The race to represent northeast Spokane is a quiet outlier in an otherwise busy season for local politics.
Unlike the other three Spokane City Council races this year, only two candidates are running in District 1. That means they'll skip the Aug. 1 primary and go straight to November's general election.
The district seat is currently held by Michael Cathcart, who was elected in 2019 and is the only incumbent council member running for reelection this year.
The person vying for Cathcart's seat is Lindsey Shaw, who previously spent five years as chair of the Logan Neighborhood Council.
Shaw and Cathcart both say northeast Spokane has historically been overlooked and under-resourced, and that they're running because they want to continue fighting to make sure their community has a voice.
During his time on council, Cathcart has been an advocate for fiscal responsibility and government transparency. As a member of the council's two-person conservative minority, he's often outvoted by the council's veto-proof progressive supermajority.
But Cathcart also found ways to work with both sides to pass legislation. He points to his work on budget reform measures and his collaboration with Kate Burke, a former progressive City Council member who also represented District 1, on changing the rules to allow people to testify on the first readings of proposed ordinances and increase the number of people allowed to speak during public comment.
Cathcart says he's finalizing an ordinance to improve access to official city business for non-English speakers. He says he's also interested in some sort of layperson's version of council agendas to help the public cut through bureaucratic jargon.
Shaw and Cathcart both say they want to improve neighborhood livability by focusing on greenways, street infrastructure and pedestrian improvements. They point to recent development along East Illinois Avenue as a good example of user-friendly revitalization in northeast Spokane. Shaw says she's especially interested in encouraging more public artwork in the area.
The candidates differ in their approaches to public safety. Shaw says she still needs to learn more about the council's recent vote making public drug use a misdemeanor, but that she generally supports a "holistic" and "destigmatizing" approach focused on diversion and more behavioral health resources.
"I don't think that throwing people in jail is really healthy," Shaw says.
When asked about City Council decisions she disagrees with, Shaw points to the recent ordinance making it an arrestable offense to be in city parks between 11 pm and 5 am.
"If it's already illegal to have a gun, and it's already illegal to do drugs, I'm not sure why we have to criminalize being in the park after dark," Shaw says.
Cathcart disagrees. He argues that the ordinance will protect neighbors from increased problems with nighttime gang violence, drug use and vandalism in city parks. He says the law makes it clear that police have to use discretion and that he helped push for a requirement that police collect data that the council can review on a monthly basis to make sure there aren't any unintended consequences.
"The point is to keep our neighborhoods safe, not to scare off people walking their dogs," Cathcart says. ♦
