Spokane Valley’s city attorney resigns

Spokane Valley’s city attorney, Stanley Schwartz, has resigned.

Schwartz, a municipal attorney with Witherspoon, Kelley, Davenport & Toole, also works as city attorney for Airway Heights and Liberty Lake. He will keep those posts.

“I think it was time for me to move on,” he said. “It was becoming difficult to juggle three cities.”

Additionally, the Spokane Public Facilities District hired Schwartz on Nov. 16 as its lead attorney, and Schwartz will begin teaching classes at the Gonzaga University School of Law next year. Previously, he worked as an assistant city attorney in Spokane for 15 years.

Tonight, the City Council will discuss whether it wants to continue contracting for lead attorney services or hire an attorney in-house. The city employs a full-time deputy city attorney now, and there hasn’t been talk of combining those positions, Deputy City Manager Nina Regor said.

“We have enough needs for two positions,” she said.

Schwartz has served Spokane Valley since May 2002, preparing the pre-incorporation legal work before the area officially became a city in March 2003.

As city attorney, Spokane Valley paid him $140 an hour. Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31 of this year, that amounted to $69,000, Regor said.

Schwartz is a graduate of Gonzaga and has been an attorney for almost 20 years.