2023 Primary Candidates

By Nina Culver Current contributor

Open seats on the Spokane Valley City Council and West Valley School Board have attracted quite a bit of interest, drawing three candidates each for a primary ballot in August that will allow voters to select the top two candidates to advance to the general election in November.

The open seat on the council was created when Brand Peetz announced that she would not run for re-election. Political newcomers Jessica Yaeger and Rachel Briscoe filed for the seat, along with previous candidate Adam Smith.

Yaeger is a resident of Spokane Valley who graduated from Central Valley High School in 1998. She worked for several years managing assisted living and long-term care facilities and for the last two years has worked in placement at Angel Senior Care.

She said she’s seeing too many issues with crime and homelessness in the Valley. “I don’t feel safe with my children out going to the restaurant,” she said. “I’m seeing some of the downtown Spokane issues creep into our area.”

She won a precinct committee officer seat last year and before that, in August of 2021, she was part of an anti-mask protest that shut down a Central Valley School Board meeting. At the time masks had been mandated by Governor Jay Inslee and the more than 100 people who flooded the meeting refused to wear them, forcing the meeting to end.

Yaeger said she considers herself a conservative. “I’m a Christian,” she said. “As long as it makes you happy, I don’t care what you do. My beliefs are for me.”

Rachel Briscoe, who grew up in Poulsbo, Washington, first began working in residence halls when she was a student at Eastern Washington University. After earning a bachelor’s degree in 2008, she continued working in residence halls while attending grad school at Northern Arizona University.

After a decade of this work, she and her husband moved to Spokane Valley. She homeschools the couple's three children and the couple have owned Briscoe Construction for the last 11 years. Five years ago she cofounded Spokane Ladies Business Community, a networking group that includes coaching.

A mentor encouraged her to consider running for city council and she began attending meetings last fall. “I was hooked,” she said. “I’ve always been intrigued by city leadership. I do believe deeply in limited government.”

Briscoe said her values are conservative and she believes in fiscal responsibility, but she’s not interested in taking political sides. She said she believes in collaboration and open and respectful communication to determine what is best for the community. “My absolute top choice is to be on no side,” she said. “My job is to be on the side of the people.”

She said she was encouraged by the council’s recent allocation of money to address the issue of homelessness because it appeared to be targeted toward the causes of homelessness, not just housing the currently homeless. Briscoe also said she would like the council to more directly address the concerns that people bring up during public comment periods during council meetings.

“I don’t think there is enough conversation,” she said.

Smith operates locations of SMASH Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Airway Heights, Spokane Valley and Deer Park and previously worked as a firefighter with Spokane County Fire District 4. He previously ran unsuccessfully for a city council seat in 2019.

Smith said he believes he can provide a connection between the council and the community and said his decision to run was last minute. “I just look at the people I knew were running and I still felt like we needed a change,” he said.

During his life he’s worked with a diverse group of people and, as a firefighter, he often helped people on their worst days. “I worked as a firefighter for 12 years,” he said. “I walked into thousands of people’s homes.”

No one currently on the council has the background he does, Smith said. “I want to create bridges,” he said.

In the West Valley School District, school board member Christy White did not run for re-election. School district residents Tricia Phillips, Amy Anselmo and S. John Dubois all signed up for the chance to replace White.

Phillips, who is originally from the San Francisco Bay area, has worked in a wide range of industries over the years. She’s worked in sales for a communications company, as a doctor’s office receptionist and office manager, as a long-haul truck driver and as a corrections officer at Pine Lodge Correctional Facility before it closed.

Phillips earned a bachelor’s degree in global business management from the University of Phoenix nearly a decade ago. She’s been a stay-athome mother for the last few years and homeschools her four children.

Phillips said her two oldest are participating in the district’s Running Start program and her family has also hosted several foreign exchange students who have attended West Valley schools, so she’s familiar with the district. She also volunteers at West Valley High School’s booster club.

“I want to help ensure that the schools are there to successfully integrate students into society,” she said. “I know they had a rough time during COVID.”

Phillips said that school districts need to do more thinking outside the box and need to be more agile. “I know there were a lot of complaints during COVID,” she said. “I had a student in the school and I know I really had to advocate for my student.”

People were frustrated and the district should have been quicker to pivot to virtual learning and not try to “reinvent the wheel,” she said. “There seems to be a lot of gatekeeping for community success,” she said.

Anselmo, who grew up in Spokane for most of her life and graduated from East Valley High School, has been a sixth-grade teacher for Spokane Public Schools for the last 10 years. She holds a bachelor’s degree in teaching from Washington State University, a master’s in teaching from Grand Canyon University and a principal’s certificate from Whitworth University. She is also National Board certified.

Anselmo said she loves teaching sixth graders because she enjoys watching them discover who they are and they’re also old enough to appreciate her sense of humor. Spokane Public Schools is moving all sixth graders into middle school this fall, so Anselmo will begin teaching at Chase Middle School when classes resume.

Her two children have grown up in West Valley, with her youngest starting high school in the fall. Anselmo said that she’s often thought of running for a seat on the school board and now that she’s no longer in school she has the time to devote to it. White also suggested that she run, Anselmo said.

“I’ve always thought of it,” she said. “It’s always been in the back of my mind. Mainly it’s just an opportunity to connect with the district.”

Dubois describes himself as a military brat who didn’t really grow up anywhere, but he claims Texas as his home. After high school he did a two-year church service mission in Phoenix before earning a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Phoenix and a master’s in psychology from Grand Canyon University.

He held jobs in construction and manufacturing before working as a recruiter for Grand Canyon University for several years. He is currently a day shift supervisor with Frontier Behavioral Health, where he runs the First Call for Help crisis line.

Dubois has six children, four of them grown and two still in West Valley Schools. He is currently the president of the Seth Woodard Elementary PTO. He said he believes his work can be useful for the district and wants to make sure the mental health of students is supported.

“I have found that working in mental health, especially postCOVID, that our kiddos are having a hard time,” he said. “I feel like it would be a preventative measure compared to where I work. I think it will give me an opportunity and a platform to influence long-term change.”

Dubois applied for a vacant seat on the school board last year, but another person was selected to fill the position. He said he appreciates how much a school board can influence its community. “I’ll help wherever I can,” he said.