Committee appointments show divisions in Spokane City Council

(The Center Square) – The Spokane City Council’s two conservative members were at odds with their majority counterparts this week over committee and board assignments for 2024.

Jonathan Bingle and Michael Cathcart alluded to politics and disregard of seniority while being rebuffed in proposed revisions for the council president pro tem position, committee chairmanships, and representation on the Spokane Transit Authority’s board of directors.

“There’s no perfect assignment of boards and committee positions. Every council member up here is qualified,” said Council President Betsy Wilkerson, who was supported in majority votes by Paul Dillon, Kitty Klitzke and Zack Zappone on the appointments.

Under council rules, nominations to inter-governmental committees are made by the council president, subject to majority confirmation.

Appointments are divvied up among 51 different internal and regional subcommittees, commissions, boards, and ad hoc groups. They fall under the umbrella of four major committees: public infrastructure, environment, and sustainability chaired by Wilkerson; urban experience chaired by Zappone, finance and administration chaired by Cathcart, and public safety and community health chaired by Dillon.

Wilkerson has the most assignments at 20, followed by Zappone with 16, Dillon with 15, Cathcart with 13, Bingle with 12, and Klitzke with nine. Those may be subject to change with Monday’s appointment of new council member Lili Navarrete.

Cathcart and Wilkerson took office in 2020 and have the most seniority, followed by Bingle and Zappone who joined the council 2022. Dillon and Klitzke were elected in November and began their four-year nonpartisan terms this month.

Without referencing Dillon specifically during Monday’s meeting, Bingle was upset that he was not appointed to a chair position, feeling he deserved to be due to seniority. Feeling snubbed, he called it “an offense to me and my district.”

“That seems to me to be a huge problem given the precedent set by this council for decades going back, seniority played a large role in determining how those (appointments) were determined, he said.

Bingle also questioned why neither he or Cathcart, who both represent the city’s northern District 1, were not named to the Spokane Transit Authority board after they requested appointments. Instead, those went to Wilkerson, Zappone, Dillon, and Klitzke.

“That makes absolutely no sense to me,” contended Bingle, saying District 1 has the highest STA ridership and the highest percentage of low-income persons using the bus service.

“That’s not to say any of my colleagues won’t do a great job on there: they will,” he said, but added that either he and Cathcart would also do “a great job because we are the elected representation of our district.”

“That is offensive to my district and offensive to me personally. And I hope we can do something about it,” Bingle said.

In response, Wilkerson said she was elected citywide as council president, so “I feel I do represent the district” and that STA is a regional operation, not district specific.

“There’s been things going on that were already in play and some reasons why those (were) picked a certain way (to serve) on STA,” she said. “It was not to be offensive or diminish.”

Wilkerson also told Bingle, “I do want to let you know that there is nothing in our council rules that says we have to go by seniority.”

Cathcart offered a motion, which failed, that called to replace Wilkerson with Bingle on the STA board.

Cathcart offered another failed motion in which he volunteered to step down as finance and administration committee chair to be replaced by Wilkerson, but move her to vice chair of the public infrastructure committee and appoint Bingle as chair.

Cathcart said he did not need the chairmanship as much as Bingle deserved it.

Wilkerson later remarked, “I don’t know if I buy into someone deserves to be a chair.”

Cathcart’s last failed motion called for himself to be appointed council president pro tem, a position he held for several months during a transition period involving former president Lori Kinnear, rather than Zappone.

“All I will say to that is I think my track record speaks for itself,” said Cathcart. “My seniority, my efforts to be collaborative, and working across the board with this council, never missing a single vote on this council in four years.”

Zappone, in turn, commended Cathcart’s “perfect attendance” at council meetings, but said Cathcart had missed other “working” meetings including some he chose not to attend the prior week. “And there’s been lots of moments where we’re trying to collaborate and council member Cathcart has not responded to those,” said Zappone.

Cathcart replied, “I think I’ll just say avoiding backroom decision-making, if that’s your idea of collaborating or lack thereof, God help us.”

“There are obviously political divides between people and that’s totally fine,” Bingle said earlier in support of Cathcart. “One thing … that would be a powerful testament to the city and the region is again our willingness to work with one another in positions of power despite ideological differences.”

But looking at the board and commission appointments, Bingle said it was hard to see how “it’s not driven by politics.”