You can read Shawn Vestal's Spokane blog, The Falls, here.

It’s Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2007. The next time Chicken Little starts squawking about property taxes and the inevitable tax-raising properties of Your Sexy Government, remember yesterday's vote by the Spokane City Council to allow a temporary tax increase to expire. Spokane would collect 9 percent less in property taxes next year, and sales taxes are expected to surpass property taxes for the first time as the chief source of city money. Read Jonathan Brunt's story.

You call that an emergency? Speaking of property taxes, you can tell it's an election season as Gov. Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi wrangle over how quickly the state must rush to reinstate the 1 percent cap on tax hikes. Gregoire said yesterday that she would call a special session Nov. 29 to put the cap – which was tossed by the courts earlier this month. We're not really convinced of the urgency here. Are cities and counties going to gorge themselves on tax increases before January if legislators don't step in? Sounds like a political emergency. No one ever lost a vote pandering to voters over taxes. Read Rich Roesler's story.

Western values? Mitt Romney raised a little money in our region yesterday, stopping in Boise and Seattle. Along the way, he said that there is something inherently Republican about the values of the West. “I just don't think that the Democrats' platform is in any way consistent with the views of the people of the American West,” he said. Read Betsy Russell's story.

Good luck, officer: “You don't speed through Colfax. We want it known that you don't fight in Pullman.”

--Chris Tennant, commander with the Pullman Police Department, which is trying to stiffen penalties for fighting. Read Tom Clouse's story.

Weather: It's supposed to be chilly and partly cloudy in the next couple of days, with highs in the low 30s. Here's the five-day forecast.

Today in History: In 1945, the Nuremberg war crimes trials began. From history.com

The morning drive: Check the traffic and the most recent gas prices.

In passing: Ruth Dixon King. “After graduating from the University of California, Ruth had a daily radio show on San Francisco's KLX and was a writer for the Oakland Tribune. In 1945 Ruth auditioned and accepted an invitation from the USO Camp Shows to entertain U.S. Military Forces in New Guinea and the Philippines. Her World War II adventures inspired her book "Songs from the Girl Back Home." On her return, Ruth was a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and Berkeley Daily Gazette as well as becoming San Francisco KRON-TV's first Director of Women's Affairs. Later, she taught at four Bay Area colleges and had a radio program "Focal Point" on KKIS that won top awards from the Associated Press.” For more of this and other obituaries, go here.

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