Ballots are due for Spokane's primary election on August 5th. That's less than a week from now. If you live in the city limits, there's not much on those ballots, likely just a vote on a tax to fund aquifer protection activities. But if you live in Spokane's District three, which starts in Brown's edition and stretches of North on the west side of Division Street, you have a bigger decision to make. Which two candidates in the race to fill a Spokane City Council seat should advance to the general election? There are three candidates, liberal incumbent zopone and conservative challengers. Christopher Savage and Cody argue After August 5th, only two will be left standing. We want you to be as informed as possible about the race, so today we're airing another candidate for him, courtesy of Spokane Braver Angels. Unfortunately argues didn't attend this one either, but you'll hear candidates, Sasone and Savage tell you why they're the best fit for the seat. All right, sit back, buckle up, and enjoy becoming a more educated voter.

My name is Ani Madson. I'm one of the two, uh, co-leaders for the Washington Alliance of Brave Angels. We have at every level, we have Red blue Balance. I am the red leaning coordinator. My colleague Sharman Benu is the blue, and we are hoping to, uh, do more, uh, city council and municipal. Uh, events like this across the state, Spokane and Spokane Valley have been our first two efforts, and we are glad that you are here. I'm now gonna turn this over to our moderator, Elizabeth, who's Elizabeth Dahl. I don't know why I just suddenly forgot your last name. Elizabeth, who is, uh, uh, head of braver politics nationally for Brave Angels. Take it away. And thank you. I really appreciate everyone joining us tonight. Um, as Solani said, I'm the director of Braver Politics at Braver Angels. Uh, I'm from the west side of Washington State. Um, and I will be your moderator tonight. I wanted to mention at the outset that one can. Cody argues, uh, was unfortunately unable to join us, uh, despite his best intentions. So he will actually have an opportunity to answer the same questions as these candidates, um, tomorrow and like them, he will not have access to the questions in advance, and then we'll append his answers to the video of the event when we post that. Um, I will, without further ado. Break into our ground rules for the evening. There are ground rules both for the candidates and for you as audience members because we hope that you're here to learn and observe rather than to be a cheering section for a particular candidate. So I'm going to begin with the ground rules for the candidates, which are that they will avoid using the party labels, um, except in reference to actions taken by public officials within a specific government body. So for example, you can say Republicans in the state legislature voted to increase taxes if in fact that's what happened. Or you can say Democrats in the state legislature voted to raise, uh, or voted for rent control, if that's in fact what happened. What you cannot say is that, uh, Republicans just hate poor people and Democrats want to raise your taxes. Second, uh, we're gonna ask you to cite your sources as much as possible. If you cite figures, it's really helpful for audience members to be able to, I understand where you're coming from and where that information is coming from. We ask that everyone directs. Their criticism at actions rather than intentions. It's really easy to criticize your opposition and attack them as poorly motivated. But here we wanna assume that everyone's engaging in good faith and instead just argue about outcomes and, um, the actual actions rather than the intent. And pen. Ultimately, uh, avoid stereotypes, jargon, and platitudes. Primarily what this means is we're gonna ask you. Your audience members are not experts, policy or otherwise, and we would ask you to explain any specific terms that you use related to municipal business or government, um, that might not be, uh, easily or readily known. Fundraiser. The average spoke cans. Resident what? Sorry? Ah, um. And finally, we know that in times of heightened polarization, people have different definitions for some words and phrases. So bearing that in mind as you answer the following questions, please include definitions for your words and your responses. So for example, homeless, affordable housing unhoused, housing insecure. These are all kind of buzzwordy phrases that we use in politics. But that people often have an intuition definition for, and we wanna make sure that people understand what you're actually trying to convey and that your ideas are conveyed really clearly. So if you can include definitions for words in your responses, that'd be lovely. And finally, no crosstalk or interruption if either of you interrupt each other. The time that you spend interrupting will be added to the end of that person's comment. Alright. Now I am going to dive in to beginning the debate. Okay. Hi, I'm Zach Sapone. I'm born and raised here in Spokane, and I'm a public school teacher at North Central High School. The same school that my grandpa went to and that I, that I graduated from, uh, and that some of our, our colleagues here work at, uh, I'm proud to be representing, uh, you all on City Council today. I'm really proud of the progress we've made since I was elected. I grew up here. I live by the same values that we all have. I ran for office originally because I believe in one simple thing. Everyone deserves a fair shot. I had that opportunity to go away for college and come back and work and give back to our community, and that's what I'm doing today as a city council member. I'm working on the issues of our community around affordability, public safety, and infrastructure. We are having record of permitting at our city right now, um, when it comes to housing affordability. Where we're investing in public safety, addressing the opioid crisis in a holistic way that includes accountability while getting people treatment and co co responsive, uh, teams with the firefighters and the police and for our safe streets and infrastructure. We've made record investments in our safe streets to have better for our vehicles pedestrians and cyclists, but too many people are still struggling to get ahead, and so I'm running to keep moving in the right direction. Thank you. And your turn. That was two minutes. That was fast. It was very fast. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Christopher Savage. I'm running for Spokane City Council District three, and my top priorities for the city is public safety, homeless crisis, and affordability. We are seeing many people being priced outta their homes right now because of the affordability of our houses is way out of our reach. My generation, especially cannot find a house. And a house is one of the most important things when you need to start raising a family. We need to focus more on the better priorities of public safety and homelessness crisis, as well as affordability. That is not being seen at the city council right now. I go down to City Hall every Monday night and do reports. I can tell you this, that has not gotten better here in Spokane. It has gotten worse. What is happening to our home is absolutely disrespectful. We need to change that because we have such great potential that is being lost here, that it just hurts my heart. We need to have a citizen council member that is coming up. To you all and representing you not representing their own personal agenda. We can do this. Spokane can be a place for all and not a place for some. Thank you. All right, now I'm going to begin questions. For a little bit of background about how we came up with the questions, braver Angels has a pretty unique process. So we begin by running a professional survey in the district. So that happened just a couple of weeks ago. And then we bring together members of the community in an equally balanced group of right and left leaning individuals, and we ask them about the top. Four issues that we gleaned from that survey and ask them to come up with questions that are acceptable to all of them. We use a proprietary process that we call collaborative consensus to reach those questions, which means that nobody has a hard stop on the questions. Nobody hates them. They can have a green light. They can have a yellow light. They don't really like it, but it's okay. But. Any question that someone says, Nope, I absolutely don't. I think that question is not a good question. Um, that question gets pulled out. So the questions that we end up with are, um, agreed to by the entire group of equally balanced local citizens. And we really appreciate their input on coming up with the questions that we have before us today and our four topics. Our topic specifically for this debate that came up at the top of our survey include crime, homelessness, housing, taxes, and polarization. So we are going to begin with a question on crime, and I will let the candidates know as we go through the questions, um, what the topic of the upcoming question will be. All right, so the first question is, uh, public safety remains a top concern in Spokane, especially when it comes to individuals experiencing mental illness, addiction, or homelessness. What role should law enforcement play in responding to these situations, and how would you ensure an effective and compassionate approach that balances individual rights, public safety, and the needs of Spokane's Neighborhoods Safe Bank? Oh, yes. So what we need here in Spokane is we need a new jail, which is going to be an accountability center because what we need to do right now is we need to make sure that we are differentiating between the people who want help and the people who don't want help. And by having a new jail with wraparound services for mental health, for a job site training, as well as addiction, we can make sure that we can actually help these people in the right way and, uh, kick out the people that are not wanting to be here and being part of society. We can actually help public safety by also making sure that when we have laws that are voted in by the citizens, which was like prop one, we need to make sure that we follow that rule. We don't need to go around and we don't need to change it and water it down to the point where it is a ordinance that isn't prop one anymore. We need stronger laws that are going to make sure that people know that it is not okay to do what they're doing here. That is what we need to do. And would you like a rebuttal or do you simply answer the question? Is that, I'll just speak for the two minutes at the, and then I think he gets the rebuttal for the response after me. Um, yeah. I believe in a Spokane where everyone feels safe. When you walk down the street at your homes in your cars, everyone should feel safe where they're at. As a council member, I've been really proud to sponsor and pass legislation that makes that possible. I've voted to ban open drug use across our city. Just this last month, we voted on a package of homelessness ordinances called Home Starts Here. And in that we talked about obstruction in that everyone should feel safe walking down the street where they're at. But the reality is that we don't have the facilities to do all this. I agree that we need an investment in jail. We also need investment in mental health beds, and we need an investment in, uh, sobering centers. And that is what I'm working on as your council member. So I'm really glad to hear my opponent agrees with that. Uh, that is something that as your council member I've already been working on. We need to get the right intervention for the right person. And that first starts with, uh, outreach and connection to people, offering them the services that they need and having, uh, enforcement and law enforcement as the last backup if people are refusing to engage. I'm really concerned that we are seeing across this country, uh, people being taken from their homes and being terrorized in our community. And that is the same thing that is happening here in Spokane, but it's also happening with people who are on the streets. We need to make sure that everyone has the options for safe treatment and that they can get those options, uh, from the city. We don't have enough resources from the state, uh, and we need to be working col collaboratively, which we are working on a task force with Republicans and Democrats across the county, uh, to create a task force to address these big issues on a new jail, new mental health resources, and asking voters or coming up with a voter plan for that. We know that voters rejected a new jail two years ago because it was a $1 billion check, uh, from taxpayers, a 0.2% sales tax increase, and it failed. If we don't come up with a plan that's gonna address the real pro, the root of the problems, it's not gonna pass by voters, and we're not gonna have a way to move forward as a community. And would you like a rebuttal? Yes. So this is why we need competent laws here in City of Spokane, because with the open drug use. You could fool me. I go downtown almost every day and I see open drug use everywhere by the hunting building, by the Paulson Center in Riverfront Park. We need better laws that are going to help us enforce these laws that are going to help out and especially help out our police. Right now they're very demoralized and that's why they are demoralized us 'cause they keep having their hands tied on trying to help out. So I'm glad my opponent agrees that we need a jail because that is one of the bigger things that we do need. Because that is going to help out. We only have 600 beds in this jail right now, and we need 'em up to a thousand to help out with that. They are doubling up in those uh, cells, and that is not safe for those inmates we need, and it's not safe for the workers there. That's why we need a new jail. And yes, it was voted down two years ago, but that was because there wasn't a good plan that was vetted. We have a good plan that we can start making and we can actually make sure that the right dollars go to the right places so that we can make it an accountability center where it has. Affordable. It has a mental health crisis. It has also addiction. It also has job site training. 'cause that is what's important to do with these. Thank you. All right. The second question is on homelessness. And what long-term strategies should Spokane pursue to address chronic homelessness, especially among individuals who are unable or unwilling to access existing services? Should the city consider changes to how it coordinates with nonprofits, law enforcement, and regional partners to improve outcomes? And you get to begin this time. Yeah. First, I want to say that the city council has adopted the maximum extent that we can pass by state law on drug use, open drug use. There's no other law that we can pass to make it more strict on open drug use, but what we need is a coordinated response across our community, and that's what we worked on and updated it. I do believe that everyone deserves to have a safe place to stay and to have safe places on our street. And so I was proud to help pass the legislation on. Home Starts Here. Home starts with an OR is an acronym that stands for Healthcare Outreach and Navigation, multidisciplinary Engagement and Economic Security. We need an all above approach to addressing homelessness and houselessness to get people back and homes and on the street or off the street and into homes. So we need to address healthcare. We need to get people the access to mental health resources O off opioid dreams. Treatment and into houses. Uh, we need, uh, outreach and navigation. We need a, we've been investing in a scattered site shelter system that is working. These smaller shelters are getting people off the street into shelter, connected to services, and moving on. Uh, multi multidisciplinary engagement is the enforcement aspect of this for folks that are refusing to engage with, uh, with the provider network. Then we need to have a backstop for those folks that are refusing to engage and that's going to community court. And if they refuse to go into community court, then there's another option for them that's a regular jail. And finally, we need economic security, which is addressing our affordability at all types of levels. We need housing affordability and making houses cheaper, which I've done a lot. As I stated before, we have record permitting year after year after year. That's been a bipartisan agreement across the city to get these land use changes. We are addressing affordability at with Transit. I've been pushing for a low income bus fare program, so that helps people stay, uh, save money in their pocket so they're able to, uh, prevent from being homeless in the first place. And we're also addressing affordability with the working families tax credit. I've supported investment to get people enrolled in tax credit from the state so that they have more dollars in their pocket, so they're less likely to become, uh, homeless in the first place. Thank you. Would you like me to restate the question? Uh, no. I think I got it. So. I kind of pushed back on saying that we're helping more homeless people. Now at the Track Shelter, we had 360 beds available for homeless people there when that was open. Now with the Scattered Sites model, we only have about 180. I don't know how we're helping more people with less beds. What we need to do is we need to have better contract service providers. Jules, helping Hands and Catholic Charities do not need any more. I really push back on their efficiency with what they're doing, especially when the city asks the COPS program to jump through me to ask for metrics to jump through hoops, but we won't ask the same for these people when we give them a lot of money that it seems actually reprehensible. We need to pick better contract service providers. People like that actually show metrics like Adult Teen Challenge, who's the executive director is Tyson West. They have a 12 month program that has a 70% success rate. We need to have those metrics shown to say, okay, we're gonna give you more money and allocate you more money 'cause you show that it's going to the right place. We need better contract service providers so we can actually help these homeless into the right bed and have more beds available. Because right now with less beds, we are not helping more people. Thank you. Would you like a rebuttal? Yep. I'm really glad to support Home starts here that has metrics in the legislation that we are working on that and just this week we got our point in time count that showed that homelessness has gone down across the county for the second year in a row. Uh, that is in addition to the number of beds going offline. Since then, we've added more beds, about 170 extra beds since that count in January. So we're working on those things and it's working. We're seeing people that are moving. Into shelters and out of shelters and, uh, into safe, stable places. And that's the type of events, investments that we wanna do. What didn't work was track. Track was the large scale shelter. Uh, that was the large one. People weren't moving out of homelessness as being safe, stable. It is a data proven research that does not work in large scale shelters, but rather a small shelter site that gets people stable and connected to resources is successful at moving them into permanent housing. Thank you. Our third question will be about housing. Spokane faces growing demand for housing that is affordable and sustainable. What specific policies do you support to increase the supply of housing to meet community needs while also addressing other citizens concerns about climate risks, transit access and displacement concerns? Housing affordability is one of the major issues, as we've talked about before. Everyone deserves a place to live. And too many people are struggling to find a place to live. I know that when I was searching for a home, that I was being outbid by people from California who were coming in and, uh, putting, asking prices too high. We've seen rent go up at incredible high rates, uh, that people are no longer to afford it, and we're seeing more people that are doubled up at homes living in their cars. And so we need to address that affordability, and I'm really proud of the legislation that we've passed working across the aisle at City Hall and passing these in unanimous decisions. We've made changes to our land use that allows, um, a variety of housing, uh, to be built throughout the entire city. Uh, that decreases the cost. We've invested in our, our permitting system to make it cheaper and quicker to, uh, build more housing. We've also been working on reducing other barriers to housing and sponsoring legislation that would turn our empty lots into housing and using state incentives to do that. So these are a lot of things that we're doing and we've seen the results. We've seen record number of permits year over year. We've seen the housing market stabilize. Um, I've also supported protections for renters. Who are seeing increasing rents and making sure that they have the stability to, to survive. So these are the types of things that we're needing. And, uh, a a lot of these, this legislation would be, uh, rolled back if we were not moving in the, uh, if I'm not reelected, it'd be rolled back. And we want to keep moving in the right direction. And we're seeing this come from the state to the, the direction of moving to infill and more density so that we have the opportunity to build more housing. On top of that, we've also made record investments in affordable housing through a sales tax initiative that's been built, that has built hundreds and hundreds of units throughout the, my time on office. So we're building a different variety of, uh, housing at different, uh, levels of affordability so that it's building a better market for everyone to have a place to live. Thank you. I believe it was actually your turn to begin this time. Sorry. Um, the, yes, please respond. Alright. So the first thing we can, we can absolutely do is when I talk to developers, they say we need to really clean up the code of the Spokane Municipal Code. There's things that are in there that make it really hard for the developers even to develop smaller parcels. If you don't have a parcel that is the same size that is right next to you, it makes it a nightmare for you to try to do anything. And this is what we need. We need more single families, uh, homes in Spokane because that is the American dream. It may be dead for a lot of people, but that's what people want when they wanna start growing a family. They won't want more apartments. They want actual housing. And what we need to do with actually having more housing is I come a free market principle where we need to increase the inventory to satiate demand so we can bring the price down naturally. And by doing that, we can actually go through our comprehensive plan, which comes from the Growth Management Act, and we need to make sure that we have 10 areas around Spokane that we can actually annex from Spokane County and make our own so that we can actually start building more developments. Now there are a couple out there that are more fully developed, so we need to go past those. So we need to really access and focus in on the underdeveloped property. Because by doing what we I just said about having the demand be satisfied with the inventory that's there, we will bring the price down naturally and that will be the best thing that we can have for our future generations. Because if we don't have future generations coming to Spokane or families wanting to have their children here, we don't have a future here in Spokane. And would you like to rebut? Yeah. I'm really glad my opponent supports increasing the inventory because that's what we were doing at Spokane and the policies that have passed. We have record permits year over year in building more houses. But if you drive around town, you see what I see. We see a lot of empty lots downtown on division up in the northeast across our entire. We have a lot of space to build in Spokane, and what we have are a lot of developers who are sitting on land and waiting for the price to go up. And so I've been supporting legislation at the state level that we need that will incentivize us to change our property taxes so that homeowners at their homes will have lower taxes, will those vacant lots, will be taxed the fair rate. Uh, and we would be incentivized to build the housing that should be built on those lots. So everyone is a property owner who is a tenant, should see their taxes go down while the speculators. Who are sitting on lots would see their taxes increase, which would turn into more housing. Thank you. Alright, we're going to move on to question four, which is about taxes. Many Spokane residents struggle with the cost of maintaining sidewalks and other infrastructure, even as these improvements are critical for safety and accessibility. What role should the city play in ensuring that neighborhood infrastructure is safe, equitable, and well maintained? And how would you prioritize funding or policy changes to support that? And you'll have the first crack at this question. All right. So what we really need to focus on is general facilities cost and impact fees. We have not been addressing those for almost two decades. That is what helps build a lot of our, uh, sidewalks and a lot of our infrastructure. We really need to talk to people about how we can actually add this infrastructure. 'cause up in my neighborhood, we don't have any sidewalks. And this isolates you to your house. You don't get to communicate with your neighbors. I do because I'm a little bit weird. But we actually want to have a community that we built here and that is AC that is accessible through sidewalks. We really need to make sure that we have places people can walk and not play in the street. I, when I grew up, my parents told me that you don't play in the street. 'cause that's where cars belong. We don't need to push people in the street because we're making it unsafe for them. That's what we need to do with sidewalks as well as make sure that we have an accessible neighborhood that we can walk through. Also, what we need to do is we need to focus and talk to our neighborhood council. My neighborhood Council Alboa, south Indian Trail Neighborhood Council, I have attended every meeting for the past six years. We need council members who are going to listen to us. So when we ask for RFB, uh, crosswalk, which is a rapid flashing beacon, they put it in the place that we have requested. So, for instance, on Indian Trail, our neighborhood council said that it was Beacon on Beacon Street that we really need to put this RFB. It went down to Woodside and it went up to a Holyoke, not on Beacon. And the reason why we need it on Beacon is because there's several accidents that have taken young men's lives down there that I was actually there for, and that's why it's so, uh, close to my heart. We need to make sure that we are saving these people and not making sure that our, uh, neighborhoods are unsafe. Thank you. Yeah. So. I absolutely believe that we need safer streets for everyone. I've been very proud to sponsor legislation such as the Safe Streets now. Uh, Jana Man, safe Streets, now Resolution that was talking about how we can do quick interventions now. Um. What you heard my opponent mention is a lot of things that we're actually already doing at City Council. There's a Hawk Light on Indian Trail, and that was something that I got past my first year in office and we actually went out and talked to residents, knocked on their doors and asked them, where do you want that hawk light? And they told us which side of the intersection they wanted on, and I got that moved to get it there. So the reality is that we listen to the constituents and we address the needs. I've been supportive of expanding our traffic calming fund or our safe streets now fund and doubling the number of cameras. We have a revenue problem, we can't invest in more. Uh, traffic calming programs without more revenue. And the way we can do that is by expanding our cameras that bring in the revenue that we can turn around and invest in our city and make our strong, our neighborhoods stronger. That's better. Uh, curb bump outs, that's more hawk lights. It's better bicycle lanes. It's better, uh, addressing traffic fatalities and changing intersections. Those are the things that I've been working on and been championing, and I'm proud of the record that I've. Done at the city and I will continue to fight for those changes. And the fact is I've had to fight against the administration and we needed to change a mayor to, uh, get, hire a director of transportation to direct the staff to implement those projects. And that's the type of change that we need to keep moving and not moving backwards. Thank you. We do like a re. All right. We will move on to question number five, which is about polarization. So Spokane residents are not immune from the broader climate of political division and growing distrust in institutions. What steps would you take to protect democratic norms such as transparency, public input, and civil discourse? And how would you work to build trust across political differences on the city council? And actually, since you went twice, I'm gonna let you. Alright, so what we can do, sorry, I was kind of spacing out there. Please. Uh, say that again. I thought he was gonna go first. Oh, sorry. Um, Spokane residents are not immune from the broader climate of political division and growing distrust in institutions. What steps would you take to protect democratic norms such as transparency, public input, and civil discourse? And how would you work to build trust across political differences on the city council? So the first things that we can do is to restore the public forum that has been totally reduced in the past couple years at, uh, city Hall. What has happened is that we used to have a lot more time to speak at public forum and that act, it made the meetings longer, but that's what I appreciate. You got public testimony from the public. It's not, it's not the same anymore. We only have 20 people that can go down to public forum now and it's reduced to two minutes. It used to be three minutes and it was unlimited people that could talk. That's why some meetings that I went to lasted long into the night, especially certain recent ones, but that's how we can actually help with the political discourse is that we need to make sure that everyone is heard. Whether we like their opinions or not, we need to hear them because it will help us know in which direction we need to go. We can have sometimes know what that they're talking about, and we can make sure that they are going to make, have their opinions heard. That's how we can help with the political discourse and kind of, uh, uh, calm the divide. Another thing that we can do is that I promise everyone here is that no matter who I disagree with, if I, if we have different, uh, opposing viewpoints, I will come up and talk to you. We may not agree. We may not like it, but I will talk to you until we're blue in the face, because that's what I, that is what the job I signed up for. Thank you. Yeah. I think this question's really important because we see this on a national scale. The rhetoric and the polarization is increasing across our country, and it's largely coming from national leaders who are increasing the, the, the rhetoric and the violence. And so we need to recognize that that increase of polarization is coming from a national level. But here at a local level, it's come. It comes down to who do our friends and our neighbors. When I look at this room, when I look at city council meetings, when I go around the neighborhoods and talk to people, we're talking to people who we know, right? At a local level. It's about building that relationship and that trust with the people that you know. And so I've been committed to building that relationship with people across the aisle and working with people. Since I've been in office, I've co-sponsored legislation by working with people across the aisle on really controversial items, and we, what we do is we sit, we talk, we build that relationship, and we identify what do we have in common. And what we have in common is about making Spokane a better place and fighting for everyone to have a fair shot. Thank you. Would you like a rebuttal? Yes. So what we need to do is we need to talk to everyone, not just our own people. We need to talk to all stakeholders. Like for instance, there is a property maintenance that was passed this week where the city council said they had a year to talk with everyone about what is going on. And they actually had two letters sent from them from boma, which is the Building Office and Management Association, as well as the DSP, which is downtown Spokane Partnership, about how they wanted a little bit more time, so they could be a stakeholder group that was brought together so they could actually help in the ordinance. We really need to start doing that rather than talking to our own side and making sure we're listening to everyone. Because when we don't, we lose opportunities like that where we can actually make an ordinance that it works for everyone and not just for some. Thank you. Alright. Because we only have two of you, we're actually gonna close a little bit early, so this will be our last question. Um, and then I'll do closing statements and then we'll conclude. So the final question is also, uh, in, in a similar vein, but not the same. We often hear about candidates plans for the future, but we would like to hear about your past. What is a decision compromise or stand that you've taken that best reflects your leadership style and how does that experience shape how you would serve Spokane on the city council? And you can begin. Yeah, I think, um, I'm a teacher. I'm a public school teacher, and I believe in facilitating and having conversations with everyone and. One of the best examples of this was the biggest issue in our community is about homelessness. And we took a year, about a year to organize round table discussions and do the most outreach and facilitate those conversations. And a lot of people wanted us to pass legislation immediately. And instead I worked with, um, our, our council staff and other council members to put on round table discussions where we had 50 to a hundred people that came together. And had really hard conversations across the aisle to decide what's the best way that we can operate working forward. And it took a lot of compromise. The final results was not necessarily the exact thing that I would argue and champion, but I, I listened to stakeholder feedback, worked with people across aisle from, uh, lived experience and people who have ex uh, experienced homelessness to downtown property owners and business owners. And I met with them regularly and talked to them regularly to try to address their concerns. And that's the type of leadership that we need in Spokane is people who are gonna listen to each other, work with each other. And I have that experience and I've done that in the past. Uh, it's what I do in my classroom and it's what I'm gonna continue to do as your council member. Thank you. You say the question? Yes. Uh, we often hear about candidates plans for the future. What we'd like to hear about your past. What is a decision compromise or stand you've taken that best reflects your leadership style, and how does that experience shape how you would serve Spokane on the city council? So currently I'm the past president of Meals on Wheels, and that has helped me learn a lot about how we can help our community by delivering meals constantly. For the past six years, this has shown me what leadership is by trying to help out with the board, trying to figure out food costs, logistics, trying to deliver these food to the people that need it. And this is an interesting part, is that through my leadership I've learned that there's a lot of nonprofit boards out there that are really cutthroat. Apparently there's a lot of egos that come up on the board and they start fighting with my leadership style. There was a calm that came over the board that many people right now are still saying what is happening right now. We are one of the top three nonprofit boards that actually, uh, a couple other companies like Avista, when they look and try to do their nonprofits and how they see their leadership, they are surprised by what we are doing because usually there's infighting. With my leadership, it becomes, it becomes a calmness where everyone is working together. I try to consolidate and make sure that everyone is heard and that everyone is working together. That is what has brought with my leadership. It has made sure that when you get my leadership, it brings a lot of calm to everyone. Thank you. Alright, with that, I'm going to move on to closing statements, and because you won the coin toss and started with the opening statement, I'm going to ask him to begin with the closing statements. Was it One minute. I can't remember how long the closing is. Yes. One minute. For your opening and for your close, we need in here. We need here in Spokane, a citizen council member that is going to represent you and not themselves. We need a person that is gonna represent the will of the people and not their own personal agenda. I have showed you, got you. All that. I am dedicated because I go down to City Hall every Monday night and not just watch there. I sit there in the background and I make sure that I do reports because I wanna not only educate others, but I want to inform them. I want to show other people that there is a, what is going down at City Hall that is not good. We need to make this better. We are losing a great potential here in Spokane. Spokane is a beautiful city. I love living here and that's why I'm running for city Council is because I'm tired of seeing our city go from bad to worse. We need to make sure that we are cleaning up Spokane, making safe streets for all, and making sure that we have a future here for our future generations. If we don't, Spokane is not gonna be the same. It's gonna be a shadow of its former self. And I know we can do this because I look into every one of your eyes and I know that we can actually do this. I can see the hope, I can see the dedication. I can see you're all sacrifice for what you wanna do for your city, and that is what we need. That is what you're going to get with my cany and my city council race, is that you are going to have a council member that is dedicated to you. Thank you. Thank you both so much for participating tonight. I get a good stuff. Yes. Sorry. No problem. Uh, thank you all for coming today. Uh, I am asking for your vote and your support to stay on City Council. I believe you have a choice today, and I believe I offer a vision of a vibrant future and opportunities for Spokane instead of just focusing on negativity. We need someone with a vision of, of a future, and that vision is rooted in representing and fighting for working people and middle class families. I wanna fight for you to have a opportunity around affordability and housing that you can live in, that your kids don't have to move away, but they can live here and grow up here and have a stable life. I believe in a future of, uh, public safety where everyone can walk down the street and feel safe. And that you don't have to worry about that. I've ama I also believe in a future with, uh, our infrastructure that is represented for everyone. That's not just our streets for vehicles, but it's for pedestrians and cyclists that you can take your kids and bike to the restaurant in the coffee shop and have that future with each other. But we also need to invest in our local businesses and our neighborhood business districts and our childcare centers. That's what I've done on your city council and I'm proud of the progress we've made, and I'm running to keep doing that work and fighting for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both for joining us tonight. Thank you for your service to the community. Um, and thank you all for joining us tonight for this wonderful candidate forum. Um, we have now concluded, so please feel free to get up and mingle. Um, applaud the candidates. And so we need more thoughtful, uh, conservatives who will participate and. Have good conversations. Thank you. Sign up sheet and we have a signup sheet in the back and Mary Lynn will follow up. Thank you all for coming.

All right, that's the end of the forum. It's gonna be a shorter than usual episode this week because us folks over at range, we're prepping to take a little bit of a vacation synced up with the Spokane City Council's summer vacation. Anyways, don't forget to get those ballots in if you live in the city limits. And if you're looking for even more information on these races and these candidates, you can check out our page on the KYRS website under free range.