New Spokane Valley City Council committee appointments mostly go off without a hitch
Earlier this month, Spokane Valley Mayor Pam Haley appointed council members to serve on various city and regional boards and committees, but she had to schedule a special meeting Wednesday to appoint an alternate to the Spokane Transit Authority board.
Haley originally appointed herself and deputy mayor Tim Hattenburg to serve on the board, which oversees the operations of the STA. The board includes voting and nonvoting elected officials from Spokane County and cities inside the county, including Spokane Valley.
During Wednesday’s special meeting, council members Rod Higgins and Laura Padden were named as alternates for the STA board.
“STA is a complicated board,” Haley said. “I chose two council members who had served on the board before.”
Council member Al Merkel asked why the alternates were being named Wednesday and not during the prior committee assignments. Haley said the STA board doesn’t normally need alternates, but she recently became aware that Hattenburg would be unavailable for a couple of upcoming board meetings.
“Obviously, I forgot to appoint anyone,” Haley said. “That has not been really a major concern up until now.”
Aside from the STA board alternates issue, the committee appointment process went quickly and smoothly at a previous meeting to start off Haley’s second term as mayor.
There was some turmoil after her first round of committee appointments at the start of her first term as mayor, when Haley chose to remove councilman Ben Wick and then councilwoman Brandi Peetz from nearly all their committees, some of which they had been serving on for years. While Wick and Peetz are members of the Republican Party, as is Haley, they were seen as being more moderate conservatives than Haley and the majority of the other council members.
Peetz chose not to run for re-election, but Wick remains on the council and was put on several committees this time around. He was appointed to the city’s Finance Committee, the Housing and Community Development Advisory Committee, the Human Rights Task Force and the city’s Public Safety Committee.
The Public Safety Committee is new this year and is expected to examine the desire to hire more police officers and how to pay for them. In addition to Wick, Hattenburg and Padden were named to serve on the committee. The city also created a new Strategic Planning Committee, which will include Haley, Higgins and Hattenburg.
Hattenburg was also named to the Growth Management Steering Committee and the Housing and Community Development Advisory Committee. He was named as an alternate to the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency and the Spokane Regional Transportation Council.
Higgins was appointed to represent the city on the Aging and Long Term Care of Eastern Washington board, the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency, the city’s Finance Committee, the Growth Management Steering Committee, the City Governance Manual Committee, the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee and the Spokane Regional Transportation Council.
Padden was appointed to the board of the Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce and the city’s Finance Committee. Councilwoman Jessica Yaeger, who was sworn in earlier this month, was appointed to the Aging and Long Term Care of Eastern Washington board, the city’s Governance Manual Committee and the Wastewater Policy Advisory Board.
Merkel, who was also recently sworn in, was placed on the Opioid Abatement Council and named as an alternate to the Human Rights Task Force.
Haley appointed herself to several boards and committees, though some of the positions are required to be filled by the mayor. She will serve on the city’s Governance Manual Committee, the Greater Spokane Incorporated (GSI) board, the Mayors Association of Northeast Washington and the Spokane Regional Transportation Council.