Nadine Woodward is apparently Spokane’s new mayor-elect. Woodward leads Ben Stuckart by a 52%-47% margin, with thousands more ballots to be counted.
Last night, Woodward said the voters wanted a change, and she intends to deliver that.
She cited the makeup of the city council as something that she believes voters wanted to change:
“I’m anxious to see the changeup of the Spokane city council. And we need that. Right now we have a six to one imbalance. We have a city council that has created its own echo chamber. All they do is listen to themselves, they don’t listen to the people, we need to change that.”??
Woodward cited the homeless issue and housing shortage as among her first priorities. She says she will begin work on putting together a transition team.
“I’ve got a lot of jobs, a lot of work to do, I have positions to hire, so I’m not going to say what I’m going to do on day one, maybe test out the chair, and test out the view from that window, it will be nice," Woodward said. "But listening to people. I’ve got two months of hard work, of transition, and I’ll be listening to lts of people out in the neighborhoods. Lots of people that I want on my transition team, for the initiatives we want to accomplish.”
Woodward’s opponent, outgoing City Council President Ben Stuckart, said he wasn’t ready to talk after leaving his Election Night gathering.
Woodward says she is looking to forward to working with Cindy Wendle, if Wendle is indeed the new city council president. That race is still too close to call.