SPOKANE, Wash. – Spokane City Council passed a 2018 ordinance that would have created a Sustainability Action Committee, but over two conservative mayoral administrations, no one was seated on it. Council took a second shot at creating a climate committee Monday night.
The initial ordinance mandating that the creation of the Sustainability Action Committee passed council on Aug. 20, 2018 in the midst of a national movement pushing municipal governments to respond to the after President Donald Trump announced that the US would leave the Paris Climate Accord.
Two successive mayors, David Condon and Nadine Woodward, did not seat any members on that committee, meaning it essentially did not exist despite being a part of municipal code.
Monday night’s city council vote replaced the 2018 city code with a new Climate Resilience and Sustainability Board. The ordinance passed with council members Cathcart and Bingle offering the two dissenting votes.
Mayor Lisa Brown’s proposals to make Spokane a more climate-conscious city are cited in the ordinance language.
“Mayor Brown’s Transition Team committee focused on Building a Resilient Future [and] recommended the creation of a Community Resiliency and Sustainability Board,” the ordinance states.
The policy language signals that the current mayor will not ignore the sustainability committee like Condon and Woodward.
Brian Henning, the director and founder of the Gonzaga Institute for Climate, Water and the Environment, testified in support of the new committee.
“With blatant and willful contempt for our city laws, both Mayor Condon and then Mayor Woodward refused to nominate a single person to this group…Meanwhile, over these last six years, the climate crisis continues to spiral,” Henning said.
Amidst sparked by Henning argued that it was the city’s responsibility to keep citizens safe from the worst effects of the crisis while mitigating its causes.
“From deadly heat domes to poisonous wildfire smoke, climate impacts leave no one untouched, but they harm the poor and the medically vulnerable first and worst,” Henning said.
