In race for Spokane City Council president, challengers lob anti-police accusations as Wilkerson defends her record

As the only candidate for Spokane City Council President who’s served on the Council or any other elected office, the election has quickly become a referendum on Councilwoman Betsy Wilkerson’s record.

Wilkerson, a progressive and the chosen successor of outgoing Council President Breean Beggs, has represented south Spokane on the City Council since 2020 and has owned and operated Moore’s Assisted Living, a residential care facility for the mentally ill, since 1993.

Wilkerson is also deeply rooted in the local nonprofit world, serving as president of the board at the Carl Maxey Center in the East Central Neighborhood and previously as a member of the board at the Innovia Foundation. In June, she was elected president of the Association of Washington Cities, which lobbies on behalf of 281 cities and towns.

Her likely opponent in the November election, Kim Plese, ran unsuccessfully last year for a seat on the Spokane County Commission as a Republican, though she is now billing herself as a non-partisan who believes the left-leaning City Council majority isn’t collaborative enough with the police department, businesses or Mayor Nadine Woodward.

Plese was the owner and operator for 32 years of Plese Printing and Marketing, which was regularly commissioned to produce campaign materials for local candidates, before selling the business last year to focus on her run for the County Commission.

Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Andy Rathbun, who owns over a dozen residential properties across Spokane County and in Arizona, is also running, though he said in an interview that he doesn’t expect to get through the August primary since he hasn’t raised any money.

Even if Rathbun doesn’t attract any donors, his presence in the race means Wilkerson and Plese will appear on the primary election ballot. And that means candidates can raise twice as much from individual donors – something Plese has taken great advantage of.

Candidates cannot receive more than $1,200 per contributor for an election. But if there are three or more candidates in a race so there is both a primary and general election, contributors can give a maximum of $2,400.

Plese had raised over $117,000 by mid-June, dwarfing the war chests of any local candidate outside of the mayor’s race. Her donors include about a dozen who have given the maximum allowable $1,200 for the primary election and another $1,200 for the general election. Much of Plese’s biggest financial backing comes from local real estate and developer interests.

While Wilkerson hasn’t raised as much from maxed-out donors, she boasts sizable small-dollar donations, strong financial support from various unions and nonprofits, and total fundraising of nearly $90,000.

Wilkerson says she isn’t coming into the race with major plans to shift the City Council’s course, instead wanting to oversee implementation of ongoing initiatives to boost housing stock, increase recruitment in the police department through incentives in a recently approved guild contract, and help shepherd creation of a much-discussed regional homeless coalition.

Plese and Rathbun both say they would be better than Wilkerson or Beggs at collaborating with police, business and the mayor’s office.

Plese criticizes increases in property taxes and development fees Wilkerson has supported, saying they show poor planning and are hurting the development of new homes amid a local housing crisis. Rathbun agrees.

“This gang of five is totally anti-business, and all the laws and ordinances are hurting businesses and driving them out of the city,” Rathbun said. “We’re going in the wrong direction with the city, and it’s all their fault.”

In an earlier interview, Rathbun said he wants to use his campaign to highlight problems with Wilkerson and the other four members of the City Council majority, and to make Wilkerson “squirm a bit.”

Wilkerson has never faced an opponent in her past bids for a seat on the City Council – at least not all the way up to the November election.

Shortly after Beggs was sworn in as Council President in 2020, Wilkerson was chosen from 32 applicants and unanimously appointed to take Beggs’ former seat representing south Spokane. The first African American member on the council in nearly 20 years and the only person of color on the current council, Wilkerson offered to bring a “different perspective” to the dais, she said at the time.

During her reelection campaign in 2021, Wilkerson’s only opponent, Tyler LeMasters, was disqualified for not meeting residency requirements. While she sailed through that campaign unopposed, she continued to face many of the attacks likely to characterize the race for council president, including by framing her as anti-police.

A week before the Nov. 2 election, a clip from body-camera footage obtained by influential downtown business owner Chud Wendle made its way to various right-wing media outlets, including Fox News.

The video shows two officers discussing an interaction that had just occurred with Wilkerson, with one relaying that she said she wasn’t “too enthused to help” officers with the investigation of a killing that had taken place nearby the day before. Wilkerson has denied saying that.

Wilkerson had requested a search warrant, which limits what officers can look through and seize, prior to releasing surveillance footage of the assisted living facility she owns and operates. Wilkerson released the footage after officers returned with a warrant.

“I couldn’t just release it without something official, because I have 14 people in that house with their rights,” she said at the time.

Though Wilkerson and her left-leaning colleagues on the City Council point to their willingness to provide more funding to the police department, not less, they often come under fire as anti-police.

“It’s clearly that she doesn’t support the police department,” Plese said.

Asked twice to provide specific examples of Wilkerson being anti-police, Plese initially said she doesn’t believe Wilkerson has ever been on a police ride-along. Wilkerson has, she wrote in a text Tuesday.

In a follow-up text, Plese pointed to Wilkerson’s opposition to Woodward unilaterally converting the former East Side Library into a police precinct, as well as Wilkerson’s vote to increase oversight of controversial civil asset forfeiture funds.

Wilkerson does regularly express concern about police bias and misconduct, saying after the murder of George Floyd that unarmed people of color are disproportionately killed by police. She has advocated for greater police oversight and, in some instances limits, on police powers.

Just last week, Wilkerson, along with Beggs and Councilman Zack Zappone, voted against an ordinance that grants police broad authority to arrest people in city parks after they close, arguing that it was overbroad and that biases could creep into enforcement. The trio instead supported an alternative law that would have only allowed arrests of large groups, which police officials had said were the root of an uptick of violence in parks after dark, and only after they were initially warned to leave.

Wilkerson and her left-leaning colleagues on the City Council point to their willingness to provide more funding to the police department, not less, as evidence of their support for the department’s mission. On Thursday, shortly before the Council unanimously voted to approve a four-year contract with the Spokane Police Guild that included significant raises and hiring incentives, guild President Detective Dave Dunkin praised councilmembers’ willingness to provide additional resources amid budget concerns.

“I’ve tried hard over the last year to change the narrative that the council doesn’t support its police, because that’s just not true,” Dunkin said. “Getting us into contract in what historically now is going to be a record time is credit to the city saying it supports its police.”

Plese said it’s great that the council’s left-leaning members are financially backing the police department but questioned whether the contract approval was timed for the election. The guild contract was set to be renewed this year, but past renewals have stalled during negotiations.

Plese and Rathbun have also criticized the city approach to homelessness under the left-leaning City Council supermajority, which includes Wilkerson.

Rathbun believes the city should hire more police and crack down on the homeless, including by outlawing panhandling, though the state Supreme Court in 2016 ruled anti-begging laws are in many instances an unconstitutional restriction on the First Amendment. Rathbun believes the City Council has attracted homeless people to Spokane, and he argues that the homeless population is driving away downtown businesses.

“The downtown is literally dying,” Rathbun said. “We need to be attracting businesses, not driving them away.”

Plese has said in recent interviews that the city is spending too much on homelessness and not demanding enough accountability. But on Tuesday, Plese criticized the City Council not only for trying to buy the Trent Avenue homeless shelter last year, a property purchased by developer and conservative donor Larry Stone for $3.5 million last March and that Plese said the city couldn’t afford afford, but for taking so long to approve a multi-year lease at the site to provide services currently exceeding $13 million a year.

“Any time you delay a vote or something like that, it just costs more money and time to get services to the people that need it most,” Plese said.

A county-wide approach to homelessness is one issue that all three candidates agree on. Plese said she’s “completely for” a regional homeless authority currently in the works, though she added that she’s cautious about the underlying costs. Wilkerson agrees.

“I think there’s a nugget there of us coming together, but as they say, the devil’s in the details,” Wilkerson said.

Like Plese and Rathbun, Wilkerson frames herself as the best choice to bring people of various viewpoints to the table, pointing to her work on various boards and her leadership roles with the Association of Washington Cities, an organization she described as more conservative.

“I have a record of being collaborative,” she said. “I can lead, but also you’ve got to be collaborative.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated on July 5, 2023 to correctly identify the work experience of Kim Plese. She was the owner and operator of Plese Printing and Marketing for 32 years before selling the business in 2022.