Sheriff’s detectives set up in Medical Lake

Two Spokane County sheriff’s detectives will be setting up in the office of the Medical Lake Police Department, city administrator Doug Ross told the City Council during a short meeting Tuesday night.

“The department is getting the office into shape,” Ross said and explained that they are making room for the new detectives.

The agreement to house the two detectives came out of talks the city is having with the Sheriff’s Office to contract for police services. The city has been looking for a new chief of police for more than a year and hasn’t found anyone to take the position.

This agreement is separate from those talks, Mayor John Higgins explained before the meeting. The Sheriff’s Office has been looking for a place to house detectives in the West Plains and this agreement worked out for both. There has been no decision to contract for police services with the Sheriff’s Office.

In other council business, Ross told the council the compost trailer at 851 S. Lefevre is now open for the summer months and had a busy weekend thanks to the nice weather.

The city has hired a temporary summer employee for the trailer and he will start May 1.

Resident Glenn Duncan approached the council to discuss his Avista bill, which listed a “city cut” this time. Duncan was curious as to which city the money went to and called Avista and was told it went to Medical Lake.

Finance director Pamela McBroom explained that the funds are a 6 percent B&O tax the city has always received for electricity, gas and phone lines, and those entities are now breaking those funds out in customers’ bills.

“We do get it,” she said.

Duncan was happy to hear this.

“I wanted to make sure we were getting it,” Duncan said.

The next City Council meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. April 21 at City Hall.