrace and the community policy liaison at man what is in action? And I'm the chair of City Council's equity subcommittee. My comment today follows kiana mckenna and is best captured in a single question what will Council's commitment to the equity subcommittee look like in practice without a manager of equity and inclusion initiatives? Council's recent decision to eliminate the initiative manager roles raises major questions regarding its subcommittees and its equity and outreach efforts. Those managers for key contacts facilitating concrete work and communication between community members, City Staff and Council members and the equity subcommittee. Just when we had developed a workgroup and made a concrete proposal. This decision entails a practical challenge for Council for its current staff and I'm thinking of things like the equity assessment tools and of course for the equity subcommittees access to all of you as the chair of the equity subcommittee. I have to request that Council members meet with the subcommittee to discuss next steps and develop a shared long term vision. The report by matrix consulting diagnoses a diagnosis a few implementation concerns that we need to discuss and also outlines recommendations that I believe align with the subcommittee's work.
[02:20:07]
Furthermore, Council offered a specific list of commitments in the subcommittees bylaws that I believe require your attention. I want to acknowledge councilmember dixit commitment to the subcommittee. On the other hand, I don't want her office to become say for example, a bottleneck that sets up both her office and the subcommittee up for failure. So on behalf of the subcommittee I hope you will all connect with us soon. Thank you. Thank you. Next I have monika mueller. How about ronald xavier?
[02:20:59]
Good evening or good evening City Council. I love the words accountability core values, right to implement basic rights. What would a good community do? The price of life. Those things are important. In education I've noticed that the black community is being left out constantly left out. I sat down with adam swinford and heather bybee and we discussed some ideas that I had. I did all the work, put the work in to try and create an environment that would allow us to be included not just to be seen as slaves but to see the things we actually did and contributed to society. His name is james harvey the third. He was the first top gun. He's a black man. Not many people know that. There's a difference in culture. Imitation of life the original. Most white people probably wouldn't know what it is. Most black people will back east depending on your when you were born. I think we need to take some responsibility and some accountability for what we do.
[02:21:58]
The children we don't take care of the day. They're going to be your problem tomorrow. Closing down some of these centers is going to hurt those kids. Living on the streets is not going to help them. I've actually talked to people to work with them and people for some reason don't return calls executive order 13576. Delivering an efficient and accountable government. Barack obama signed that in 613 to 11. That means that we deserve to get some of that federal money thrown in our direction. And we need to have somebody who's passionate here. Why people will constantly say oh, Spokane is so white or too you seem angry if you don't know the difference between anger and passion. You're probably not the person to represent me. I'll sit down and talk with almost anyone in the marine corps. We won't leave anybody behind. We need to start to adopt that. We need to say let's not leave them behind. I'm open to conversations. I moved to the City when we were in the green and now we're in the red. How can we change that? Well, adams when you're heather bobby nicky lockwood make just under $1 million.
[02:22:58]
Maybe we should start freezing some of those salaries and using some of that money to educate myself. Thank you. Okay. I don't see just out there. So we'll go to theresa brooks. Oh, that was unexpected. I thought I wasn't going to get on today. I'm theresa brooks. I was here last week mumbling and reading but I'm not going to go with the script this week. So I was talking about how passionate I am about working with youth. Ron talked about how the young there's a sinner shelter closing here in Spokane. Our youth are going to be on the street. I want to be a part of the solution and I want you guys to be part of us working together to make sure these kids have a space. We're going to be having 44 kids and I call them kids because I know what it's like to be on the street or I didn't live on the street but I had a community I had someone who made sure I had a bit as an athlete. I made sure they made sure I had track practice schedule.
[02:24:06]
I want to see us working together to make sure these kids have somewhere to go and that's all I want to talk about is the kids. So that's what I'm here for. So I don't want to see these kids on the street. I want us to come up with a solution asap. I want to be part of that and I want all the organizations that want to work with me to come meet me. I'll send you guys an email I've set of couple emails to a few people around here. I haven't gotten anything any response back yet but this is an emergency. I know betsy has talked about what is declared as an emergency. I want to declare this is an emergency. We need to figure out a plan. That's it. Thank you. That's it. That concludes our open forum for this evening. I'll entertain a motion for adjournment to have second. It's been moved in second. All those in favor please indicate by saying I I it is general.
[02:25:03]
No, we are adjourned. We will be on break for two weeks. We will be returning on August 19th. All right. Thank you. Get away from me
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[00:02:51]
. Good evening everyone and welcome to Spokane City Council agenda for July 29th the summer is fast winding up. We will start with our land acknowledgment. We acknowledge that we're on the unceded land of the Spokane people and that these lands were once the major trading center for the Spokane's as they shared this place and welcomed other area tribes through their relations history, trade and ceremony. We also want to acknowledge that the land holds the spirit of the place. There was knowledge culture in all the original people since time immemorial. As we take a moment to consider the impacts of colonization may we also acknowledge the strengths and resiliency of the Spokane's and their relatives as we work together making decisions that benefit all. May we do so as one heart, one mind and one spirit. We are grateful to be on the shared lands of the Spokane people and ask for the support of their ancestors and all relations. We ask that you recognize these injustices that forever changed the lives of the Spokane people and all their relatives. We agree to work together to stop all acts of continued injustices toward native americans and all our relatives. It is time for reconciliation. We must act upon the truth and take actions that will create restorative justice for all people. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
[00:04:29]
United states of america and together with one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Byrd, you call the roll Council President Wilkerson present Council Member Cathcart president Council member Dillon here Council member tell us present Council member dixit here Council member clint ski present Council members upon here let the record reflect that all Council members are present. Thank you and thank you again. I think this is our third Wednesday night as we continue to work through the changes at our meeting. So thank you for your patience and thank you for coming out. One of our changes is the testimony so speakers may address any item on the entire Council agenda including any ordinance resolution appointment and special consideration and may speak up for three minutes. Speakers who opt to speak during this time may not speak again during the legislative session except for hearings in open forum. So who do we have for express testimony? Up first I have amber johnson g again. My name is amber johnson. I am here tonight in my capacity as the incoming ceo for Spokane neighborhood action partners or snap. Last year we served over 48,000 of our
[00:06:08]
Neighbors including serving them with affordable rental housing. I'm here tonight to thank you all for taking time to circle back to affordable housing providers on ordinance c36877 regarding cooling snap deeply appreciates the consideration given to our concerns and the resulting amendments. We look forward to continuing to work together on identifying funding mechanisms that are to make the necessary electrical distribution upgrades which we estimate to be over $1,000 or over a thousand over $1 million for our Spokane City portfolio. And we look forward to continued to work with community partners to address affordability concerns for our tenants related to increased utility usage. Well no ordinance is ever perfect all in all the amendments to the ordinance will provide snap the necessary time to secure the necessary funding to make these improvements in our housing portfolio. And again I just wanted to say thank you for your time and your consideration.
[00:07:12]
Thank you. Up next I have josie helton. So she's online but I don't see her. So we'll go to chris batten. And then next will be will healings good evening Council. My name is chris barton with rand corp realty. We own a number of downtown historic properties both residential and commercial. One of my primary concerns are that these buildings were never designed to accommodate this use. Frankly, even with the extension it'll cost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. We don't even know if the service to the buildings is sufficient to be able to accommodate it. In many cases, you know, the panels are not up to whether up to code but they're just not they're not capable of handling the additional load the distribution wiring and such are also dated in that regard.
[00:08:10]
But you know, I think my biggest concern really is the definition of adequate heating. I don't think it is. There is no definition. It's subjective. It's whatever one person thinks is adequate and that causes a real problem especially when the remedy is that they can unilaterally terminate their lease. Okay. What's adequate for one person is not adequate for another. And somebody can literally say I want my unit at 68 degrees and if you can't do it then I'm going to walk and terminate my lease. And there are literally is no there is no process. There's no. You know no I don't get a court hearing. I don't get anything. It's just you're unilaterally terminating a binding contract. So those are my concerns. I agree that something needs to be done. In my opinion personally I believe it's a reasonable accommodation issue where somebody has a legitimate medical issue. I think most landlords are willing to accommodate them. And I think that there's already laws in place that could be adapted to fit that particular definition.
[00:09:10]
So with that I would ask you to oppose it. And I also believe that this does nothing for affordability and will ultimately raise cost cause rents to go up ultimately to cover the costs. Thank you. Thank you. Will hearings. Then next will be jake mason. Good evening. My name is will huling and I live downtown Spokane. So I'm going to ask you to pretty much repeat what I repeated last time you guys heard from me. But under Spokane municipal code 16 a point six 2.040 it is unlawful to operate a motorized personnel personal transportation device on sidewalks within the retail zone of the congested downtown district. So in plain english and this is for Spokane, the downtown police precinct. Um let's see. Riding line scooters on downtown sidewalks is prohibited outside of that zone. Electric scooters may be allowed on the sidewalk but riders must follow bicycle rules. In our limited to a maximum speed of ten miles per hour. I'm pretty mad about this because I just had to go to court because two privileged
[00:10:50]
Females on one lime scooter almost ran me in my dog over and we were just out enjoying our evening. But here come two females on a lime scooter at nine in the evening. And instead of slowing down they decided to squeeze between me and a wall and then they crashed and then they tried blaming me for it but it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous that we have to deal with this on the weekends. And as you know, I talked to you earlier, betsy. There's lots of complaints about these like you mentioned. Yeah, I've seen 1020 lime scooters on the sidewalk. And these are all younger people. It's you're supposed to be 18 and upright lime scooters. So guess what?
[00:11:49]
Every time I see that I'm going to be calling crime check because it's against the law. It's actually a $118 fine. This needs to be talked about more. I mean you guys just keep on renewing the contract when you know that these lime scooters are nothing but problems. I mean they throw them in the river almost running over people. I mean they've hit friends of mine with service animals. But anyways, that's all I got. Thank you. Thank you, will. Next I have jake mason online. Jake, I'm going to meet you and then you can start whenever you're ready. Great. Thank you so much. Good evening. Council President Wilkerson and members of the Council. My name is jake mace and I'm here on behalf of the Washington multifamily housing association. First I want to acknowledge that the right to coin ordinance is substantially better than where it began. We appreciate the time Council spent engaging with stakeholders and making revisions over the past several months. These contributions have resulted in meaningful improvements for implementation. Despite those changes we continue to have grave concerns about the ordinance and its long term impact on Spokane's housing market. Housing providers share many of the goals of Council when it comes to rental housing. We want everyone to be protected from extreme heat. We want everyone to have a safe place to call home. And we believe that everyone should be able to afford their rent. When new housing regulations are developed without full collaboration from those responsible for implementing them, the result is often greater costs, more complexity and unintended consequences that ultimately reduce housing affordable affordability harm tenants and discourage housing supply. There are two truths
[00:13:24]
That remain when it comes to housing in Spokane. First that the rent is too high making it more expensive to provide housing keeps rents high. Second, Spokane needs more housing making it harder to operate here means fewer homes will be built here. The impacts of both of these truths will continue to harm renters and Spokane nights and how we can fix how we approach problems. This ordinance exasperates both of these issues with Spokane housing. We believe the better model is a collaborative one. My members are experts in attracting more housing. My members are experts in providing clean, safe and affordable housing. They've earned a spot at the table beyond my membership. Nonprofit organizations utilities building experts and tenant advocates all deserve to have a real hand in finalizing policy. That kind of partnership leads to solutions that are practical, durable and targeted to residents who need the most. We appreciate the Council has moved in the direction during that during this process. Our hope is that a more collaborative approach becomes the standard not the exception for future housing policy.
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Housing affordability and resident safety are not competing priorities. Spokane can achieve both but only if we work together. Thank you so much for your time and thank you again. The approach to this ordinance next I have dana harbor and then rick walters will be next. Good evening Spokane City Council members. My name is dana harbor and I currently serve as the chair of the downtown Spokane partnership and I'm here to testimony also on the cooling ordinance. I appreciate the intent behind this ordinance extreme heat is a serious concern and all of us want residents to be safe and healthy. The question before us is not whether cooling access matters. The question is whether the right to cooling ordinance is the right solution for Spokane.
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Downtown Spokane's housing stock is different from much of the City. As chris said, many of our apartment buildings were constructed in the early 1900s. They were simply not designed for modern cooling systems. This historic buildings often lack the electrical capacity, structural configuration and mechanical infrastructure needed to accommodate permanent cooling installations. Retrofitting them is not as simple as installing an air conditioner. In many cases compliance could require building wide electrical upgrades, rewiring reconstruction of units, new mechanical systems and ongoing maintenance. For owners of historic workforce housing these costs can quickly become prohibitive. My concern is that this ordinance could unintentionally undermine one of Spokane's most important affordable housing resources and that is our existing historic apartment buildings.
[00:16:13]
Many downtown residents are seniors, students service workers and people living on fixed incomes. These buildings provide naturally affordable, affordable housing precisely because they already exist. Every new regulatory requirement increases operating costs and compliance burdens. Those costs ultimately show up in higher rents, deferred maintenance, reduced investment or in some cases the loss of housing units altogether for this proposal also comes on top of numerous other mandates including energy code requirements, electrification requirements and compliance obligations under the clean building act. Viewed individually, each requirement may seem manageable however viewed collectively they create significant financial pressure on the very buildings we are trying to preserve. Importantly, Washington already has taken action by protecting tenants rights to install portable cooling. That approach provides flexibility while recognizing the realities of older buildings. I would encourage the Council to pursue solutions that expand cooling access without jeopardizing housing affordable. City compassion and practicality are not opposites. We can protect vulnerable residents from existing from extreme heat without creating policies that unintentionally reduce affordable housing opportunities.
[00:17:35]
Thank you. Thank you, rick walters. And then next will be matt walsh. Good evening, Council. I want to say hello to Mr. Hillis. You're him. You're my representative. Kenneth addition. I run holy ghost transitional housing llc. And I would like to make a proposal to the Council. I'd like to save 10,000 dollars. I'd like to underbid the navigation center for homelessness in my 1904 craftsman. I'm also opposed to the resolution about maintaining a 1904 craftsman which I did myself. I operate coed low barrier housing and I would like the opportunity to serve Spokane in a bigger light. Thank you for your time. Matt walsh. Then next will be jared goode.
[00:18:41]
All right. Evening everyone. Council President Wilkerson, member of the Council. Thank you for allowing me to testify. So as we've all kind of said, I mean certainly we can all agree that cooling is important for everybody. We've got vulnerable members and even those that may not be as vulnerable. You still we all still need to get out of the heat. So I think we're all in line on that. As was said also I mean our State clearly agreed with that. They've made it so that tenants can install their own portable cooling units or install their own units in their units, their suites or apartments or whatever units. So that said, by doing this ordinance, what's the real purpose of it? Because if we're creating an ordinance for something that's already been allowed and we're putting more teeth in it that are in favor of one side rather than, you know, making it fair for both, that's not really accomplishing much. Now in this case the thing that's really one of the things that's concerning because the amendments you guys have put forth have been great.
[00:19:36]
So thank you for doing that. Thank you for your efforts with that and for collaborating. But if a tenant can walk after 72 hours written notice I mean if they send us an email on a Friday night when everybody's gone nobody's checking their emails on saturday, sunday you get back to work on Monday and you have to walk you looking are you going to be able to get a tech out there? That's a question when it's 95 or 100 degrees out there are technicians all over the City but there aren't enough to go around for every single emergency that happens. And so that means a tenant can just go break a binding contract. That's not right. So if they're allowed to install a unit in their apartment and they elect not to do that and they write the landlord and say you need to do this, they're going to need a lot more than 72 hours to make it feasible. He's got to go out and get pricing. You've got to contact vendors. You got there's a lot of things that go into it. So with that being said can create unintended consequences. You have tenants that'll be vacating. You know some of them may use that as an excuse to vacate. I'm not saying that they will but some could create unnecessary legal fees. This is kind of open ended for both sides for the landlord and the tenant. The other part as chris boughton said and he is spot on right with some of these buildings that historically you may have to rewire. There could be issues with switchgear issues with panels, issues with transformers depending upon what the load is of these buildings. These are all things that need to have mechanical engineers brought in fact specialists and studies done to really go forward and see what feasibility looks like because from the costs of it and looking at it just initially a lot of this is very cost prohibitive. Well, we're all for cooling and making sure everybody is safe for sure. You know, there are other ways to go about it than this one for sure. All of the amendments
[00:21:16]
Are great but there's still work to do. So I would urge for tonight please vote no on this. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. I have jared good. And then steve corker will be next d evening members of the Council. My name is jared gooden. I am currently a student over at gonzaga university college of law and I am also a summer associate at the gonzaga environmental and climate law clinic. Today I stand in support alongside my clinic of ordinance c36 877. As I'm sure you all are adequately aware especially with the past few weeks summer temperatures are only rising. Furthermore, this ordinance would be a step towards addressing this direct climate challenge. We currently see a similar ordinance being passed in new york City as well as the State of delaware.
[00:22:13]
And as has been mentioned previously in our own State, this ordinance would allow us to begin taking the first steps of establishing cooling as a necessity for tenants and homeowner and dwelling occupants moving forward. We have a chance for Spokane to be at the forefront of legislation history and ensuring that this goes properly for future generations. I urge you all to consider this and to pass the ordinance. Thank you. All right, steve caulker, Council President members of the Spokane City Council. It is often said that the best legislation occurs when both sides of an issue are pleased made happy. The cooling ordinances resulting in the fact that no one is happy not the tenants, not their advocates, not the private property owners, not the nonprofit housing property landlords, not our Mayor and not even the many members of the City Council. I had hope that the passing of senate bill 60 200 which went into effect in July would have had an opportunity to allow the City to observe a lot of the issues that were involved in the cooling ordinance itself. I recognize that there is still much more that needs to be done. When you decide to implement this ordinance, the ordinance needs better policy definitions. Adequate cooling
[00:23:53]
Is still subjective and difficult to measure. The 72 hour response period may be unrealistic especially during the time when this region is facing like they did last year a major heating crisis and the local supply of air conditioning units was exhausted. In addition, I think the mayors concerned with certain financial associated with issues with this ordinance. First the impact on the staff of the code enforcement office which is already under staffed. And second, some of the long term issues and the need for weather resolution and funding and things that can help all properties in Spokane meet these improved standards. As president of the enderlin north end, an association of landlords and as current president a member of the board of regents for the rental housing association. I do want to thank ben stucker gonzaga university for approaching paul Dillon with their concerns and with the input. I saw that the Spokane low income housing consortium, catholic charities and other low income housing providers made discussions that really allowed for a full involvement of the private sector of our industry. I want to give special thanks to betsy Wilkerson and Council member michael Cathcart for recognizing early some of the concerns in the process and I deeply appreciate all of the Council members who took time
[00:25:30]
To meet to listen to the concerns of our industry over the past three months. It has been appreciated. I really urge a postponement of this issue so some of the other issues can be addressed. We're almost through the summer session in terms of implementation and I think that full considerations of the concern are by the office of the Mayor should be part of a formal process. Thank you. That's it. That concludes our express testimony. Thank you all. Next we're going to go into a final hearing. Mr. Burgess, we're going to read the hearing. Final hearing on ordinance c 36 887 passed as amended on 622 2026 imposing an immediate one year citywide moratorium on the filing acceptance processing review and approval of applications to establish or expand data centers. Setting a public hearing and declaring an emergency continued from 720 to 2026.
[00:26:39]
This is the time and place set for the hearing on the matter of ordinance c three 6887 the moratorium on data centers. I will now call this hearing to order. First we have a staff report from Adam McDaniel. Council members and media in the Mayor's office here to present just a quick overview of the City's next steps during this moratorium period. As a reminder, the moratorium directed the work plans to the climate resilience and sustainability board and Plan Commission to be amended to create essentially a impact review and policy framework that ultimately be recommended to Council. So over this moratorium period we have two fundamental goals. The first is to maximize opportunities for community and stakeholder engagement and we'll talk about how to do that here in just a second.
[00:27:33]
And then the second is to let the science best practice in City guiding plans for the climate plan water conservation plan laid the policy development. So there's a few fundamental questions to guide part of this framework. You know, I won't go through each of these but you know, are there opportunities that data centers would align with our conservation and sustainability goals? What is the definition of a data center? What is the definition of a large data center? Are there differences in type and uses? What are the economic and workforce benefits and impacts and how? What are the regulatory levers for ensuring those benefits? And then what's the regulatory authority of the City of Spokane and what are the regulations or the regulatory authority that is outside the scope of the City's regulatory authority? The Mayor has tasked City administrator alex scott and myself to pull together an internal City workgroup cross divisional to kind of address some of the questions that I'm assuming that the crc and the planning commission will have in the help guide them in their data and policy research. So that's going to include folks from public works, environmental programs, water integrated capital management, transportation and sustainability and planning and economic development.
[00:28:54]
And Council President if you if there's councilmembers or Council staff that are interested in working on that workgroup, we would love to have you. So the work of the climate resilience and sustainability board is essentially first what we're envisioning there is to have a series of workshops on the specifics impacts related to data centers and kind of do a deep dive into each of those front loading water and wastewater regulatory constraints duty to serve State policy considerations that were State legislation last year did not pass. What do we expect to see over this next session? Noise mitigation decommissioning of stranded assets in a few of those different things. And the intent is to begin this work actually as soon as August. So the meeting in August I think is the first workshop after the climate resilience and sustainability board does their work.
[00:29:53]
They will present those inputs and recommendations to the Plan Commission. They'll incorporate the incorporate those recommendations into policy recommendations and ultimately Council has the final word on what that policy looks like. So here's just a tentative timeline. As I mentioned, the August climate resilience and sustainability board meeting should start those workshops and data centers where the planning commission we're anticipating would start their workshops and public hearings in quarter 1 to 2027 and we expect that will overlap with the State legislative session. The moratorium expires on June 22nd 2027. We do not consider that a deadline. We consider that a due date. So if there's opportunities to take action before that we certainly will and there are some things outside the scope of the moratorium. Water, etc. That you know that is not addressed to this moratorium. So those are things that could go a little bit earlier. So there's two. Like I said, the two boards that have been tasked for some of this work the climate resilience the sustainability board planning commission their meetings are all public meetings. There's an opportunity if you go on the website to join their email list there you can get agendas, you can get the documents that are shared with these boards and ways to engage and attend their meetings and that's what we all have for the next steps.
[00:31:26]
Happy to take any questions? Thank you Council rick eckhart good customer check out. Adam could you hang around? Can we go ahead and take public testimony? Sure. Councilman can't control that testimony. He missed this. Yeah. First I have breean mcgee. And then rick testified last week. Then we'll go to catherine alexander. Great. You have three minutes. Great. Thanks, Council. Appreciate you holding this space again and thank you, adam, for that report. That was really informative for me as well. I'm actually really glad that you said lead with the science as a core pillar in the City's year long look into how to best address data center moratorium because one of my biggest concerns around data centers as I stand here before you talking as a board member of the Spokane riverkeeper is of course water. But I want to talk about something that is an emerging science relating to human health impacts and that is noise pollution. So there has been emerging research on noise pollution, particularly and its impact on human health and wildlife health particularly about impact in cardiovascular health from noise pollution. There are numerous studies coming out.
[00:32:46]
There is a really large metadata analysis study in 20 23 that links adverse health effects such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hearing impairment and reproductive outcomes to noise pollution. There's just from a survey of research that I did over the past couple of weeks really last week, the noise pollution impact seemed to impact women more so than men. That was a common thread throughout the research that I found which I found to be really concerning among many other things. But I bring all of this up to say that it doesn't take very much research to also see how noise pollution impacts from data centers have been impacting communities throughout this country just as a case study that I would encourage the Council and the climate and resiliency board and the planning commission to evaluate is the case study in chandler, arizona from 2014 the City of chandler, arizona put in a proven data center that got built adjacent to a neighborhood. There were high frequency noise emitted throughout its construction and then finally during its actual finished phase during production on impact quality of life substantially of those communities across a wide continuum. This led to a strengthening of protections that their City Council passed and those regulations went into effect in 20 22 or 2023 I should say. And they were influential in the Council's unanimous rejection in 2025 of another proposed
[00:34:21]
Data center. And I want to bring all this up to say I think we have an opportunity here to avoid eight years of really awful impacts to human health and I really would encourage the Council to during this data center moratorium really lean into the science and the negative impacts that data centers have in their current form on human health and decide that data centers in Spokane County and Spokane are not for us. Thank you. Thank you. Up next is Katherine Alexander and then we'll go down to James Daniels next. Council President and Council. I really want to segway a little bit off of what's just been said in many ways. My name is Katherine Alexander. I live at 2311 west 16th avenue number 50 in Spokane. 99224. My company is the living ground collaborative. Org we have focused on solutions addressing the pressing issues of heat on our planet and particularly in cities and I have shared with some of you a paper that we have written on the research where people around the world have addressed the many issues including the ones that were just spoken of by working with nature. This is not the normal way we take. We do things. What we do is say not in my backyard which does not mean a data center won't be done. It means it won't be done here maybe or
[00:35:59]
We say sure we'll have it but you're going to pay for all the bad things you do but you're still going to do bad things and we're still going to have to bear the brunt of that. I'm here to suggest there is a third issue and a path forward and that is by working with nature. Easy to say and not so obvious to do. Which is why I sent you that paper. That paper details the research that we've done around the world where all of these issues every single one has been addressed someplace in the world with other countries doing data centers in a different way. To my knowledge there is no one who has taken all of these to address all of those issues. Spokane could be the first if we chose to do that. There are paths forward but you have to really think you have to really plan and you have to really work with nature not run roughshod over it. So I really encourage you to read that paper and then to really think more deeply about the possibilities that we have here. There are some opportunities that we shouldn't miss. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:37:06]
Next I have James Daniels and then we'll have jason ben weigh a little castle. This is my first time speaking. I'm not a public speaker. I'm actually a christian. So that's why I'm here today is to talk in favor of data centers. I know there's a moratorium passed and it sounds like a great report talking about ways to progress and move forward in a positive way. Ibew electricians in 73 I represent about 1000 members and retirees 700 and 50 active 800 active members and of those 550 ish are electricians and apprentice electricians and these are great high paying local jobs currently we probably have 200 members a year that are traveling to oregon and central Washington doing the work on these data centers for probably the last 20 years these things have been developed and built and we understand a lot of the concerns and we handed out a packet of information in Washington State labor Council and that's a resolution that was passed by basically all of the labor organizations in the State talking about pro data center construction in a responsible fashion and it's really well put together and we're not going to say there isn't concerns which clearly there are but new technologies have advanced and these things are going in with the new technologies liquid cooling systems in closed loop design that don't have an effect. I do believe that there is a responsibility for developers when they come in to bear that cost of the expansion of the grid if needed for their use and it shouldn't be put on the residents to increase their power bills you know to make up for that. So I think that there's positive
[00:38:43]
Ways to move forward with it and hopefully the big ask is this moratorium doesn't become an absolute no forever. There's a path forward that's reasonable, makes sense. Our members are pressing us every day new construction opportunities to grow our economy and have them strive locally versus having to travel. So that's that's my quick piece. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Did a great job for your first time. Next I have jason ben where. Good evening Council and thank you for your time. I'm jason greenway, assistant business manager with ibew local 73 here speaking in favor of responsible construction of data centers. A lot of what I'm going to say is probably going to mirror a little bit of what james said but we do need these work opportunities here rather recently there was an article in the spokesman-review reflecting on the decline in jobs and in Spokane area and excluding two particular industries. You know we've done a lot of work over the last several years within the City of Spokane to increase apprenticeship opportunity through ordinances such as apprenticeship utilization.
[00:40:07]
Great work on that. Very glad to see that happen. Now we need those opportunities for those apprentices we hear all the time we need to be building more tradespeople. We need to give them a chance to learn these trades. We need the jobs to put them on right. I hear from a lot of people that think there's a shortage in this area. There is not a local 73 in particular in our apprenticeship program we take 300 to 400 applicants per year on average where accepting 30. All right. So there is not a shortage of apprentices for electricians. There's a shortage of opportunities for us to bring more people into the trades and more opportunity for them to learn a trade that they can support their family with the living wage. So I'd encourage the Council similar to this has been spoken already to please take this time recognize the moratorium is already in place to address this in a logical way. There are ways to mitigate the impact of the data centers. A lot of those are already being used and already being put into the design of data centers at this point. We've come a long ways in 20 years, right? This is not the data center that we started with 20 or 30 years ago and we have the ability to continue to improve on that. So please look into those opportunities and I personally would be happy to have those conversations deeper one on one with each and every one of you and be able to talk through what some of those opportunities are. Thank you.
[00:41:46]
Okay devin, I apologize I wasn't able to connect with you. You testified last week so I've to skip you and we'll go to ada camacho. Good evening. I made a camacho, a resident of Spokane. I'm here to protest the existence of the databases being considered to be housed in Spokane. I recommend an amendment to the August ballot to be sent out to the voters of Spokane so that we the people have a right to vote on this subject and to allow to protect Spokane's river air and its environment. The Spokane river keepers has submitted numerous reports bringing attention to the City Council regarding our drought including the increasing air quality conditions that we currently face. That said, the future of Spokane should not be in the hands of companies, City Council or governments but to the people of Spokane. We the people should determine what is beneficial to the land especially if it endangers the beauty of Spokane's natural resources. The value of our historic properties including that of our property owners please reconsider and recognize that there is no substitute for water once it is eliminated by the first of these databases there is no resources to quench
[00:43:23]
The thirst of its people. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next is churchill and air. He uh. Hello. My name is sochi and I, um I'm here today to oppose the data center tech hub that seems to be the chosen term for here. Spokane has been growing in the arts and culture for a minute now and has been trained by the work of artists without their consent. This is now taking away from artists. How can we be an art hub City when we have allowed data center into the County? I don't believe having a data center represents the image of this City whatsoever.
[00:44:27]
We have talked about the water and the dangers that it comes to that with fear environment and the people and to risk to go back to what devin had said with the electricians. What happens when the wires are installed and all of that is done. All that's going to be is going to be a smaller group of ai techs but not electricians. How are they going to play a role in the long run in this? So you know, why can't we start installing more green energy or efficient electricity and put that resources to that? Thank you. Thank you.
[00:45:20]
Lastly, I have nicholas williams. Good evening. My name is nicholas and I'm here to testify in favor of the continued moratorium. I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said in against the data centers except that I don't believe at this time that the stakeholders in data centers across the united states are aligned with human values and any further in and any further data center built is almost certainly going to serve the interests of those who are actively stripping away our civil liberties. Thank you for that. Thank you for your time. Thank you. That concludes testimony on the hearing. I'll entertain a motion to close the hearing so move second just been moved and seconded any Council commentary?
[00:46:40]
Councilmember Cathcart yeah I guess I would just very quickly because I know we're going to have a conversation here but do we need to if we're going to ask questions regarding the work plan should that occur before we close the hearing or does that need to occur after we haven't bothered to actually close the hearing just to close testimony. So adam's coming up. I think I just I ask that because the work plan is I think part of the hearing and so I want to make sure we're doing the right water operations so we can make possible a motion to amend or add findings to the work plan elements at this time. So go ahead comes from the coast guard. Thank you. Can we put the slide back up just by make sure I have the impression out of it? Just a couple questions for you just real quick so we talked about a City internal City work group to look at this stuff. There wasn't any conversation about external and obviously with these there is a number of things that folks here have raised. I mean obviously labor huge one. Will there be representatives from labor economic development, energy, health you know there's different sectors that are outside the City apparatus to have input certainly we certainly intend to engage external stakeholders both through the series b process and through the planning commission process as well and then from a conflict of interest perspective I guess you know we've got a vista on the climate resilience board and since they're going to be making these regulations, is a vista going to be conflicted out of being able to participate in this?
[00:48:10]
I mean that's probably more of a question for the City attorney's office but I would just note that they don't make the regulations, they make recommendations and ultimately the Council is responsible for adopting those. And I just say that because obviously if we're going to talk about rates and how it affect rate payers, you can't do that without having the utility at the table obviously. So I just want to make sure that they're going to have a voice to at least articulate what those impacts would actually be and then you had mentioned one of the questions if we go to the slide with the question sorry do size type use case make different impacts you know what condition standards, etc. Well yesterday obviously we heard that we will ourselves have a version of a data center right with our p set as we establish that now not to the scale of course but if we're going to have a regulation on this, are we going to look internally as well on just even our own operations in terms of what is a data center and how we're defining that?
[00:49:14]
Yeah, I think certainly one of the questions or fundamental policy questions that's going to have to be answered is what is the actual definition of a data center? There's obviously something that's adopted in the moratorium itself essentially as a placeholder but I think that's one of the questions. And then my last question is, you know, one of the big concerns I've had in this is not so much a moratorium on data centers across the City but it's specific to the tech hub and I don't think we still know exactly the impacts of this moratorium on the you know, 60 to $80 million that the federal governments can invest in the tech hub and that you know, potential thousands of jobs that will create. And so what I'm hoping asking wondering is can the process begin with a look at specifically the tech hub, how this might impact that and in particular and this is actually the Mayor's own plan from 2024 consider an overlay zone, a tech hub overlay zone where perhaps the regulations might be different if necessary to ensure that the tech hub which are data centers only a piece of but to ensure that tech hub can move forward I think all that's going to be part of the policy evaluation process. But is that something you envision could be a part of that process, an overlay zone, some version of regulation as it's specific to attach to the tech hub? That would be premature for me to speculate on what the recommendations of that the crc being the planning commission would have for Council but I'm not sure but and I'm not I'll just offer up here not speculating on what their outcomes might be but perhaps just a encouragement
[00:50:53]
Facilitation that would be one part of the work plan that they're going to consider as they move forward. Sure. I mean one of the things obviously that we're trying to address the some of these questions is the economic and workforce benefits and the levers for ensuring those economic and workforce benefits if data centers are permitted. So I think that would be something that would be captured through that. Okay. Thank you, councilmember. Tell us. Mr. Mcdaniel I would very much like to be on that work group are we call your workgroup but I also wanted to say to councilmember Cathcart I think there's already internal discussions on Council about getting those external stakeholders together, some of them being in this room here tonight we have labor, we have environmental activists of course we need power suppliers, public utilities but it's the goal of this is the goal of this was always not just a year pause but a pause to leave with the science and figure out what the pros and the cons are and really be going into it any decision we have with eyes wide open the City does currently have data centers. I don't want anyone to be shocked by that but the truth is data centers vary so much in size and so the this size matters a lot when we're thinking about effects to our electrical grid and rate payers and noise pollution and water consumption. So all of this needs to be addressed and we all need to have a lot of transparency and eyes wide open going forward as we consider any of this right.
[00:52:31]
I'll just say for the for our citizens out there your Council is the water board for the City of Spokane. We will be having a study session. I requested that from legal. Just what are the ramifications and what authority do we have in regard to so they consider and planning and policy going forward. I want to remind everybody this is just a City limits of Spokane. A lot of this activity can happen outside the City that will still impact us and a lot of it could also happen on tribal sovereign land that we have absolutely no control over. So I just want to keep put it out there to the people. We are not the ones that shop to approve or disapprove data centers in our region. So more to come on that and you will be notified when we have a workshop around water and what that looks like for the City. So if there's no more comments I'm going to entertain a motion to either continue the hearing or to close the hearing. I think there is a motion on the floor actually close to hearing there's a motion to close the hearing. All those in favor please indicate by saying I, I you know the hearing is now closed.
[00:53:47]
Thank you Mr. Really yay or nay. Yeah. Okay so that passes seven zero. Thank you Mr. Byrd and just couple present let's be clear that's just a motion to close the hearing is all we were at the hearing correct proposed legislative items resolutions under the proposed section resolution 2020 are 2026 0056 approving a development agreement for five parcels in balboa south indian trail neighborhood owned by excelsior wellness located on west indian trail road. This resolution approves the development agreement required by ordinance c 36 613 as a condition of approval for a comp plan comprehensive plan amendment file z 20 3-479 comma copy resolution 2026 0057 approving the appointment of megan duvall as the director of the arts, culture and historic preservation department for the City of Spokane. Resolution 2026 0058 adopting a Council operations guide pursuant to section nine of the Spokane City charter and chapter 02.005 of the Spokane municipal code resolution 2026 0059 directing transfer of City Council funds to finance Council operations in 2026.
[00:55:02]
Further action is deferred on the proposed resolutions proposed ordinances ordinance c 36 914 relating to adopted ordinance c 36 613 concerning the required development agreement for the comprehensive plan amendment file z 20 3-479c of extending the deadline for approval of the development agreement by two years and instructing staff to include the land use designations called for in that ordinance and the draft future land use map under development for a periodic comprehensive plan update due later this year. Ordinance c 36 915 to extend the duration of interim zoning ordinance c 36 742 concerning child care center setting a public hearing for August 26th 2026 and reiterating a work program ordinance c 36 916 to adopt an overlay zone for property located approximately at 3929 west grandview road in the City and County of Spokane State of Washington by amending the official zoning map to show a planned unit development overlay zone for said property beard addition further action is deferred on the proposed ordinances.
[00:56:15]
Council President I have no one signed up for proposed legislative items. No proposed legislative items will go on to any testimony for pending legislative items e no one signed up for any pending legislative items. Okay, then we will move on to our legislative agenda. Speakers will have two minutes to address final legislative items which will be grouped for public comment in the following manner boards and commission appointments two minutes reports contracts and claims two minutes budget ordinances resolutions two minutes to speak to all items in this section ordinances two minutes and special consideration two minutes. Are there any? All I have is five people registered for final ordinances.
[00:57:17]
Okay then I would like to take our vote on boards and commissions. I'm any Council commentary on boards and commissions there. Dean davis and gregory gordon. See none. All those in favor please indicate by saying I any nos abstentions that passes seven zero on reports contracts and claims any Council commentary Council President yes councilmember Cathcart can we take a pr? 2020 6-0 649 separately please could you read that one out? Mr. Byrd if you follow that I think it's a purchase from ferguson's water yeah.
[00:58:16]
I have open 2026 0649 that is purchase from ferguson waterworks Spokane valley Washington of three fourths and one inch copper pipe for water department inventory $329,580 plus tax. We will take that one right now I see in commentary on all 649 all those in favor please indicate by saying I now those opposed no that passes six one. For the rest of the contracts and cleans any Council commentary saying that councilmember I'm sorry councilmember Dillon you're good you're just a couple of items that I want to highlight in here sometimes they can tend to get buried but very excited about the bid for the fish lake trail phase one and that connection that is going to be a wonderful extension and it'll improve access down to the centennial trail across the sand of her bridge and have a new bike path that goes near highbridge park which is really exciting because we know that sometimes accessing the fish lake trail can be a challenge coming off of sunset and government also we'll be talking about this a little bit later on the agenda with an ordinance but the chip grant funds to help support utility improvements for affordable housing as well as the grant for our therapeutic
[00:59:55]
Courts and all the great work that they do in the other Council country. See none. All those in favor please indicate by saying I in those abstentions that passes seven zero Mr. Byrd there are no emergency ordinances in the final legislative agenda section. Special budget ordinances special budget ordinance c 36 906 amending ordinance number c 36 794 entitled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennial modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to accept grant funding from the administrative office of the courts to support the community justice services department for pretrial and conviction services and declaring an emergency ordinance c 36 907 amending ordinance number c 30 six 974 794 entitled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennial modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to accept grant funding awarded by the department of commerce's connecting housing to infrastructure structure program chip 200 and $89,000 in declaring an emergency ordinance c 30 690 eight and an ordinance number c 36 794 entitled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennium modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to authorize the addition of three positions and increase the budget for debt service payments and declaring an emergency ordinance c 36 909 amending ordinance number c 36 794 entitled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennial modification budget for the City of Spokane
[01:01:34]
And amending it to accept grant funding from the idaho office of emergency management to provide hazmat response services and training to the State of idaho and declaring an emergency ordinance a number of c 36 910 amending ordinance number c 36 794 and titled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennial modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to accept an administrative office of the courts grant to supply therapeutic courts for State fiscal year 20 27 and declaring an emergency ordinance number c 36 911 amending ordinance number c 30 69c 36 794 and titled in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennial modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to accept a department of justice grant to purchase two evidence freezers for the Spokane police department and declaring an emergency ordinance number c 36 912 amending ordinance number c 36 794 and in part an ordinance adopting a mid biennium modification budget for the City of Spokane and amending it to add one geographic information systems gis analyst one and one wastewater inspector to the water wastewater fund and one waste to energy power plant operator and one t utility operator to the solid waste fund and declaring an emergency any commentary public comments on the special budget or no Council President all right.
[01:02:58]
Ordinance 36906 Council commentary see none prepared to vote I thank you that passes seven zero awnings 36907 adopting e modification budget for the City of Spokane any Council commentary see none prepare to vote I thank you that passes seven zero or in this 36908 the made by a modification budget to authorize three positions in the Council commentary. Seeing none prepare to vote I thank you that passes seven zero ordinance 36909 accepting the grant from the office idaho office of emergency management to provide hazmat response services any Council commentary see none prepare to vote I thank you that passes seven zero ordinance 36910 to accept the administrative court's grant to support therapeutic courts any Council country seeing none prepare to vote I thank you that passes seven
[01:04:37]
Zero ordinance 36911 to purchase two evidence freezers for the City of Spokane police department I'll just make a comment those freezers were added for rape kits which is critical to preserving the evidence and we are happy to have those resources available prepared to vote I. I thank you that passes seven zero in ordinance 36912 adding the gsi endless and one waste to water inspector in Council commentary. Seeing none prepared to vote I thank you that passes seven zero Mr. Byrd no final resolutions on tonight's agenda vital ordinances and Council President forgive me I read all of those at once. Would you prefer that I get that?
[01:05:43]
That was great. Well, if you take them as we vote Mr. Burr, I think that be helpful. Okay. Ordinance c 36 903 adjusting the remittance date of the local option parking commercial parking tax to better align with the Washington State filing deadlines amending section 08.22.040 of the Spokane municipal code Council President do you want to take testimony before Mr. Byrd reads the ordinances individually as we work through this is kind of challenging as to which one they're actually speaking to but we can go ahead and take all the testimony at this time. I think that might be all then. Yes. Thank you. Council President so that was ordinance c 36 903. Next up is ordinance c 36 902 to adopt an overlay zone for a property located at four nine zero valley springs road in the City and County of Spokane State of Washington by amending the official zoning map to show a planned unit development overlay zone for said property and lastly under the final section for ordinances ordinance c 36 877 creating a rate for cooling for residential tenants and requiring that adequate cooling be provided by January 1st, 2031 amending section 10.57.140 enacting a new section 10.57.175 of chapter 10.57 and repealing section 10.57.170 of the Spokane municipal code a first for testimony I have sean pelfrey
[01:07:26]
Okay we'll skip shawn and go to sophie von all right we'll skip sophie von and go to dante jester. Good evening Council members Council President my name is dante jester I'm a district one resident and climate resilience program manager at the gonzaga climate institute. For full transparency my team conducted some of the research on which the cooling ordinance was built improving Spokane's community safety in regard to extreme heat and wildfire smoke is my job. I am more aware than most of the complexities involved in solving the issue of extreme heat illness and death in our community.
[01:08:22]
One of the organizations we've partnered with in this work is meals on wheels Spokane. As you probably know, meals on wheels is a small nonprofit that serves hot meals to homebound seniors a population those particularly vulnerable to extreme heat. Many people who testified during the first reading of this ordinance mentioned the deadly 2021 northwest heat dome that killed 19 people in Spokane County. And I want to share that of those 19 people that died, 11 of them were homebound seniors and of those 11 meals on wheels volunteers found nine of them installing cooling infrastructure in the homes of these 11 older adults likely would not have solved the problem at least not entirely. Meals on wheels who shared with me that even if they had access to a free cooling device, low income older adults need additional support for installation maintenance and energy bill costs. But that doesn't mean that they don't need cooling. This work is complex but just because it requires multiple streams of action does not denote the importance of any one action. Spokane policymakers do not act in isolation nor should they. My team is working with community based organizations in preparation for the passing of this ordinance. We are preparing a renter's rights education campaign, creating educational materials for housing providers and staff trainings for nonprofits. We're designing a neighborhood leader program that would empower people to check on their neighbors during extreme weather. And we're working with snap and avista to connect community members to programs that reduce their energy bills.
[01:09:45]
This problem requires a multifaceted solution. Those of us on the ground will continue to do our part and you must do yours. I ask that you pass this ordinance. Thank you. Next I have larry lewton and after larry we'll have tomorrow. Good evening. My name is larry luton. I'm a member board member of 350 Spokane. A retired professor of public administration at eastern Washington university. I've lived in Spokane for over 40 years and over 30 years in the perry district. Tonight I'm speaking on behalf of 350 Spokane, a local climate action nonprofit. We are in favor of the right to cool ordinance in late June. This summer's been one heck of a summer. In late June, europe suffered under extreme heat. It's been estimated that over 20,000 people in europe died in the heatwave around the 4th of July weekend. Much of central and eastern half of the us suffered from extreme heat.
[01:11:17]
Heat records were broken or tied and at least 148 cities early reporting from new jersey indicated at least 44 deaths in that State alone. This week at least 40 million people were under extreme heat warnings across central and southern parts of the united states. As you know, we had a heat dome here in 2021. We know what happened in Spokane. Do you remember that in portland? A hundred people died. And according to national public radio, no access to air conditioning was the most common factor among those who died from an average of three extreme heat days per year from 71 1971 to 2021. The State of Washington is projected to have 20 to 30 extreme heat days by the 2050s. And thank you, larry. Your time is up. My point is this is what climate change does to our weather.
[01:12:32]
Lastly, I have tomorrow hello. Excuse me. Hello, Council members. Nice to see you in person today rather than in your email inbox. Yeah I don't have a bunch of flowery language like I typically want for you. Ultimately this ordinance really could have been called the renter's right to life, couldn't it? It's honestly a simple matter. I did hear a lot of concern about energy usage and wiring. There are lower usage options rather than refrigerator days. They were all the landlords will figure it out. They'll be okay. I truly believe in doing the right thing rather than what is most profitable and passing this ordinance which you will hopefully do will be a big step forward. I think for the most vulnerable communities that we have and then I did want to also Council President if I may ask a quick question about the moratorium workgroup.
[01:13:47]
We can speculate if we don't answer questions from the dais. Okay. Thank you. Yes. All right. Well, other than that, that's really what I want to get across. I'm just really proud of those who have been willing to step forward and set this ordinance into place and I hope it does pass in a few seconds here moments minutes either way. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public testimony and it has come to councilmember Dillon. I believe before we begin we have to make a parliamentary procedure here to change the title for the clerk's. You know, you do have two other legislative items ahead of the cooling ordinance. Do you want to dispense with them first? Thank you, Mrs.. We were so focused on that testimony. Let's do take ordinance three six 903 the commercial parking tax and the alignment of dates. Any Council comments on that? Seeing none prepare to vote I thank you that passes seven zero and then ordinance 36920 to adopt the overlay zone for the property located at 4900 belly springs.
[01:15:04]
Any Council commentary seeing none prepare to vote I thank you I we have passed seven zero and then on to ordinance 36877 in additional Council and now the amendment or the adjustment to the title I yes so first we need a motion to suspend the rules and a motion to suspend the rules for the purpose of amending the title entertaining amendment to the title to suspend the rules for a purpose of amendment to the titles act is been moved and seconded. All those in favor please indicate by saying I I my nose abstention the rules have been suspended.
[01:15:59]
Council President can I ask councilmember Dillon seconded that motion grant was suspended. Go ahead councilmember Dillon you yeah I will make a motion to change the title which I assume has been sent to the clerk's already or do I need to read it? The dust if you read it I think okay, well I'll so I'll make a motion to change the ordinance title to an ordinance creating a rate for cooling for residential tenants amending section 10.57.140 enacting a new section 10.57.175 of chapter 10.57 and repealing section 10.5 7.170 of the Spokane municipal code. All right. Do you think it's the right once I get this moving the second the technicality councilmember misread you don't speak to the technicality of the amendment or explain it if you want I mean it was an error we discovered a while ago and simply forgot to correct in the various iterations of the ordinance. It refers to a January 2032 date is no longer part of the ordinance so this would just simply strike the reference to that date from the title itself. So there's a motion was there a second all those in councilor mcvicar yeah
[01:17:40]
I'm going to oppose this. I realize it's technical that's just fixing the title but I'm going to vote no because what one we should have fixed it 2 or 3 iterations of this ago. This has gone through a number of drafts and I think we should have fixed it then. But secondarily there was an opportunity yesterday to defer it so we wouldn't have to suspend the rules. We wouldn't have to make a change on the fly like this. Now granted that deferral was not necessarily for this purpose. It was to help address the concerns of the Mayor with regards to the costs of this ordinance. But I think, you know, even consideration of a modest deferral to it to address this let alone her concerns would have been warranted. And so for that reason I'm going to vote no in the Council commentary on that. So all those in favor of the amendment please indicate by saying I, I, I know that passes six zero now onto the ordinance come from 61361 I'm sorry six zero how later what time is it to have Council commentary. Yes thank you. She has been noted five years ago we had a historic heat dome tell you firsthand the impacts of what it's like to experience that and climate change and I remember rushing to get ice cubes out of the freezer at night to put it on myself, to put it on our dogs. I've lived in places where the windows were painted shut. I've also lived in places where the bedroom was kept cool because of a newly installed ac unit
[01:19:17]
That created a central airflow and so that was part of the impetus behind some of these amendments. I want to read from State law just around the right to heating if you will because we have had this for a while and I imagine a lot of the advocacy and discussion it took to get this passed I as having a right to hear heating but not a cooling again was a big part of the origin behind this ordinance and the State law says when the winter temperature is below 60 degrees every dwelling unit shall be provided with heating facilities capable of maintaining a minimum room temperature of 60 degrees at a point of three feet above the floor and two feet from exterior walls in all habitable rooms at design temperature the installation of one or more portable heaters shall not be used to achieve compliance with this section and I read that in the context for this ordinance and how I think that this ordinance really is a beginning and part of it is again to address our new reality which is climate change and it was mentioned before about sb 60 200 which allows the installation of a cooling device. This is really going beyond that to help support
[01:20:57]
Access. And so again a little bit more about what this ordinance does because there has been so many iterations so it does make adequate cooling a basic right for tenants in Spokane. We've amended this multiple times in response to community input. A lot of folks who testified tonight I do think the definition of adequate cooling it really is trying to make sure that it is sufficient to prevent risk to tenants health and again requiring that all dwelling units have adequate cooling and at least one room where you would use for sleep and then again the right to install cooling equipment but have the cost deduction of up to $500. And then coming up with a simplified index for that installation based on inflation as well as addressing new construction. If there are challenges that would be posed with undue hardship from electrical upgrades or historic building. And then the other component to that we discussed yesterday and I want to clarify you know the Mayor is not opposed to this ordinance certainly brought up some concerns with code enforcement capacity and costs. There's always concerns with code enforcement capacity and costs. I understand the concerns about this adding to
[01:22:35]
That. But I think that we asked code enforcement to do a lot. That's not going to change and I think that we have to have a bigger conversation about the role of code enforcement in this City and some of those expectations as well as funding. But the trailer ordinance really does get to that. We talked about yesterday the funding the weather is ation grateful for a vista leaning into this conversation and how we can discuss some ways to partner and match funds and I think that's going to go a long way. Right before this meeting I had an email from a constituent saying that, you know, they were not a renter but they owned a home that was in really, you know, a challenge to do some of these upgrades and that's exactly what this kind of programing could do. Heat related deaths have been increasing outside of just the heat dome especially in our older apartments as average temperatures have risen and it's only going to continue to rise. Extreme heat is the leading weather related cause of death in the united states and so this ordinance and again I really want to thank the gonzaga climate students for using evidence based approach to look at this as a public health response after we have lost lives, this risk is going to continue to grow. We know that extreme heat exacerbates
[01:24:15]
Heart disease, respiratory illness, mental health conditions, pregnancy complications as was mentioned to our elderly residents young children, people with disabilities are especially vulnerable and many of these are renters. Looking at some of the studies from the after the heat dome and with more heat related illness from the gonzaga climate students, many residents do not want to leave their homes during extreme heat because they cannot again because of ability and nearly 1 in 4 lack access to air conditioning. So this isn't just an inconvenience. This is a life threatening condition.
[01:25:09]
So yes, access does certainly matter. I think we've had a really good discussion about the impacts to affordability and costs and how to navigate those. I am again I'm grateful for a lot of the feedback that we got ultimately to throughout those discussions it's come back to how much is a human life worth? What is the cost of doing nothing? I met with the first responder who's been on the scene of these deaths and illnesses. He said this ordinance makes sense but he also said you're not going to look back at the end of your life saying you didn't advocate enough for poor people and I hope that we can create more policies in this City with that in mind to build a safer, healthier City for all people.
[01:26:02]
Again, I just I want to thank a lot of our tenants landlords, housing providers, the gardens and climate students and all the Council members up here even though we might come at this with different viewpoints there was a lot of good dialog and feedback that was taken here to create this policy and so regardless of where people land I think that we ended up in a good spot and I'm grateful for that as well. Thank you councilmember jones and yeah, thank you. I am happy to support proud to support this ordinance as someone who's been working alongside my colleagues with various editions or revisions, this is by far the most collaborative effort on Council that I have witnessed to date.
[01:27:01]
I've I've actually lost count of the amount of amendments that have been made at this point. But I think that is a testament to our community and how much our community cares. We are with this ordinance trying to make sure that what happened in 2021 doesn't happen ever again. How much is a human like life worth? What are the realistic implications to Spokane's housing stock? What can it handle right now? What is it need a few years to get to? These were all meaningful discussions and I think ultimately we came away with a really good first step. As dante said, this is a very complex problem. It requires a multifaceted approach. I'm very happy to be sponsoring you on Council President the trailer of ordinance that will deal with weatherization and address some of the funding issues here. But this is in my opinion the step in the right direction.
[01:28:02]
It is not the end goal. We need to have a much longer conversation to guarantee that all residents of Spokane remain safe in cases of extreme heat. I was just going to briefly touch on although councilmember Dillon already mentioned it there's been a lot of said about the Mayor's letter she was not asking for a deferral. I had a conversation with her myself today that only reaffirmed that but rather pointing out the need to better fund code enforcement which I think is something that a lot of us have seen and it's something that we will address during the budget season. In fact, quoting from her email says as we continue budget conversations over the next month I look forward to continuing the conversation about financial implications and resources necessary to enforce and implement policy priorities and that all makes sense and that is something that we will be doing. But I am just very proud of this ordinance. I think the adequate cooling is a subjective rather than an objective test.
[01:29:08]
It is encouraging us to deal with this issue by having tenants and landlords speak to one another and figure out who is at risk of extreme heat related incidents and who is doing okay. And that is a humanity that is a question of humanity that I don't think should ever be questioned. I want my landlord to ask me if I'm doing okay in my current sort of set of circumstances. I want my tenant, I want as a tenant to be able to tell my landlord I'm not being adequately served because what is the point of a roof over someone's head if they can't live there safely? So with this ordinance like I said there it's not perfect. There are many revisions and some people would have preferred others to this revision but I am very proud of the collaborative effort that has come about from the entire community and this work is not over and the conversation will continue.
[01:30:04]
Thank you. Thank you, councilman burkhart. Yeah, thank you. You know, first and foremost I just want to reiterate how important it is that we have solutions for folks who live in an environment where they don't have a cooling device. They don't have the ability to keep the temperature down to a level that suits their needs. There has been a number of conversations in my six and a half years on this Council around you know, what sorts of plans might we put in place to assist folks not necessarily those experiencing homelessness but those who are housed who don't have access to this. I have brought this up time and time and time again and there has never truly been a plan for them. We did use during the 2021 heat dome I believe it was there was some effort to open up like the carousel space and have some opportunities there. It was underutilized but there were some minor attempts but nothing that was concrete, nothing that said hey, every time we hit this degree we're going to open the school, we're going to extend this community center, we're going to keep the library open 24 hours. There was never a plan like that despite I think a lot of advocacy that we establish a plan like that. So without trying I'll just call it the lower hanging fruit model. We've jumped to this and I'm a little frustrated because you know there's been some references to heating.
[01:31:37]
Well, nowhere in State law does it say it's a right to heating and I do get concerned that we're calling this a right to cooling which is going to end up being a misnomer because people are going to believe that they have a right to cooling which means energy is free, which means that they don't have any responsibility there. Now hopefully there's some folks when we have funded many times utility costs to cover those bills for folks hopefully a visitor would step up and others to help folks who are lower income to cover those costs but they don't have an inherent right to that energy and I believe that the title of this alone is going to give that false impression and I think that is just too bad unless the intent or the next step is to make that a portion of this which be clear that's not in this but certainly there could be steps taken to expand the scope of this idea in ordinance. But I want to agree with what councilmember tell us said this is subjective. It is not objective. It is subjective and that to me is also frustrating because that heating requirement is very objective. Now 60 eight degrees you can measure it. You know you can hit it. You know that the system you've built you know that the heating system that you've installed can meet that requirement here we don't even know what that is. Is it 80 degrees for one? Is it 60 for another? I mean I, I hope there would be some consistency in what is a health related need for degrees and we could just simply codify it whether or not I agree that we should
[01:33:14]
Go down that road at least you could codify it and that would be something that a standard that folks could actually meet. You know if you're well-intentioned you're a good faith developer landlord, etc. And you want to meet this law, how do you do it if it's just a guess it's particularly when it's something that you're building that is to be built down the road. This also applies to new, you know, buildings being built after 2027. It also calls out in here passive cooling well for folks who are really concerned about environmental impacts and impacts of climate, passive is a huge thing but how do you design a building? How do you lay it out? How do you decide the materials when you don't even know the temperature that you're trying to achieve? And that to me at its most core is what is so fundamentally wrong about this ordinance. I may disagree with the idea that we should be regulating this or how we should be regulating it but at least select a standard that folks know that they can me and I think that should just be a basic function of government objectivity, right? Don't leave it up to guesses. Try not to put it in the hands of a judge who might have some wayward interpretation. We've seen that before. Try to decide what it is you want to achieve and try to achieve it. And I think that's that's a frustration of mine. Furthermore, there's just a number of little things in here too. I just I want to point out and call out you know so we talk about the new amended version because we've gone through some varying iterations of this amended
[01:34:50]
Version kind of narrows it down to say okay, you have to provide this in a room. Well there are and I brought this up before but I'm going to say it again you know there are instances where you have you know, a multi tenancy you know, shared spaces, right? Where each person's renting a room within a larger unit. Well if they each have a different health need or more you know multiples of them have these health needs. How does the landlord decide well it's this room and not that room and I don't think that has been thought through. You know, we also talk about we're going to delay implementation if there's a cost impact or if you know, it's just not achievable because of the electrical system in the building for these older historic buildings. But again at its core if the goal is to support lower income people those are the buildings lower income people are living in and so you're not even getting to assisting potentially those individuals with that deferral. So I don't entirely know exactly what we're accomplishing with this when we're going to give those year delays now I appreciate it because there's a lot of buildings in this town.
[01:36:00]
They're not configured to meet the standard but that to me is a challenge I think within this proposed ordinance that we'll be voting on here momentarily. Furthermore, you know, we talk about the Mayor and what her concerns were and I do just want to make sure that I also read what she wrote and here is a little bit more context around what she wrote. Quote as you know, the City like other local governments throughout the country faces significant budget headwinds, adding new enforcement obligations to the code enforcement department without a plan and path to add new resources to the department is not sustainable. As we continue budget conversations over the next months, I look forward to continuing the conversation about the financial implications and resources necessary to enforce and implement policy priorities of both the Council and the administration now correct. She did not ask for a deferral I did because she's saying here we need a plan and I asked for a simple deferral so that we could come up with that plan to make sure that we know how we are going to achieve this version of the code because this version does require the City to be involved. It requires code enforcement to be involved and I just felt that it's a reasonable to say we should do a fiscal note, understand those costs and I know there was an attempt at a previous version or iteration of this and I really appreciate that because we have not been consistent or good about doing fiscal notes on anything that we do. So I really appreciate it but it
[01:37:36]
Should have been updated with the most recent version so that we know exactly what it is the costs are going to be and I think again a delay as we're talking about our biennial budget and what's going to go into that would have been a reasonable step. And so to be clear, the Mayor did not ask for a deferral I did, but it was based on her words that I felt that we needed it so that we knew that we could achieve what it is we're trying to achieve and have the costs identified to do it. Secondarily or lastly I guess I will just want to point out you know we also talk about in this you know that we're not going to mandate the use of materials or equipment that are not legal by State law won't right now there is a building code that says, you know, we have to implement heat pumps in new developments and there has been conversation about making that retroactive. So what happens if that becomes the law at some point? Now I'm not saying it is today. I'm not saying it will be tomorrow but eventually some day that might be we have the clean buildings act which requires a whole lot of retrofitting of buildings and that could very well be one piece of that you have to do in order to achieve the clean buildings act. The goals of that measure. So I want to make sure that we are not requiring, you know, astronomical costs to comply with this and obviously updating the entire electrical grid and all that which some of these buildings and require is going to be a very high level of cost. But even outside of that if that's not even required but you have to install a heat pump, you know, that could be very, very costly. In fact,
[01:39:14]
Spokesman-review did a story not too long ago talking about a grant that we lost from the federal government that would have brought 8 million dollars to serve 300 homes with a heat pump. So you do the math that is substantial cost. Now obviously government is involved. It's all going to get inflated by a lot but that is still you take away the inflator that is still a lot of money and as has been pointed out, we don't even have the personnel and folks in place necessarily to do all the work in a timely manner when we need it to be done well we if we have one you know, degree weather will you even have access to any equipment? All this has to be said. I don't believe this is fair. I don't believe it's fair to the tenants who are going to see potential rate hikes as a result. I don't believe it's fair to landlords who may try with all their might to be a good faith steward and a good faith you know, participate in our community by upholding the law. But they don't even know what to uphold. They don't even know what to achieve and it's just not fair for anybody involved.
[01:40:24]
And fundamentally we don't even know how we're going to pay for our share of this, let alone many of these other costs that are going to be associated. So with that I will cut myself off. I'm probably over my time anyway but I just would love to have more of an objective standard if we're going to do this and something that's affordable and it's not going to cause rate hikes for our low income individuals in this community. So I'll leave it there. Thank you. Council member dixit yes, thanks. Obviously I am a yes on this right. The cooling having been a part of the various iterations that have come through now the main thing that has always been true and that continues to be true that this is a right it's not a luxury and I think some people think about this as oh like ac is nice to have when people's adverse health effects happen way sooner than you think it might. And so it's been an interesting conversation because I doubt many of the people who have testified against this ordinance don't have cooling themselves and so I find that ironic and hypocritical and for me myself I actually don't have central ac in my home because that is expensive and so regularly my house was built back in the day in the early 1900s so it maintains a fair temperature versus at the time but when it doesn't get cool at nighttime my house is regularly at like 80 something and thankfully I am able to put
[01:42:00]
A portable unit in my bedroom so I'm able to go to sleep at night and not have adverse health impacts and so that is my existence and I am someone of privilege who has a home and has a house where I can do something like that and I believe that is something that everyone deserves the right to do. And so you know, with the objective piece that councilman Cathcart had brought up, we had originally had that 80 would be the max temperature that should be allowed in someone's bedroom and that was seen as too strict and then it was like all right, let's do an external trigger. So if it's 95 degrees for more than two consecutive days that would trigger this right to cooling and even that was seen as too much. And so adequate cooling was the definition that folks landed on with collaboration of multiple people whether that was folks from the gonzaga clements or toot slick or other housing providers that was the definition that they had come to and so collaboration was a big part of this and so I don't think it's necessarily a fair dig to say that there wasn't that stakeholder engagement collaboration. I think there's a difference between when you collaborate on a shared goal versus one in which people don't believe that is something that we should be moving towards because then you compromise to a point where what's the point of an ordinance in the first place?
[01:43:23]
And so like was stated earlier this was created in response to the 2021 heat dome but also in anticipation of increasing temperatures. Right because it's not getting any cooler. Right. Every summer we've had very, very high temperatures that continues to happen globally as was stated earlier. And so you know, people died in their homes five years ago and there were hundreds more that were hospitalized. Those numbers are probably lower than we think because of underreporting because people have existing health conditions that can be exacerbated by the heat and likely they died because of that and in that time housing providers have not necessarily prepared for the necessary upgrades. Right. It's been five years. There's been plenty of time to start this work or start doing the retrofitting or whatever has to happen to equip their units with cooling. And so if that hasn't happened in five years it is our job to step in and say this is a right actually that you have to provide this if you're going to provide housing for our community members and you know it is yeah, it's just been really interesting to with some of the confusion that has been brought up tonight with I would say there's been maybe like everyone in their mom has had an amendment for this right the cooling and so I think if there are concerns I would have loved to see a copyright amendment right addressing some of these things and I think the other concern that was brought up was oh, people are just going to break their lease and then move. If you've ever done that,
[01:45:02]
Moving is terrible and it costs a ton of money if you're going to break a lease and move somewhere else you have to have your first or last year deposit and all the moving costs and that's just not something people are going to do. And so I think that's a false argument there as well. And so all that to say I think this is a necessary step and I think I hope we continue to work on making sure that people have basic rights in their housing. And I think as councilman Dillon said earlier, what is the cost of a life councilmember Zappone yeah, yeah. Thanks for all the testimony everyone showing up. Really appreciate it and this long process I think when it comes to it's about some core values that I have and I think some core values that are competing in the community. One is about affordability and wanting to address affordability and hearing about that constraint on people's lives every day and having concerns around being able to afford groceries, being able to pay rent, being able to pay medical bills. I am always concerned when we're adding things to the list of building code or requirements that increase the costs overall.
[01:46:29]
However, at the same time I'm also very concerned about planning for the future and addressing climate change and building more resilient community and I'm deeply concerned about those impacts that it has on people. At the same time. So I think this ordinance in particular was in a moment when those two issues kind of came into tension with each other and I think at the end of the day we see the impacts of affordability on our streets every day and I know people who would rather have a house than have air conditioning as a priority to them and I think that the original versions of this ordinance didn't quite get to the implementation impacts that were raised. And so I think this version of the ordinance now is addressing how that's going to be implemented and how that will be impacting the costs to people to renters and in their houses. And so I think that this ordinance is in a place that I support it now it addresses the affordability aspects and makes it not have such detrimental impacts to affordability while also providing access to cooling to folks who are living in their homes. I definitely am excited and incredibly in support of the future ordinance that will be providing actual units to people and efforts to actually get cooling to people in their houses or in their
[01:48:05]
Homes. I think that path is going to be more direct and quicker to get it. But I think we've got to be addressing resiliency and its different aspects at the same time. And so I think this is important we are in a hotter environment and we need to plan for the future and I think that this longer timeline helps us plan for the future while also addressing the challenges of affordability that we have right now. Thank you. Councilmember lipski oh gosh. Sorry. All my permissions weren't turned on. Yeah. Thanks to everyone who testified and worked on this and provided feedback over the last several months, I just wanted to kind of back up a little bit and talk about how this where this ordinance really came from early in my first term. I'm still in my first term on Council I brought an ordinance that was also called great cooling and it was just the right to buy an air conditioner and put it in your apartment because that wasn't even a thing in Spokane when I started on Council and the climate institute brought that up as an issue and then early this year they came back after we had passed that they passed and we are noticing in the community that still not enough for people to meaningfully have a right to cooling because of all of the other competing forces that are going on in our housing market. So this we tried the easy way to do this
[01:49:41]
The path of less resistance or the low hanging fruit or whatever you want to call it and it wasn't enough at the time. So that's why I introduced another ordinance which was the first version of this ordinance to make that stronger and give people a right to have air conditioning. And it went through a lot of changes as councilmember dixit mentioned, we did have a numeric requirement at some point we the first draft was largely borrowed from oregon and we didn't necessarily have a clear strategy for how to implement that. It would have had more impacts on code enforcement. This one actually has the least amount of impact on code enforcement that I can imagine and the probably the least impact on landlords as well because code enforcement won't be going around and inspecting units and forcing them to add air conditioning. This will be a complaint driven situation where a tenant says that they need the air conditioning because a lot of landlords were saying why are you forcing us to put in air conditioning if the tenant doesn't want it?
[01:50:45]
And of course we don't want to force them to put air conditioning in if the tenant doesn't want it. So this ordinance actually has the flexibility for folks that are interested in air conditioning, for folks who have concerns about the affordability because this does not require the landlord to cover the cost of electricity, then there's an opportunity for tenants to not ask for it. So this is kind of splitting the difference there and compromising from both sides. Also some of the testimony that we heard both online and before the dyess implied that we're forcing landlords to put in fact systems that is not true as you heard from other Council members right now, this just requires some kind of cooling in a room if a tenant asks for it in one room in the apartment down the road I would like to see cooling in every bedroom.
[01:51:42]
And so I think that should be a requirement. And when we passed the early version of this ordinance back in 20 2425, 25, some people testifying against it said it was a slippery like eventually we're going to require cooling. Absolutely because I think at the end of the day we should be asking ourselves what a good community would do and what kind of community we want to build for the future instead of staying stuck and what we had in the past for most of my adult life I did not have air conditioning and I lived in top floor apartments in browns addition and there were nights where I seriously considered going and sleeping in portland park and even back then when we had was challenges in Spokane I didn't feel like that was safe for me but I seriously thought about it several times because it was cooler outside but because of the small size of my apartment and just the dynamics of where the windows that were openable were placed I was not getting cross ventilation. I was not able to cool my apartment at night. It was affecting my sleep. It was affecting my ability to work and that's happening to families in Spokane every day.
[01:52:51]
It's keeping parents awake that have to work to help their kids and support their kids at keeping their kids awake. You also keep the parents awake. It's not good for our community. A good community has habitable housing and that means not too hot and that means not too cold and that might be different for different people whatever you can sleep with I think is a good standard for what it's keeping you healthy. So I hope that clears up why we have the flexibility that we have as far as the electrical situation and whether or not landlords will eventually have to update their electric. I have a lot of confusion about why we think that we're going to keep a paradigm where we're just never going to bring our electrical systems up to like the 1980s we have electrical systems out there that could be classified as antique and I don't think our standard should be those should never have to be updated. Yes, we're working on weatherization trailer ordinance. We're working on assistance for landlords to bring their grids or their electrical systems up to code.
[01:53:59]
But if you're an investment researcher and you have investment property and you're failing to set money aside to do things like bring your place up to code like in my investment property I have updated the electric and we have installed window units in the bedrooms that I think that's just normal. That's what you do when you're investing in something is you keep it up to code, you keep it maintained and that shouldn't conflict with affordability that should be part of your long term business plan. So I am a former supporter of the previous versions of this ordinance and I am supporting this ordinance because I think this is what good communities do. They don't just languish in inertia, they improve and they do what's right for their community. Husband packard yeah thank you. I just want to comment respond on a couple of things. You know there was a comment earlier that most of the folks who are opposing this have ac and while I certainly do have central ac in my house for four years I didn't it didn't work and I couldn't afford to get it fixed. So from 2021 until last fall our ac did not work. We were routinely at 80 degrees and when the heat dome hit we were over 90 degrees and we had a newborn baby in the house at that time. So I am very well aware of the impacts and the feelings and how it can be overwhelming to live and sleep in that environment for multiple nights. You know we had to have the windows open which I don't like to do for safety reasons. We've also got
[01:55:39]
An indoor cat and I'm always concerned that he's going to get out. So there's you know but we did it because we had a newborn baby and we had to make sure that baby was comfortable and you know, even with the windows open it wasn't that great but we had to deal with it. There was a comment about why isn't there a Cathcart amendment? Well, there was an amendment that I supported. It was very quickly withdrawn unfortunately. But it essentially was a pretty significant compromise that I was willing to support that simply said, you had to maintain or provide a device in every room so it didn't it got rid of the definition of adequate cooling and it just simply said you had to provide a device and that to me is more of an objective standard that is reasonable. It's a modest cost that I think landlords can afford. I talked to a lot of lenders didn't like it. I talked to some that were willing to compromise with it but I was willing to support that because I thought that was a much more reasonable way to go about this, you know, especially as we often do things here is a camel's nose and then you know down the road they expand it and it's it's more but I think as a introductory of the concept that to me was sort of a reasonable option but unfortunately they didn't have support. It was pulled very quickly not my amendment. It was customers opinions but I was willing to support it.
[01:56:58]
There's a comment about you know, this is the least the version of it the least impact the well actually there was another version that had no impact to code enforcement. Now the byproduct of that was that it was going to push everything into the courts. So whether that was right or wrong but it did not have an impact on the cost of the City to enforce it. So I just want to make that clear. There was another version that was on the docket that we had considered briefly that it was a little bit different impact and then there was a customer request keeps coming about you know, why aren't folks meeting code? Well they are meeting code. The code doesn't require that they go back and update the electrical. If it did they would be you know we now have the clean buildings act that requires a lot of these buildings to retrofit go back and change things and they are some of them can get deferrals and delays and all that but they are having to meet that code if the mandate was that you had to go and update the electrical in such a fashion as to bring it up to current standards rather than the standards of when the building was either built or last remodeled then you would see that. But whether that's the mandate or whether that's what they want to do just to be a good landlord they got to pay for it somehow and so either they're going to pass those costs along or they're going to sell the property because they can't afford it and the new investor will come in and raise the rents to pay for it. So the costs are going to get passed along to tenants and tenants are going to pay more as a result of that. Now if that's something that we're willing to entertain you know we've been willing to entertain those things with landlord tenant laws. We've been willing to entertain those or at least many have been willing to entertain those things with
[01:58:34]
With all the energy codes, all of these things that have resulted in increased cost of housing and if that's just simply the trade off that we're willing to say okay, well we'll trade higher costs for these certain standards or these certain requirements then that's that's a political decision of this body of the State legislature of the State building code Council. But it's a decision that certainly communities can make but that's not what's required right now. But to meet this code potentially it will be required because this code could in some instances require that these older buildings that are meeting code would have to update to a newer code in order to have the ability to handle that. The energy load and demand. And so I just to make it clear there's you know, I like to provide or you know, look for some kind of amendment that I can support, you know, but I see here just where there's going to be costs added to tenants that always makes me very nervous. But I have like I said, I was willing to be open to a compromise amendment that was on the docket for a brief period of time but there was not the support for it. So I'll leave it there but I just wanted to respond to a few those things have this in with thank you all for the community and really to my fellow Council members this has been quite the exercise of our ordinance. I just want the community you know even though we don't disagree, there's really been done with civility and I really appreciate that the community already has a right to cooling
[02:00:11]
Senate bill six 200 passed that came effective July 1st even while we were still working on this ordinance, tenants had a right to cooling in their homes. I will say I have served on the board of a low income housing organization and I have seen how tight the margins are then and now. They wanted to provide the best they could to the tenants that they provide housing for and no, there is no cost that anybody can come up with a cost of life. So that is not even a discussion for me and yes it is complex because we've had various situations of people living in their environment. I challenged our teachers, talked to me about people on the streets. It's hot out there. We did not expand any capacity. They said the navigation center will the navigation center closes at 7:00 at night and so we know the streets hold the heat at night so that's just as challenging for me. I'm very supportive of the trailer ordinance that brings snap in a vista together we could do that. Well this passes or not.
[02:01:28]
I will say some people laughed at me but it's like we're trying to legislate the heat over the City of Spokane. You can go across the street and you're in the Spokane valley or you can go across the street and you're in airway heights. It's the same heat, the same challenge to people the same way I am challenged with we have laws that are right in the City of Spokane that we control but really this whole heat dome climate thing is a regional issue and for us to try to legislate one side of the street from the other side of the street and this group of people and that group of people or I even went as far as to say if it should happen to be a housing organization that have landlord tenant laws in the City of Spokane and they have different landlord tenant laws in the valley, what they have to comply to I think that's challenging. I think that is not fair to the people that are providing housing to the people that we want to have housed going forward. There's a lot of work to be done on this.
[02:02:41]
I cannot support it the way it is right now because I've been on the other side and seeing the challenges that are faced by landlords especially to the people we want to protect and help. And I've had conversations with code enforcement and yes this will be a burden on them. They're down three people and they say Council President we rather be working on apartments where they can't even open their windows. That's what we'd like to be enforcing. We like to be out enforcing apartments where the roofs are leaking is really not safe and habitable for them to be living in addition to the whole cooling thing. So there are challenges to come on this and the implementation has the votes to pass tonight. But really even with the trailer ordinance that we have, that's not a lot of money. It's some but it's not a lot to get the kind of outcome that I think people would be expecting and I think for them to have the expectations that something will be done by the City and they will call code enforcement and they'll be out there immediately and something will happen that's not going to that's just not going to be the way it's going to be executed going forward. So once again, I don't want to have our citizens with these expectations that we can't meet and there are many of them but this one it will be important but we won't be able to execute I think the way many in the community would like to
[02:04:18]
See us executed so I will not be in support of this not because I don't want people to be cool we all do but challenges this is a very complex even the yearly increase on the rent and how that's figured out and we kind of went round and round about that but going forward I think there are opportunities. Cooling is already a right let's lean in on what exist and how we can make that stronger across the board for everybody not just the people that live within the boundaries of the Spokane City Council member Dillon yeah. First I want to thank you for your amendment that you sponsored to simplify that inflation formula and what Spokane valley does in other cities. Those are things that we cannot control. We were elected to control what's inside our City limits and I also think to if you're a resident out there and this harkens back to something that councilmember glinski said when we took office raise your expectations of us. Yeah, we need to do better. Raise your expectations of us and what government can do for you in the City of Spokane. That is what this ordinance is about.
[02:05:40]
It is trying to do better. I'm sorry it took so long but this ordinance is a meaningful step. Thank you. Thank you. Prepare to vote I oh my bad. Prepared to vote s five zero thank you. That concludes our legislative agenda item 552 that passes 5 to 2. That concludes our legislative agenda. We will now transition to open form and you have two minutes and please address all your comments to the chair. Okay. First I have just steve you know provided last name. Up next will be ricky walters. Now go ahead. I'm speaking to journalists from inland auditing media. I remind the City of case law and acosta versus City of costa mesa and nourse versus City of santa cruz. Personal offense taken doesn't authorize my silence removal under the veil of disruption on July 16th
[02:07:18]
While reporting at the publicly owned esmeralda golf course, a City employee repeatedly hurled anti-gay slurs at me and told me to rape little boys. One of your employees even assaulted me twice first by steering an industrial lawnmower toward me veering away only inches from my feet and later by lunging within inches of me with his fist drawn back preparing to strike me. It's all on video. I know you have all seen it in retaliation the City had officers valencia and lieutenant stevens impose an indefinite exclusion against me. The victim and journalist documenting the misconduct that exclusion facially violates the port the park board's own policy to each of you including Mayor Brown, you support bigotry. You preach tolerance while tolerating bigotry and your employees promotion of child rape while advertising yourselves as defenders of equality, dignity and vulnerable citizens. You take no position on this employee unleashing anti-gay abuse and advocating that children be raped. I wonder why this that is not equality. It's fraudulent political advertising. Your you protected the institution, ignored the victim and tacitly embraced anti-gay slurs and the promotion of child rape through your silence hoping the embarrassment would disappear.
[02:08:28]
Yet here I am delivering the embarrassment to your front door here on open meeting recording as a public record Spokane's message is clear look the boots of the bigot Mayor and the boot licking City Council are risk being life banned from public property. But don't take my word for it. I don't want to get hit by you that way on a matter of you got oh, that's your employee threatening to run over people with lawnmowers that are reporting on stories about maintenance issues. That's your City employee.
[02:09:19]
That's what you support here told me to go rape little boys for your time is up. Thank you s thanks chris spicer okay. First time public speaking. So good evening esteemed Council members. My name is chris spicer. I'm a three year resident of Spokane and several good friends of mine work for the Spokane public library system. This work is something that matters dearly to them and so they have all brought to my attention a grievous shortfall in these libraries budgets the shortfall if not properly allocated foreign funded will lead to a reduction across the board of not just my friends livelihoods but the amazing and life changing services and resources that are public libraries to provide to each and every one of us.
[02:10:26]
And while I can't personally speak for how that loss would affect most of you here today, I can say that there is a group of artists who would lose a dearly beloved and much needed means to build and maintain community because I am a part of that group of artists I don't get out much. I don't have much of a social circle and I would be devastated to lose that little piece of community and belonging. I would be even more devastated if my friends lost their jobs. On top of that, Spokane's libraries are a treasure the literal best I've ever found across the country and as someone who has done a lot of traveling I do not say that lightly. It would be an absolute tragedy and a horrific shame if a lapse in proper funding were to take all that away from us. I hope you the City Council will take that into consideration and I thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Up next is andy phillips and then we'll have james y phillips and I work at the shuttle branch of the Spokane public library. Well, I do not officially speak for a spell. I still wanted to speak as a Spokane City resident of district three to express my support for allocating the bridge funding of $2.3 million to the Spokane public library.
[02:11:45]
I love my job. Every day I get to connect with people, connect them to local resources, legal resources, housing resources, employment, education you name it. Parents come to the library with their kids to have fun in our play areas and leave that and leave with stacks of picture books. But more than anything I get to be a part of something important. We get to provide people with a safe space for teenagers coming to play on our computers after school or our unhoused neighbors taking a break from the elements such as extreme heat. This budget cut could possibly lead to me losing my job. And I am not alone in this fact. Not only would we personally suffer but so would our community. So many members of our community rely on the library lot rely on us for resources, for safe space and of course for good books to read. Please properly allocate funding to the library for my sake for the sake of my coworkers and most importantly for the sake of our community. Thank you. Thank you. Next I have james. And then after james will be rick bowcock hello. My name is james. I'm new here to Spokane. And I have concerns about the funding of local libraries. I chose to move here to Spokane because in part of the libraries and the resources that they offer to newcomers and citizens alike, they're a treasure to any town that they're well funded in.
[02:13:10]
And it would be a big shame to see it then have to close down on certain days or certain hours when it's been such an integral part to my coming here and how I've been funding community so far. What I've seen in the libraries has made me feel like I've made the right decision. My biggest concern with the budget shortfall is that the library will no longer be able to provide the services that it can right now and helping newcomers settle in or find community. In my view this would be a detriment to attracting more folks to live here as libraries tend to be the benchmark for how the City itself is seen and underfunded library usually makes the town as a whole seem a lot worse overall which is something I've noted about all the places that I've been. Please consider properly funding the local libraries for the folks who work here and for the folks who need them and love them. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Rick bookmark. After rick will have kiana mckenna Monday to call the police on the landlord. Can you come storming down into the laundry room? And I tell my girlfriend and she thinks she's doing the laundry, not what he's doing.
[02:14:32]
He was literally going to go into the bathroom while she's taking a shower. The police came. They said it didn't come to the level of voyeurism but harassment. And got the copy of code enforcement. And all this time I've been living at my place. This is everything has been illegal. Illegal? We've been renting a place that is not acceptable even by code enforcement. I'm going to give you an I'm just going to give you a little bit of a rule of the exit that I have. I have to go through a laundry room. See that? That's the distance I have to go through. And they're supposed to have a three foot door. There's washing machines and dryers in there. They're illegal. All this stuff has been illegal and deceptive like it says in the community. I mean the consumer protection act.
[02:15:29]
And I don't know what's going to happen. You know, could pass. I was going to talk to them. But the cons you know, like I don't even have a legitimate fire exit right now. So when you guys are talking about death, you know, every day that I'm at this place it's unsafe. But you get a place to low income. I can't even get it can't even get a regular house or apartment because of the barriers that I go to go across. But these landlords, they need to be held accountable. And I'm going to leave a copy of the letter with betsy. They're not in the picture. You know what I have to go through. Thank you. Thank you. Next is kiana mckenna and then sebastian reese. Hi. Are you gotten a little sleepy? So excuse me. My sleep voice. My name is kiana mckenna. I'm the deputy director at the pacific islander community association, which is the largest serving and nonprofit in Washington.
[02:16:37]
Our local office is located in district three here in Spokane and my family lives in district two. I've also served on the City's equity subcommittee since its inception in 2022. I'm here tonight to address a very unexpired heated and concerning budgeting decision which was made to eliminate the equity manager position within the City of Spokane. This decision is harmful and damaging in a few ways. It leaves the work of the equity subcommittee in a very precarious spot. The subcommittee has been able to carry out its work because of the manager's role which is outlined in our bylaws is something the City would support. I want to remind you that it's not enough to create something that must be sustained. Not only this our subcommittee has been working with only the support of alex and our community based organizations capacity to move our equitable budgeting framework through review with City leaders. This work has taken years and alex has played a critical role in helping us have our voices heard in our ability to advise you all which is why we were created in the first place. We're also bringing you an evidence based budgeting framework which is proven to save costs. So the irony here is not lost on me.
[02:17:40]
Sadly, I do not believe that we would have been able to get this far without the City position. I'm very disheartened and tired as I stand here tonight. And I do believe this is exactly why apathy runs rampant in our communities and why they're left civically traumatized and why we have such a hard time engaging them. By ending this position and losing alex as a City staffer. We are really suffering a lot of critical community relationships which took years to build. One of the handful of people who has created access for our voices to be heard in City hall has been let go. And to be clear, no one has created access to have our voices heard and reflected in the City like alex would really like answers around why this decision was made and how the City will support the equity subcommittee moving forward. I urge you all to act before alex's last day and also examine the status quo you uphold through your budgeting decisions which can be very dangerous and harmful. Thank you. Next I have sebastian online. Sebastian in my meeting you and you can start whenever you're ready.
[02:18:41]
Good afternoon. Council members, members of the audience hope everyone as well. My name is sebastian terrace and the community policy liaison at man what is in action? And I'm the chair of City Council's equity subcommittee. My comment today follows kiana mckenna and is best captured in a single question what will Council's commitment to the equity subcommittee look like in practice without a manager of equity and inclusion initiatives? Council's recent decision to eliminate the initiative manager roles raises major questions regarding its subcommittees and its equity and outreach efforts. Those managers for key contacts facilitating concrete work and communication between community members, City Staff and Council members and the equity subcommittee. Just when we had developed a workgroup and made a concrete proposal. This decision entails a practical challenge for Council for its current staff and I'm thinking of things like the equity assessment tools and of course for the equity subcommittees access to all of you as the chair of the equity subcommittee. I have to request that Council members meet with the subcommittee to discuss next steps and develop a shared long term vision. The report by matrix consulting diagnoses a diagnosis a few implementation concerns that we need to discuss and also outlines recommendations that I believe align with the subcommittee's work.
[02:20:07]
Furthermore, Council offered a specific list of commitments in the subcommittees bylaws that I believe require your attention. I want to acknowledge councilmember dixit commitment to the subcommittee. On the other hand, I don't want her office to become say for example, a bottleneck that sets up both her office and the subcommittee up for failure. So on behalf of the subcommittee I hope you will all connect with us soon. Thank you. Thank you. Next I have monika mueller. How about ronald xavier?
[02:20:59]
Good evening or good evening City Council. I love the words accountability core values, right to implement basic rights. What would a good community do? The price of life. Those things are important. In education I've noticed that the black community is being left out constantly left out. I sat down with adam swinford and heather bybee and we discussed some ideas that I had. I did all the work, put the work in to try and create an environment that would allow us to be included not just to be seen as slaves but to see the things we actually did and contributed to society. His name is james harvey the third. He was the first top gun. He's a black man. Not many people know that. There's a difference in culture. Imitation of life the original. Most white people probably wouldn't know what it is. Most black people will back east depending on your when you were born. I think we need to take some responsibility and some accountability for what we do.
[02:21:58]
The children we don't take care of the day. They're going to be your problem tomorrow. Closing down some of these centers is going to hurt those kids. Living on the streets is not going to help them. I've actually talked to people to work with them and people for some reason don't return calls executive order 13576. Delivering an efficient and accountable government. Barack obama signed that in 613 to 11. That means that we deserve to get some of that federal money thrown in our direction. And we need to have somebody who's passionate here. Why people will constantly say oh, Spokane is so white or too you seem angry if you don't know the difference between anger and passion. You're probably not the person to represent me. I'll sit down and talk with almost anyone in the marine corps. We won't leave anybody behind. We need to start to adopt that. We need to say let's not leave them behind. I'm open to conversations. I moved to the City when we were in the green and now we're in the red. How can we change that? Well, adams when you're heather bobby nicky lockwood make just under $1 million.
[02:22:58]
Maybe we should start freezing some of those salaries and using some of that money to educate myself. Thank you. Okay. I don't see just out there. So we'll go to theresa brooks. Oh, that was unexpected. I thought I wasn't going to get on today. I'm theresa brooks. I was here last week mumbling and reading but I'm not going to go with the script this week. So I was talking about how passionate I am about working with youth. Ron talked about how the young there's a sinner shelter closing here in Spokane. Our youth are going to be on the street. I want to be a part of the solution and I want you guys to be part of us working together to make sure these kids have a space. We're going to be having 44 kids and I call them kids because I know what it's like to be on the street or I didn't live on the street but I had a community I had someone who made sure I had a bit as an athlete. I made sure they made sure I had track practice schedule.
[02:24:06]
I want to see us working together to make sure these kids have somewhere to go and that's all I want to talk about is the kids. So that's what I'm here for. So I don't want to see these kids on the street. I want us to come up with a solution asap. I want to be part of that and I want all the organizations that want to work with me to come meet me. I'll send you guys an email I've set of couple emails to a few people around here. I haven't gotten anything any response back yet but this is an emergency. I know betsy has talked about what is declared as an emergency. I want to declare this is an emergency. We need to figure out a plan. That's it. Thank you. That's it. That concludes our open forum for this evening. I'll entertain a motion for adjournment to have second. It's been moved in second. All those in favor please indicate by saying I I it is general.
[02:25:03]
No, we are adjourned. We will be on break for two weeks. We will be returning on August 19th. All right. Thank you. Get away from me