City Council to solicit public input on proposed stadium’s location Monday

The Spokane City Council will meet once more Monday to decide whether voters should weigh in on the location for a new sports stadium.

A special meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at Spokane City Hall, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. Public testimony will be taken on a resolution that would ask voters if they’d prefer a new stadium be built at the site of Joe Albi Stadium or in a downtown parking lot owned by the Spokane Facilities District.

The ballot measure would have no money attached to it.

City Councilwoman Lori Kinnear, the sponsor of the resolution, said Thursday that city staff had told lawmakers they were pursuing other funding options for parking and that a bond may not be necessary.

The $10 million price tag that would have accompanied only the downtown option had turned some heads on the council over concerns about taxpayer fatigue, given additional bond requests for schools and libraries. Both of those measures were approved for the ballot at a meeting Wednesday night.

As part of the Spokane Public Schools’ $495.3 million bond measure, the district would build the new stadium at a total cost of $31 million. That cost would be the same whether the 5,000-seat structure were built in northwest Spokane or next to the Spokane Arena.

Councilmembers must decide by the end of the day Tuesday what to place on the ballot for the November election.