Spokane council reviews broad 2026 rules update on agendas, amendments and staffing

Council President convened a special meeting on Jan. 26 to review a staff-drafted package of changes to council rules for 2026, led by the council’s policy director, Mr. Wright, and office director, Mr. Jacoby. The package includes edits to agenda naming and routing, sponsorship addition/removal, written-testimony handling, amendment timing for the annual budget and rules governing suspension of the rules, plus language to incorporate a new council staffing ordinance into Section 7.

Staff framed the package as technical fixes driven by operational problems the past three years. "You you all have a copy of the summary, the 2 page summary," Mr. Wright told the council, and he noted the team had provided the rules in redline but "we haven't shared this with the clerks yet or with legal." He flagged several open issues that still need review, including meeting day, sponsorship thresholds, and how best to handle consent/contract substitutions.

Why it matters: the changes would affect how items get routed to committees, which items can be added late to a final agenda without a rule suspension, how and when amendments appear in the packet, and who can be held to…