Pair to face off for school board

Coeur d’Alene may see the only contested school board race in Kootenai County in May.

Robert Chadwick filed to be a candidate on Wednesday for Zone 1, the area east of 15th Street. Former board member Edie Brooks is also running for that position. Board Chairwoman Wanda Quinn currently holds that seat and is not seeking re-election.

“I’m just a working person that wants our kids to get a good education,” said Chadwick, a maintenance worker for Macy’s and a former custodian for the district. “The kids are the future of this country. I don’t think we can do too much for them.”

Chadwick’s daughter is an eighth-grader at Lakes Middle School, where he is involved with the parent organization.

Though Brooks’ son has graduated from Coeur d’Alene schools, she still feels a responsibility to making sure the district continues to develop.

“I came from a poor family, and my mom always said education is the key to having a better life, and she’s absolutely right,” said Brooks, a real estate agent who was the first in her family to get a college degree.

Brooks was disappointed that the March buildings levy failed; she wants to work on restoring the community’s confidence in how the district runs its finances and plans to make sure the district is being conservative.

The deadline to file for candidacy is 5 p.m. Friday.

In Post Falls, former board member Bruce Howard is running unopposed. In Lakeland, incumbents Jeane Plastino-Wood and Larry Brown are also running unchallenged.

Spokane Valley

Cow Tasered by deputies dies

Spokane County sheriff’s deputies killed a stray cow Wednesday morning after repeatedly stunning it with a Taser when the animal wandered in traffic near Spokane Valley Mall.

State law requires deputies “to do whatever you can do to keep somebody from dying as a result of collision with a cow,” said sheriff’s Sgt. Dave Reagan.

Two other cows that escaped in the morning – sometime before 6:45 a.m. – were rounded up by their owners.

The animal that wasn’t caught had been trotting up and down Sullivan Road, and at one point got onto a freeway ramp, Reagan said. He said the bovine had been loose for more than four hours when deputies cornered it about 11 a.m. between the mall and Interstate 90.

“This was at Sprague and Sullivan,” Reagan said. “It’s one of the hot spots for accidents out in the Spokane Valley, and you just can’t walk away.”

Several deputies – who had seen a video of a Brahman bull being incapacitated by a Taser – decided to stun the creature and tie its legs with a long leather strap ordinarily used to restrain kicking humans.

But the cow recovered before the strap could be used.

“We’re not cowboys,” he said. “I don’t believe we have any rodeo champions on staff.”

Consequently, deputies zapped the cow “again and again” and the animal died, Reagan said.

No action was planned against the owner of the cow, but Reagan warned that livestock owners need good fences in increasingly urban Spokane Valley.