Column

With what was supposed to be the last day of the session past and no agreement yet on a transportation funding bill between the House and Senate, Idaho lawmakers are growing restive.

The desire for spare parts seen as something less than noble.

Bring on the spring break recovery.

Keep your eyes on where you’re going.

It wasn’t a fur-gone conclusion.

Hello and welcome to another installment of Ask Avista, the only forum that lets Spokane area ratepayers get straight answers regarding their power company concerns. OK. So let’s get energized.

She avoided the term “whippersnapper” because KXLY’s Kris Crocker is too gracious for that. But she did provide context for youthful colleague Casey Lund Friday. Casey triggered the lesson in relatively recent American culture when he showed up for work on St. Patrick’s Day wearing an S&H Green Stamp tie.

With the third of her four sons about to move to Nashville, Cindy Hval is looking forward to some quiet in the house, but also glad the emptying of her nest has been a gradual one.

I’ve seen unusual things along the Coeur d’Alene waterfront during my 33 years in Coeur d’Alene. Weddings. Thong Man. Incredible fireworks shows on the Fourth of July and Black Friday. But I’ve never seen a giant brown dice (or die, for the purists) with white dots wash ashore. Until Saturday.

Refugee Aung Zaw’s life has been full of enough strife that a few racist posters pasted to the door where he works didn’t rattle him too much. But the rest of us in Spokane need to confront such hate and ensure it doesn’t find comfort in our city.

Doug Clark took a field trip to the old Costco building on Third Avenue and found a legalized pot bonanza run by cocaine convict Cip Paulsen.

Former Shoshone County Sheriff Mitch Alexander has hung up his badge to help sell cars for Dave Smith Motors. After 25 years in law enforcement, Mitch is looking forward to a second career as the business manager of the mega-successful Silver Valley car dealer.

For one Spokane man, enough is enough.

Thirty years ago, North Idaho Centennial Trail supporters faced stiff resistance from neighbors or industrial companies in two areas – the Pinevilla subdivision in Post Falls and an industrial row along Seltice Way entering Coeur d’Alene. The resistance was so fierce that a former county commissioner proposed dubbing the Spokane River as a symbolic link between Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls – and forgetting the trail. Now, a trail along the former industrial row is about to become a reality.

What will you miss about winter? Complaining, of course.

Mike Wirt and his wife were shopping for furniture in Seattle. “We were deep into fabrics in the far corner of the store,” said Mike, retired director of the Spokane County library system.

With the news that Amazon will begin collecting state sales tax from Idaho shoppers starting on April 1, Idaho’s state general fund coffers stand to gain $15 million to $30 million next year and each year thereafter.

Spokane’s No. 1 hater of bicyclists is keeping a low profile.

It was the Friday before St. Patrick’s Day, 1992, which meant St. Patrick’s Day season was well under way. Patty Henchel went to the Hi-Neighbor Tavern on North Monroe with a friend to play darts. Someone introduced her to Pat Hallinan. If they noticed the coincidence at the time – Pat, Patty, St. Paddy’s – it went unremarked.