Dean Grafos sworn in

Dean Grafos took his seat on the Spokane Valley City Council Tuesday and staked out his positions while still warming up his chair.

Six minutes after he was sworn in, Grafos read a statement calling for a freeze on salary increases, hiring, and “all nonessential spending.”

At his request, Grafos was sworn in by Councilwoman Rose Dempsey.

One of his first votes was against a new contract that gives city employees a 5.5 percent raise next year and 2.5 percent annual raises in 2011 and 2012.

“I don’t know where the money’s coming from in this economy,” Grafos protested.

He and Councilman Gary Schimmels also tried unsuccessfully to table a $36,000 contract for lobbying services until January, when three new like-minded council members will be seated.

In other business, the council unanimously approved a Comcast cable-service franchise.

Grafos and Schimmels are part of the five-member “Positive Change” slate that won voter approval in last month’s general election. State Sen. Bob McCaslin, Planning Commissioner Tom Towey and businesswoman Brenda Grassel will join the council on Jan. 5.

Grafos was sworn in early because his opponent, Ian Robertson, held only an interim appointment to a position Steve Taylor vacated June 30.

Dempsey endorsed the Positive Change candidates, but only Schimmels and Grafos voted against the new contract with Local 270V of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

“I believe we have to take care of our people, and I believe this is the right thing to do,” Dempsey said of the contract.

The city’s 65 union employees ratified the deal last week.

The contract continues the current practice of requiring employees to pay a 40 percent share of any increase in the price of health insurance from a base established in 2006.

City officials plan to give the same raises to 23 nonunion employees – not including City Manager Dave Mercier, whose salary will be set separately by the City Council.

Human Resources Manager John Whitehead said failure to do so would “compress” the salary differences between managers and subordinates, and morale would suffer.

Whitehead said the contract includes a one-time, 3 percent increase next year to correct “slippage” in Spokane Valley’s pay scale when compared with other Washington cities of similar size.

“I think this will keep us in competition with other cities over the next three years,” Whitehead said, adding that he was particularly concerned about losing employees to Spokane.

Grafos objected that the comparison included Western Washington cities, but Mayor Rich Munson said Spokane Valley hasn’t kept up with Yakima or Wenatchee, either.

Speaking from the audience, Councilwoman-elect Grassel said she thought the comparison should have been with Spokane Valley businesses, not other cities.

“There is probably not one company, I would think, in Spokane Valley that is receiving a 5 ½ percent increase in wages,” Grassel said.

Councilman Dick Denenny said he “really struggled” with that issue when he was first elected in 2002, but state law doesn’t allow cities to reward good work with bonuses as he does in his private business.

Cities are “in a very different structure,” Denenny said.

When the council turned to renewal of a contract with Gordon Thomas Honeywell Governmental Affairs to lobby the state Legislature, Schimmels and Grafos again were on the losing side of a 5-2 vote.

Mercier said the firm was instrumental in helping the city win $1.3 million for park development.

Councilman Bill Gothmann said the city doesn’t receive reports from area legislators. Before hiring lobbyists, “we were always trying to put out fires,” he said. “Now we get information before it’s too late.”

Gothmann said Gordon Thomas Honeywell helped craft his testimony last year against a bill by state Sen. Chris Marr that would have eliminated Spokane Valley’s seat on the Spokane Regional Health District Board. He said the bill “totally blindsided” the board.

Councilwoman Diana Wilhite said it was the same when Sen. McCaslin unsuccessfully introduced bills to force a ward system on the city. She said city officials didn’t even get a “courtesy call” from McCaslin.

Dempsey said she has been impressed by the lobbying firm’s “attentiveness” to city issues and considered the $3,000-a-month fee “a small price to pay for what we get.”

When the council took a 10-minute break, Munson confronted Schimmels: “Throughout the entire process of talking about this contract, you never had one comment. Why did you change?”

Schimmels said he “might as well talk to the wall.”

He said in an interview that he saw some value in the contract, but thought the decision should be made by the new council.

Waiting for the new council figured prominently in the 1 1/2-page statement Grafos read into the record earlier in the meeting.

In addition to putting off salary and hiring decisions, Grafos called for suspending architectural work on a new city hall and negotiations to purchase a site for the building at the University City Shopping Center.

He outlined an agenda for the new council that calls for rescinding the current council’s decision to take the maximum-allowable 1 percent increase next year in the city’s property tax levy.

Including taxes on new development, the increase to the city treasury is expected to be 2.9 percent.

Grafos also called for rescinding a decision to restore two-way traffic in the University City area. It would involve nonessential spending and ignore community wishes, he said.

“Time after time, the public has spoken that they want NO changes made in the existing roadways,” Grafos said.

The traffic change is part of the Sprague-Appleway Revitalization Plan, which was a leading target of Grafos’ campaign. He called the plan a “choke-down through zoning restrictions of hundreds of businesses and properties along the Sprague corridor to benefit a few.”

In its place, Grafos pledged to “work tirelessly with all affected and interested parties to develop and re-develop the close-in, opportunity-rich properties in the University City area.”