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Sue Lani Madsen

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Opinion >  Column

Sue Lani Madsen: How are the children?

“How are the children,” Victor Rivas Rivers asked, quoting a traditional Masai greeting. It’s a measure of the health of the community. When children grow up experiencing abuse first or secondhand, they and the community are not well. And now we have data on how unwell.
Opinion >  Column

Sue Lani Madsen: The glimmers of hope for mental health

“Our commitment is to continually making things better. You can’t wake up every morning frustrated,” advised Jeff Thomas, CEO of Frontier Behavioral Health. Actually, you can, but it’s not healthy. Not for you or your family member living with mental illness. Last week’s column describing one family’s frustrations with the mental health system resonated with many families.
Opinion >  Column

Sue Lani Madsen: Defining Hate Crime and the Drive to Just Do Something

An attention-seeking actor was arrested this week for allegedly staging a fake hate crime. Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was clearly outraged when he held a news conference to announce the charges against Jussie Smollett for filing a false police report. Besides the demands on scarce Chicago Police Department resources, Johnson was angry at the chilling effect Smollett’s lies would have on future victims.
Opinion >  Column

Sue Lani Madsen: ‘Training young women to be leaders’

Blowing and drifting snow made it impossible to get home from Spokane last Saturday. It was a tough day, and not because of the weather. Five judges interviewed 19 high energy young women for the Lilac Royalty Scholarship Court. There were only seven openings, and twelve girls to be disappointed. I was one of the judges.
News >  Spokane

Sue Lani Madsen: Consider a dose of skepticism when tweets go viral

Going viral can be deadly. In “The Great Influenza,” a history of the 1918 pandemic, author John M. Barry describes a century of research to isolate the origin of the deadly influenza virus. It only took four days to track down the source of the Covington High vs. Nathan Phillips virus, but it was already too late to undo the effect.
News >  Spokane

Sue Lani Madsen: Housing Policy Forums, the end of the beginning

Spokane Councilman Breean Beggs described it as “the end of the beginning.” In opening remarks at the last in a series of four housing policy forums, Beggs pointed to the “suite of ordinances” passed at Monday’s City Council meeting as a first step in removing barriers to new multi-family and infill housing.
News >  Spokane

Sue Lani Madsen:

Independent cattle producers have a problem with the proposed U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). It’s the same old NAFTA rules with a new name.
News >  Spokane

Sue Lani Madsen: Campaign season is over – sort of

The brief December interregnum is over. For political parties and elected officials, the end of one campaign means it’s time to launch the next. A dozen candidates have already filed with the Public Disclosure Commission for the 2019 municipal elections in Spokane County.
News >  Spokane

Sue Lani Madsen: When dealing with housing, start by defining the problem

It’s possible to develop decent policy without formal stakeholder meetings or a multiyear million dollar study by experts. But it’s difficult-to-impossible without a good definition of the problem. A problem statement was lacking at last week’s public meeting on future housing policy for the City of Spokane.