Council members call for censure of Woodward for appearance with religious extremist

Some on the Spokane City Council will try to censure Mayor Nadine Woodward for her Aug. 20 appearance at a Christian nationalist event alongside religious extremist Matt Shea.

The resolution, which will be introduced to committee on Monday and was sponsored by Councilman Zack Zappone and Councilwoman Betsy Wilkerson, states that Woodward tarnished the reputation of the city of Spokane and calls on her to provide an unconditional and public apology.

As the city was blanketed in smoke from nearby wildfires, the mayor was at the Pavilion attending “Let Us Worship,” a religious and conservative political concert and prayer tour organized by self-declared Christian nationalist Sean Feucht. The event was initially launched by Feucht in 2020 to protest pandemic-restrictions on in-person church services.

Woodward has repeatedly apologized for her attendance, saying she was not aware Shea would be at the event and she should have better researched it ahead of time.

“I apologize that my appearance with them, although unintentional, has hurt members of our community and caused a distraction when we need to focus on the health and safety of Spokane,” Woodward wrote in a Tuesday statement to the Spokesman-Review.

She continued to say that the issue was distracting from the city’s important work, such as providing law enforcement, maintaining streets and adding to the housing supply.

Woodward has stated that she was invited to the event as a way to pray for victims of the fires devastating the nearby communities of Medical Lake and Elk at the time. Shea has disputed that claim, saying that Woodward accepted the invitation before the fires started.

Woodward has been repeatedly attacked in recent weeks for attending the event amid some of the region’s worst natural disasters in a generation. On stage that night, she received a blessing and endorsement from Shea, a former Republican state Representative from Spokane Valley who was ostracized by his own caucus after he authored a manifesto that espoused religious violence, attended an armed standoff with the U.S. government and was found to have ordered the surveillance of local progressive politicians.

On Aug. 24, dozens of faith and community leaders published open letters to the mayor and City Council condemning the event and Woodward’s attendance, as well as calling local elected officials to show support for the separation of church and state. On Friday, Democratic Spokane County Commissioners Chris Jordan and Amber Waldref wrote that “Woodward’s labored explanations … fall short of the unequivocal apology that is necessary.”

Woodward has historically positioned herself as a moderate conservative, declining to seek endorsements from the county Republican Party ahead of the August primaries. It came as a shock for many, then, that in the midst of a fierce re-election campaign she was seen embracing Shea.

Moments after Shea compared the fires to the issues of trans rights and same-sex marriage, the mayor was captured on video walking on stage.

Placing a hand on Woodward, Shea called on the crowd to join him in prayer. Though she embraced Shea as she walked off stage, the mayor and her re-election campaign immediately began to distance themselves from the controversial figure after video of the event became public.

Censuring has no practical effect on the mayor and only serves as a formal statement by the full council that forces each member to take a position on the issue. The resolution’s sponsors already issued a statement last month condemning Woodward’s attendance, which Councilwoman Karen Stratton signed onto.

Council President Lori Kinnear issued her own statement, focusing on the event broadly, which she argued was not in keeping with a city that recently adopted motto is “We All Belong,” rather than focus on the mayor’s attendance.

“Statements alone don’t have the same weight as a full vote, and we don’t have the positions of all of the members,” Zappone said Tuesday. “This makes it clear to the community, if it passes, that the council is providing leadership and stands against hate.”

Stratton said Tuesday that she was interested in signing onto a strong statement from the full council but worried that it would be seen as just another political spat.

“I don’t want this at any level to feel political, though I’m not sure how we can avoid that,” she said. “From the 2,000-foot view, this is a human issue. It’s not political to me.”

Kinnear is wary of a censure resolution, she said, because it carries no consequences and because a majority on the council has already condemned the event.

“I’m not sure what’s left to say,” she said. “We’re already on record that we believe these things, we support people’s diversity, etc. How many times do you need to say that or reword it?”

At least one council member is opposed to a censure motion. Councilman Jonathan Bingle, who was censured last year for violating the city’s mask mandate, said the City Council had used the censure as a purely political tool.

“It’s a tool of the majority to try to shame the minority,” he said in a Tuesday interview.

“If it were a serious process, and we were a serious body, we would have censured Zappone for his gerrymandering,” Bingle said, noting Zappone’s controversial involvement last year in changing City Council district boundaries. “But we’re not a serious body.”

Bingle added that he believes that Woodward had good intentions when she attended the event and dismissed Shea’s statements that conflict with the mayor’s.

“It’s he-said, she-said, but Shea would also say he’s not a domestic terrorist,” Bingle said. “His word is good or it’s not.”

A majority on City Council remain skeptical of Woodward’s explanations, however.

“The mayor has inadequately addressed the public’s concerns,” Zappone said. “There are still a lot of questions, and she has not thoroughly apologized or explained what happened – in fact, her statement was contradictory and doesn’t make sense.”

Councilman Michael Cathcart hasn’t issued a statement on Woodward’s appearance at the event.

Though Woodward’s re-election campaign issued statements in the days following the event distancing herself from Shea and apologizing from appearing alongside him, she has declined to answer direct questions.

In an Aug. 22 phone interview, she declined to address whether she supported Feucht or why she embraced Shea, among other questions related to her appearance.

“I am not going to answer questions outside of the statement that I already provided,” she said Aug. 22. “The statement is my statement and I’m not answering any more questions.”

Woodward’s re-election campaign issued a news release Aug. 23 that said she opposed Shea’s political views, adding: “During her broadcast career, Woodward covered Matt Shea’s political controversies and never was granted an interview with him despite many attempts.”

On Tuesday, city spokesman Brian Coddington reiterated that Woodward would not discuss the event with a reporter.

Responding to the criticism, Woodward on Aug. 23 called on her opponent in the November election, Lisa Brown, to address payments to a campaign consultant who had previously stated cities would be safer if police departments were defunded.

“Yesterday Lisa Brown publicly stated that association with a person invokes an alignment with that person’s political agenda,” Woodward wrote. “I am calling on Lisa Brown to live by her own standard and justify hiring a defund-the-police radical to advise her campaign.”

Woodward was pointing to Jeremy Parkin, a New York City consultant whom Brown paid around $1,100 in March for “field and voter outreach planning,” including help to organize volunteers, and who had recently posted on social media about their support for defunding police departments. Brown also contracted with Parkin during her 2018 campaign for Congress.

In an interview, Brown called Woodward’s attack an “obvious attempt to divert attention from her bad choices.”

“I actually welcome this, to the extent that perhaps it would get people looking at my public safety priorities,” Brown continued. “At the top of the list is a fully staffed and funded police force.”

Brown said she had never discussed police funding with Parkin but found him to be an effective field organizer during her 2018 campaign.