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Community Assembly liaison urges restoring neighborhood council references in comp plan drafts
Summary
Community Assembly liaison Linda Carroll told the Plan Commission she was "very distressed" that references to neighborhoods and neighborhood councils were removed from draft chapters; staff said neighborhood-related language will appear in the neighborhoods and local governance chapters and that an introduction will reflect engagement.
Community Assembly liaison Linda Carroll told Spokane's Plan Commission at the May 13 workshop that she and others were troubled by the removal of neighborhood and neighborhood-council references from the current comprehensive plan draft.
"I compared literally word by word the 2017 update with the current text. I was very... distressed at the removal of references to neighborhoods," Carroll said, urging staff to reintroduce neighborhood council roles across the document in accordance with the City Charter.
Staff responded that the project retains a neighborhoods chapter and a local-governance-through-civic-participation chapter; Capon said staff are working to show how chapters interrelate and promised an introduction that explains the engagement process. "We're trying to show that all the chapters work together," Megan Capon said, adding that staff are developing web tools and cross-references to make neighborhood-related policies and engagement visible across chapters.
Why it matters: Carroll said the earlier plan included sustained citizen committee work and language that reflected how people 'live together' in neighborhoods; she warned that moving neighborhood references to a single siloed chapter risks losing the sense of neighborhood identity and the required role for Neighborhood Councils spelled out in the City Charter.
Staff noted they have added neighborhood-council requests to draft glossary and chapter text and that May and July releases will allow commissioners and the public to see how comments were integrated. Staff invited continued input and said they would consider restoring more references where appropriate.
Status and next steps: Staff said the May policy release will show where comments were integrated and the July release will publish maps and additional materials; Community Assembly requested that neighborhood council references be restored wherever they previously appeared. The commission did not vote on plan text at the workshop; staff will continue edits ahead of public releases.
The commission adjourned after hearing additional comments and staff updates.
