The Spokane City Council needs to spend less time on matters it doesn’t influence directly and focus its efforts instead on leading the city. As their constituents can tell the council members, there’s plenty to do to improve the city without wasting time on issues over which it has no control.

The most recent example is the council’s decision to change its stance on the Spokane Tribe of Indians’ proposed casino project in Airway Heights. Two years ago, the council had debated the issue and voted to oppose the project. Last month, it spent valuable time rehashing the issue and changed its stance to neutral.

Council President Ben Stuckart presented a letter from a former U.S. Air Force assistant secretary saying the project poses an insignificant risk to neighboring Fairchild Air Force Base and used that as a catalyst to broach the subject again. The letter isn’t as revelatory as Stuckart and casino supporters made it out to be and thinly veiled the only real change: The city council moved to a left-leaning majority from a right-leaning majority when Candace Mumm was elected last fall, thereby giving casino supporters what they needed to switch stances though little else had changed. 

The casino issue is only the latest example. Late last year, Stuckart and council members Jon Snyder and Amber Waldref drafted a letter on city letterhead to CEOs at Deaconess Hospital and Valley Hospital inquiring about staffing levels at the facilities. This occurred after Service Employees International Union NW1199 criticized the hospitals as part of labor negotiations. The hospitals requested—then withdrew—an ethics investigation following the attempt to intervene.

While the the council members’ actions aren’t unethical, they demonstrate misplaced priorities and an overreaching definition of city leadership. Such actions also give an appearance of pandering to supporters—that union had contributed to the campaigns of the three council members who penned the letter.

Debates among council members over what constitutes city business have been going on for years. In 2011, some council members wanted the city to take a stance on gay marriage, while others argued that marriage equality isn’t a city issue.

The Journal has been consistent in its opposition to the new casino project—mostly because of its risk to critical Fairchild Air Force Base jobs—and the newspaper hasn’t taken a stance on the hospital labor disputes or marriage equality. Whether one agrees with the position of the council on these subjects is immaterial. Council action doesn’t influence these subjects profoundly and does nothing to improve the lives of constituents or operations of the city.

What focusing on such subjects does do is erode the credibility of those who insist on taking on pet issues. Spokane voters have shown little party loyalty through the years and have a low tolerance for inefficient governance, as evidenced by the fact that a mayor hasn’t been elected to a second term since the 1970s. All council members should prioritize city business. There’s enough to do at City Hall without dabbling in peripheral politics.