If you have taken your young children on an errand to City Hall, you might have noticed the bathrooms there don't have changing tables.
Spokane City Council voted Monday to change that. In a unanimous decision, the council approved an ordinance mandating that all publicly accessible bathrooms in city-owned buildings eventually get baby changing stations.
There's no immediate timeline for when those tables will be installed. There are also qualifiers for bathrooms in park or library bathrooms, stipulating that the respective boards must okay the installations first.
For now, the only place we know will soon receive tables: City Hall.
"It just seems like the right thing to do," said Councilwoman Karen Stratton, the ordinance's sponsor. "To make it easy for a dad to bring a child down, or a mom and dad and kids, and just make that a little more comfortable for them to be at city hall doing business or attending meetings."
The target date for that installation is the end of the summer.
The City Hall project is expected to cost about $5,000. That's because these tables are going in both the men's and women's bathrooms, and the men's bathroom at City Hall is too small to fit a table right now. It will need some small renovations to accommodate the changing tables.
After City Hall, the ordinance says two tables a year need to be installed until every public city bathroom has them. The city doesn't yet have a definitive list of exactly how many bathrooms that will be, so we don't know how long it will take.
Stratton said some other potential buildings on the list include the Intermodal Center, Waste to Energy Plant, Central Service Center, and water treatment facility — all of which have areas with publicly accessible restrooms.
