Three weeks after Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward sparked controversy over her embrace of noted extremist Matt Shea at a prayer event, NonStop Local’s Sean Owsley sat down with her to learn more about what was going through her head on that stage. The following is a transcript of that interview. It has been edited for clarity.
Sean Owsley: Initially, after the event and the video surfaced, you sent out a statement to us and took no more questions. Why now?
Nadine Woodward: Well, I think it’s time to get ahead of it and for people to hear from me. I was hoping that the noise would die down. But now I think after talking with a lot of people in the community about my involvement in that event, how it happened, why I was there, it’s important for the rest of the community to hear from me.
Did you know Matt Shea would be in attendance at that event?
Woodward: I unequivocally did not.
He wrote on social media that you did
I did not.
When did you realize he was there? Was a while you were in the wings before you came out on stage? When did you first realize that Matt Shea was there, and he was a primary part of that program?
Well, when I got to the event, it was loud. It was dark. There were a lot of people there. I got there, right, pretty much when it started, because I had another event to go to that night. And I was taken up to the third floor of the podium, which I wasn’t sure why I was being taken up there by one of the organizers. And Matt Shea entered the room and introduced himself. And I’ve never met Matt Shea before that time. I’ve covered the controversies regarding Matt Shea I obviously knew who he was. But I had no idea why I was being introduced to him. And then we went down the elevator, he dispersed into the crowd. And I was never told that he was part of the event. I was never told that he was going to pray over me that he would be on stage with me. I just thought he was there, along with 4000 other members of the local faith community along with dozens of other pastors from all different churches, all different denominations. And that for some reason, he found out that I was going to be there wanted to introduce himself and then walked away.
Did that give you pause?
It didn’t. It didn’t. Because there were so many people there.
When you come out on stage that the first time that you realize that he was a primary part of the event. As mayor of the city at that point, when you see that — you understand optics in this career and your former career — at what point did you or did you say, I don’t want to be on this stage?
Woodward:For a split second, I thought this is weird. Nobody told me that it was going to be set up like this. But you know what, Shawn, I was there to pray for my city, with 4000 other people from the faith community, with dozens of other pastors there.
That day, I had asked that the prayer for the city also be directed to prayer for the families impacted by the fires and Medical Lake and in Elk. I had spent the entire day with those families at the Incident Command Center at Jamie hot Middle School, at the evacuation center that the Red Cross had set up at Spokane Falls Community College.
I talked to families who had lost their homes, who were in the evacuation center didn’t know if they had a home and people who were renters that lost everything and didn’t know if they would get anything back.
I felt that pain and I felt it was important that the prayer be directed toward them. On that stage, I was there for them and for our city. I wasn’t there for Matt Shea
Did you ever think about leaving the stage?
No, I didn’t. I was I was there to pray for the city. That was the primary reason I was there, and I wasn’t going to walk away from my purpose of being there — to pray for families who are hurting our community.
To me. That’s the important thing that we’re missing in all of this is why I was there.
Objectively, if you look at it, you’re a longtime journalist, in your previous profession. If I’m in your situation, the first thing I do when I walk off stage is I go at it proactively on social media. I had no clue he was going to be here you’re going to see a video I did not agree to this. I had no clue. Why not do that?
You know, I had there were a lot of questions in my head about how what happened actually happened.
To the person that I was with, I said I didn’t know that the event we attended was the event that we were a part of. I just didn’t think I needed to go on social media right away and do that.
Was that the wrong decision?
In hindsight, it might have been.
I’ll tell you what, I made some mistakes, absolutely made some mistakes. One of them was that when I was invited to this event, I didn’t ask more questions. But I was invited to this event by somebody I knew.
There was a text message exchange, which we have shared with everybody that’s seeing this interview, where there was a religious leader that you didn’t know was going to be there based on the text exchange, you did provide to me before we did this interview. And it you said shame on me for not vetting who this person is.
Well, the person that I mentioned in the text was a gentleman by the name of Sean Feucht. I didn’t know who that was.
I don’t follow white nationalist scene. I don’t know who the players are. At the fallout from the event, I didn’t even know what a Christian Nationalist was. I’ve never even heard that term before. I didn’t know who Sean Foyt was. I didn’t know that Matt Shea was connected to him.
I don’t follow. Follow that association. And I didn’t I really, I thought I was there to pray. I get invited to pray at a lot of different prayer services. I meet with a lot of people. As the mayor of Spokane, I represent everybody. I represent people who voted for me, I represent people who didn’t vote for me, I represent people who agree with me and people who don’t agree with me. I meet with a lot of people.
Next time, I’ll vet out an invitation a little bit more, but because it was somebody that I knew I didn’t. If it had been a stranger, I would have, I would have probably vetted it out a little bit more. The bottom line is, this wasn’t about Matt Shea. This was about praying for our community.
You were there under the umbrella of faith, as you’ve stated, Why hug him?
If you look at the picture, Shawn, if you look at the picture closely, I wasn’t hugging him. My right arm is close to my chest. He reached down to give me a hug at the end of the stage. I patted him with my left. I’m a hugger — ask anybody that I work with, ask anybody that I know. I’m a hugger, that was not a hug. That was a surprise that he reached out to embrace me. In an awkward moment.
You’re opponent in this race at Lisa Brown says she just simply finds it too hard to believe that you did not know he was going to be present at that event.
I don’t care what Lisa Brown thinks about the event. I don’t care what she thinks I know or didn’t know. I know that I didn’t know, Matt Shea was going to be there, that I was there to pray for my community, pray for hurting families.
She just wants to disrupt all the good work that we’re doing. She has no plan for the issues that are important to the community.
When I’m out in the community, I’m out in neighborhoods, I’m talking to businesses, I’m talking to moms who can’t take their children to the park because of all the needles and all the homeless. I’m talking to people who want to feel safe in their community who support our law enforcement who don’t support the radical policy of this state that decriminalize drugs for two years. The state of Washington leads the nation in the increase in the percent of overdose deaths. We are number one, that’s what I hear out in the community. Lisa Brown does not have a plan for public safety. One element of the plan that she did put out calls for so-called Safe parking lots throughout the city where people can live in their cars — in your neighborhood — on a parking lot. And that’s her answer to homelessness and public safety. We’re about so this is a disruption.
We’re about three weeks removed from this event. Obviously, it has been a political firestorm for you. I think that’s safe to say, or you’ve had people—
I wouldn’t call it a political firestorm. I think there is a very loud, minority group, small group. My office has been inundated — and so have I — with people who are very supportive that that I am a woman of faith that I believe in the power of prayer, that it’s because of our wonderful faith community has gotten me through my first term in office, having to lead the city during unprecedented challenges. A pandemic. Summer protests our first riot, defund the police movement, a housing crisis, unprecedented workforce shortages and an inflation all in the first three-and-a-half years of me being in the space.
It is through prayer that has gotten me through this. I will never relinquish on that and if somebody wants to pray for me. I’m gonna let them pray for me. If somebody wants to invite me to a prayer service, I will be there to pray for my city. Because I believe in that.
What about the ones that have called for your resignation from the job?
I’m not going to resign; I’m running for reelection. I’m running for reelection to serve the city that I love. I’m I don’t come from a place of politics. This is really politics, that’s what this is about. People who know me know that I’m not a white nationalist. People who know me know that I support diversity, equity and inclusion.
The first person I brought into the mayor’s office is from the LGBTQ community, the first person I hired. I’ve hired staff on my cabinet that are LGBTQ and communities of color. I am married to diversity.
For anyone to say anything else about me is political. It’s just a political attack. I’m going to stand up strong, and I’m going to serve my city. And I hope that those who believe in my leadership will reelect me.
What about the calls for censure from some members on the city council?
That’s just a political ploy to bring more attention to something that, you know, we need to move ahead of that we need to move beyond that. And we need to address the real issues of our city. And that’s public safety, homelessness and housing. That’s what I hear wherever I go.
I doorbell every weekend. Plus, I’m in meetings every single day, I attend events every single night, I’m doing my job 24/7. They don’t ask me about the event.
They talk to me about the issues that we’re facing the challenges that our city is facing. That’s what I hear out in the community. In fact, people say, we’re glad that you were praying for our city. We’re thankful that we have a mayor who prays for families in pain and are hurting. That’s what we want.
You understand media more than most, why not just come out the next day, take questions get right out front?
There’s a there’s a part of the community that is that has drummed this up. They don’t really want the truth, Sean.
What is the truth?
What I’m telling you right now is the truth. That I went there to pray for families, I went there to pray for my city. I did not know Matt Shea was going to be there. I did not ask for his endorsement. I don’t want his endorsement. I was there for one reason only, and that was the power of prayer and to share prayer with the faith community. That’s it.
Did you make a mistake? What was your mistake if you made one?
I’ve said this before, my mistake was that I didn’t vet out more who was going to be on the stage with me, praying with me.
And in the text messages as I as I indicated to the person who invited me to the event. If I had known Matt Shea was going to be there. I wouldn’t have agreed to attend. I wouldn’t have been there.
But in the end again, this this is not about Matt Shea.
You do understand what has happened since, in the two weeks plus and why it has touched a chord with people you do understand that?
Of course, I do.
Let’s pivot and talk about downtown. I know that is something that you wanted to talk about and the crime down there. Obviously Second and Division has been a massive headache. I know there are beefed up police patrols. Your response to that because we talked to a business owner within the last 48 hours that he seen two people died from overdoses next to his building. You’ve been the mayor for several years. Now. Why is that happening?
Well, soft on crime policy has led to an increase in crime and increase in overdose deaths.
The inability of our police officers to have tools that for two years were taken away from them because of the police reform measures in our state legislature in 2021. I’m a law-and-order mayor. The police department supports me, they’ve endorsed me, the sheriff has endorsed me, the former sheriff has endorsed me in my bid for reelection because they know that I am not soft on crime.
It’s state policy that has gotten us here.
How do you break through that?
The chief and I have spent the last two legislative sessions working and advocating to get those tools back to get the ability to pursue known criminals and suspicious suspects back to get a permanent fix of the Blake decision that decriminalized drugs.
The state told our police officers, you can’t arrest anybody for possession unless you refer them to treatment at least twice. And then the third time you can make an arrest. Then they didn’t fund the mandate. We don’t have enough drug treatment programs to send them to. It created an environment of lawlessness.
How do you change that? How do you break through that?
We continue to advocate at the state level, for better policy. I would love to have a council, city council that would work closer with me and not push back and fight some of the things that I would like to do. I mean, it took a it took a concerted effort to get the ordinance passed that bans drug use and public spaces. Some members of council weren’t interested in that, revising our ordinances that deal with sitting lie and illegal camping, they weren’t interested in doing that I got the downtown community involved in that, to put pressure on this council to make changes. We need to be able to pass things locally.
If you want to make any change, you change your zip code. And that’s what local government is supposed to do. The state may be doing something, but there are things we can do locally. If I had a city council that would work closer with me and be more supportive of the things that I want to do to improve public safety, that put more accountability and the programs that we have for homelessness.
The one thing that we have done quite successfully, I would say is on the housing front. We’ve changed zoning so that we can offer more flexibility on residential lots throughout the city. We did that before the state did it. We led the way in that effort.
And we did it together. It was a 7-0 vote supported vote by council that that worked with me on the administration side.
But we need more sensible pro-police, pro-business members on council that are that are just willing to pass common sense legislation to address our challenges.
So how do we help the business owner that we talked to who is distraught honestly, from what they’ve seen day in and day out, right next to their business, if we’re in this political oppositional climate, where there is a stalemate, and he is falling through the cracks?
Well, we need to engage the community more. Sometimes I talk to people out in the community. And let’s say what happened, what has happened to our city, what has happened to the state, what has happened to these cities up and down the west coast, where businesses are moving out. Overdose deaths are through the roof, homelessness has gotten worse.
It’s because of bad state policies. And that’s where we need to get people interested in what’s happening locally and at the state level. We need people to that’s waiting to wake up the silent majority, the silent majority that are saying enough is enough. We’re at a tipping point. We need to get involved what’s going on locally, the ordinances that are being passed, and the laws are being passed statewide.
We haven’t reached that tipping point yet. You feel like you’re gonna be able to break through and there will be a noticeable shift on the streets?
I think in my 33 years here, 28 of them doing the news and covering elections, that this is the most important election that I’ve seen in the time I’ve been here.
If we don’t elect the right people, we’re going to continue to go the wrong way. We’re going to continue to have electeds here that support policy that soft on crime, that doesn’t put responsibility and accountability in programs to address homelessness and we’re not going to get our city back.
