Today on the Inland Journal podcast, we begin another round of interviews with candidates for Spokane mayor and city council and for the Spokane Valley city council. There are 16 in all and we’ll feature them during the next three weeks.
The next two programs will feature the candidates in Spokane’s Northeast district. That’s an open seat that two-term incumbent Mike Fagan is leaving because of term limits. Today, our guest is Tim Benn.
Next time we'll talk with Benn's opponent, Michael Cathcart.
Benn and his wife run a day care business in the Minnehaha neighborhood. Benn has been in leadership on his neighborhood council. He ran unsuccessfully for the council two years ago (losing to Councilwoman Kate Burke) and for the state legislature.
Benn won the primary race in a seven-person race, taking 23% of the vote to Cathcart’s 18%.
There was one question on our list that we had intended to ask, but forgot and that was about the renewable energy ordinance approved by the city council last year. It was “Do you support the ordinance that aims to have the city’s electricity fully supplied by renewable energy sources by 2030? Would you encourage the mayor to nominate community members for the oversight panel authorized by the ordinance?”
We emailed the question to him after the interview. Here was his written answer.
“I’m not sure the goal set is reasonably attainable. However I am in favor of doing things as efficiently and effectively as possible. As far as Mayoral nominations, it is the prerogative of the mayor to nominate a person and the council can either confirm or deny the nomination. I would probably give preference to local residents for committee nominations.”
Over the next three weeks, we’ll be adding new candidate interviews, one a day.