ELECTION 2023: Betsy Wilkerson and Kim Plese walk two distinct paths for Spokane City Council leadership (2024)

Recently, the two candidates for Spokane City Council president have contrasted their support for the police department, how they'd address homelessness, and how they'd fix the relationship between the mayor's office and City Council.

Council member Betsy Wilkerson's pitch? She's the more experienced candidate and best ready to lead the seven-member government body. Not only has she been on the council for three years, she's the owner of a residential care home, helped lead the Carl Maxey Center in East Central and has served on many nonprofits, including the Innovia Foundation.

"You may not like me, but I know the job," says Wilkerson, 68. "And you cannot, absolutely cannot walk in on Day 1, sit down in that seat and run that council office. There's just no way."

Her opponent, Kim Plese, 61, argues that she's the change the council needs and that she's prepared to lead, though she's never been elected to public office. She owned Plese Printing for 32 years — selling it last year before an unsuccessful bid for county commissioner — and was the president of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Spokane County for two years, where she led a board of more than 30.

"I look at the way our City Council meetings are run, and I think they are run a little loosey-goosey as opposed to what I would like to see," Plese says. "Structurally, I would be a little more stringent."

As Election Day approaches, the two have been hyperfocused on support for the police department.

Plese claims Wilkerson doesn't support police, noting that she decried the sudden relocation of the East Central police precinct into the old East Side library last year. (Wilkerson had worked to solicit ideas from the community for that space before Mayor Nadine Woodward made the decision to move police into the building.) Plese also questions why Wilkerson didn't immediately provide police with surveillance footage from the group home she owns when they were investigating a nearby murder in 2020.

Wilkerson explains that she wasn't against a police precinct in East Central (which already existed in a nearby church) and says the council-approved process to find a tenant wasn't followed. As for the footage, Wilkerson says she asked police to get a warrant to ensure that her bases were covered as a state-licensed facility for vulnerable clients.

"The warrant was the quickest way to get the video. Otherwise each member in my house would have had to sign off on a release of information," Wilkerson says.

Plese argues that a negative perception of how police may be treated in Spokane has contributed to the department's hiring struggles.

"Right now we have such a huge shortage of police officers," Plese says. "They know that she has made it clear that she doesn't support our police officers. To me that's the biggest thing is the support that they need out there in the community."

Wilkerson defends her voting record, noting she supported a recent update to the police contract, including pay raises, and voted to pay for new police vehicles and training.

"I would be supportive of an increased recruitment to our five universities ... because I think if our officers are more homegrown, they know this community and there's more of an ownership and connection to the city," Wilkerson says. "I think [the] compensation and benefits package was also an issue, but once that contract was resolved I think that's one of the biggest recruiting tools we have now."

To address homelessness, Plese supports Proposition 1. That measure, also before city voters this election, asks whether the city should expand its camping ban to within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds and child care centers.

"[Trent Resource and Assistance Center, or TRAC,] is not sustainable, but I said in the last debate we have to keep that open. Winter's coming. I've heard, 'Oh there's not enough beds,' but that would be the first place that I would direct people to go to," Plese says. "It's not safe to have these huge encampments."

Plese says the expanded ban is necessary to deter homeless campers who she is unsure have any ties to the community.

"I can't believe that those people that are in our parks or along our river are new people that have all of a sudden become unhoused. I think more and more people are coming to our community because we're so compassionate," Plese says. "What it really comes down to is getting people in treatment."

Wilkerson opposes Prop 1, arguing that it won't solve the issue of public camping and will make matters worse for neighborhoods where people may move to sleep. She would support funding smaller shelters throughout the city.

"In the mental health world we have many mental health facilities throughout the city that coexist in neighborhoods. Mine is one of them," Wilkerson says. "But they are not more than, like, 70 people. A neighborhood can absorb 70 people. A neighborhood cannot absorb 300."

The city-funded TRAC houses up to 350 people.

Wilkerson says she also supports the idea of a secure, staffed parking lot, since many who become homeless initially live in their cars and have jobs. According to the National Vehicle Residency Collective, 10 cities in Washington state have such lots, but not Spokane.

"You're telling me where they can't be, nobody is talking about where they can be," Wilkerson says. "It's unrealistic. You're pushing them into neighborhoods, you're pushing them down to the river, you're pushing them further up north, you're pushing them into the valley. We think we're solving one problem, but I think we're creating more."

Each candidate argues that she would best dispel the tension between the administration and the council.

Wilkerson says she hasn't run a negative campaign because she knows once the election is over officials will need to collaborate.

"I've been in organizations for a very long time, and it really does come down to communication and compromise," Wilkerson says. "It's not about Betsy or the other council members or the mayor. It really has to be about what's in the best interest for the citizens of Spokane."

Plese promises that if she wins, she'll do her best to work with everyone, including Wilkerson, who would continue serving the remainder of her term as a council member.

"I certainly hope that our community gives Nadine Woodward another chance with someone that is running the council that will do whatever it takes to help this community move forward and heal," Plese says. ♦