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Sure. Hello, everyone
louder. May I have your attention please. May
I have your attention
please. As we get started towards this press conference, I do want to make an announcement that anyone who is parked across the street in the parking lot you will need to move your car, because they will start ticketing because it's a private lot, nobody. We're all
live just making sure. Just making
sure. All right, we're going to get started here. My name is Lisa Gardner. I am the director of communications for Spokane City Council. We do have council member Jonathan bingel. He has a great crowd here today. So council member bagel will start us off. We will have Chef white right here behind me. He will also address the community, and we'll have an open up to the media, first for questions. If the media has any questions, please prepare and then after that, if there's time, we'll open it up to community, but we'll pretty much try to cut it off at 1230 if there's enough time, We'll continue to go without further. ADO. Jonathan,
well, hey, thank you all so much for being here. I mean, this is a packed house. This is a packed room. I want to thank all of our community partners who reached out to their networks and invited people to come. DSP, SBA, BOMA, ABC, I know that I'm forgetting a few off the top my head, and I forget, and I apologize if I did. GSI, but thank you all for doing so, because today, what we're talking about is is an incredibly important topic, something you know, probably the greatest challenge facing our city today. And so first off, good afternoon. Thank you all for being here. And I just want to take a moment to address the real concerns that so many of you, our business owners, our residents, our families, have raised about the challenges that we face in this city. And first and foremost, I want to acknowledge the frustration and the hardship and the worry that many of you have been experiencing for far too long. We have watched our city drift toward disorder, and for that, I want to apologize we as your elected leaders, have not done enough to enforce and support the laws that are meant to protect the community and maintain order that allows Spokane to thrive. And again, for that, I am deeply sorry. It is the cultivation of lawlessness that gave me the desire to run for city council in the first place. And make no mistake about it, lawlessness is what we're cultivating, and by continued, by supporting continued bad policies that have been authored, not only here, but around the state and around the country, It's unacceptable, and we cannot allow it to continue.
The you to the business owners here. I want you to know that your struggle is personal to me, my wife and I, we have owned a business here for 15 years. I understand the hardships that you're facing, and I think something that gets lost in the conversation about business owners is that you're not just managing storefronts, right? You're you're building something so much bigger. Your businesses aren't lifeless, cold entities, hell bent on profits, determined to step on whomever necessary to make a buck. Your businesses are comprised of people, people with hopes and dreams and plans for a future you're working to provide your for your families and contribute to the vitality of Spokane. When a business suffers, it's not just numbers on the ledger. It is someone's livelihood. It is their passion and their vision for this community's future. Business owners in the room, you've invested your time and money and energy into this community only to see crime and chaos disrupt your ability to operate. And when crime, vandalism and lawlessness threaten that vision, it doesn't just harm the bottom line, it crushes dreams. The reason why we're in this room today is because, you know, the most glaring example we saw in the last month was chef Chad white and. A wildly talented chef, drenched in accolades, committed to his business and this city, Chad has worked tirelessly, not just to build his restaurants, but to make Spokane a culinary destination. Yet even with all of his talent and dedication, the struggles he's faced in maintaining order and safety around his business are a stark reminder of how deeply this crisis runs. If someone like Chad right, one of our best and our brightest, is struggling to keep the doors open, what hope does the average citizen have in the City of Spokane, if our most driven entrepreneurs can't make it, what message does that send to the rest of us? This cannot be the Spokane that we accept and to our residents, you deserve a city where you can raise your families in safety. And to all of you, let me be clear, this city's leadership, myself included, must do better, but
I stand before you today, not just with an apology. I think that there are real, tangible things that we as a city can do to move us forward. Okay, first and foremost, we absolutely must be enforcing our public drug use laws in the City of Spokane. Applause, the open drug use on our streets not only damages the fabric of the community, but it makes our public spaces unsafe for everyone that is families, businesses and visitors alike. We've seen in other cities like Seattle, how unchecked public drug use spirals into chaos, and we cannot afford to let that happen here. We must enforce these laws, making Spokane neighborhoods, parks, streets and downtown areas safe again. We must work with our law enforcement and community partners to ensure that those caught with illegal drugs are prosecuted, while continuing to ensure that they have pathways to rehabilitation. We need to break the side cycle of addiction, not ignore it.
Second, the voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition one because we made it clear that we want to help people in need, but there must also be order for the residents of Spokane, our public spaces must be maintained as public and when a small group of individuals is allowed to colonize our public spaces, they're no longer public spaces our children, our seniors and our families deserve to be able to use the public spaces that they've invested in over time with their tax dollars. Third,
vandalism and graffiti are a blight on businesses and neighborhoods, starting immediately. We need to be cleaning up graffiti within 24 hours of its appearance. This
is more than just esthetics. It is about restoring pride in our city and stopping the message that lawlessness is acceptable when we let graffiti and vandalism linger, we signal that we've given up on those spaces. And I can tell by all the people here that we refuse to give up on Spokane, the
and to support this effort, we need to dedicate more police forces, police resources to high crime and nuisance areas. Our police force must be a visible present, and they must be engaged where they are most needed. The success of hot spot policing in cities like New York has proven that targeted law enforcement can dramatically reduce crime. Spokane should adopt this approach, and we will make it clear that there will be no safe havens for crime in this city. We
also need to get tough on repeat offenders. If someone continuously breaks the law, there must be escalating consequences. Spokane should implement a repeat offender. Repeat repeat offender policy nailed it. That ensures harsher penalties for those who refuse to respect the laws of our community. Spokane recently set this precedent when it came to landlords, and there's no reason why we cannot do it for criminal behavior. I want
to give a shout out to my bash brother council member Cathcart. He and I at the city, we have proposed a number of these policies, we continue to propose these policies, and we absolutely can implement these in a timely fashion to make Spokane safe again, and that's what we intend to do. Okay? All that said, Spokane is not destined for decay. All right, with the proper leadership, Spokane can step into her full potential. We are city. Filled with incredible talent, creativity and resilience. When we restore order, enforce the laws and clean up our streets, Spokane will flourish. Businesses will thrive again. Business or families will feel safer walking downtown, and entrepreneurs like Chef Chad white here will continue to bring excellence to the city without having to fear for the safety of their staff or their customers, and I believe that Spokane best days are ahead of us, despite the challenges. But I can't do this alone. It requires all of us, business owners, residents, city leadership, all working together. I'm committed to seeing Spokane rise to its full, full potential, as is everyone here, so don't lose heart. The Spokane that we all love is still here, and it will be even better, because the efforts that we make together and hopefully City Hall hears this message and takes it to heart. Public safety is non negotiable. You.
Again. Thank you all so much for being here, and I'd like to turn it over to Chef white.
Thank you everyone for coming out. It means the world to me, my family and my staff. I came back to Spokane in 2015 because I wanted to be a part of what I saw was really cool. I wanted to bring the training and the experience that I had to contribute to our city's culinary our growing culinary landscape. We as a community have to work together beyond just our elected officials, I will admit I became very numb to what has gone on around our business. I've walked past things I should have never walked past because I just got used to it. Didn't call things in because it was just a norm, not doing that anymore. Whether Zona Blanca is closed or not, I'm committed to support all the other restaurants, small businesses in our downtown core, because our downtown is beautiful, we have invested tons of time, money and tax dollars to make it what it is, and we cannot let it slip away. It doesn't matter what side of the aisle we are on, we have to come together in the center and help Spokane grow and thrive, or restaurants like this and many more will close its doors. Thank you. Applause.
Thank you, chef. I appreciate it. And I guess with that, if there are any questions I would I would open it up. Yes. Stephanie brush from khq, thank you for
having us today. I do have a question. We have a new police chief here in Spokane. So what is your plan as an elected official to convince him that the problems that businesses are facing should be viewed as a priority? Yeah,
I mean, I'm surprised that at some of the comments I've heard where it's not already a priority. I mean, we've known that we were getting a new police chief for nine months now, I would have expected that those policies would have been relayed in my meetings with with Chief Hall. Those are the things I relayed. We need Spokane to be clean and safe. And as much as I represent downtown, I represent other areas as well, and this is, well, it's concentrated heavily downtown. It's spreading throughout our entire city, and so this is something that needs to be a citywide effort to make sure that we are cleaning up the trash, we need to again enforce strictly and heavily our public drug use laws, making sure that people are following those laws, because without it, again, we attract folks who who want To commit crimes, and we just can't allow that.
Do any other media? Yeah,
as you're keenly aware, the city has an upside down budget
right now,
prop one, drug
users. Where would you allocate those resources in order to we can allocate those resources in order to grab that
well, something that certainly would have been very helpful is if we didn't have such a strong opposition to our jail measure last year, had that jail measure by certain current elected officials in the City of Spokane, had that passed, then we would have already been addressing a substantial portion of our of our current budget issues, and the answer to the question of, what do you do with people who are committing crimes? Because we would have the space available to be doing it. And so what I continue to do is I will continue to advocate for a new jail measure to to go forward and hopefully pass. Because again, speaking with SPD today, they've they've done 2300 Seven arrests in the last eight months in just the downtown precinct. Okay, those are new arrests. 2307 The problem is, is that you know, they are taken to a place and they're released on their own recognizance. And what I know from former police chief Meidl is that basically 50% of our crime is committed by about 100 people. We know who they are. So what we need to do is we need to increase the staffing at the facilities that we currently have. I'm thankful that we have a couple of our county commissioners here. Those are conversations that are ongoing, and finding ways that we can take people who are committing crimes and put them away.
Yes, this is for Chef white, statistically, we are seeing a decrease in reported crimes in this area of downtown. So would you say that you or other business owners, are you recording these crimes when they happen? And if you do, do you think that SBD has been helpful in addressing it?
It's all about language. So when you're calling the police department or crime check, you have to be very candid about what's going on. Often, we fall into a scenario of feeling bad for the person who's going through whatever they're going through, or the problem deescalated Really quickly, and there's no point in continuing to do it. Or it's just simple as it's just a small crime, right? Like I said, we've come numb to it. I think that more and more of us have to step up and be aggressive, because accountability, in all reality, is love. We continue to turn our back on accountability, and we don't hold them accountable, they're just going to go further and further into a dark place, and crime is only going to get worse until it's dealt with. Thank you,
and I'll say this in response to that as well. Spoke with the Hotel Indigo, and they were just dropped by their insurance carrier because of crime rates in the area. And we actually saw this with camp hope as well. Back when I still represented east central, many of the businesses there stopped reporting crimes as well, because they were being threatened that there they would have their insurance dropped, and without their insurance, they wouldn't be able to run their business. And so it's a weird balance that we have to strike between we need to report this so that people know, but there are actually negative effects to businesses on top of that, if we're reporting every single crime. And so it becomes a real difficult thing for businesses in the downtown area to balance.
Thank you. Yes,
I want to thank you for stepping up and coming and talking with the people. My question is, I am an avid City Council attendee, and I'm wondering, I see all these people here today, and how do we get them to not just be here today, but to start you can watch on TV, you can watch on your computer, but come down to this chamber. I sit there sometimes there's 14 people there, 14. So how do we encourage all of these attendees here, come tonight, tonight?
Yeah, no, it's a great question. I get this all the time, how can I be more involved? How can I have my voice, you know, heard or amplified? And I think today is a really great first step. I mean, we have well over 100 people in here lifting their voice and lifting their support for this. And so for that, I say, thank you all for being here. And if you are looking for you know the next step to take. I mean, always engaging with your city council members. Decisions are a majority basis. And as much as I would love to say, I can help, I can do this. We need the majority of city council to hear our voice, and so I'd encourage you to reach out to all of them, continue to let them know about the problems that they're dealing with. I continue to encourage them to come down and do walking tours with you around your businesses, so they can see the issues that you're dealing with. But coming to city council is another great way to say, Hey, I think this is a good policy. I think this is bad policy. Maybe we need to rework this, because it could be a good policy. Coming to city council is a great way to be involved. And so Earl, thank you so much for always coming to our city council meetings. And it is a way that you get to build relationship with the other council members and and, you know, sort of establish a working relationship. Yeah.
Christian Garza, correct you. This is a question for Jeff White, more so for the business aspect, you know, because you do have other locations as well, and so I know that this one is closing, but how about the
one located
at the airport? So
I did speak with SSP, with the airport and let them know about what my plan was to close the restaurant with the person I did speak with, they've taken it back to their board to find out if it's a good move to move back on. My assumption is it'll still be on, because there's a lot of a lot has already been done in terms of design, menu planning, things like that, licensing. So I. It's probably a 90% chance that we're going to continue to do
that. I guess we could do one more if we want, and then, yes, it varies.
I agree we need to get more engagement to address this issue. Yes, the current system doesn't seem to work. Here we are today. Yeah, the city Sure. We come to city council, we can go to everything else. It seems to me, we need some kind of new model. What do you think of that idea?
I think you're speaking specifically on homelessness based on
homelessness crime, they intersect. Yeah, I'm with the Homeless Coalition, but those two things intersect totally.
I agree crime is committed by the housed and the unhoused alike, and crime, regardless of your housing status, must be enforced, must be must be stopped, must be curbed. In the city of Spokane. I am thankful that Mayor Woodward is here with us today. I was excited to be invited on the trip that she took a delegation down to Houston to see different ways that we could address housing and help in the City of Spokane. And so we continue to have those negotiations. I've been involved since its inception, and we continue to work hard again. Thankfully, we have some county commissioners in here who've also been actively engaged, and we thought we had an agreement, and again, we thought we had support from our elected leadership. And then there was a change, and that went downhill. So now we're doing what we can with what we got, and so hopefully we can make it happen. But lastly, again, I just want to say thank you so much to Chef Chad white.
Losing losing businesses like Chad's aren't just about the food or the experience or things that were missing. I don't know if you guys saw this award on the wall right here, but Spokane Philanthropy Awards from 2021 is an emerging philanthropist. When we lose our businesses, we're not just losing the people who are generating income for families and for themselves and creating a life, creating something vital for the City of Spokane. We're also losing members who are engaged in the in the in the helping efforts around the city, and that stuff that's really, really, really difficult to engage in, because that's separate from paying taxes, right? We all have to pay our taxes. Certain people go above and beyond to be involved in their community, and that is a tough loss for us as a city. So, yeah, I want
to thank Jonathan for bringing us all together. I'm involved with many downtown properties and ownership question from the media, crime is down. Crime is not down. What we all have downtown is we have vandalism that we don't even call in broken windows, all the harassment that's going on, and we have crime fatigue. So I want to let you know crime is tough, and even though we might have limited law enforcement, I'd like you to tell the mayor this has to be a priority. You go to Boston, Massachusetts, they don't have this issue. You go to Coeur d'Alene, they don't have this issue because it's a priority. And the day we make it a priority, we're going to have better downtown, and people like Chad White will continue. But again, crime, if that's I think a certain element of the community want to say that it's not true. Thank you absolutely.
Thank you all again. I'll hang
out for a little bit afterwards. If anybody has any questions, I'm happy To be here. So thank you all
