Woodward’s script

Nadine Woodward has a nickname: “Trump in pumps.” Like Trump, she’s a global warming denier. Like Trump, Woodward’s face is known from a long TV career, in her case as a news reader.

It’s clear that a nightly news script has not remotely prepared her to lead our city.

Woodward now has a vapid political script, “Spokane Solutions.” However, she’s already admitted publicly that she has no solutions to Spokane’s homelessness and housing affordability problems.

She says she’ll “listen,” but recently rejected a Spokane Alliance invitation to hear directly from the homeless and explore concrete steps to help them.

On Oct. 10, 263 people filled the Salem Lutheran Church in West Central, an emergency shelter last winter. Local ministers talked of a moral imperative to end homelessness and candidates were asked how they’d solve Spokane’s housing crisis. Woodward’s rival, City Council President Ben Stuckart, was there with concrete solutions. Earlier that week, while nighttime temperatures reached 24 degrees, Woodward told a business group she favors tents for homeless people in icy Spokane.

We know who’s getting Woodward’s ear: Seattle’s Washington Realtors PAC, which has spent over $200,000 so far to buy our November election. Their goal: unseat progressive City Council incumbents and defeat Stuckart.

Spokane’s homelessness crisis has deepened under Mayor David Condon, a Woodward ally, who reneged on his 2017 promise to create a 24/7 shelter system by this summer.

Let’s tell Woodward what we think of her “solutions” by electing Ben Stuckart and keeping our progressive city council.

Karen Dorn Steele

Spokane