The Spokane City Council race in District 3 pits an appointee in the current position, and three other challengers. Karen Stratton currently holds the seat. She was appointed to the seat by the council, as a replacement for Steve Salvatori when he moved to Texas.
While Salvatori was considered one of the “conservative “ members of the council, some consider Stratton to be closer to the progressive side, although she says she has sided with conservative members Mike Allen and Mike Fagen on a few votes.
Stratton says she considers her biggest accomplishment to be helping create a rule that insists when a city department head wants to create an exempt position, they have to have council approval. She says several exempt positions were filled with people who did not have as much experience as current city employees.
Stratton: “Then you’re bringing in someone who doesn’t have experience, who is making $106,000, who is supervising and managing civil service employees who have been there a long time, and then you see morale going down and down.”
Stratton says she would like to concentrate on issues like low income housing, and says she is “studying” the plan for a city-wide required sick leave for employees, but feels such a plan would be of great assistance to those who cannot afford to miss a day of work because of low wages.
She also likes the work the council has done on planning for centers and corridors, and cites the improvements made in the Perry neighborhood, and how it has brought many businesses to the area.
Challenger Kelly Cruz is a longtime community activist, who lives in the west central neighborhood. As a small business owner, Cruz says his priorities are improving zoning so that it doesn’t prevent small business from expanding, and seriously looking at ways to improve the business climate.
Cruz: “The city hasn’t had since this mayor came in, and since Verner was going out, an economic development policy or an economic development department.”
Cruz says while he likes the idea of a paid sick leave, he does not think it is the role of government to mandate such a policy, and says doing so competes with organized labor and collective bargaining. On public safety, Cruz says he believes the underlying cause of property crime is substance abuse, and efforts need to be made to address that.
Candidate Evan Verduin is an architect who grew up in Spokane. Among his priorities is fine tuning zoning regulations for individual neighborhoods.
Verduin: "The idea that every neighborhood has the same zoning is a little antiquated, and so how do you pass a zoning reform where each neighborhood has a unique set of traits that are unique to those neighborhoods.”
Verduin wants to make the city‘s zoning and business climate more favorable, so that small business will choose to set up shop inside the city limits. Among his other priorities an easier way for citizens to interact with their council members online, and monitor their voting records. On the sick leave issue, he supports the concept, but says he doesn’t think it is the role of the council to mandate the policy to small businesses.
The fourth candidate is Dave White. A county public works inspector, White has some specific ideas about road improvements.
He thinks the city’s “complete streets” plan is diverting money from other improvements.
White: “Part of the thing they’re doing is drawing money off the road tax to put in trees and turnouts and things under the Complete streets project. If you’re taxing people to build roads you should put that money into fixing roads and fixing the infrastructure down below so the money isn’t wasted when something breaks down below in a few years.”
White also believes businesses are moving out of Spokane to other areas like Spokane valley because of prohibitive taxes and fees. On the sick leave issue, White says the city charter makes no provision for the council to establish wages or leave polices for area businesses.
Primary election ballots are due by August 4th, 2015.
