Over the past week, there have been significant changes made to the Tenant-Landlord Ordinance C36330. As of this post, the current document accessible to the public on the city’s website is not even updated with the changes made on 1/16/2023. Tenant leaders first heard about these changes yesterday 1/19/23. The late changes happened after tenants had their listening session with City Council Members Michael Cathcart and Karen Stratton, after the landlord-tenant listening session with the above-listed and Mayor Nadine Woodward, and after many groups including ours said to support the version we had initially understood the ordinance to be draft 12/07/22. We still support the original draft with the revisions we were told were missing at the tenant listening session on 1/10/23.

Read More

Spokane’s Mayor Nadine Woodward without process, and without taking the opinions of Spokane City Council or those who live in East Central, moved a police precinct where Juneteenth is held. “In June 2022, city officials interrupted the public consideration process to temporarily locate the Spokane Police Department in the previously vacant library space.” -(KHQ)

Read More

Monday, January 23, 5p - City Council Meeting w/ Tenant Protection Ordinances vote.

Tenants are prepared to tell city council members about issues that may or may not be addressed by the ordinances up for a vote such as rent increases, lease non-renewals, poor housing and maintenance conditions, fear of eviction, landlord accountability, and the need for rental relocation and rental assistance. Join in making your voice heard.

Read More

The truth is, everyone living at Camp Hope is doing so with the legal consent of the landowner, and the dozens of service providers and community members who work there daily are innovatively helping the people there take steps towards healthier living conditions and lives.

Read More

Conditions at Geiger are deplorable, and overcrowding at the downtown jail is unacceptable, but a new jail is not the answer. Email Mike Sparber at msparder@spokanecounty.org and let him know that Spokane needs a new approach to criminal justice, and that a new jail is not part of that approach.

Read More

What is a county prosecutor?

The county prosecutor is a publicly elected attorney who investigates and prosecutes crimes on behalf of the people of Spokane County.

Read More

In the last few months, Lesley Haskell and her husband, Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell, have been in the local news due to racist and troubling statements Lesley Haskell made on her Gab account. As detailed in the Inlander, Lesley called a Black woman the N-word and repeatedly referred to herself as a white nationalist. She regularly elaborates on her bigoted and conspiratorial worldview by praising Holocaust deniers, spewing anti-Black invective towards victims of police brutality and white vigilantism, and cheering on the Jan. 6th Capitol insurrectionists. Notably, Lesley Haskell didn’t get to this point overnight. Her escalating social media outbursts have been a subject of concern since her husband served as Deputy Prosecutor back in 2009, not least because she sometimes appeared to be disclosing information about active cases being handled by her husband’s office, including once he took the Prosecutor’s seat.

Read More

It's not Lesley, it's Larry. Making the case for the systemic/structural racism displayed by Haskell's County Prosecutor office. This is a data-backed reality.

Read More

Spokane County’s criminal legal system discriminates against people of color and those poor enough to need a public defender. Despite continuous claims by elected officials that this information is contested or subjective, this fact is incredibly well-documented in many different reports, which will be referenced throughout this piece: the 2008 “Spokane County Corrections Needs Assessment MasterPlan”, the JFA Institute’s 2019 report, the 2013 Blueprint for Reform, and the 2020 Blueprint for Reform Status Update.

Read More

The Mayor, the Police, and the Library – What’s happening in East Central, and why it matters. Slide deck (10 slides)

Read More

THE BEGINNING

Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl writes a letter to the Spokane School District Superintendent stating after “learning of” multiple incidents and having reviewed “dozens of police reports, it appears there is a pattern of assaults and threats occurring to students and staff that are not following reporting requirements as described in RCW.26.44.040”. Chief Meidl goes on to express his concern for the safety of our communities children and that the laws protecting them do not “have carve outs or exceptions for philosophies that may be contrary to clearly stated statutes”.

THE REAL BEGINNING

Read More

In December 2021 the Spokesman-Review reported that Spokane Police Chief Meidl suspended the Patrol Anti-Crime Team, known as PACT. Chief Meidl made this decision after U.S. District Court Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson dismissed a major drug trafficking case involving an alleged repeat offender with multiple criminal convictions because the officers involved were determined to have made false statements.

Read More

Spokane Police Officer Scott Lesser’s bad behavior made the news recently, and not for the first time. On Dec. 18, 2021, The Spokesman-Review reported that he and another officer provided false statements in a federal drugs case, leading the judge to dismiss the case and prompting Police Chief Craig Meidl to suspend the department’s Police Anti-Crime Team (PACT) and reassign Lesser and the other officers who made up PACT. It’s merely the latest in what seems to be an unofficial department policy of shuffling officers around rather than doling out appropriate discipline.

Read More

Thank you if you were able to make our first meeting of 2022. If you missed the meeting, had to leave early, or wanted a recap then check out some of our meeting content below!

Read More

In Lesley’s explicit racism, the true nature of Larry Haskell’s racial animus is laid bare. This was covered through remarkable reporting by the Inlander and Range Media.

“It doesn’t matter whether Larry is as nasty as Lesley. Whether he would use the N-word on the Internet is immaterial.

His actions are clear. The data is conclusive: His office is using that tremendous power to quietly perpetuate the systems of oppression that Lesley loudly advocates.”

- Range Media

We do not need to examine whether Larry agrees with every statement made by Lesley, we need only ask ourselves what our Prosecutor's office would look like if someone holding those views were at the helm. How would these attitudes affect charging and sentencing? How would Black folks, Indigenous people, and people of color be treated by the office? What do the legal outcomes of these attitudes look like? We need look no further than our current County Prosecutor's office under Larry Haskell. (Source: JFA Institute 2019)

Read More

The City of Spokane has issued a 48-hour Notice to Remove Property to Camp Hope 2.0, which has been set up in front of City Hall since last week.

This means that residents have until 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 16 to leave the camp, before police and code enforcement officers will show up and physically remove residents and their belongings. The notice claims that it will direct inhabitants to homeless services or that they can call 311 for more information, and a city spokesperson said the city plans to open a warming shelter in the next 24 hours. Unless the warming shelter can absorb 160 new people, it will be inadequate.

Camp Hope 2.0 was established because there are no beds or warming shelters available. The notice means that camp residents will be pushed back onto the streets with no protection from the cold. SCAR stands in solidarity with the unhoused and their right to exist.

Read More

Spokane portrays itself as a gem in the Pacific Northwest where families can grow in security and safety. However, in 2018, there were more hate crimes in Spokane than in Des Moines (IA), Madison (WI), Portland (OR), and Tacoma (WA) combined, according to the FBI Hate Crimes Report. What these other cities have in common is an office dedicated to civil and human rights, promoting equity, and enforcing anti-discrimination laws. Their budgets range from $800,000 to $4.5 million with 6 to 20 full-time staff each. Meanwhile, the Spokane Human Rights Commission (SHRC)--a volunteer commission with an $8,000 budget--is tasked by Spokane Municipal Code with 17 duties, including to “serve as a complaint channel to which human rights grievances of all types can be reported.”

Read More

The final redistricting map incorporates the coalition’s values of equity, fairness, and competitiveness, and many of the principles that together we urged the Redistricting Committee to adopt.

Read More