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Inland Journal: Lili Navarrete, Luvimae Omana and Jeanette Hauck

This week we hear from three prominent community leaders who are leaving their current positions.

We start with Spokane City Councilwoman Lili Navarrete, whom we learned this week is going to work for the city in a different capacity. She’ll join the Community Health and Human Services Department to focus on housing and equity issues. She talks with Owen Henderson.

Eliza Billingham meets with another city of Spokane employee, Luvimae Omana, the deputy police ombudsman, about her office’s work.

And I’ll talk with Jeanette Hauck, the chief executive of Spokane’s YWCA, who is retiring. We talk about the organization’s mission, particularly its emphasis on combatting domestic violence and racism.

Doug Nadvornick has spent most of his 30+-year radio career at Spokane Public Radio and filled a variety of positions. He is currently the program director and news director. Through the years, he has also been the local Morning Edition and All Things Considered host (not at the same time). He served as the Inland Northwest correspondent for the Northwest News Network, based in Coeur d’Alene. He created the original program grid for KSFC. He has also served for several years as a board member for Public Media Journalists Association. During his years away from SPR, he worked at The Pacific Northwest Inlander, Washington State University in Spokane and KXLY Radio.

Owen Henderson is a 2023 graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he studied journalism with minors in Spanish and theater. Before joining the team at SPR, he worked as the Weekend Edition host for Illinois Public Media, as well as reporting on the arts and LGBTQ+ issues. Having grown up in the Midwest, he’s excited to get acquainted with the Inland Northwest and all that it has to offer. When he’s not in the newsroom or behind the mic, you can find Owen out on the trails hiking or in his kitchen baking bread.


Eliza Billingham is a full-time news reporter for SPR. She earned her master’s degree in journalism from Boston University, where she was selected as a fellow with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to cover an illegal drug addiction treatment center in Hanoi, Vietnam. She’s spent her professional career in Spokane, covering everything from rent crises and ranching techniques to City Council and sober bartenders. Originally from the Chicago suburbs, she’s lived in Vietnam, Austria and Jerusalem and will always be a slow runner and a theology nerd.