Spokane City Council OKs ordinance requiring explanations of mayor’s appointees

Before Mayor David Condon can appoint anyone to a newly created position at City Hall, he’ll have to submit a written explanation to the City Council.

Two ordinances that Councilwoman Karen Stratton called a “necessary” step to provide clarity on salary spending were approved by a 5-1 vote of the council Monday night, with Councilman Mike Fagan casting the lone vote against the proposals. Councilwoman Amber Waldref was absent.

Stratton cast the ordinances as vital to the council performing its function as stewards of the city’s budget and reiterated the charge that, under Condon, management positions had mushroomed, with those managers being hand-selected by the mayor and not vetted through the merit-based Civil Service process.

“Anytime you create and hire an exempt position, citizens are paying more for that position than as if it were a Civil Service position,” Stratton said.

Under the new law, the administration must provide in writing who will report to the new political appointee and to whom they will report. Previously, the council had only required an organizational chart, a provision written into city ordinances in 2014.

Stratton pointed to her own experience working at City Hall as a spokeswoman for the Solid Waste Department, earning $56,000 a year. She said under Condon the communications structure changed, with existing spokespersons laid off and new appointees hired at a much greater salary as managers.

Fagan accused the council of hypocrisy, voting to restrict Condon’s ability to hire political appointees without changing rules regarding their own hires. He also said the council may be stripping too much authority from the mayor.

“To me, I think we’ve basically gotten to the point where we’re being a little bit too heavy-handed here,” Fagan said.

City Councilwoman Lori Kinnear voted in favor of the ordinance but said she would have preferred the council work with Condon to achieve a compromise. In comments last week, the mayor said his appointments had made government run more efficiently and allowed him to recruit candidates from the private sector ideally suited to filling “technical” roles at City Hall.

City Council President Ben Stuckart, joining the session via telephone, said the ordinance was necessary to provide clarity to the public.

“I think another level of accountability is necessary, considering what we’ve seen in the last five years,” Stuckart said.

The council also approved by a 5-1 vote, again with Fagan casting the lone dissent, to define city departments as having three or more employees, with the goal to prevent single-member departments employing one political appointee.