- [Announcer] This is a KSPS PBS election special.

A debate featuring candidates for Spokane City Council.

(bright music) - Hello and thank you for joining us.

I'm Kristi Gorenson.

KSP is pleased to bring you this debate featuring the candidates running for Spokane City Council in District 1.

The city's northeast district is almost entirely bounded by Interstate 90 to the south and Division Street to the west, though, after redistricting in 2022, it also includes downtown Spokane's Riverside neighborhood.

Let me introduce the candidates to you.

Michael Cathcart is the incumbent city councilman in District 1 and serves as chair of the Public Safety Committee and the Northeast Public Development Authority.

He previously worked as executive director of Better Spokane and the Spokane Home Builders Association.

Lindsey Shaw is the former chair of the Logan Neighborhood Council and sits on the Spokane Parks Board Development and Volunteer Committee.

She is the engagement coordinator and family advocate at the Northeast Community Center.

Welcome to you both.

For this debate, the candidates will answer questions from two Spokane journalists.

Emry Dinman is the City Hall reporter for "The Spokesman-Review," and Nate Sanford reports on local government for "The Inlander."

Before we begin, I want to go over a few of the debate rules for our viewers.

These rules were agreed to by the candidates.

The panel can ask the same question to all the candidates or they can direct the question to just one.

The panelist may request a followup to an answer.

Candidates will have one minute for answers.

Candidates will be allowed two rebuttals for the entire debate.

Rebuttal length will be limited to 30 seconds.

So let's begin.

A coin flip determined that Michael will take the first question and that will come from Nate Sanford.

- Awesome, yeah, and thank you both so much for being here today.

I wanted to start by asking about the city budget.

As you know, the city's currently facing a $20 million budget shortfall.

And as a council member, how do you think the city can better balance its budget going forward?

Do you think that the city should explore new revenue sources?

Should they explore reducing certain services?

How would you approach that?

- Yeah, thank you.

And it's $20 million deficit if you don't include TRAC.

If you start to include TRAC, that number starts to balloon even higher.

We are in a very precarious situation with our budget and it's putting a lot of our priorities at risk, unfortunately.

And so moving forward, we have to continue to reform our budget processes.

I have been grateful to have had the opportunity to implement several reforms, including requirements that we rebuild our reserves, creating an opportunity for a mid-year budget, supplemental budget process, so we can better, more holistically make some of the more macro decisions in our budget to help tweak things so that we're not out of whack for the rest of the year.

And then going forward, one of the big fundamental shifts that we need to see is council needs to be more involved at the departmental level, talking to our employees, talking to department heads, and understanding their priorities, their areas where perhaps there could be efficiencies or reductions, and then we are gonna have to go potentially to the ballot and ask the voters if they want to fund any additional revenues for either maintaining or increasing service.

That will be a requirement that we'll have to consider going forward.

- Right.

Lindsey?

- Well, just as a neighborhood council leader, I am not as familiar with the budget as my incumbent here, but I do know that our budget is really a value statement.

And so how do we prioritize, really, our community health?

And I am interested in finding solutions, especially when it comes to how do we keep our investments in police but also maybe invest in behavioral health to go along with that?

Just being creative and finding our solutions for our budget because, yes.

- And then just just to follow up, when it comes to, like, investing in behavioral health and things like that and kind of increased spending on social services, do you have kind of any ideas on how that would be paid for?

- Well, I think that we have missed a lot of opportunity for funds through federal and state funds that are available.

I believe that Spokane is not the only place facing behavioral health as a challenge and I think there are dollars available for that.

- And Michael, you can have 30 seconds to follow up on that answer as well.

- Yeah, well, I think it's important that we go to the state, we advocate a lot stronger at the state level for dollars.

I think they have both the ability to provide the economies of scale as well as the means to help stand up mental health and drug addiction supports, and that's something that's really crucial.

The other is Measure 1, and if Measure 1 does pass, that will generate a significant amount of revenue for the city to start to implement those types of needed criminal justice reforms.

- All right, we'll move on to the next question.

Lindsey, you'll answer this one first from Emry.

- Some council members have called for winding down the Trent Resource and Assistance Center, TRAC, as Michael referred to it earlier, the 350-bed homeless shelter operated by the city.

Do you agree?

If so, what should replace it?

- It's obviously homelessness is a complicated issue and something that we have to deal with.

I'm not sure that our TRAC shelter is fiscally responsible for our city to stay up with.

I think that there need to be multiple options.

District 1 has the majority of the shelters in our city, especially with the redistricting, and know that there need to be solutions offered.

So I think that there could be more cost-effective ways.

Are there buildings that the city owns that we are not using at this time that we could potentially invest in?

Could we partner with other partners to have better solutions than putting a lot of money into, really, a warehouse that I think that could be more traumatizing to the people facing trauma?

So I'm really interested in bringing people together to find solutions to that issue.

- [Kristi] All right.

Michael?

- Yeah, TRAC does not work as it currently stands and I have voted against just about every kind of piece of moving TRAC forward because I have not felt that it was either fiscally responsible, nor did I think, do I continue to believe that it's providing the service necessary to actually move people out on their feet.

In fact, I just read yesterday that only somewhere around 40 to 50 individuals have actually been moved into permanent housing out of TRAC.

And so with that being the case, that is, in my opinion, a very low number and we need to see that increase significantly if we are gonna start to see success with our homelessness response.

And so to me, the answer is we need to create a regional homelessness effort, and those discussions are obviously underway.

There's a lot of nuance that goes into that that will make that successful.

But at the end of the day, TRAC, if it's going to continue to exist, it should be in the hands of that regional authority, not the hands of the city of Spokane.

And it was brought up that District 1 does have the majority, in fact, just about all of the sheltering system is in District 1, and I'm grateful that the mayor has committed to not siting another shelter in District 1 as long as she is in office.

- Emry.

- As a followup to both of you, do you have any proposals for what specifically, if TRAC should not continue to exist, what it should be replaced with?

And would you be willing to see those shelters or facilities be placed in your district?

- Is this for me?

- [Kristi] You can go ahead, Michael, and then we'll follow up with Lindsey.

- If it's completely replacing TRAC, I'd be open to that conversation, but if it's in addition to, then no, I would not be open to that.

In fact, I think what we need to start seeing is a regional effort, which means siting facilities outside of the core of the city, outside of District 1.

In fact, I think our partners in the region also need to bear some of this.

I mean, the point in time count that we received just this year shows that only 40% of those who participated in the question said that they were from Washington state, which means 60% came from outside the state entirely.

And so we need to see a lot more buy-in and support from our partners in the region.

- [Kristi] Right.

Lindsey?

- I think that the real issue is what is causing homelessness?

And I think it's our housing crisis.

So we need to invest in housing at all price points as soon as possible immediately, especially around our City Line.

It's not that I don't want people to live in District 1.

I certainly do.

But how do we do that and keep them close to services and also maybe create a coordinated care center, something like what we had at the Northeast Community Center with multiple resources in one place, kind of a one-stop shop?

And there's so many barriers to seek help, I think we could do better.

- Right, thank you.

- I'll pull my 30-second response.

- [Kristi] You may, yes.

30 seconds.

- The other thing I just wanted add is I had the opportunity about a year ago to visit Houston and see firsthand their efforts in creating a regional homelessness response and it's pretty incredible the partnerships that they've created, and successfully, and they've really started to see a big increase in folks being housed versus not.

And so I would say that the best thing to do would be to transition to some form of a navigation center that we can use to then move people into transitional housing, which is where I would focus most of our efforts, is on that transitional piece, rather than the sheltering piece.

I would leave more of the sheltering efforts to our nonprofit partners and I would focus more on the transitional housing using our 1590 funds.

- All right, we're gonna move on to the next question.

Michael, you'll take this one from Nate.

- Yeah, so Michael, as you mentioned, you know, local leaders are kind of in the process of working on this proposal to pool resources together and kind of unite all the jurisdictions under this regional homeless authority.

I'm wondering, are there any aspects of the current proposal that you have concerns about?

Are there any aspects that you're excited about?

- Well, I'm excited about the general effort and hopefully the outcome, because to me, the only way we're gonna be successful in responding to homelessness, again, this is a regional issue, is with a regional response and that means everybody at the table participating.

And while the issues and impacts are really greatly felt mostly in the city of Spokane right now, we are seeing those impacts spread out.

We're seeing a lot more in the North County, we're seeing a lot more in the Valley.

And so I think it really behooves them to be a partner in this effort because it's gonna benefit them significantly as well.

And so the things that concern me a little bit, the governship model, what does that look like?

Who is on that?

Who's appointing those individuals?

What sort of sovereignty will the individual jurisdictions keep once this is formed?

Are they gonna go to the state and try to obtain additional powers to perhaps overrule local jurisdictions?

Those are all fears I have that, you know, government bureaucracy run amuck is always something that I'm concerned about.

But on the other hand, I honestly believe this is the path to success, and as long as we do it right, we do it thoughtfully, we have the right people at the table, I firmly believe that this is gonna be what really reduces homelessness across the region.

- [Kristi] Lindsey.

- Well, obviously I'm very excited that there is some talk about a solution because our people are hurting very much.

I do have many concerns though.

One of them is bringing the lived experience to the table, someone who's come out of maybe homelessness.

How do we include their voice and make sure that it's not a top-down approach?

I think that people without the experience are well intended, but I think their solutions are out of touch.

So making sure that those voices are brought to the table.

I also feel like that's been a lack of transparency so far.

I know there's been improvements, but I think that it's very important to include our community when we are making this regional effort to solve a very big issue that affects our whole city.

And I am concerned, too, that not all jurisdictions so far are on board.

So how do we get them to buy in?

I think that that's a really important piece moving forward.

- All right.

Lindsey, you'll take this next question from Emry.

- Is the Office of the Police Ombudsman sufficiently empowered to provide oversight of the police department?

And specifically, do you support giving that office the power to compel interviews with officers during investigations?

- Thank you for that question.

I do not believe that they have enough and I think that police accountability, just like we were talking about budget transparency, I think that that's really important for us to be able to have those conversations no matter how crucial they are.

I think without having them, we're missing opportunity of how to better our city and better our community safety and wellbeing.

- Yeah, in 2013, 70% of my voters said that they want an independent police ombudsman, and they did not have that until right around early 2022 and that's when we approved a budget, or excuse me, a contract with the Police Guild that authorized further independent opportunities for the ombudsman.

And we do need to go further.

I firmly believe that.

One of the toughest votes that I have taken on the city council was to vote against the police budget, or excuse me, the police contract in 2020.

That definitely was not something that was the greatest for morale, but it was the right thing to do in terms of making sure that we had police accountability, and we got it.

I'm also proud to have the support of the Police Guild because they know, even though I am a big supporter of police accountability, I am also a huge supporter of public safety and that is something that we need significantly more of.

- [Kristi] Yeah.

- As a followup, Michael, you have talked about believing that there are certain authorities that should be delineated from the Office of the Police Ombudsman.

You've talked about a independent inspector general position.

Could you elaborate on where you think that line should be drawn?

- Yeah, well, I mean, I think ideally, and there's a lot of little pieces that would go into this and a charter change and whatnot, but I think ideally, you would have an independent inspector general at the top and that person would then have independent oversight over the actions of the city.

They could ferret out waste, fraud, abuse, which is really important.

They could also identify corruption, which is really important.

And I see the ombudsman could either be a partner with or a subsidiary of, but either way, they need to be independent of the city, and to me, that's something that we have to be looking at.

Most major cities have an inspector general of some kind and this is sort of a basic thing to make sure that, again, you are providing, you know, good governance and that there are not problems happening behind the scenes.

- Right, Lindsey, you can have 30 seconds if you like.

- You know, I need to learn more about this, but I do know that our District 1 has been feeling left behind when it comes to police response times, to our being taken away of our neighborhood resource officers, and we definitely do not see our police slowing traffic down.

So I know that there need to be investments, but I would like to see those come before a private investigator for their own police department.

- [Kristi] All right, thank you.

Michael, you'll take this next question from Nate.

- Yeah, so speaking of traffic, in the city of Spokane, money collected by tickets from, like, red light cameras and speeding cameras and stuff like that goes into a dedicated pot of money called the traffic calming fund.

And traditionally, that money has been used for infrastructure projects like speed bumps and stop signs.

This year, the mayor has proposed using some of that money to cover gaps in police overtime.

Do you think that's an appropriate use of traffic calming money?

- You know, I had the opportunity to work in the state legislature for a couple of years and see firsthand how they attempted to balance budgets and what I saw and learned and what has really informed me in this position is the gimmicks that they employ to try and essentially kick the can and delay things and push it down the road.

One of those gimmicks is sweeping dedicated accounts and I think that it is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

Not only is it unsustainable for our budget, which is our big issue right now with our budget is the lack of sustainability.

We use a lot of one-time funds to cover ongoing expenses, which is the wrong thing to do and something I don't support.

But in this case, no, this is a dedicated account for a dedicated purpose.

People have expectations and, frankly, next to crime, this is probably the number one thing I hear when I'm out of the doors talking to voters.

They are so frustrated at the lack of traffic control, at the speeding, at traffic.

I mean, it is just awful.

And so one of the things I'm proposing is that we actually increase the capacity of our traffic calming department and our ICM department so that we can actually get these projects delivered on time, on or hopefully better than what the budget is for them.

- [Kristi] Lindsey.

- Well, as a neighborhood leader and someone who has worked with my whole district with neighborhood leadership, we've spent a lot of time on traffic calming decisions and the city asking us to make sure we come up with these ideas by a certain time limit.

And so we've spent a ton of time over the decades identifying projects to be worked on.

So for the city to think that they can take those funds to cover their budget shortfalls I feel is a little insensitive to neighborhoods and I think it's very much against what's best for the community.

I think that there are options.

There's opportunity to find revenue through our tax code.

Washington State has the most upside-down tax code and for us to have to tax low-income and middle-income families to cover those costs, I think, is irresponsible and it's time for a change.

- All right, thank you.

Lindsey, you'll take this question next from Emry.

- Neighborhood councils often complain that the traffic calming projects take too long, if they occur at all.

Could this program be improved and how so?

- Yes, I have so many ideas around just improving neighborhood engagement in general.

When I was a part of the neighborhood council, we proposed ideas and then were turned down and then I asked, when was the last time that we have been approved and what have we asked for in the past?

And so just looking at equity.

I know that not everything is equal, but how do we just make sure that when we're investing in certain neighborhoods, we're also investing in other neighborhoods.

And I know that it's complicated.

I'm also on CTAB.

So funds are always limited, but I believe that there are creative solutions.

I believe that there is more opportunity to find funds, especially through traffic calming with our police department.

We're missing opportunities to make that revenue and to keep our neighborhoods safe.

- [Kristi] Right.

Michael.

- We have gotta do a much better job of delivering those projects on time.

And right now, I'm incredibly frustrated because we were told all year that we were gonna have a number of projects that were gonna be delivered this year to our neighborhoods and then told at the last minute, "Nope, that's not happening."

That should never happen again, which is why I am pushing so hard to capacity build for our traffic calming efforts.

Our neighborhoods have a lot of concerns and this is something that I probably spend probably the bulk of my time dealing with are these traffic concerns all across our neighborhoods, whether it's stop sign removals in Bluegrass, trying to improve sidewalks in the Logan neighborhood.

I mean, there is a number of things that we are doing all across the northeast, and one of the big things I'm proud of is I think before my time there was less thought given to equity for District 1, and that has changed.

In fact, I would say that the respect for District 1 has increased significantly in the last four years as we have fought and fought and fought to make sure that we get the investments that we deserve after being so underserved for so many years and decades.

- [Kristi] Right, and Lindsey, you have 30 seconds for rebuttal.

- I have been a part of that fight and a squeaky wheel for our district.

So I see that we've gotten some attention and I don't think that it's quite enough yet.

I happened to be at the neighborhood council meeting in Shiloh Hills this year when they talked about how they got this traffic calming approved for their neighborhood and they were so excited that their years of work actually came to fruition, something good.

So to think about them not seeing it when they're seeing an increase in apartments up there, they have many apartments, they don't have more community investments that they would like to see.

- All right, thank you.

Michael, you'll take this next question from Nate, and due to time, we're gonna limit the answer to 30 seconds.

- Yeah, when was the last time that you rode the bus in Spokane and do you remember how much it cost?

And also, more broadly, how could STA improve service?

- Yeah, well, the last time I rode the bus was the opening of the Central City Line and rode the whole thing.

Took quite a while, but we made the whole trek.

And it was free, so there was no cost when we got on the Central City Line.

How can we improve bus service?

Well, first and foremost, the thing that I found to be, frankly, I was aghast, was the fact that they required us to close up our stroller and I just thought to myself, "Wow, if, you know, you're a single mom with a baby and the bus driver's literally gonna sit there and not move an inch until you close up that stroller," I just thought that was reprehensible.

And so that's the kind of thing.

We need to be supportive of our community.

We need to actually help our community.

Lastly, I'll just add, El Estero, a low-income apartment building, I've been trying for four years to get access to STA and I'm still fighting to do it.

- [Kristi] All right, Lindsey.

- I love the STA.

The last time I rode it was with my boys.

We rode our bikes to the City Line.

It was still in the free time, but they have their passes and they're ready and excited to ride again.

But we went downtown, went for a bike ride, got back on, and it was wonderful.

I think that how do we increase the mobility, right?

How do we make it more connections to our City Line?

How do we incentivize park and rides for GU games to our neighborhood that's already dealing with a lot of parking issues?

I see opportunity left and right to improve our transit system.

- All right.

Thank you.

Well, that will have to be the last question.

It's time now for closing statements, and Michael, you will go first.

- Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, my name is Michael Cathcart and I've been your city council member for the last four years.

It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve you, to fight for you, and to be the champion for all of northeast Spokane.

I serve as the Council President Pro Tem, the chair of Public Safety, chair of the Northeast Public Development Authority, in addition to a number of other roles, and we have fought really hard to increase police presence.

I continue to fight for neighborhood policing, which I believe will be the number one way that we can reduce crime in our neighborhoods.

I continue to advocate for more affordable and attainable housing options.

I continue to advocate for more transparency and accessibility, working with council members of all stripes to make sure that you can have your voice heard.

That includes language access, something that is very near and dear to my heart.

And I just continue to fight for the budget and the sustainability of our budget long term so that we can make sure that our priorities are protected and secured as a city and as a community.

Please visit my website, votecathcart.com, and I just appreciate the support.

Thank you.

- Lindsey.

- Well, I was born and raised in Spokane and I love our city.

It's beautiful, and I see northeast being left behind in so many ways.

I've been a squeaky wheel and an advocate for our area and I will continue to do so.

I would love to represent us at city council and think that bringing neighborhood voice to the decision-making table is really how we have the biggest impact and make sure that our voices are heard.

As a mom, I think about what will society look like 20 years from now?

How do we not only solve problems and issues that are happening now, but how do we steward a better future for not only our own children, but for everyone in our community to make sure that we have a beautiful city moving forward?

In my time as neighborhood chair working at the Northeast Community Center, even just living where I live in District 1, I see our community hurting and we are screaming almost for a change and making sure that we're moving in a healthier direction as a city.

- Okay, that'll do it for this debate.

Thank you both.

Thanks to each of our candidates, as well as the journalists, Emry Dinman and Nate Sanford.

If you aren't registered to vote, it's not too late.

You have until October 30th to register online or by mail and you can even register to vote in person until 8:00 p.m. on election day.

For all of us at KSPS, thank you for watching.

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