3/3/2023
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The Spokesman-Review
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The Spokesman-Review
Contends mayor has been ineffective dealing with homelessness and downtown crime
The decision of former state Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown to run for mayor promises to energize the race to lead Spokane.
Long rumored to be pursuing a campaign for mayor, Brown walked onto the stage at the Women’s Club of Spokane at 1428 W. Ninth Ave. Thursday morning as a few bars of Ben Harper’s “Better Way” played over the loudspeakers.
“I’m Lisa Brown, and I do believe in a better way,” she told a crowd of supporters.
“We can get this city, that is stuck in neutral, moving again.”
Brown’s campaign announcement largely focused on a message of collaboration and optimism for the future of Spokane.
“Despite the political polarization that we’ve all experienced, that’s caused many people to feel discouraged or tune out, I believe there will always be more that unites us than divides us,” she said.
Brown, who recently left a job as the director of the state Department of Commerce, enters the race with decades of experience in Spokane politics, including her 2018 run for Congress against Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers.
She raised more than $5 million for her congressional bid.
Brown noted her long connection to Spokane, both as a longtime educator at Eastern Washington University and the chancellor of Washington State University Spokane, and local legislative victories during her time in Olympia.
She recalled marching in the city’s first Pride Parade in 1992, helping to secure funding for the Crosswalk youth shelter, and championing tax breaks for those making movies in Washington. She told the audience about her work to save the Fox Theater in 2000, convincing Gov.
Christine Gregoire and the Legislature to save the downtown landmark.
But Brown also took aim at the current leadership of Mayor Nadine Woodward.
“I’m running for mayor because the ineffective leadership coming out of the Mayor Woodward’s office has been holding us back,” she said.
Brown criticized “excessive turnover” within the administration and the rhetoric out of the mayor’s office.
“There’s too much conflict,” she said. “Conflict with the council, conflict with the state, conflict with communities of color.”
Brown said Woodward had failed to make progress on her primary campaign promises, addressing homelessness and crime downtown.
“But most people would tell you that we have made little genuine progress on those issues, and many would say that they feel worse,” she said.
Specifically, Brown criticized the city’s focus on the large congregant shelter on East Trent Avenue to address the homelessness crisis, arguing that there is a better way. When asked to clarify what she believed should be done with the facility, which the City Council has expressed interest in purchasing, Brown didn’t provide specifics.
“It could very well be that Trent is a part of our system going forward, because perhaps we need a big emergency response space in case of an ice storm or another type of natural disaster,” she said.
Brown, 66, was appointed by Gov. Jay Inslee to serve as director of the state Department of Commerce in February 2019. In that role, Brown has overseen the attimes controversial dispersal of funds to house homeless encampments on state rights of way, including Spokane’s Camp Hope.
Woodward, who announced last July that she would be running for reelection, has clashed publicly with Brown over the encampment.
Both have alternatively criticized the other for the lack of progress in clearing the camp and getting those living there into more humane housing.
In February, the state Department of Commerce announced Brown would be stepping down from that position, though no reason was given at the time.
Brown previously represented the 3rd Legislative District in Spokane in the state House of Representatives from 1993 to 1996, and in the state Senate until 2013.
Brown served as chancellor of Washington State University Spokane from 2013 to 2017.
S-R reporter Laurel Demkovich contributed to this report.
In front of a group of reporters Thursday afternoon, Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward lauded the accomplishments of her first term and addressed a new challenger hoping to take her job.
Just hours after former state Department of Commerce director Lisa Brown announced her bid to become mayor of Spokane, Woodward held a news conference of her own in the conference room of the Associated Builders and Contractors Inland Pacific Chapter at 1760 E. Trent Ave.
The setting was a deliberate statement amid Spokane’s housing crisis, demonstrating support for the incumbent among local builders.
“They support and endorse me. The Spokane Home Builders, they support and endorse me,” she said. “They’re the ones who are going to provide the housing that we need to get us out of this crisis.”
Woodward described the historic challenges her administration has faced, including the pandemic and racial justice protests, contentious politics around modern policing, workforce shortages, inflation and Spokane’s “first riot, ever.”
Amid those challenges, Woodward highlighted the accomplishments of her administration, such as a pilot program to encourage housing density, the doubling of homeless shelter beds and a renewed focus on community policing.
Woodward said police reforms out of Olympia had hampered local law enforcement’s ability to fight crime and noted she is working on a draft ordinance to criminalize open drug use in public spaces.
She also called for more state funding to hire officers, noting she expected the endorsement of Spokane police officers.
“Our public spaces need to be safe for everyone,” she said.
She also addressed criticism from her newest challenger, Brown, who argued earlier in the day that Woodward was confrontational with the City Council, with the state and with communities of color.
Woodward dismissed the latter point as baseless and noted prior cooperation with the City Council to pass zoning reforms and other legislation.
As to her confrontations with the state, often marked by clashes with Brown in her recent role heading the state Department of Commerce, Woodward was direct.
“I represent the city of Spokane,” she said.
“When the state comes into my city and tells me how to run things, but leaves me out of the conversation, does not engage with me or my staff, doesn’t even give me the information that I need to address those issues – yeah, there’s conflict.”
Woodward continued, attacking Brown as a career politician who “never saw a tax hike she doesn’t like.”
She said Brown has been ineffective in her role in the dispersal of state funds to rehouse the residents of the Camp Hope homeless encampment, including with the opening of the controversial Catalyst Project.
“She was OK with people sleeping in the field in 6 inches of snow. I’m not,” Woodward said.
Woodward announced her reelection campaign in July and is headed into the competition with the advantage of incumbency and a significant fundraising head start, having already accrued nearly $111,000, with around $90,000 on hand. As of Thursday, she was the only candidate reporting campaign funds to the state Public Disclosure Commission.
Emry Dinman can be reached at (509) 459-5472 or by email at emryd@spokesman.com.
Some local lawmakers believe there is more than enough parking in the downtown Spokane area, and that the space would be better used as affordable housing.
On Monday, the Spokane City Council unanimously approved a new tax incentive to encourage developers to do just that. While some doubt that the incentive is enough to actually lead to redevelopment of surface parking lots, proponents said the ordinance is a small step to tackle the city’s affordable housing crisis.
The ordinance, sponsored by council members Zack Zappone and Lori Kinnear, would defer both state and local sales and use taxes – a total of 9% – for developers who turn downtown parking lots into housing, at least 50% of which must be affordable housing.
The exact affordability requirements depend on whether the units are for rent or for sale, but costs cannot be higher than what is typical for the county.
If the development maintains those affordable units for at least 10 years, the taxes would not need to be paid. Developers who receive the waiver but later renege on the requirements would be required to pay back the deferred taxes.
There is more than enough parking in the downtown Spokane area, and much of it doesn’t get used frequently, according to a 2019 study conducted by the city.
That study found 37,000 parking spaces downtown, 85% of which were off-street, including in both parking lots and garages.
Parking makes up nearly a third of the surface area of the “downtown study area,” which includes the downtown core and surrounding areas, according to the study.
That same study found that off-street parking in the downtown core was typically never more than 65% occupied, except for during large events such as the Lilac Parade, when up to 100% of off-street parking was occupied. Certain areas, however, such as the Main Avenue corridor, were frequently at or near capacity during the busiest times of day.
While the city of Spokane manages around 15% of parking spaces in the downtown area, almost all city-run parking is on-street. The vast majority of off-street parking is managed by private property owners and for-profit companies, such as Diamond Parking, which manages or owns 16% of all downtown parking, according to the study.
“We realize (parking lots) are not the highest and best use for that land, so we’re not averse to developing,”Dan Geiger, vice president of the Spokane Region for Diamond Parking, said in a recent interview.
But others are skeptical that the math would pencil out for downtown developments that have to make 50% of their units affordable.
“When the state came out with that (program) initially, my thoughts were that it was well-intended, but it’s going to miss the mark,” said Chris Batten, the principal of RenCorp Realty and board chair of the Downtown Spokane Partnership.
A lower affordability threshold, coupled with other incentives, would be more likely to lead to additional development, Batten said.
However, the affordable housing incentive can be layered with others, including a multifamily tax exemption, and at least one Tacoma-based developer has shown some interest, Kinnear said in an interview.
Furthermore, if the 50% affordability requirement proves to be unworkable, the city will have evidence it can bring to the Legislature to ask for adjustments, she added.
Though the development incentive works by deferring and potentially forgiving taxes that the city could have otherwise received, it is still fiscally responsible, Kinnear continued. Surface parking lots generate little revenue for the city, and any building would create higher property taxes, among other downstream benefits, she argued.
Emry Dinman can be reached at (509) 459- 5472 or by email at emryd@spokesman.com.