Spokane City Councilman Zack Zappone running for reelection
Apr. 24—Spokane City Councilman and high school teacher Zack Zappone is running for re-election, saying he wants another four years to work on public safety, homelessness, housing affordability and city infrastructure reforms.
Zappone is one of two council members representing council District 3, which covers the northwestern third of the city stretching north from the Spokane River and west of Division Street, and after redistricting in 2022 also includes Browne's Addition. Councilwoman Kitty Klitzke is the district's other representative, and her term runs through 2027.
He already has two opponents: Meals on Wheels board member Chris Savage, who ran unsuccessfully against Zappone in 2021, and private cigar lounge co-owner and retired SERE specialist Cody Arguelles.
Asked for his priorities in the next four years, Zappone said he has learned not to predict what city government will need to respond to. But he did highlight behind-the-scenes efforts to bring forward a compromise version of a failed 2023 sales tax package to build new jails and other, often unspecified, public safety initiatives. Zappone was among those across the aisle in 2023 saying the $1.7 billion ballot measure lacked specifics.
"I think both the left and the right realize we can't make any meaningful progress without some meaningful collaboration and compromise to move forward," Zappone said. "It would likely be a detailed proposal to voters about what community health and safety would look like in the next decade or so in Spokane."
Zappone also said he was excited to see further reforms to encourage development, particularly residential, and reduce the burden of vacant lots and nuisance properties on neighborhoods.
Zappone is the first openly queer leader elected to the council and has spent much of his first term supporting reforms to increase housing density, advocating for pedestrians and bicyclists, trying to eliminate fare to ride Spokane transit, and reducing barriers for community festivals and fairs.
In an interview, he also highlighted his work to help secure funding for CHAS health clinics in low-income high schools and for neighborhood business districts, which fund investments to benefit local businesses.
Though the progressive politician has frequently publicly clashed with conservatives in city government, he has also on occasions worked with them on policy. He and conservative Councilman Jonathan Bingle have traded barbs on the dais, but the two have also co-sponsored legislation, such as to relax parking requirements for new development and potentially lower costs near bus routes. Zappone joined others on council to later expand that reform citywide.
He was the only left-leaning council member to join Bingle and fellow conservative Councilman Michael Cathcart in supporting the reinstatement of Proposition 1, the voter-approved ban on homeless encampments near schools, parks and day cares that was recently struck down by the state Supreme Court on technical grounds.
"I've been reflecting on my first term, and I think that one area I've really come to understand better to be effective as a council member, is it really does take a lot of compromise to do stuff," Zappone said. "Being an advocate or activist really pushing for a position, I think that's an important role, but I'm much more pragmatic than purist in my approach."
Zappone has also been accused of partisan gerrymandering after he drew the map of council districts that was approved by the City Council, notably drawing a liberal neighborhood into his district and theoretically making it easier for him to be re-elected.
A judge ruled in April 2023 that the map was not illegally gerrymandered — but also ruled that council members should not have that level of involvement in the process going forward. Voters in 2024 approved reforms to create more distance between the council and the boundaries of which voters got to elect them.
The district was fiercely competitive in 2021, with Zappone edging out his conservative opponent Mike Lish by 1.3%. Klitzke won her election in 2023 against Earl Moore by nearly 20 points, though redistricting that happened between those two elections appears unlikely to account for the majority of that shift.
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