Katey Treloar announces run to represent south Spokane on City Council

Educator Katey Treloar is the third candidate to announce she is running to represent the south district on the Spokane City Council.

Treloar ran unsuccessfully in 2019 for a seat on the Spokane Public Schools board. She also was a finalist for a vacant council seat to which Betsy Wilkerson was eventually appointed, saying she wanted to bring “a balanced and moderate approach” to the legislative body.

She is hoping to fill the seat held by Councilwoman Lori Kinnear, who will reach her term limit at the end of the year.

The district, which has two seats, is also represented by Wilkerson, whose term is not up until 2025 but who is running for council president.

The district includes much of the city south of the Spokane River except for the downtown core, and it faces its own challenges. It is relatively economically diverse, its northern areas have experienced growing traffic problems and it has seen an uptick in the homeless population.

The East Central Neighborhood, with its long-lasting effects from Interstate 90’s construction dividing it in the ’60s, is also in the district.

Like many candidates for public office, Treloar said she was running to tackle public safety, homelessness and housing.

“We can have a clean and safe city while still supporting our most vulnerable populations,” she said.

Treloar offered few concrete policy proposals but said she wanted to see better funding for police equipment and a more proactive approach to homelessness.

“When I think about dealing with these three issues, all my thoughts and policies come down to this next generation,” she said. “How do we get them the support they need to break the cycle of drug use and poverty?”

She pointed to the Gonzaga Family Haven housing complex and its support services as a prime example of the kind of initiative she would support on the council.

She also argued that she was the candidate to bring various stakeholders to the same table to find solutions.

“We have a lot of resources in Spokane that can help with these problems, but we need to be able to bring folks together in a nonpolarizing way,” she said.

“I truly believe the majority of our council has forgotten these are nonpartisan positions.”

Born and raised in Spokane, Treloar received an undergraduate degree in sociology and her master’s of education from Gonzaga University. She worked for nine years as a classroom teacher in various schools for the Spokane school district but left in 2013 after her two sons were born.

She then started Bite To Go, a program aimed at supplementing meals for underserved students.

“When you have kids that are hungry, they can’t study or work on their behavioral problems, because their attention is on their next meal,” she said.

At the start of 2022, Treloar started Executive Functioning Coaching, a company that helps train people with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or other conditions to learn better organization, impulse control and other vital skills.

During her 2019 campaign for Spokane Public Schools board, Treloar opposed a supplemental levy and supported hiring armed police officers who would be permanently assigned to a specific middle school and high school. In 2020, she also joined protests calling for an in-school learning option as COVID-19 restrictions flared.