Spokane City Council reignites debate over moving meeting date after 65 years

(The Center Square) – After a contentious go-around last year, the Spokane City Council is once again considering moving its regular meeting date, which has been Mondays for 65 years, starting in 2026.

While changing the date may seem like a minor issue, one member sitting on the ideologically divided dais says he has never been able to meet on Tuesdays. Last year, the progressive majority suggested moving their weekly meetings to just that, an idea that faced backlash from both sides of the aisle.

The shift was a part of a list of procedural rules that they passed before the start of 2025, along with others that critics argued would silence dissent from the council’s conservative minority. The majority ultimately passed 14 amendments after heeding concerns from residents, leaving Monday as the date.

“I’ll just put this shot out across the bow: Mondays and Fridays are the worst,” Councilmember Kitty Klitzke said about scheduling during a Finance and Administration Committee meeting on Monday. “It would be helpful to have a table; out of those three days, where are the most community conflicts?”

Council President Betsy Wilkerson said Mondays are challenging when something urgent comes up at the last minute, but acknowledged that it “wasn’t fair” to change the date ahead of the 2025 election.

Councilmember Jonathan Bingle, who represents the conservative minority and has never been able to attend Tuesday meetings due to a scheduling conflict, is seeking reelection this fall. If the majority had voted to change the date to Tuesday last winter, it would have significantly limited his representation.

While Kitlzke noted that Fridays aren’t ideal in terms of scheduling, she suggested that day and Thursday as viable options if Bingle is reelected and continues facing scheduling conflicts. However, she wants to be proactive in reaching out to the neighborhood councils, as many of them meet on weekdays.

Councilmember Michael Cathcart, who makes up the other half of the conservative minority, said they need to take into account more than just the neighborhood councils and the community assembly. He wants to hear from those who have carved out Monday for years, in case they can’t attend on other days.

“I think that the fundamental question that we need to ask the community is: how frustrated are you with a number of meeting cancellations we have versus conflicts with other things?” Klitzke said.

The council cancels a few meetings each year due to unforeseen circumstances, but the vast majority of cancellations occur on holidays or when officials take a recess around Christmas and during elections.

Bingle said the city charter provides mechanisms for the council to meet outside of its regular meeting dates if there’s important work they need to attend to. He said shifting the date doesn’t just impact them; it affects city staff and all of the organizations that have built their schedule around the council.

“Now, will they adjust? Absolutely,” Bingle said. “But now we start asking, again, tens of thousands of people, as opposed to a couple thousand people, to adjust.”

The council will continue debating the topic over the coming months before adopting its 2026 Rules of Procedure ahead of January.