Spin Control: Changing the council meeting schedule might not be so easy

The suggestion that the Spokane City Council might not meet on Monday nights at some future date is bound to be controversial, because changing almost anything about the council’s meetings tends to be controversial.

It may not have always been so. But it certainly has been for about the last half-century.

As City Hall Reporter Emry Dinman noted in a story last Wednesday, the council is asking people what they think of moving from Monday night meetings, and possibly away from weekly meetings. One might suggest they be prepared for some pushback.

The reasons enunciated by council members may have merit, although one could argue many points.

First of all, there’s nothing particularly special about Mondays – the Mamas and the Papas could argue the point, although mostly in the negative – so Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday theoretically could work just as well.

Friday would be a good change if the council wanted to reduce public participation, although council members might balk at having to delay the start of their weekends.

Some sports fans used to complain about the choice between council meetings and Monday Night Football, a particularly sore point when the Seahawks were playing. But with expanded sports network schedules and an insatiable desire by the gambling industry for more opportunities to take your money, scheduling around football would be difficult because it is hardly ever off the television from mid-August until sometime near Valentine’s Day.

Longtime observers of the Spokane City Council might recall when the cable broadcasts of those Monday night meetings could rival the football game for drama and gamesmanship. Current council meetings can get contentious, but it’s unlikely other cities will use select video clips from today’s meetings as ammunition to suggest companies looking for a new home should locate there instead of Spokane.

Mondays are the day most likely to contain a holiday, thanks to a federal law that shifted Presidents Day, Martin Luther King Junior’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Indigenous Peoples/Columbus Day to that day to create a three-day weekend.

Most other holidays – except Thanksgiving – show up on Monday on a regular schedule as well. Veterans Day was on Monday last year and will be again in 2030. Christmas was on a Monday two years ago and will be again in 2028, and New Year’s is always seven days later. July 4 was on a Monday in 2022, but won’t be again until 2033.

Having a predictable string of Mondays off isn’t necessarily a bad thing, particularly if one is also arguing the council might switch to meet every other week. It’s hard to argue that having so many meeting days off is bad, but the council having fewer meeting days would be good. Plus, the City Charter says the council “must hold regular weekly meetings”.

The council didn’t always meet on Mondays, although it has for more than 110 years. The archives for this newspaper show Tuesday was the regular meeting day around the turn of the last century. It apparently shifted to Mondays in 1912, based on previous research by Dinman when a change was proposed last year.

In those days, Spokane had a different form of government known as the City Commission, whose members divided up the authority for various city services. That changed in 1960, when voters approved a government with an elected mayor who presided over the seven-member council but an appointed city manager to run the day-to-day operations of the city.

Council meetings remained on Mondays, although mostly during the day. The public was generally allowed to attend, although the timing wasn’t convenient for people who had to work anything close to a 9-to-5 job – unless that job involved getting things out of the council.

In 1975, when the public was clamoring for more openness in government, the council deigned to hold some night meetings as an experiment. The citizens pushed a proposition onto the November ballot calling for regular Monday night meetings.

It passed by a 2-to-1 margin. Three incumbent council members who were, at best, cool to the idea of night meetings were defeated by three challengers who supported it, although there were other issues in the mix.

Changes to the council’s format, like rearranging the scheduled time for public comments, limiting the amount of time a person can speak or trying to force a speaker to stick to the topic at hand have met with resistance, often vocal.

All of this is not to say the council can’t, or shouldn’t, change its meeting schedule. But it should prepare for the proposed changes to be met with something less than quick and universal approval.