Anderson At Center Of New Council Quarrel

Spokane City Councilman Chris Anderson vs. his colleagues - round two. Monday night’s council briefing erupted into a nasty scene after Councilwoman Phyllis Holmes asked who would foot the bill for a “citizen’s retreat” slated for council chambers March 11.

The retreat, sponsored by Anderson and planned by residents John Talbot and Dick Adams, is being touted as a prioritysetting event for citizens, similar to the council’s weekend retreat held in January.

Because it wasn’t a council-sponsored event, Holmes, who oversees the council’s office budget, wondered who would pay a $285 fee for staffing and videotaping the weekend event.

“We don’t have policies and procedures for these kinds of requests,” Holmes said.

Anderson said if the fee couldn’t be waived as he’d asked, the money could be taken from his travel budget. He added he wanted the matter deferred to the regular council meeting to be discussed “in front of the public.”

“This is not a travel item,” shot back Councilman Joel Crosby. “This is an event. This is also a political event.”

Crosby made a motion, later passed by a 6-1 vote, that the fee should be paid up front, either in cash or with a cashier’s check.

Anderson responded that if Crosby was trying to “embarrass or humiliate me, making reference to my credit rating and past bankruptcy filing, let’s do it in public.”

Councilwoman Bev Numbers told Anderson he was accountable to her when he was “spending money out of my budget.”

After several interruptions by Anderson, Numbers told him, “This is why we can’t discuss this. You don’t have ears. You only have a mouth.”

Holmes also questioned Anderson’s “rapidly expanding” copying charges, totaling $300 this year. The council’s 1995 copying budget is already “25 percent used up,” she said.

“God forbid the public gets information,” retorted Anderson.

During the regular meeting, Anderson brought up the council’s decision to have the citizens’ retreat committee pay for the event, saying the motion was “brought forward by our very righteous member of the cloth, our own Councilman Crosby.”

Crosby is an ordained Presbyterian minister.

“I find the ethics, the conflicts, the actions of this council to be a public disgrace,” Anderson said. “I hold this despicable group accountable.

“We have only begun to fight.”

Last week, Mayor Jack Geraghty called a 15-minute break after Anderson leveled conflict-of-interest charges against Park Board president Dennis Hession.

Council members engaged in several minutes of heated debate when Anderson questioned Hession’s role in a proposal to bring the Pacific Science Center to Riverfront Park’s Pavilion.