(dramatic music) - [Announcer] This is a KSPS PBS Election Special A debate featuring candidates for Spokane City Council.

- Hello, and thank you for joining us.

I'm Brandon Hollingsworth of Spokane Public Radio.

I'm joining KSPS today to act as your host for this debate featuring the candidates running for Spokane City Council in district two.

As you can see from this map, council District two includes the southern half of the city as well as the west Plains.

Now let me introduce the candidates to you.

Paul Dillon is a graduate of Eastern Washington University and since 2015 has served as vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho.

His past work experience includes serving as legislative assistant to state Senator, Andy Billig, and former city councilman John Snyder.

Katey Treloar received her bachelor's from Gonzaga University as well as a master's degree in education.

She worked for nine years as a classroom teacher in Spokane Public Schools.

She's the founder and owner of Executive Function Coaching working with individuals with ADHD and other NEURODIVERSE diagnoses.

Welcome to you both.

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

Nate Sanford is a staff writer for "The Inlander" who covers Spokane City Hall and joining him is Emry Dinman the city Hall reporter for "The Spokesman Review."

Before we begin, I wanna go over the debate rules for our viewers.

These rules were agreed to by the candidates.

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

The panelist may request a follow-up 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.

And now let's begin.

A coin flip determined that Paul will take the first question and that question will come from Emry.

- Thank you both for being here today.

Paul, some residents in the Latah Valley have called for another moratorium on new development because investments in the roads and fire infrastructure are insufficient to keep up with the growth in population.

- Do you support another moratorium, and will you commit today that these infrastructure projects will be completed by the end of your first term?

- Yeah Great question and first of all, just thank you so much for having us.

Thank you, Katey, for being here and KSPSS for hosting.

And yes, I support the moratorium.

This issue is personal for me.

I was a resident of Grandview Thorpe and have deep knowledge of the community and what's at stake.

with a lot of the development that we've seen, we've seen it without the necessary infrastructure mainly a fire station, a full functioning fire station.

There's a house in Eagle Ridge that's been converted into a temporary fire station.

It's been there since 2015 and we've seen continued delay.

We shouldn't be building more housing in a wildfire zone especially after this summer with wildfires.

I am absolutely committed to getting that fire station built in my first term and convening stakeholders how we can get that done in the first four years.

- Ms. Treloar.

- Yes, thank you.

I stand with the people of the Latah Valley.

I've been in their neighborhoods and I understand the struggles that they're having with infrastructure, safe roads and a fire department.

I believe that we need to put together a committee of all the entities that are involved, create a comprehensive plan with timelines and accountability and then go forward with that plan and accountability.

If that plan includes a moratorium then I will support a moratorium but I do not support a moratorium as a plan to make a plan.

By the end of my four years on city council, the Latah Valley will have a fire station in their neighborhood.

- Our next question will come from Nate Sanford.

Nate.

- Awesome, yeah.

Katey, thank you so much for being here today.

- Yeah.

- I wanted to ask about the city's budget.

The city's currently facing a $20 million budget shortfall.

Going forward as a council member, how can the city better balance its budget?

Should they explore service reductions or find new revenue sources?

- So I support really starting at the city council level and looking at the budget, their budget has increased over a million dollars in the last five years.

So we need to look at where we see redundancies in positions that positions that are on the administrative side and positions on the city council.

So let's start there.

And then after that, let's really focus on downtown because our downtown is one of the biggest revenue sources for our city.

So it is essential that we have a clean and safe downtown that draws people to come and enjoy all the amazing things that our city has to offer and then support the businesses and the people that live down there so that they can continue to stay there and not want to leave.

When I am doorbelling and talking to small businesses in the downtown area, I continue to hear that they all have an exit plan, an exit plan out of downtown, and we cannot let that happen.

- Mr. Dillon?

- Yeah, great question.

So, you know, we are facing a $20 million budget deficit with the add on of the TRAC, The Trent shelter, another 10 million onto that debt.

And you know, it's been a, I don't think the most transparent process about how we got here.

I really want us to pass a budget that helps working families that does not come at the expense of service cuts.

And I'm honored to be endorsed by our city employees union.

For the city council budget they did cut their budget by 5% in the last round.

And the reason for that growth is they're asked to do more what citizens want for city council salaries that's decided by an independent body, the Salary Review Commission which was passed in the city charter by voters.

And we need a fully functioning grants team to unlock state and federal dollars for the budget.

- If I could just follow up, you said you would want to avoid reduced cutting services.

Would that mean finding additional revenue sources?

- Yeah, I want us to convene a revenue stabilization work group to look at what new revenue sources are available.

Cities by nature have limited sources of funds and this would include a lot of different business entities, small businesses, Vista, a lot of our nonprofits that are really working on a lot of grants and mutual aid efforts that help cover the gap from some of the city services.

- And Ms. Treloar.

- I think we're at a position now that we need to go back to some principles that were adopted in 2004 and haven't been really followed.

And that really means looking at current expenditures and making sure that we have the matching revenue to cover those.

We should not be paying for ongoing expenses out of one-time funds.

We must maintain prudent reserves and maintain strict control over hiring and spending.

- And back to Emry for our next question.

- Some council members have called for winding down the Trent Resource and Assistance Center or TRAC the 350 bed homeless shelter operated by the city.

Do you agree?

If so, what should replace it?

- Yes, we have to wind down the relationship with the TRAC shelter, and I would like the city to get out of doing so much business with Larry Stone when he's getting paid $10 million for the Trent Shelter above the market rate value in a place that is not a navigation center, did not have running water, bathrooms and then is coming back around and funding attack ads.

That's wrong.

That is, I think, a very improper relationship and a clear conflict of interest.

I'm supportive of the regional homeless authority that's been coming together, looking at the Houston model.

Through that, I believe that we can really have a navigation center that is up and running, has the wraparound services, mobile crisis responders and really try and remove the politics from this issue.

- Ms. Treloar.

- We are going into, it's October in Spokane and we know that we're going into some extremely cold and severe temperatures.

And right now all we have is TRAC.

And that is not necessarily the proper use of that building.

However, if we can support the regional approach to homelessness, this won't be a problem because the regional homeless approach really lays out a comprehensive plan and ensures that we have shelters, not that they are permanent housing, but just a place to get started as the individuals start navigating the system towards proper mental health, behavioral health and drug addiction treatment.

There is nothing safe and compassionate about allowing individuals to live on the street.

And so for now we have the TRAC center but I look forward to better ideas in the future.

- With whatever replaces the TRAC shelter.

Are you willing to cite any of these facilities or additional services in your district?

- Oh yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I think that we have some areas along transit near medical facilities that we've not thought of.

We have some more vacant buildings but it can't just be this large inhumane warehouse.

We know that that doesn't work.

And through the regional plan, I think that, again, we have a lot of opportunity to have more of that connectivity and really addressing the issue of we have over 1000 individuals experiencing homelessness in the city and 1000 beds.

- Ms. Treloar.

- I think we have to have a comprehensive plan when we're developing these types of centers or else we're gonna have more of the campuses that we see on second division, and that's not safe for anyone.

So we really need to lean into the homeless, the regional homeless approach so that we can have a better plan for to keep the entire city safe.

- And our next question comes from Nate Sanford.

Nate?

- Yeah, so you both mentioned the regional approach which just people know is kind of basically all the jurisdictions coming together kind of pulling the resources for a regional approach to homelessness.

And I'm wondering, are there any specific aspects of the proposal that you are especially excited about?

And then are there any aspects that you're still concerned about in the proposal?

- Ms. Treloar.

- I love that it provides a comprehensive plan to collectively address strategies, planning, systems and other resources.

I think one of the biggest things that's standing in our way is the city itself and the city council.

What we're doing right now isn't working.

So the idea that someone has proposed a very well thought out, fiscally responsible plan that has worked in other cities is just an example of why we need a city council that will come together and work collaboratively, set personal agendas aside and work for the betterment of Spokane.

- Mr. Dillon?

- Yeah, when I said I wanna remove politics from this issue, I meant it.

Voters are very clear that they want to see real leadership on this issue.

We know the data, we know what works and that's getting folks to housing.

There's a large gap between what the Spokane model looks like and the Houston model mainly that navigation center component.

And I also think that, again, we have a history too often in Spokane of leaving money at the doors that could be helping individuals experiencing homelessness.

The issue at hand with the current governance structure and it is improving, I support the vote that City Council took because we want to get it right.

Obviously this is an urgent issue.

Obviously winter is coming, but the development of this plan is over a year and a half and a lot of our providers on the ground have not been parted the equation, but now it's correcting.

- And just to clarify, you mentioned the current governing structure, you mean of the regional coalition.

- Correct.

Yeah.

- [Brandon] Alright.

Our next question comes from Emry.

- Is the office of the Police ombudsman sufficiently empowered to provide oversight of the police department?

Do you support giving that office the power to compel interviews during investigations with officers?

- Mr. Dillon?

- Yeah, absolutely.

10 years ago, voters were very clear that they wanted police accountability in the city.

The charter decreed the ombudsman passed with almost 70% of the vote.

And we still have not seen the Ombuds office fully realized, there has to be a balance of accountability.

The Ombuds office itself is often described as budget dust.

And so it can be really hard, I think, to meet folks where they're at, get a lot of response and they do amazing work.

So I think it really is important that they are fully empowered.

- Ms. Treloar.

- I support the Office of the Ombudsman.

I think police accountability is essential in creating a community that respects and works collaboratively with our law enforcement.

And that goes both ways.

When we are showing our law enforcement that we respect them and want them to be here, it's going to be easier to hire and retain the 100 officers that we are currently short.

And then on the flip side, it also holds our police officers to be accountable for quality engagement in our community.

- I'm looking for a yes or no here.

Do you support giving that office the power to compel interviews?

- Yes.

- Yes.

- Nate Sanford.

- Awesome.

Yeah.

So traffic calming in Spokane, the money that's generated from things like speeding camera tickets and things like that goes into a dedicated pot of money called the Traffic Calming Fund.

And that money traditionally is used for things like infrastructure improvements, like stop signs and speed bumps.

This year the mayor has proposed using some of the traffic calming money to fund police overtime and some gaps in the budget there.

Do you think that's an appropriate use of the traffic Calming fund money?

- [Brandon] Ms. Treloar, we'll begin with you.

- Well, I think it's frustrating in that the way the traffic calming money is being used is not extremely transparent.

I was talking to families in the Latah Valley and I asked them, "What are the traffic calming measures that you asked for?"

And then I went back to the committee only to find out that they weren't given any of the resources that they wanted and needed.

And that's going back to the moratorium and the safety in the Latah Valley.

So I really think that at this time we need a safe and clean city and because the use of our traffic calming funds isn't exactly transparent and it doesn't have a process that everyone's aware of that that money would be better spent using it for police overtime.

- And Mr. Dillon?

- Yeah, I don't support raiding the Traffic Calming Fund for police overtime.

For our 27 neighborhood councils, They've come to expect this funding to go to what it was intended for.

And that is traffic calming.

I was honored when I worked at the City of Spokane as a legislative aide for Councilman John Snyder to work on the Complete Streets ordinance which helped really create more traffic calming models and helped allow safe routes to schools.

And this is a huge issue in the district.

I was really pleased to see City Council create the pedestrian friendly resolution around the Chick-Fil-A proposal that was going in with up on 29th and Regal.

And then for Latah, again, the traffic calming funds can't exactly match what they're asking.

It is a smaller pot of money and I would hate for that to get smaller with these cuts.

- Emry.

- Neighborhood councils do often complain that traffic calming projects take too long to come to fruition if they occur at all.

Could the program be improved and how?

- Mr. Dillon?

- Yeah, absolutely.

We really need to empower our neighborhood councils.

I think we need a lot more robust engagement.

A lot of residents don't know who their neighborhood council is or even kind of how our governance structure works in the city.

And I would really like to see more staffing for our neighborhood councils and more of that communication between our planning, engineering and streets department.

I think that our traffic calming program is wonderful and absolutely needs to be enhanced and improved.

- Ms Treloar.

- We have a great traffic calming program.

They've done an amazing job engaging neighborhoods and getting feedback on what the neighborhoods want whether it's speed bumps, roundabouts, crosswalks, stop signs.

It's more of a matter of money and making sure it's getting done and listening to the neighborhoods.

So I'm gonna go back and talk about the Latah Valley.

They wanted a crosswalk at an intersection.

They wanted a stop sign at what they call Malfunction Junction.

And we have a city council that wants to put a moratorium on building in that neighborhood and yet they couldn't get, they couldn't advocate for that neighborhood to get the funds they needed for these small yet important projects.

- Nate Sanford?

- Yeah, does Spokane's Landlord Tenant Act go far enough?

And if not, what additional protections for renters do you think the city should explore?

- [Brandon] Ms. Treloar?

- We are at a time in Spokane, when it is estimated that we will need 70,000 homes in the next 20 years.

We have too many people living on our streets.

And when I was touring the Hope House, an interesting fact that I learned was that the average age of an unsheltered or a newly unsheltered woman had increased by 10 years because the increase in, it was for women who are living on a fixed income, whose rent continued to increase until they were priced out and became first time homeless around 65, 75.

And that just, that's unacceptable.

That creates, that's a whole different type of individual that we're trying to work with.

So we need to work with the landlords and the tenants to make sure that we are moving forward collaboratively and with an understanding so that we can support our vulnerable populations but at the same time, making sure that we have landlords that wanna continue to invest in Spokane.

- Mr. Dillon?

- Yeah, as someone who is a long time tenant and has lived in various neighborhoods around district two and also saw my rent increase and was priced out of an apartment, I would really like to see the state pass rent stabilization.

There's some modifications currently underway.

This bill is being sponsored by Representative Rommel.

Some of those inclusions are tying to inflation between three and 7% cap on your rent increase.

And then it would alternate each year to ease some of the burden on landlords and then new landlords would also be exempted.

And this would be something that the city of Spokane would need to implement.

And I'm happy to see a stakeholder group coming together that also involves landlords too.

But this is really it.

I mean, rent increases are what is driving so much of these vacancies and homelessness.

- And back to Emry Dinman of "The Spokesman."

- Do you support adding fluoride to the city's water system?

- [Brandon] Oh, Mr. Dillon?

- Yeah.

I mean this has been coming up a couple times at the doors and you know, voters have been pretty clear that now is not the time.

I think that there's a lot of challenges too with cost.

How implementing would work with our aquifer with the budget crisis that we are facing right now.

Again, this is just not a priority for voters.

So.

- And Ms. Treloar.

- Yeah, this issue's been on the ballot three times and it's been voted down by the community three times.

I think it's time that we listen to the voters and look for other ways to educate our families and our children about the importance of fluoride but at this time it needs to be taken off the table.

- And Nate Sanford of "The Inlander."

- Yeah, Katey, you mentioned earlier that the police department is, they're understaffed, they've been struggling to fill vacant positions.

Is there anything more that City Council can do to help them recruit people and fill those positions?

- Yeah, as the only candidate in this race that's endorsed by the police union, I support whatever we can do to hire and retain quality law enforcement.

And that starts at the city level making sure that people are coming to Spokane to apply for jobs because they feel that it is a community that will support them.

When we are looking at a hundred individual deficit, it's just unacceptable.

Spokane has the highest rate of domestic violence in the state of Washington and we need more police officers.

So we need a city council that will encourage individuals to come to Spokane and stay in Spokane.

My opponent protested a precinct in the East central neighborhood despite the overwhelming feedback from the community that they wanted a precinct and his anti-police rhetoric is going to be more divisive and will make it more difficult to hire and retain those a hundred police officers.

- [Brandon] Mr. Dillon?

- Yeah, I disagree with that assertion.

There already was a police precinct in East Central and there was not a clear majority of neighbors that supported the move over of this precinct.

And I got a phone call from Sandy Williams who we all dearly miss to come up and protest around the issues of process that led to this.

And I fully support what we can do to fund and create more retention for our police officers.

This is a state problem, this is a national problem.

I also support creating some new programs like we've seen in Eugene with CAHOOTS or the STAR program in Denver that ended up saving police departments a lot of money on overtime.

The Eugene Police Department budget was about 90 million larger than Spokane.

With the implementation of CAHOOTS, they ended up saving 17 million.

- And our final question will come from Emry- - Oh, I'm sorry.

- Oh, I'm sorry.

- Do you mind if I just, a quick rebuttal there.

- Absolutely, opportunity for rebuttal.

- I think this is a great example of how out of touch my opponent is with Spokane law Enforcement.

Since 2020, we've had a behavioral health unit that combines police officers and mental health professionals to co-respond.

And we've seen great, wonderful success from this program.

But if you take a minute to look on my opponent's social media, you can tell how much like Donald Trump, he uses Twitter to attack and divide our city and cause divisiveness when it comes to police safety.

- [Brandon] I imagine you'll want to rebut that.

- Yeah, no one's ever told me I sound like Donald Trump, never voted for him.

But CAHOOTS is a different program.

Again, it is not going out in tandem.

It is mobile behavioral health responders that are obviously working with police.

Only about 5% of their calls required backup, but they are, there is an independent component to that for that person that is having their worst day in a behavior health crisis seeing an unarmed officer.

- And that'll have to be it for our question answer period.

Time now for closing statements.

And Mr. Dillon, you'll go first.

- Yeah, again, thank you so much for having us.

Thank you Katey.

This was a wonderful discussion.

And you know, this election really is not about left or right or independent.

It's about connecting authentically in people's lives and reflecting the issues and concerns of district two.

Because authenticity matters.

I'm the candidate in this race with experience working at all levels of government to pass policies.

And on day one, I'm gonna be able to hit the ground running.

I am running for my daughter, she's five months old.

We're raising her in the Perry District, right in East Central because we care deeply about service in Spokane.

Folk singer, Utah Phillips once said, "There are too many people doing too many good things for me to be afforded the luxury of being pessimistic."

That's how I feel about Spokane.

Go to vote pauldillon.com to learn more.

I would love to connect and I hope to earn your vote this November.

- Closing statement from Katey Treloar.

- Thank you.

My name is Katey Treloar and I am asking for your vote in November.

I'm the only woman and the only independent candidate in this race.

And being an independent candidate is not easy.

And in fact, it's really hard because people are always questioning who you are.

But what it means is a promise to the city of Spokane that I will park my ideologies at the door and use data, research and community input to drive my decision making.

If Spokane wants to see a reduction in crime, I ask that you vote for me, Katey Treloar.

If you wanna see more affordable housing, please vote for me in November.

If you're ready to help tackle the very difficult issue of homelessness with compassion and accountability, I ask for your vote.

Please Spokane, this is an important election and we need everyone to engage.

Thank you.

- And that will do it for this debate.

Our thanks to each of the candidates as well as to journalists, Nate Sanford and Emry Dinman.

On behalf of KSPS PBS, thank you for watching.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues)