Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Mayor Address topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Spokane mayor reviews first year, highlights housing moves, public safety hires and balanced budget
Summary
The mayor of Spokane used a year‑in‑office address to review initiatives on public safety, homelessness, affordable housing, transportation and a budget plan intended to close a near $50 million deficit over two years.
The mayor of Spokane reviewed a year of administration priorities Friday, saying the office focused on public safety leadership, homelessness interventions, affordable housing investments, transportation planning and restoring the city budget to balance.
The address outlined why those items mattered locally and listed concrete steps taken over the past year, including senior hires in public safety, voter approval of a community safety sales tax and programs to move people from encampments into temporary and permanent housing.
Among the administration actions the mayor described were hiring Kevin Hall as chief of the Spokane Police Department and Julie Ober as chief of the Spokane Fire Department after a publicly engaged search for community-safety leadership. The mayor said voters approved a community safety sales tax to fund enhancements across public safety departments, the municipal justice system and the office of the police ombuds.
On homelessness and behavioral health, the mayor said the city used state funds to designate the Division corridor as an encampment location that enabled moving 39 people into a temporary transition facility and eventual placements. The mayor said the city decommissioned the Trent Resource and Assistance Center (TRAC) in October and housed 136 people in about six weeks. The administration launched a pilot navigation center at the Cannon Street facility, partnered with Empire Health Foundation to open and operate six scattered-site shelters and secured funding to expand street-medicine services and fire-department care-team case management.
The mayor emphasized both immediate sheltering and housing finance: the administration increased funding for inclement-weather sheltering and said it reinvested $1,000,000 in affordable-housing dollars back into the community. The address characterized those steps as part of efforts to attach people to primary care and reduce cycles of repeated municipal-court, emergency-room and shelter use.
On transportation and sustainability, the mayor said the city created a transportation commission to review and recommend policies and projects related to safe streets, issued an executive order making pedestrian and bicycle safety top transportation priorities, and is preparing the 2026 comprehensive-plan update with added climate-planning review. The mayor also described work to remove waste from the Spokane River and to invest in water-efficiency technology at city golf courses.
Budget action was presented as a major achievement. The mayor said city staff cut operating costs through furlough days and retirement incentives, and that the administration proposed and passed a balanced budget intended to close a nearly $50,000,000 deficit over the next two years by moving toward a two-year (biennial) budgeting cadence.
The mayor closed the address by saying serving the city has been an honor and expressing confidence in the foundation laid during the first year of the administration.
"It's been an honor to serve you this past year," the mayor said.
