Voting

CANDIDATES

Who does SCAR endorse?

Lindsey Shaw for Spokane City Council District 1
Northeast Spokane deserves a dedicated advocate who prioritizes the well-being of its hard-working residents, and Lindsey’s unwavering commitment to her community aligns perfectly with our vision for a more equitable and inclusive Spokane.

Lindsey brings a wealth of experience and a proven track record of community engagement to her campaign. Her dedication to revitalizing our neighborhood, improving walkability, and enhancing the cleanliness of our community is evident in her past work with the Logan Neighborhood Council. This tireless dedication to making Northeast Spokane a safer and more vibrant place for all to live sets her apart as a candidate who truly understands the unique needs of Spokane.

 

Paul Dillon for City Council District 2
Paul has served the Spokane Community in various roles for nearly twenty years. In that time, he has helped promote the rights of people with disabilities, stood with working families who need the support of sick and safe leave, pushed to prevent legalized racial profiling by city staff, and supported the public transit thousands of Spokanites rely upon to access work and school. Most important to SCAR, however, is his continued allyship with BIPOC communities and active promotion of racial equity and fairness in his work.

 

Kitty Klitzke for the Spokane City Council District 3
Her leadership in advocating for sustainable, equitable transportation underscores her dedication to creating a city that works for everyone. With two decades of experience connecting communities and addressing pressing issues, Klitzke’s deep commitment to Spokane and expertise make her an ideal candidate to represent District 3.

 

Jamie Stacy for the Mead School District
Jamie has consistently demonstrated a passion for empowering others. As the Founder and Executive Director of SWAG (Strong Women Achieving Greatness), she has positively impacted hundreds of participants, fostering hope and providing resources to young women in the community. Jamie’s dedication to dismantling inequities aligns seamlessly with the values of SCAR, making her an exemplary candidate for the Mead School District, where her leadership promises to create an inclusive and empowering educational environment for all students. VoteJamieStacy.com

 

Rebecca Long for Cheney City Council Position 2
A community-minded leader, Rebecca prioritizes the people of Cheney over special interests. Rebecca’s tech background brings fresh, innovative ideas. She aims to revitalize the community, focusing on an interconnected and pedestrian-friendly downtown. Her commitment extends to modernizing infrastructure, promoting increased housing options, and fostering transparency through technology.

Recognizing the importance of collaboration, Rebecca will strengthen ties between the City and the University, ensuring a safer, inclusive community for all. Her pledge to listen, advocate, and maximize civic engagement reflects her dedication to representing every voice in Cheney.

 

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LEGISLATION

Measure 1 – What is it?

Measure 1 fuels mass incarceration through an unnecessary expansion of the Spokane County Jail system. Measure 1 uses a 0.2% increase in Sales and Use tax for a period of 30 years to expand a dysfunctional, biased, and harmful jail system.  The Measure reserves ⅓ of the collected revenue strictly for “criminal justice purposes, including building and improving jails or correctional facilities.” The remaining ⅔ can be used for broad purposes of “criminal justice, public safety and behavioral health purposes.” With this broad wording, there is little restraint for the remaining ⅔; the entire budget could be used to expand jails and it would still permissibly fall under “criminal justice.” 60% of the revenue is portioned to Spokane County, and the rest is given to cities and towns within the County. Spokane County plans to use their share to expand and improve the downtown jail, and relocate the Geiger Corrections Center to the downtown facility. Measure 1 overestimates needed jail-space and builds a jail nearly twice as big as what was recently recommended by their own experts. This budget is not based on legitimate data or well defined; it is a waste of taxpayer money, and does not adequately address the crimes it aims to prevent.

Measure 1 ignores cheaper, more effective and humane alternatives to preventing crimes such as Smart Justice, Mental Health Treatment, Safe Diversion Programs, Drug and Alcohol Interventions. The Measure also claims to address overcrowding and improve conditions of prisons, however, unlike other Counties, leadership refuses to expand supervision methods (like electronic home monitoring) that would save money and free up jail beds. Additionally, work from Prison Policy Initiative demonstrates that “building more jail cells is never likely to be a good solution to overcrowding for anyone except the law enforcement agencies and jail architects who have a financial interest in building more jails.” They examined the expansion of jails in Native American reservations, and found it resulted in more pretrial detention, higher incarceration rates, and more overcrowded facilities. Similar to highways, build it and it will be used to capacity. If the true motive behind Measure 1 was to reduce crime and address overcrowding through the cheapest and most effective way possible, Measure 1 would address roots causes of crime, fund addiction and mental health treatment, and above all focus on keeping non-violent, low offending people out of jails.

Thus the real interest behind this Measure is unveiled from the disguise of “improving public safety.” It is instead a piece of legislation fueled by the interests of those who profit from the prison industrial complex. Jails, among other things, produce unpaid labor for the city, any 501(c)(3), (4), or local non-profit (like Hoopfest). As of 2014, the Geiger Corrections work crews has produced over 300,000 hours of–unpaid–labor, benefitting the Spokane County government and nonprofit organizations that use this manual and semi-skilled labor, including various Spokane County Departments, the City of Spokane, the City of Spokane Valley, the Spokane Lilac Association, and Hoopfest. Local nonprofits are encouraged to call the Geiger Work Crew program and “[c]onsider [them] a viable option for manual and semi-skilled labor” for a fee.

The Spokane County Sheriff’s office described the success of 2012 Hoopfest, that it “had a fiscal impact on the Spokane metro area in excess of $29 million! The annual contribution of Geiger Corrections Work Crew members is an integral part of the event.” Not only did unpaid labor set up and teardown the event, but they also “with the aid of a forklift, rental trucks distribute[d] backboards, tables and chairs”, “erect[ed] 16 large Hoopfest banners, transport[ed] 30,000 Hoopfest T-shirts, deliver[ed] 7,000 team gift packets, raise[d] administration and vendor tents, set the center court floor and backboard, and construct[ed] the youth center court”, as well as “collected about 20,000 pounds of recyclable trash.” Most recently, Geiger Corrections Work Crew members worked Hoopfest (2023). They were unpaid.

Measure 1 creates an unrestrained–and unaccounted for–budget that is funneled into a jail system that fails to prevent the crime it aims to reduce. Beyond a waste of resources, when we look at how it works with Proposition 1, we can see it plays a part in abusing the criminalization of poor people and people of color.

 

Proposition 1 – What is it?

Proposition 1 expands existing municipal code (section 12.02.101 0A.3 ) to prohibit, “regardless of the availability of shelter space or beds,” people who are unhoused from “camping” within 1,000 (expanded from 50) feet of any public or private school, public park, playground, or licensed child care facility. The range from any defined properties creates an area more than ⅓ of a mile in which the unhoused people are prohibited from existing. Robert Sauders produced this map that highlights the affected areas:

 

 

We can see that Prop. 1 leaves virtually no space for people experiencing homelessness to exist. The majority of services for the unhoused are located within the areas that Prop. 1 criminalized. How do we expect the unhoused to reach these services if they are banished miles from them?  With brutal winters approaching, victims of Prop. 1. will be funneled into jails, or worse, left to freeze in the gray areas that are void of any services.

Much like Measure 1, the core motivations for Prop. 1 lie beyond the benevolent desire for “public safety” and are instead the manifestations of lobbyists, like Larry Stone, who owns a homeless shelter on Trent, conveniently located outside the prohibited zones.  Prop.1 is not about protecting children, it is about criminalizing poor people, and filling the jail-space created by Measure 1.

How Measure 1 and Prop. 1 work together

Measure 1 and Prop. 1 function to fuel mass incarceration. They are the efforts of those who profit from these systems and bring only  harm to all of Spokane county. Measure 1 fails to address “public safety” and instead is an investment into the eradication of the poor, which is executed by Prop. 1. Even without Prop. 1, Measure 1 still provides agencies with the resources to fill jail-space with people who pose little threat and are too poor to make bail. On the other hand, should Prop. 1 pass while Measure 1 fails, it is less likely that agencies would have the funds and space to execute Prop. 1 to its full extent.

 

Vote NO on Measure 1 and Prop 1!

 

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LOCAL GOVERNMENT POSITIONS: CITY COUNCIL AND MAYOR

Overview of system

For our local form of government, we have a legislative body composed of 6 council members who are elected from 3 districts. This body is led by a council president who is elected at large. From a voter’s perspective, this means this election you will vote for one council member from your localized district and one candidate who is running throughout all of Spokane county.

In our Mayor-Council system, we have a popularly elected Mayor in the executive position. Working together under this system, “The council has the authority to formulate and adopt city policies and the mayor is responsible for carrying them out. The mayor attends and presides over council meetings but does not vote, except in the case of a tie.” The Mayor is also able to veto ordinances within 10 days after presentation, which the council can override with a 5-2 majority vote. Within the council, Spokane Public radio describes the Council President as a public face for the group and often represents the city in legislative hearings, and communicates between offices. The Council President is a voting member of the council, but holds no veto power.

Why is it Important?

While national-level government often makes the most news, and uses the most resources during election season, the decisions of The City Council, City Council President, and the Mayor at the local level are often the most impactful on constituents. Municipalities generally take responsibility for parks and recreation services, police and fire departments, housing services, emergency medical services, municipal courts, transportation services (including public transportation), and public works (streets, sewers, snow removal, signage, and so forth). Services that are most used by the everyday person are guided and funded by policies that originate from local governments. The decisions made by the City Council or the Mayor’s office are (ideally) tailored to the needs of Spokane county, and the personnel are generally more accessible than our state or national representatives.

 

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SCHOOL BOARD

What are their responsibilities?

According to the Washington State School Directors Association, the responsibilities of a School Director include:

• Hire, supervise and evaluate the superintendent
• Set the vision, mission and strategic goals for the district
• Review, revise and adopt policies
• Establish and oversee the budget
• Serve as community representatives
• Monitor the district’s progress towards its goals

Further specified by the Revised Code of Washington (RCW 28A.150.230) School Directors are accountable to the local community and electorate, and are responsible for determining the number of necessary instructional hours and the evaluation of curriculum and teaching materials.

 

Why should you care?

Educating the next generation is one of the most important tasks in society. Beyond teachers and staff, education is sculpted by a district-wide school board. Depending on the size of the district, School Boards can make decisions for almost 30,000 children and their families. Some of these decisions include the allocation of funding and determining the curriculum and teaching materials. Considering the recent efforts of conservative School Boards across the country to remove integral educational material of feminist, queer and POC history, it is more important than ever to not only vote, but to make an educated vote that considers the interests of all children and families:; poor, queer, POC, or otherwise disadvantaged, alike.

 

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RESOURCES

Information from NorthWest Progressives: