2/14/2023
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The Spokesman-Review
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The Spokesman-Review
OLYMPIA – Lisa Brown is stepping down as director of the Washington state Department of Commerce, a move certain to increase speculation that she mayrun for Spokane mayor later this year.
Brown, 66, a former Spokane legislator and Senate majority leader, was appointed by Gov. Jay Inslee to serve as director in February 2019. The Department of Commerce did not give a reason why Brown was stepping down.
Brown has been considered a top possible choice to run for mayor of Spokane this year, though she has not said officially whether she is running. The last time Brown, a Democrat, ran for public office was in 2018 in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers.
“I am proud of our work over the last four years and confident that this team will continue to excel in equitable community and economic development,” Brown said in a statement.
Brown said in an interview that she would announce her next steps in early March and wants to spend the next few weeks wrapping up her work at Commerce.
She acknowledged last year that she was considering a run for mayor.
“I have considered that, and I haven’t made a decision about it,” Brown said in a December interview.
“And it’s not an easy decision, because this work here at Commerce is really important.”
Before she was appointed, Brown represented the 3rd Legislative District in Spokane in the state House of Representatives from 1993 to 1996, and in the state Senate until 2013. She served as chancellor of Washington State University Spokane from 2013 to 2017.
Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward announced last July that she would be running for re-election.
She said in an interview that she had heard Brown would likely be stepping down from Commerce, but that she did not want to comment on Brown’s possible mayoral run until she officially announced it.
Woodward has already raised more than $82,700, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission.
Brown has clashed with Woodward over the city’s response to homelessness, specifically the Camp Hope encampment in east central Spokane. Brown has criticized Woodward for not doing enough to help those in Camp Hope find housing, while Woodward has criticized Brown for not doing enough at Commerce to combat homelessness.
Brown said the Commerce Department is in the process of asking for more investments into the governor’s right-of-way initiative,which helps get people living in rights-of-way, such as at Camp Hope, into housing.
“I think progress has been really positive there,” Brown said.
Former City Council President Ben Stuckart, who lost the Spokane mayoral race against Woodward in 2019, previously told The Spokesman-Review that he would consider another run this year if Brown did not run. On Monday, Stuckart said he would not be running again to become mayor of Spokane, but that he had not been told definitively whether Brown planned to run.
The state Democratic Party has indicated the Spokane’s mayoral race will be a priority this year, though state party chair Shasti Conrad did not say whom they might be supporting.
“We are definitely really keen on the mayor’s race this year and are going to be active in seeing what we can do to flip that seat,” Conrad said in an interview last week.
Inslee said in a statement Brown has led Commerce through “enormous change” in the last few years. During the pandemic, Brown steered the department through unprecedented levels of relief and funding assistance for local governments, tribes, small businesses, nonprofit organizations and others, he said.
“Lisa is a trailblazer in her own right who has shattered glass ceilings and looks for ways to clear the path for others to succeed, within the agency and among the communities that Commerceserves,” Inslee said in a news release.
Inslee will appoint a replacement for Brown. It’s unclear when Inslee will announce his appointment, but Brown said it will likely be near the end of her time as director.
Brown said the pandemic had a huge effect on Commerce, which led to her pivoting to a role that provided more direct assistance to local jurisdictions.
Looking back at her last four years at Commerce, she said she was proud of the work the department has done to make sure funding is distributed across all regions in the state, and to increase its presence in communities across the state. Brown pointed to an increased Spokane presence and a new Commerce office in the Tri-Cities.
Brown also worked to expand the department’s community engagement and outreach teams, and provide funding for small businesses and entrepreneurs from historically marginalized communities.
“Strengthening communities is Commerce’s mission,” Brown said. “We have a short name and a big toolbox of programs, grants and technical assistance to deploy.”
In her final weeks, Brown said she will be focusing on the legislative session. The Commerce Department has asked for more investments into housing, credit building and support for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
S-R reporter Emry Dinman contributed to this report.
Laurel Demkovich can be reached at (509) 416-6260 or at laureld@ spokesman.com.
Developers willing to convert lots into affordable housing could get break
Spokane needs more housing, especially affordable units. Could encouraging developers to convert downtown parking lots into new homes fill some of that need? The Spokane City Council is considering a tax incentive program authorized by the state Legislature in 2022 to encourage the building of housing on underdeveloped land in urban areas.
Specifically, an 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 to low- and very low-income households.
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.
The ordinance came before the City Council Monday for a first reading. A vote will take place during the Feb. 27 meeting.
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 in downtown Spokane, 85% of which were off-street, including in both parking lots and garages. Nearly a third of the “downtown study area,” which includes the downtown core and surrounding areas, was dedicated in some way to parking.
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 itself manages around 15% of parking spaces in the downtown area, almost all city-run parking is on-street.
The vast majority of offstreet parking is managed by private property owners and for-profit companies, such as Diamond Parking, which manages 16% of all downtown parking, according to the study.
Dan Geiger, vice president of the Spokane Region for Diamond Parking, said that the company is not against the notion of redeveloping parking lots to housing units.
“We realize (parking lots) are not the highest and best use for that land, so we’re not averse to developing. If these incentives make sense, then it’s something we would be interested in pursuing,” Geiger said.
If passed, the legislation could be one more step toward building affordable housing in Spokane, Kinnear told her City Council colleagues in January, with at least one Tacoma-based developer already expressing some interest in making use of the tax credit.
But others are skeptical.
“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.
Batten doubts that the math would pencil out for downtown developments that have to make 50% of their units affordable.
“We’ve ran some numbers on a specific project downtown on a parking lot, and at 50% it just doesn’t make sense mathematically,” he said.
A lower affordability threshold, coupled with other incentives, would be more likely to lead to additional development, Batten said.
Emry Dinman can be reached at (509) 459- 5472 or by email at emryd@spokesman.com.
Food remains in short supply, but organization’s new ‘hub locations’ ease delivery struggles
After cutting off its supplies to over 80 food banks late last year due to food shortages, the Inland Northwest’s largest food bank distributor has resumed deliveries across the region.
Under a new model, Second Harvest will deliver groceries to several regional redistribution hubs at partner organizations across Washington. Smaller agencies and individual food banks can then arrange to pick up from those transfer points.
And as long as food is available, any partner organization can also make an appointment to pick up food directly from Second Harvest’s warehouses in Spokane or Pasco.
Second Harvest supplies 280 food pantries and meal sites in North Idaho and central and Eastern Washington.
Eric Williams, community partnerships director for Second Harvest, said this will be a more efficient use of the organization’s semitrucks.
Previously, because of food shortages, Second Harvest sent deliveries through trucks that were mostly empty, which wasted gas. Making fewer trips will also keep trucks available to pick up food from suppliers who are unable to deliver to Second Harvest.
“We understand this is not a great situation, especially for our pantries,” Williams said. “We appreciate their patience.”
Currently, the hubs are Blue Mountain Action Council in Walla Walla and Chelan-Douglas Community Action Council in Wenatchee. Deliveries to Rural Resources Community Action in Colville are scheduled to begin later this month. Williams said the hub locations may be adjusted over time as needed.
Erik Mora, food bank director for Blue Mountain Action Council, said the new model will allow them to increase deliveries from once to twice a month for 15 food banks in five southeast Washington counties.
Mora said the biggest challenges for providing rural services are time and distance. Delivering food to where people live involves high costs in fuel and staff hours.
“I understand why Second Harvest did what they did,” he said.
Local communities stepped up to support their pantries during the recent shortages, Mora said.
Second Harvest suspended deliveries during December and January amid escalating shortages.During that time, Second Harvest continued distributing to partners that already picked up food themselves, but didn’t allow any other partners to start picking up.
This left local food banks, many of them rural, scrambling with little notice to find alternative sources.
The new distribution model was suggested as a solution by some of Second Harvest’s partner organizations.
“We are wide open to thinking of any way to do a better job of getting food to hungry people,” Williams said.
Rena Shawver, director of Okanogan County Community Action Council, said they are grateful to be getting food again and are “making do” with the new model. The action council, which serves nine food banks in Okanogan County, will pick up from the hub in Wenatchee.
Even with a regional hub, it can be a burden for pantries to pick up themselves. It takes the action council two-and-a-half hours round-trip from Okanogan to Wenatchee.And because their truck is so small, they have to go twice a month.
“It’s not an ideal model for us and we’re hoping more funding will be coming from the state to mitigate this situation and cover the transportation costs,” Shawver said.
Williams said food supplies are still tight.
“Right now, we are doing mediocre,” he said.
Second Harvest is operating on about two-thirds its normal inventory. Supplies increased during the pandemic with government assistance, but most of that has ebbed.
Williams said Second Harvest has a decent supply of fresh food, but is struggling to find shelf-stable dry goods. He said it is a supply-chain issue.
“There is just less food in the world right now,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to get food, but it’s not a rosy scenario, probably, for the next few years.”
James Hanlon can be reached at (509) 459-5467 or by email at jamesh@ spokesman.com.