John Waite, a downtown business owner and three-time Spokane City Council candidate, has announced another run for the city's legislative body.

In the ten years that Waite's been politically active, he's railed against the lack of accountability, transparency and affordability in government, and he said this morning that those issues have only become more important in recent years.

"I would've thought by now we’d have this seamless, amazing, everybody-knows-everything-because-of-the-internet (government). But we don’t," he said. "We have been fully abused by the Police Guild and the negotiation process for decades. … We don’t know what goes on and nobody knows what goes on. You know, it’s our money. It’s not confidential. We’re not in good times and we can’t afford it. These guys are raking it in and we can’t afford it."

Waite also pointed to the 164 employees earning more than $100,000 at City Hall as motivation for his bid for office.

"Nobody watches over this," Waite said. "There has to be a public discussion."

Waite did recognize the efforts of Councilman Mike Fagan, who organized three town hall meetings to discuss the issue after the Spokesman disclosed the number of high-earning city employees and pay increases in Mayor David Condon's budget proposal. But Waite said he'd be better at leading the discussion.

"You need to apply pressure in a fair way," he said. "If you’re going to have this discussion, it’d be good to have somebody like me to lead this."

As for his only potential opponent, Councilman Mike Allen, Waite said he was unsure what Allen's accomplished over the last four years. 

"He’s still been pretty partisan. I like people to make decisions issue to issue," Waite said about Allen, who has not yet announced a bid for re-election. "I feel he hasn’t done much of anything. … I don’t think he’s looking out for the little guy."

Waite said he was disturbed by the hard partisan divide on the council, but politically agrees with current group of liberal, like-minded members, which holds a 5-2 veto-proof majority.

"I find that egregious and offensive," Waite said of the overtly partisan nature of the council in recent years. He's running as a Democrat, but rejects political labels and thinks the council should strive to be more nonpartisan. Most candidates for nonpartisan races in Spokane seek party financial support, despite the positions being nonpartisan.

Waite said he hasn't spoken about his bid to any council members yet, but plans to do so.

Waite owns Merlyn's, a comics and game shop downtown.

Waite first ran for the council in 2007, when he lived in District 3, but came in fourth in the primary. Steve Corker won the seat in the general election that year.

He ran in the same district again in 2009, this time against incumbent Councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin, but again didn't garner enough votes to make it to November's general election.

In 2011, after Waite had moved above his downtown store, he ran in District 1, which represents Northeast Spokane. Despite the new district with new voters, Waite missed a shot at the general election for a third time, as he placed third in the primary.

He switched his ambitions in 2012, and threw his name in the hat in the ring for the 3rd District state House position. He faced some stiff competition, including Spokane City Councilman Jon Snyder and Marcus Riccelli, who eventually won the seat, but Waite withdrew from the race before any votes were tallied.