I stopped by the Merchants Committee meeting Wednesday morning at the Outlaw Cafe - they meet at  8:30 a.m. every Wednesday - and there's always lots to talk about. Here are a few of my notes:

There is a meeting tonight at Northeast Community Center at 5 p.m. featuring Mayor Condon and city council member Mike Fagan, addressing the proposed cuts to senior, community and youth centers across town. Northeast Youth Center, which is threatened with closure, will be there with a big presentation and encourages everyone to show up.

The Greater Hillyard Business Association is having a meeting on Feb. 9 at 6:30 p.m. at the Northeast Community Center. This meeting features a tax accountant who'll share advice for the upcoming tax season.

At this morning's Hillyard Merchant Committee meeting there was some conversation about who and how snow may be cleared from street parking spots (aka cut outs or parking bays).

In the business districts along Market Street, North Monroe, Garland and South Perry, the snow and slush often end up filling those on-street parking spots between curb bump-outs. These parking bays are very popular with business owners when it’s not snowing, but what’s a person to do when they are filled up with slush and hard-frozen snow?

“The street department will try to clear out the parking bays but it’s lower on the priority list, behind basic plowing of the streets,” city spokeswoman Marlene Feist wrote in an e-mail. “It also has to be done at night since the parking bays are used during the day.”

Read the entire story here.

If you are on Facebook already and want to stay in touch with what's going on in and around Hillyard, here are some Facebook pages for you to follow:

The Greater Hillyard Business Association can be found here.

The Hillyard Festival Association can be found here.

Hillyard's main Facebook page is here.

Northeast Community Center's (not very frequently updated) Facebook page is here.

I'm sure there are community organization Facebook pages out there that I don't know about - let me know if I forgot some.

The Spokane City Council approved an ordinance establishing a public development authority for northeast Spokane on Dec. 12.

Establishing a public development authority in that area has been at the top of the agenda of the Northeast Development Advisory Board, which was created 12 months ago.

“We now have an entity that will be focused on economic development in northeast Spokane,” said Elizabeth A. Tellesen, a member of the Northeast Development Advisory Board. “This entity will not be as easily influenced by political changes at City Hall.”

Read the entire story here.

Which issues and development projects would you like for the PDA to address? Why? How?