Spokane City Council moves to make it easier for non-English speakers to interact with city government

The Spokane City Council voted unanimously Monday to begin to make it easier for residents who aren’t proficient in English to access city services with translation and interpretation assistance.

The resolution was sponsored by Councilwoman Betsy Wilkerson and Councilman Michael Cathcart. Cathcart noted Monday that his wife, Vina, is a first-generation immigrant from Vietnam. When her family decided to open a restaurant, it was 9-year-old Vina who interacted with the city’s permitting office and translated for her family, Cathcart said.

“My district is the most diverse in the city of Spokane,” he added. “Not all of them are proficient in English, and I want to make sure that they can participate as well as everybody else.”

Approximately 80 languages are spoken by students at Spokane schools, according to the school district. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that as of 2022, over 8% of families in Spokane spoke languages other than English at home.

Following Monday’s vote, the City Council office must immediately begin drafting a plan to translate council materials such as meeting agendas, draft ordinances and resolutions, and have translation and interpretation services for use during a council meeting.

City departments will be required to find space in tight 2024 budgets to plan for providing language access for residents by the end of 2025.

Those department-level plans will identify which communications with the public are considered vital, and will require translation of all vital documents into “established languages.” Any language spoken by at least 700 residents is considered an established language, though the Office of Civil Rights, Equity and Inclusion can recommend other languages be included, pending approval by the City Council.

The city’s language access program will be overseen by the Office of Civil Rights, Equity and Inclusion, which will also update the list of established languages every year. That office is to hire a language access coordinator responsible for citywide oversight of the rollout by July 1, 2024.

Each city department will be expected to begin maintaining data on the use of new language tools by the beginning of 2026.