Today's headlines:
- Washington election officials are speaking out against the SAVE America Act.
- There aren't any designated "rural" hospitals in Washington. But thanks to a new state bill, there could be soon—including East Adams hospital in Ritzville.
- Northwesterners from historians to public officials are reexamining the legacy of the late Cesar Chavez in light of new abuse allegations.
- Lumen Field has to grow grass for World Cup games, so the Seattle Sounders and Reign are kicking it in Spokane. Here's what made a CONCACAF Championship Cup game at ONE Spokane Stadium possible.
- The Zags and Vandals tip off tonight in their first-round games of March Madness
Plus, just like there's no such thing as a free lunch, there's no such thing as free parking. SPR's Eliza Billingham looks at old and new ways of thinking about parking in Spokane, and how parking lots seem to have found a permanent spot in the American way of life.
- - -
SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Doug Nadvornick, Monica Carrillo-Casas, Owen Henderson and Eliza Billingham.
Owen Henderson hosts and produces the show. Eliza Billingham provides digital support.
TRANSCRIPT
[THEME MUSIC]
OWEN HENDERSON: From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
I’m Owen Henderson. It’s Thursday, March 19, 2026.
On today’s show, elections officials in Washington are speaking out against the SAVE America Act moving through Congress.
And a New York Times investigation revealing allegations of sexual abuse by labor leader Cesar Chavez is shaking many people’s perception of the late United Farm Workers cofounder here in the Northwest.
Plus, parking. Lots of people need it, not many people want to pay for it. Turns out, that’s not a new problem.
With a new parking tax on the horizon in Spokane, SPR’s Eliza Billingham will dive into how this new tax fits into the city’s history with parking.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
[FADE OUT THEME]
Washington election administrators are raising alarms about the SAVE America Act Republicans are advancing through Congress.
That’s the bill that would require people to show proof they are U.S. citizens before they’re allowed to vote in federal elections.
That documentation includes passports or birth certificates but not driver’s licenses.
Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall told reporters yesterday [WED] the bill would make administering elections more difficult and expensive.
MARY HALL: “There is no way that we could hire and train enough staff to jump through these new hoops. My staff would be forced to manually identify verification documents for every new, single voter registration.”
OH: She says the bill would be particularly hard on people in vote-by-mail states, like Washington.
It would require them to include a photocopy of acceptable I-D every time they send in their ballots.
— — —
Ritzville’s struggling hospital will get some help from a new law signed yesterday by Governor Bob Ferguson.
The measure applies to facilities that the federal government recognizes as “rural hospitals,” ones that mostly provide out-patient care.
BOB FERGUSON: “This designation allows smaller hospitals to provide emergency care to their communities when they can no longer sustain full inpatient services.”
OH: There are no such hospitals in Washington yet. But East Adams is working toward becoming one.
Once it does so, the new law allows it to collect government reimbursement for Medicaid patients at the same rate that it currently collects for inpatients.
East Adam’s chief executive says that will help the hospital system recover its costs and stabilize its finances.
Hospital officials are also taking steps to recover from significant financial mismanagement, including reducing staff and services.
— — —
A Spokane historian is reconsidering the future of Cesar Chavez's legacy after a New York Times investigation reveals women and girls accusing the organized labor icon of sexual abuse—including his union co-founder Dolores Huerta.
SPR’s rural affairs reporter and Murrow News Fellow Monica Carrillo-Casas has more.
MONICA CARRILLO-CASAS: Gonzaga History Professor Ray Rast says newfound allegations of sexual abuse by late labor organizer Cesar Chavez will cause a redirection for farmworkers.
He says it’s possible people will begin to focus more on Dolores Huerta and others who fought for farmworker rights.
RAST: “He was a leader, but there are many other leaders. And so while I'm very confident that his legacy will be revised, my deep hope is that the legacies of the movement will not be.”
MCC: Chavez’s influence reached many farmworkers including in Washington state. Chavez led a two-day march of more than 2,000 people from Yakima to Granger to demand better conditions.
Rast says he’s spent more than 25 years researching Chavez’s legacy, but says he never heard accusations of sexual abuse.
He says this revelation will reroute a project he's been working on for the past two years, which revisits the history of the original headquarters of the United Farm Workers that Chavez co-founded.
I’m Monica Carrillo-Casas reporting.
OH: Also in response to the investigation, the Washington governor’s office says Gov. Ferguson will not celebrate Chavez this year .
Washington has recognized Chavez’s birthday, March 31, as a state holiday since 2018.
But this year, Ferguson won’t issue the customary proclamation to celebrate Cesar Chavez Day.
Instead, he’ll recognize Huerta’s birthday: April 10.
— — —
The Seattle Sounders are advancing in an international tournament after last night’s game… at ONE Spokane Stadium.
How did the match wind up east of the Cascades? SPR’s Eliza Billingham reports.
ELIZA BILLINGHAM: Lumen Field is growing grass. The Seattle stadium, which is typically turf, will host FIFA World Cup games this summer, and all World Cup games have to be played on grass.
While their home turf transitions, the Seattle Sounders and Reign are left without a pitch. So they’re playing some spring matches in Spokane, including last night’s match in the Concacaf Championships Cup—a major tournament between North and Central American soccer teams.
Why host games in a small high school stadium instead of going to professional venues in Portland or San Diego?
LESLE GALLIMORE: “We wanted to stay in the state.”
EB: That’s Seattle Reign general manager Lesle Gallimore.
LG: “Finding space, finding the right size, having it both be CBA and league compliant with the MLS, it's tough going. And so kudos to Spokane for being a stadium we could play at.”
EB: Paul Christiansen with the Public Facilities District said hosting last night’s game wouldn’t have been possible without upgrades that Spokane’s professional soccer clubs added to the school district’s facility—like the video screen, lighting, and broadcast capabilities.
After a 2-1 victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps, the Sounders advance to the next round of the tournament, which they should play at home…is another Concacaf game in Spokane’s future?
I’m Eliza Billingham, reporting.
— — —
OH: The Gonzaga and University of Idaho men’s basketball teams begin their March Madness runs tonight.
The Zags play Kennesaw State in a first-round game in Portland at 7 pm.
About 10 minutes later, the Idaho Vandals tip off their first-round game against the University of Houston in Oklahoma City.
The winners will move on to second-round games on Saturday.
Tomorrow, the Gonzaga and Idaho women’s teams will open their national tournament.
Gonzaga has a midday game in Minneapolis against the Ole Miss Rebels.
Idaho plays in the evening against the University of Oklahoma in Norman.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
As the saying goes, there’s really no such thing as free… parking. But who should pay for it, and how much should it cost?
SPR’s Eliza Billingham looks at Spokane’s history with parking and how a new city tax on certain lots fits into that story.
EB: If you go all the way back, parking actually didn’t have anything to do with cars.
SPENCER GARDNER: “The term parking comes from planting trees in public right of way.”
EB: That’s city planner Spencer Gardner presenting to Spokane City Council this week.
He said “parking” started in Washington D.C. with 70 thousand trees on public property in the early 1900s.
By the 1920s, the term ‘parking’ morphed as cars became more common.
The National Conference of City Planners considered parking “the most pressing question” before them.
One hundred years later, planners are still saying the same thing.
Today, there are lots of states and cities that have parking mandates—that is, requiring private property owners to provide off-street parking.
What Gardner suspects would have originally seemed “an incursion on property rights” in the 1920s became commonplace by the 1940s.
Mandates often use the busiest hours of the year to set minimum parking requirements.
That means lots of parking spaces are empty for most of the year, which isn’t what Councilmember Kitty Klitzke would call the land’s “highest and best use.”
Plus, free parking spots are really attractive but really expensive to build and maintain.
In order for business owners to streamline convenience and recoup some cost, they bake the cost of those spots into the price of their goods or services.
SG: “If I'm a tenant and I don't own a car in places where parking is mandated, I actually don't have a choice as to whether I pay for the parking that's provided on site even though I don't need it.”
EB: For business owners, maybe this isn’t a groundbreaking idea.
JONATHAN BINGLE: “It's free for you to come into my building, but there's no such thing as a free building because I have to maintain this building and that sort of thing.
EB: That’s former Spokane Councilmember Jonathan Bingle, who worked with councilmember Zack Zappone to reimagine parking and housing incentives during his tenure.
Washington state has slowly rolled back some of its parking mandates, and Spokane has revoked mandates completely.
The thinking is that the market should dictate how much parking someone pays for.
SG: “The developer and the bank are able to determine that their need for parking is maybe reduced compared to what we would be doing at a blunt level across the entire city.”
EB: But any time there’s talk removing parking requirements, there’s a visceral reaction from the public.
JB: “It’s just ingrained in the American experience that you have a car and you drive to where you're going. And so when you have a bunch of cars and there's no parking and then everything is on the road and you can't find parking in front of your house or you can't find parking in front of your place of business or something like that. I mean, it is really annoying.”
EB: Bingle and Zappone crafted a policy package they nicknamed “Parking 2 People.”
It tries to incentivize transforming parking lots into housing by deferring certain taxes.
But Spokane just added another layer of parking policy—this time, it’s a disincentive.
Spokane is adding a 12% tax on private surface parking lots.
The thought is that it will make owning a parking lot less rewarding, which, combined with other incentives, might more powerfully persuade a lot owner to turn it into something else.
Plus, it’s expected to generate a couple million dollars in revenue to fund new transportation projects.
City officials understand that the tax will likely be passed from lot owners onto people parking their cars, so Council carved out exceptions for regulars like students or residents.
But shoppers who can’t find a spot on the street will bear the 1 to 2 dollar increase, and that worries downtown business owners.
JB: “Well, if it's too inconvenient for me to now go downtown, I'm just going to stop going downtown… I think that's the choice that people end up making.”
EB: What are people willing to do for parking? Spokane is going to find out in real time.
I’m Eliza Billingham, reporting.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
OH: SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Doug Nadvornick, Monica Carrillo-Casas, Eliza Billingham and me, Owen Henderson.
I’m also your host and producer. Eliza Billingham provides digital support.
Thanks for listening.
It’s SPR.
