Valley council passes resolution about transgender access to bathrooms

The Spokane Valley City Council on Tuesday evening approved a resolution asking the state to repeal the bathroom access rules for transgender people that were recently issued by the Washington State Human Rights Commission.

As the rules stand, transgender people may use bathrooms and locker rooms based on how they identify rather than according to biological sex.

Councilman Sam Wood introduced the resolution and also last week’s letter saying the same thing that was sent to the state Legislature after a heated debate at the council meeting.

Since last week, the resolution had been rewritten by Spokane Valley legal staff, but its purpose was the same.

Seven people testified that the rules should be repealed and only one person testified to keep the rules as they are.

Councilmen Chuck Hafner and Dean Grafos voted against the resolution, the rest of the council voted for it.

Hafner said the issue is a civil rights issue and not one the council should address.

Grafos said spending this much time on what he called “bathroomgate” is a waste of time and money.

“It’s a waste of taxpayer dollars to bring polarizing issues to the council that are not decidable by us and simply pandering to fear,” Grafos said.

The majority, including Mayor Rod Higgins, said it’s important that the council shows support of its legislators and that the council is not trying to make a new state law – it’s just trying to amend a current law.

Wood said he met with Spokane Valley legislators in Olympia last week, and they all thanked him.

“They thanked the Valley for taking a stand in their support and for bringing the resolution forward,” Wood said.

Also discussed:

At the beginning of the meeting, Higgins reminded councilmen to be civil and respect procedures – including addressing comments to the chair and not speaking out of turn. Higgins also told the audience that comments are to be made to the City Council from the speaker’s podium, and that comments or applause coming from anywhere else in the room is not tolerated.

Construction of the new city hall is on time and the design team is expected to turn in a nearly complete set of plans for review next week. That will be followed by a half-day session with the architect on Feb. 10, and by Feb. 22 the plans should be complete so they can be put out for bid in early March. Bids would be due in early April.