Sarah Dixit is the organizer director at Pro-Choice Washington. She also chairs the city of Spokane’s Equity Subcommittee.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Sarah Dixit: I really love the Logan/Bemis neighborhood, which is where I've lived for the past five years in my whole professional career in the Logan neighborhood. I think it's something where neighbors are out and about, people are really friendly. It's been cool seeing the development of the trail that's on Illinois. So that's around where I live. Being able to kind of see off the bluff, like the city, and you get to see all the way. I think you can even see where like the Spokane Indians play. So whenever it's game time, you see fireworks off the bluff and that's always really fun.
I think there's a lot of great small businesses there that I really love, especially seeing the new development in Hilliard and seeing the efforts to make it a creative district. I think that's really exciting. So I think the ability to see the beginnings of a lot of things and seeing people really own their neighborhood history and their culture has been a fun experience.
DN: Why did you put your hat in the ring to be a city council member, especially running against an incumbent?
SD: I think, for me, it was something that the community was asking me to do. I have never been someone who is particularly ambitious when it comes to political office. It's something that I've been around a lot through my work doing organizing and advocacy work. But I think having community say that they want me to run and represent them means a whole lot. And that is the people that I'm doing it for. And I think when it comes to facing an incumbent, it is an uphill battle, but I am not afraid of that.
I'm in a place in my life where I can take on this challenge. And so I'm really just excited to see what we can do in this campaign that looks a little different and have it be more reflective of the grassroots community that is part of District 1.
DN: Why do you think they asked you to run?
SD: I think part of it is around my passion for Spokane. A lot of people like to say that, if you're not born and raised here, you're not a real Spokanite. But I think for me, it's the choice of the matter of being able to choose where I live and choose where to build my roots. And that's been here in District 1. And I think a big reason why folks have asked me to is knowing that, like, I'm someone who listens and loves to be a part of the community.
I love our downtown. I'm always out and about at different arts and culture events. So I think part of it is knowing that I am someone who does really want to hear from community and really believe in the power of a collective. I think those were some of the reasons why people wanted me to throw my hat in the race.
DN: What are the skills that you have as an advocate that you think are going to make you a good council member?
SD: I think for me, advocacy work has really shown me the power of stories and the power of lived experience. So it's not necessarily someone's education or the ability to rattle off all these stats. It's someone's ability to share, like, why a particular issue matters to them, whether that is having better infrastructure when it comes to public transit, it's are you able to go to your doctor's appointments? Are you able to go to work in a way that is accessible? So someone sharing their story about that or sharing their story about getting to school.
And if you're able to run across Monroe, for example, that was a story we heard during the Monroe Street Project was kids having to run across five lanes of traffic. And that's really compelling, right? If you're seeing elementary school kids trying to sprint across the street versus having protected crosswalks. So I think advocacy has shown me really just the power of people and the power that our voices have when we're given the opportunity to speak, you know, truth to power, as it were.
DN: How well will you work with folks on the other side? Your progressive bent. How well do you work with conservatives on things like public safety or homelessness?
SD: I think the big thing is we all want a safe, thriving city. It's mostly just the paths that we take to get there. And so I think collaboration is really big. And diversity of thought is really important because people have different lived experiences and different reasons why they come into the work. And so learning from their expertise, too, is really important when it comes to, you know, what are our SPD officers seeing when they're going around town? Like where are places of focus that should be on council's mind, along with, folks from [the] fire [department] and the CARES team and other aspects of the city like that. And I think collaboration is something that comes out of conversation. So I think being willing to have those conversations is what makes me good at collaboration because we can't get anywhere if we're not willing to talk about it.
DN: How would you evaluate how the city is doing in terms of handling homelessness, in terms of public safety downtown, in terms of open drug use, that sort of thing?
SD: I think the conversation in Spokane is interesting because it's not a unique problem. We have a ton of cities experiencing people in crisis, people who are unhoused, dealing with the fentanyl opioid crisis. So I think for me, it's really looking at other models that have been successful and looking at other stories. And so I think for me, it's really trying to make sure that we are putting people first. Instead of incarcerating folks, have it be about the issues that they're dealing with, so more about rehabilitation or restorative practices instead of just keeping people locked up where there's no resources for them to access. We know that just perpetuates a cycle and it ends up being more expensive for the city anyway.
I think something that the city is doing really well right now is looking at the root cause of a lot of things, looking more at a community health perspective. And we've seen success with something like “ban the address.” That's a new thing, right? I think Spokane is one of the first cities to pass something like that.
DN: Where you can't ask about a person's incarceration.
SD: It especially helps for people who are unhoused because if they don't have an address, sometimes that's harder to get a job. So I think putting people first and how we are thinking about policy is really important because at the end of the day, that's what the policy is impacting is people's everyday lives. So I think things like ban the address, things like expanding single family zoning to multiple units, having rent stabilization for tenant protections, all these things are really helping people stay housed and stay employed and have resources that allow them to focus on putting food on the table for their family or focus on advancing in their education or all these other things that I think a lot of us take for granted because we have those basic needs met. So seeing how the city can help in that is really important to me.
