Four Fight Incumbent For Council Position 3 Holmes Will Try To Hold On To Seat She’s Held For Past Four Years

Phyllis Holmes is trying to fend off four challengers to keep her seat on the Spokane City Council.

A bus monitor, small-business owner, telecommunications manager and neighborhood volunteer are vying for the $18,000-a-year Council Position 3 spot held by Holmes the last four years.

The two top vote-getters in the Sept. 16 primary advance to the Nov. 4 general election.

Only two candidates - incumbent Cherie Rodgers and Barbara Lampert - filed for the Position 1 spot. Four candidates are seeking Council Position 2.

Council members are nonpartisan and elected through a citywide vote.

Charlie Greenwood

When the government cut off his Social Security disability benefits in January, Charlie Greenwood reached a turning point in his life.

For more than a decade, the recovering drug addict had counted on the payments that allowed him to devote countless volunteer hours to the Peaceful Valley neighborhood he adores.

“If I was to get a regular job, I would have to cease doing all my volunteer work,” said Greenwood in his characteristically soft, slow speech. “I’m only qualified for entry-level work … On the City Council, I’d just be doing more of what I’m doing now.”

His past addiction - followed by more than six years of sobriety - has taught him sensitivity.

Greenwood said he would like to see renewed discussion about the garbage incinerator’s future. He also would like to see citizens involved in projects from the minute they land on the drafting table.

His bid for office forced him to give up his part-time job as the city’s Community Development Neighborhood Coordinator for Peaceful Valley. For now, he said, he gets by doing odd jobs.

Greenwood said his talent for political office lies in his ability to “think things through and get as much information as possible before I make decisions.”

Phyllis Holmes

The choice of whether to seek a second term was not easy for Holmes. But in the end, she said, she’d feel like a deserter if she didn’t run again.

“I’ve poured too much into this to walk away,” Holmes said.

Topping her list of reasons to stay is the city’s new neighborhood councils. The councils are designed to bring government closer to neighborhoods, with the city feeding information about proposals to the councils, and the neighborhood offering ideas back to the city.

“It’s a fragile thing,” she said. “We’ve created it, and now we need to help City Hall adjust to it.”

The city also is in the throes of growth management planning - a project Holmes heartily embraces. “I didn’t miss a meeting in three years,” she said. “I’ve got the history. It’s all in my head.”

She’s proudest of her work with Community Partners, the committee she describes as her “brainchild” that helped the city set budget priorities and reviewed the city’s charter.

Holmes has learned a lot during her term, especially that government moves slowly, she said. She came to office with energetic plans to reform the pension system and recently helped change some benefit terms. But there’s more work to be done. “It’s very difficult to go back and reduce a benefit,” she said.

While some critics complain that Holmes’ upbeat, congenial manner makes her ineffectual, she considers those traits a strength.

“If you truly want things to happen, you work with people and bring them along,” she said. “I’m never going to be nasty or hostile.”

Holly O’Connell

Small business owners need an advocate on the City Council, Holly O’Connell said, and she thinks she’s the perfect person for the job.

“I’ve been in business so many years myself, and that’s a voice that needs to be heard,” said O’Connell, the owner of a health food and dance attire shop in the Garland district.

The devoted Spokane Horizons volunteer said she is frustrated by the unsatisfying answers she gets from city staff when she asks about spending and land-use issues.

“I can’t get straight answers … If answers are not forthcoming - beware,” said the mercurial O’Connell, whose own responses to questions about various topics ranged from expansive to curt.

O’Connell said she worries that residents also don’t get adequate answers from council members during meetings. Too often, council members treat visitors with a “Thank you very much, next” attitude, she said. “People are looking for an answer, anything that says ‘We heard you.”’

Spokane officials need to study solutions employed by other cities to solve such problems as potholes and shrinking revenues, she said. They also need to look at reducing regulations and taxes on small businesses so the economy can grow.

“I have serious concerns about the workers in this community,” O’Connell said.

Robert Schroeder

Three unsuccessful bids for the City Council have made Robert Schroeder more determined than ever to try again.

“This is my fourth time to run,” Schroeder said. “I don’t feel they’re doing the job that they’re being paid to do.”

The bus monitor for Laidlaw Transit spends his days making sure disabled children get safely to and from school. That experience - coupled with his wife’s disability - has taught Schroeder sensitivity.

He’d like the city to strictly enforce laws related to disability parking spots. He and his wife have disability parking stickers, and he often sees people parked illegally in those spots.

“The council needs to do more for the handicapped and the homeless people here in Spokane,” Schroeder said.

The perennial candidate would like to see the council increase the availability of affordable housing. He also thinks taxpayers are forced to spend too much replacing perfectly good city vehicles.

“I feel I could do a good job for the people of Spokane,” Schroeder said. “I feel like they’d be proud if they elected me.”

Steve Thompson

Steve Thompson would like to see a little less congeniality and consensus on the City Council.

“Good government has a close vote on issues, like 4-3,” he said. “When everything’s 7-0 or 6-1, the decisions are being made well in advance of any public testimony.”

The Reform Party official and telecommunications manager ran unsuccessfully for office two years ago. He’s running again because nothing has improved, he said. “It’s only gotten worse.”

Too much money is being spent downtown at the expense of neighborhoods, he said. The city instead should devote dollars to basic services such as street maintenance and police protection.

He’s a strong proponent of a zero-based budget, saying that department heads should have to justify every dollar they spend every year. He’d like to expand the use of City Cable 5 to offer a variety of informational programming.

Thompson cut his political molars gathering signatures to put the Pacific Science Center to a public vote. He’d like citizens to be able to cast a ballot on most major projects - especially controversial issues such as the River Park Square parking garage.

Thompson said he won’t take money from any special interest groups during his campaign. “When I get sworn in, I don’t want to have to owe anybody anything,” he said.

, DataTimes MEMO: See candidate profiles by name