NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monday, October 12th, 2015

Spokane City Council adopts resolution opposing Tim Eyman’s I‑1366

Great news to share this evening: Moments ago, the City of Spokane put itself on record as opposed to Tim Eyman’s incred­i­bly destruc­tive I‑1366 by vot­ing unan­i­mous­ly to adopt a res­o­lu­tion urg­ing a NO vote by Novem­ber 3rd.

The Coun­cil act­ed after hear­ing tes­ti­mo­ny from pro­po­nents and oppo­nents of I‑1366. League of Women Vot­ers of Wash­ing­ton Pres­i­dent Ann Mur­phy, hous­ing advo­cate Alfre­do LLame­do, State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mar­cus Ric­cel­li, and Spokane Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Jen­ny Rose all urged the Coun­cil to take a stand in oppo­si­tion to Eyman’s I‑1366. Civic gad­fly George McGrath and for­mer Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tor John Ahern, mean­while, deliv­ered ram­bling speech­es prais­ing I‑1366.

After all tes­ti­mo­ny had been heard, the Coun­cil pro­ceed­ed to dis­cus­sion. Coun­cilmem­ber Mike Fagan, an asso­ciate of Tim Eyman’s, pro­ceed­ed to read a speech adapt­ed from the op-eds ghost­writ­ten by Tim Eyman for place­ment in news­pa­pers across the state. It con­tained a ver­sion of this para­graph, which a read­er of The News Tri­bune of Taco­ma astute­ly not­ed was appear­ing in mul­ti­ple op-eds sup­pos­ed­ly writ­ten by dif­fer­ent extrem­ist Republicans.

You might think that Fagan, being a cospon­sor of I‑1366, would know enough about the ini­tia­tive to write a speech in favor of the ini­tia­tive him­self. But, like a def­er­en­tial hench­man, he relied on talk­ing points devel­oped and refined by Eyman.

At the end of his speech, Fagan announced he would recuse him­self from the Coun­cil’s vote due to his involve­ment with Ini­tia­tive 1366.

Coun­cilmem­bers Karen Strat­ton, Jon Sny­der, and Amber Wal­dref pro­ceed­ed to speak in favor of the res­o­lu­tion and against I‑1366.

Sny­der was the most vocal of the three.

“The myth of Tim Eyman is start­ing to unrav­el,” not­ed Sny­der. “The real Tim Eyman has spent a career defend­ing the wealthy against pay­ing their fair share.”

Fagan raised a point of order and asked whether Sny­der’s remarks were in bounds. Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Ben Stuckart ruled that they were, as Eyman is the pri­ma­ry spon­sor of I‑1366, and is prof­it­ing from the ini­tia­tive campaign.

Sny­der pro­ceed­ed to fin­ish his thought, but not before not­ing that he has the right to speak freely as a cit­i­zen and as an elect­ed leader.

Wal­dref, the mak­er of the res­o­lu­tion, was the last to speak. She ref­er­enced Mar­cus Ric­cel­li’s tes­ti­mo­ny and defend­ed the prin­ci­ple of major­i­ty rule, which dates back to the found­ing of our state. She observed that had a two-thirds vote been required to raise any rev­enue, Wash­ing­ton would not have a 2015 Trans­porta­tion Package.

With that, the Coun­cil vot­ed. The roll call was as follows:

Vot­ing Aye: Coun­cilmem­bers Ben Stuckart, Amber Wal­dref, Jon Sny­der, Can­dace Mumm, Karen Stratton

Abstain­ing: Coun­cilmem­ber Mike Fagan

Not Vot­ing: Coun­cilmem­ber Mike Allen

The team at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute thanks Coun­cilmem­bers Stuckart, Wal­dref, Sny­der, Mumm, and Strat­ton for their courage and lead­er­ship. It is imper­a­tive that we come togeth­er as a state to defeat Tim Eyman’s I‑1366. Tonight, a major­i­ty of the City of Spokane’s elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives took a stand in defense of our Con­sti­tu­tion, our pub­lic schools, our val­ues, and our future.

We salute them and thank them for set­ting an exam­ple for oth­er Wash­ing­ton com­mu­ni­ties to fol­low. Hap­pi­ly, Seat­tle is slat­ed to take up a sim­i­lar res­o­lu­tion next week. We look for­ward to see­ing that tak­en up on Mon­day, Octo­ber 19th.

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  1. […] now, so have our state’s two largest cities. Spokane went first, last week, and now Seat­tle, the Emer­ald City, has joined this most noble of caus­es as […]

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