SPOKANE, Wash. — Nadine Woodward will be sworn in as mayor of Spokane on December 30th, the official ceremony taking place at noon at the U.S. Pavilion in Riverfront Park.
On Wednesday, she announced she had made progress in her biggest task of the transition: hiring the staff. So far, she has retained most of outgoing mayor David Condon's key people.
"It's the same staff. These are people who have been in these positions in acting roles, some of them for up to a year," she said in an interview with KREM.
She's made one critical new hire, however. To replace Theresa Sanders, Woodward has brought on Wes Crago as the next city administrator. Crago comes from Ephrata, where he was a teacher, a longtime city council members, and most recently the city administrator.
"It's a fresh start [for Spokane]" said Crago. "One of the things that [she emphasized] when the mayor elect asked me to serve, was that it was kind of an apolitical or a results-oriented administration."
The first result they want to see is a continued drop in downtown crime rates. In 2019, that figure already fell 14 percent compared to 2018, according to the latest COMPSTAT report.
"I'm glad to hear those numbers are going down but we still have a lot of room for improvement," said Woodward.
She hopes to find that improvement by immediately fulfilling one of her main campaign promises.
"We're making progress on the police precinct moving back into the core of downtown," said Woodward. "It's a week and a half before I'm sworn in and we've already made great progress."
"It's impressive this early in an administration," said Crago. "There's a building that's tentatively identified; that's solidifying. Early architectural plans. There'll be more meetings this afternoon. Working on outfitting that building. The police department has been a part of that and so has the city council."
Improving the relationship between the council and the administration is another major goal of Woodward and Crago.
"I think those lines of communication have unfortunately shut down, but this is a new administration and we're going to open those back up," said Woodward.
Woodward says she's already met with many members including incoming council president Breean Beggs. And although she leans conservative while the council overwhelmingly leans liberal, Woodward says she'll aim to focus on common ground.
The downtown precinct might be such ground; multiple council members including Beggs have indicated interest in similar proposals.
Woodward says she will announce which building has been chosen once the decision is closer to finalized.
Another key issue for the new administration will be homelessness; Woodward will have the challenging task of taking over the city's response mid-winter.
She's also taking over shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will not hear an important case about anti-camping laws. That means the current appellate court ruling will stand, and dozens of cities cannot enforce ordinances like no-sit no-lie unless they provide enough shelter for all their homeless.
"It's going to affect every city in the ninth circuit. Everyone's been watching that closely," said Crago.
"It'll give us more guidance, and that's what I wanted," said Woodward. "I wanted more guidance moving forward, what we can and cannot do. And now we know."