Editorial

Spokane sheriff, police chief blame Sunday’s violence on outside agitators

Washington state

The COVID-19 danger isn’t over, it’s entering another phase that will continue to require public cooperation for the health of everyone.

Candidate filing week for this year’s local and state elections is here. So far it looks like too many incumbents will get a free pass to re-election.

Life in Washington will change in many ways, some of them permanent. And one of those changes should be the length of the school year.

Now that things have stabilized, Gov. Jay Inslee needn’t go it alone. State lawmakers are ready to help, and they should have a seat at the table as so many crucial decisions are made.

During the first weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak, America focused on saving lives and preventing the disease from spreading at all costs.

Leaders have scrambled to mitigate the worst effects of the coronavirus outbreak where possible, but in a crisis, rushed decisions are sometimes bad decisions. Snap eviction moratoriums are among them.

Without local journalism, social distancing becomes social isolation. Yet the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a cruel blow to local news sources. Never have newspapers and their readers needed each other more.

The Innovia Foundation has served this community well for decades and largely done an excellent job reflecting its values. That’s why the revelation this month that the foundation had been a conduit to give money to a white nationalist group shocked the community so deeply. One mistake that has been quickly corrected, however, shouldn’t undermine the public’s trust. A study by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Council on American and Islamic Relations revealed Innovia had made a $5,000 donation to a group called VDARE over the opposition of its outgoing CEO. In all, the foundation made several grants totaling less than $40,000 to the group.

There’s an urgent situation in Washington state that requires

If the letter from the Washington State Department of Transportation to Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs was meant as a wake-up call about the U.S. Highway 195 corridor, mission accomplished.

Spokane and its police department have made a mockery of state and city laws against excessive noise. Despite improvements in recent months, they have failed to consistently and appropriately respond to obnoxiously loud protests outside Planned Parenthood. City Councilwoman Lori Kinnear has a sensible proposal that strengthens the city noise regulations and, we hope, will lead to ongoing enforcement and compliance. Her proposed ordinance would target noisy protests outside from disrupting work inside any health-care facilities in Spokane, including Planned Parenthood. Naysayers claim the ordinance would trample their First Amendment rights. They’re wrong. As Kinnear notes, “It does not impact free speech. Protests are still allowed; that’s not the issue. It’s about noise.”

The debate over where to site a new stadium in Spokane sets competing visions and priorities against each other. But both sides partly miss the fundamental question.

A plan to give Spokane and other border communities a leg up called the Point 09 proposal is kicking around the Legislature this year. It deserves passage for the good of the entire state.

Gov. Jay Inslee and many of his fellow Democrats in the Washington Legislature want climate change and carbon emissions to be high on the list of priorities for this year's legislative session. They should turn to economists and scientists for policy ideas

The city of Spokane and Spokane County now require transparency in public-sector union negotiations. They should push hard to enforce those laws, even as lawyers fight over them.

State lawmakers must take perverse pleasure in keeping Washingtonians in the dark. Having returned to Olympia, Democratic legislators are pushing a sneaky bill that would wreak all kinds of havoc when it comes to accountability and public employees.

The tragedy on Silver Mountain is a reminder of the high risks involved – and the importance of preparing for what you hope never happens.