Kicking off the first Spokane City Council meeting of the month, the mayor gave the annual state of the city address. To begin, Mayor David Condon gave both positive and negative attention to crime in Spokane. He says city statistics show crime is down more than 11 percent overall.
But, the latest police statistics show commercial robberies were up by 12 percent in the past year, and in the past month violent crime and property crime both increased. Condon admits more progress needs to be made.
In his address, he also highlighted economic successes, and thanked the city council for implementing budgeting goals.
Condon: “Those principles include don’t spend more than you take in, don’t pay for ongoing expenses with one-time money, maintain prudent budget reserves, maintain strict controls on hiring and spending, and fund the highest priority city services first.”
He says his administration used the same guidelines in creating next year’s budget. Condon went on to discuss goals in business practices, cleaning up the river, and engaging citizens.
Condon also delivered the line-item budget to the city council this week. The budget includes a roughly 2-percent raise for the top dozen administrators, including a $7,000 raise for Mayor Condon. The budget can be found here.
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