MAYORAL
GROWING PAINS Mayoral races in Post Falls and Millwood feature candidates coming to grips with their towns’ popularity BY WILSON CRISCIONE
MILLWOOD
KEVIN FREEMAN (left), the incumbent, has made more local news headlines for his role as a board member for the Spokane Regional Health District than his role as mayor. Freeman has been vocal in his support of Health District Administrator Amelia Clark and he voted last year to fire Spokane Regional Health Officer Bob Lutz. But Millwood, the small town of less than 2,000 people between Spokane and Spokane Valley, has its own issues. Freeman has campaigned on the promise to continue to improve the town — namely, traffic congestion and increased law enforcement patrol. His opponent is MATTHEW DEAN, a political newcomer. Dean served in the U.S. Navy before working for a local aerospace manufacturer for seven years. He also volunteers with Blessings Under the Bridge, which provides meals and other services for people experiencing homelessness.
POST FALLS
Post Falls, like the rest of Kootenai County, is growing. And it’s growing fast. RON JACOBSON (left), the Republican incumbent mayor, has told the Inlander that, ideally, Post Falls could stay the way it is now, but he recognizes that’s not possible. As mayor, he’s said that he shares citizen concerns about too much new density, but he knows it’s not possible to prevent development from happening, and he wants to ensure that there is infrastructure in Post Falls that keeps up with the growth. Jacobson’s opponent, AUSTIN HILDEBRAND, is a local brewery owner and leans more libertarian. In a Coeur d’Alene Press questionnaire, he says he’s concerned with the housing market prices in North Idaho and says there needs to be more housing supply. Yet at the same time, he says he’s against any development program that would provide high-density housing. On COVID-19 policy, neither support any mask or vaccine mandate right now, though after the Post Falls council voted down a mask mandate last fall, Jacobson said he would have supported it then, according to news reports. Hildebrand, in the questionnaire, says “no individual, entity, government, organization, etc. should have any control over another individual’s rights or liberties.” n
Confidence
IGNORED ADVICE
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20 INLANDER OCTOBER 21, 2021
onfused by the “advisory votes” in the front of your ballot? You’re not alone. State Rep. Marcus Riccelli (D-Spokane) says he gets more questions from stressed-out voters about these than about candidates. Blame (or credit) a 2007 initiative championed by anti-tax crusader Tim Eyman. Initiative 960’s two-thirds majority requirement for raising taxes was long ago struck down as unconstitutional, but another provision, requiring non-binding “advisory votes” be placed on the ballot any time taxes are raised or a tax break is closed, lingered on. Since they’re at the front of the ballot, Riccelli says sometimes “people don’t end up going through the whole ballot, because they’re exhausted with the advisory votes.” Some legislators want to do away with them entirely. Riccelli, at the very minimum, supports moving them to the end. And the legislature doesn’t really pay attention to the
outcome, says state Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig (D-Spokane), because they know the arguments for and against the tax aren’t generally represented. Since the votes are non-binding, you can feel free to skip them. Otherwise, you’ll be faced with weighing in on three different Olympia-passed measures. One is a phone tax that the legislature already passed to fund suicide prevention hotlines. Another is a tax on certain types of alternatives to insurance — it’s complicated, but was supported by every single member of the legislature but one. The big one is Advisory Vote 37: The state passed an entirely new form of taxation — the capital gains tax — to fund education and child care. There’s a big legal battle over whether that capital gains tax is legal under Washington’s state constitution. If it goes before a panel of state supreme court justices, their votes, at least, won’t just be advisory. — DANIEL WALTERS