In brief: Services affected by Labor Day holiday
Some public offices and services will be affected by the Labor Day holiday Monday:
• Spokane City Hall will be closed, and there will be no City Council meeting.
• Downtown Spokane parking meters don’t need to be plugged.
• The East Side, Hillyard and Indian Trail branches of the Spokane Public Library, which are normally closed Mondays, will also be closed Tuesday.
• Riverfront Park attractions and county golf courses will be open.
• All Kootenai and Spokane county, city and rural garbage pickup will be one day late this week.
• City, county, state and federal offices will be closed.
• Post offices will be closed.
• Most banks will be closed.
• Idaho state liquor stores will not be affected.
Kellogg man accused of impersonating officer
Halloween came early for a Kellogg man accused of impersonating a police officer, but the trick ended with no treat.
John A. Mendy was arrested by the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office on Friday, according to a news release. For about two weeks, Mendy would dress in a green law enforcement uniform, telling citizens he was an Idaho Fish and Game officer. Mendy also wore a gun that shot plastic BBs.
During that time, Mendy issued several suspicious-looking citations, and those who received them weren’t fooled, according to the release. The Sheriff’s Office received several reports of the questionable officer and investigated, along with Idaho Fish and Game, for about two weeks.
On Friday, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Mendy’s residence, finding the fake uniform and law enforcement duty gear, according to the release. He faces charges of unlawfully exercising the functions of a peace officer.
Woman found dead after Idaho mobile home fire
A woman was found dead in a burned mobile home in Pinehurst, Idaho, on Friday afternoon.
Fire crews responded to a structure fire in the mobile home park at 201 Ohio St. at 1:45 p.m., where a unit was entirely engulfed, according to a news release from the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office. One occupant of the home, Melinda M. Eversole, 33, was later found in the master bedroom.
Eversole was transported to Shoshone Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead after several attempts to revive her, according to the release.
Fire investigators have determined the fire occurred by accident, but they did not release a cause.
ISU program helps with fire rehabilitation plans
POCATELLO, Idaho – Idaho State University is mapping areas scorched by wildfires to help the Bureau of Land Management rehabilitate those areas.
The school’s Geographic Information Systems program can quickly create maps that federal officials can use from cellphones to come up with a rehabilitation plan, according to a KIDK-TV report. Officials in the field can look at the maps to see how severe the fire burned in different areas and compare elevation.
“We’ve helped out with about a half dozen fires right now in this fire season,” said Geographic Information Systems Director Keith Weber. “We practiced with the Crystal fire in 2006 as we were building this thing, and we also practiced with the Charlotte fire.”
Grant money from NASA pays for the program, called the Rehabilitation Capability Convergence for Ecosystem Recovery. The money is used to find out which areas have a high risk of fire, examine invasive weeds that move in after a fire and study what livestock grazing does to the land.
Officials said the system cuts the time it takes to build useful maps from days to 35 minutes.
“I think it’s really important,” Weber said, “but all the stuff that we’re doing is to support the fire managers and firefighters.”
The system combines GPS location information with graphical information, Weber said, comparing it to how a cellphone can be used to navigate in a city.