SPOKANE, Wash. — Downtown Spokane is getting more money to help clean the city center.
The Spokane City Council made that decision Monday night.
City Council took their regular meeting on the road Monday night, but even miles from City Hall, the issues of downtown remained a big topic of the night.
Out of the council chambers and into the West Central Community Center Gym. While the location for City Council changed, the agenda items stayed the same.
That included a vote to approve nearly $470,000 of American Rescue Plan Funds (ARPA) to go to the Downtown Spokane Partnership (DSP).
KREM 2 spoke with the DSP President and CEO Emilie Cameron, who says most of the money will go toward their clean team crews for the next six months.
"We're going to start with seven days a week, we'll assess on a weekly basis the needs of the area to be able to stretch the dollars as far as we can," Cameron said.
$166,000 of the new allotment will also be used to implement the city's 2019 Innovation Alleyway Plan.
While council members were pleased to pass the consent agenda, councilmember Michael Cathcart also had words of caution.
"This is probably a drop in the bucket compared to what it will really take, not just to clean this up once and for now," Cathcart said.
Council President Betsy Wilkerson also applauded the vote, but took a moment to touch on the issues seen through the city. "Other parts of our city need to have the same attention as downtown does," Wilkerson said.
This wasn't the first town hall-style meeting the council has had. They have had other meetings like this in both Northeast Spokane and the East Central neighborhoods.