SPOKANE, Wash. — Jonathan Bingle was sworn-in to his seat representing Northeast Spokane's District 1 on the Spokane City Council on Thursday.
Bingle beat Naghmana Sherazi by 13 percentage points in the November election for the seat being vacated by Kate Burke.
The ceremony took place on Thursday at the Genesis Church in North Spokane. Bingle's brother Josh - a pastor at the church - spoke before Spokane County Superior Court Clerk Timothy Fitzgerald administered the oath of office.
Bingle sat down with KREM before the ceremony, and said that his excitement after he found out he won the election quickly turned to preparation.
"The excitement was there for just a couple seconds, and then was like, 'OK, now we get to work.'," Bingle said. "That's kind of the feeling that I've had ever since. I'm just raring to go, and hoping that we can get in quickly and get things done."
Bingle said he is getting ready for the first votes he will have to make as a councilmember.
"First meeting on Monday, we're talking about $14 million of ARP (American Rescue Plan) dollars. So making sure that as we're spending those, we're spending them wisely here in the community, because $14 million is a fair amount of money," Bingle said.
Bingle will be the second conservative-leaning member of the current council alongside Michael Cathcart, who also hails from District 1. Despite the majority of the council being liberal-leaning, Bingle said he doesn't think there will be issues when it comes to passing resolutions and proposals.
"So a lot of our our 'why's' are the same. It's just the 'how's' that we, you know, we bicker about," Bingle said. "I'm not really concerned, because I think we all have a lot more common ground than we realize. So, I think it's going to be good."
There were other elected officials from Spokane in attendance at the event, including councilmember Betsy Wilkerson and fellow incoming councilmember Zack Zappone. Cathcart was also in attendance, and said he is excited to work with Bingle as another conservative on the council.
"I think it's wonderful that I've got somebody who's of like mind that I can work with and that we can hopefully help to advance some really big ideas and goals when it comes to public safety and housing, and just some of these big issues that are really, really needing to be confronted right now," Cathcart said.
Wilkerson, a liberal-leaning member of the council representing South Spokane's District 2, said her and Bingle will work together on similar issues.
"I think there's a lot of like-mindedness and alignment on ideas. Both of our districts have some of the same challenges: low income, economic development [and] housing," Wilkerson said.