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.