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12 Jun 2013

Summer Crime Prevention, Next Mobile Office June 19th: May/June E-News

Summer in Spokane is a glorious thing. Beautiful evenings on the porch, flower gardens, taking a dip in one of Spokane's pools or an area lake. Summer is also unfortunately a time for increased crime...so remember to close/lock windows when you leave the house. Keep the garage door closed even if you are just around the corner. The volunteers at our COPS shops (like the wonderful gals at Northeast COPS in this photo) can give you great tips to prevent crime. Click here to find the COPS shop nearest you and don't forget to call Crime Check 456-2233 to report a crime! Many thanks to everyone who attended my May mobile office at Cassano's Grocery. My next mobile office is scheduled for Wednesday, June 19th at 12noon at The Outlaw Cafe, 5012 N Market St. in Historic Hillyard. Come join! As always, Read More

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5 Jun 2013

Changes to City Business License Fees: 6.2.13 Council meeting recap

On Monday, June 3rd, the Council moved very quickly through its agenda (Thanks, Council President Stuckart!). Out of several decisions we made, the ordinance changes to business license fees are of interest to many. We made several changes to the business license fees, including lowering the cost of fees to non-profits, eliminating fees to sole proprietors (more about this later), and repealing the fee for every unique name of a business (multiple locations do not have to pay multiple fees). These changes were developed over seven months with input from Councilmembers and the Administration to ensure our business licensing is fair and easier to understand. I'm especially proud of the changes we made that impact sole proprietors -- this was something that Councilman Jon Snyder and I sponsored. Read More

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21 May 2013

City initiatives & police ombudsman powers: 5.20.13 Council meeting recap

City Council had a longer meeting than usual last night because of an especially difficult decision related to two city initiatives set for the ballot this November. The first decision of the Council was whether to place the initiatives on the ballot and we did this 7-0. Our City Charter is essentially our Constitution. We are following our Constitution by placing initiatives on the ballot because they contain the required number of signatures as certified by the County Auditor. That is our role as a Council -- we are essentially administrative in this way. The second question of the evening was whether or not to support a resolution asking the Mayor to do a pre-election challenge of both initiatives, arguing that they are outside the bounds of local initiative power. We haven’t done Read More