City Council Issues
Job Creation
It's time to reach our potential. How often have you sensed that Spokane is right at the cusp of something great? It's time we get there on three levels.
Support Business- City Hall has history of saying 'no', then maybe 'yes'. For business owners or potential business owners this means endless delays, frustration and potential job loss for our community.
Improve Streets and Transportation- Our street issues are a priority and their current condition is prohibiting business and potential business development.
Support Innovation- From a public market to four year medical school we need to be advocating job growth in our community from farmers to commercial innovation.
City Budget
Did you know the City of Spokane's annual budget is $716 million dollars? When is the last time the Council or Mayor published a report showing the citizens how efficient or productive the city is for the tax dollars they are given? Never.
In this tough economic time, the current Council wants to keep increasing your taxes (including a $20 car tab fee taking affect this year) while not demanding for accountability of the money they already have. No matter how well our City does, the citizens still deserve the City to issue performance measurements so tax payers know the value they get for their dollar.
Capital Budget
The second largest city in the state has no comprehensive capital plan. While on Council in 2008, I pushed the City to start the process of capital planning to make sure we are getting the most for our resources, not duplicating processes, leveraging opportunities and informing the tax payers and investors of the direction our city is going. I will push for the capital budget plan immediately.
Neighborhood Involvement
Why is the neighborhood always the last to know? We've seen it time and time again. In fact, right now there are a number of neighborhoods in conflict with the City because they did not know, or were not made aware of issues that affect their neighborhoods.
This should not be a difficult problem to solve. Each month I will push the City to publish an easy to understand overview of the meetings, proposed code changes and capital projects that will be affecting their neighborhoods so they can stay informed.
Neighborhood Safety
Police and Fire services are two critical functions of city government. They provide a safe environment for our families and neighborhoods. We should support these functions, but always ask for accountability and to strive for improvement to the ever changing community needs. As with all services that our City provides, they need to spend within their means.