SPOKANE, Wash. — The Spokane City Council is set to hold their regularly scheduled meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday night. During the meeting, council members will hold a final reading of a request to hold a special election in August and will once again consider an ordinance to study how to add fluoride to Spokane's water.
Resolution 2022-015, sponsored by Council President Breean Beggs and Council Member Lori Kinnear, will permit council members to request a special election be held on April 26, 2022.
The election will be held to submit a proposition regarding additional regular property tax levies for emergency medical services (EMS).
In addition to the special election resolution, council members will also approve and vote on two special considerations regarding the city's use of fluoride in water, a matter that Spokane voters have rejected multiple times in the past.
Members will also vote on RES 2022-016, which concerns moving forward on community water fluoridation into the 30% design feasibility phase, which is a validation process that observes how well a design delivers to requirements, objectives and goals.
In the fall of 2020, Spokane City Council moved forward on its own with the beginnings of a fluoridation plan. They voted to accept a $4 million grant from the Arcora Foundation, the non-profit arm of Delta Dental, to pay for the installation.
The initial contract said that if the city eventually decided not to go through with fluoridation, it would have to pay back to Arcora any money spent.
However, many local leaders wanted an option to study how best to implement fluoridation on Arcora's dime, without having to worry about paying back the funds for the study if they eventually elected not to fluoridate.
To ease those concerns, the council approved an amendment in August 2021 that would allow the city to spend up to $600,000 on a feasibility study, that they would not have to pay back.
During Monday's meeting, council members will approve a resolution to provide an engineering study of fluoridation of City of Spokane Water from Feb. 21, 2022, to August 31, 2023. The study will cost $599,300.