Amy Cannata

POST FALLS – Developers of new Post Falls homes would pay $504 more in impact fees per house than they do now under a proposal the Post Falls City Council will consider at a hearing on Tuesday. The Post Falls Planning Commission has already recommended approval of the $3,172 fee per single-family home. Developers of multifamily housing would be charged $2,457 per unit.

Now that the Post Falls City Council has agreed to buy the former Post Falls Mazda site, attention is being turned toward planning to convert that site to city fleet and wastewater uses and what to do with the existing fleet storage and maintenance yard neighboring Black Bay Park. The Council voted Monday to authorize Mayor Clay Larkin to sign the $2.9 million agreement to purchase the Post Falls Mazda property neighboring the city's wastewater treatment plant.

POST FALLS – Getting into Post Falls Family Dental's free February children's clinic will be a bit like trying to score tickets to see Hannah Montana. So many Post Falls children are in need of dental care that when the clinic opens its phone lines next Thursday, appointments for its Feb. 2 free-care day will likely be filled within 30 minutes.

A new wave of nonprofit FM stations proposed for North Idaho could spawn locally produced arts, political and other community programming stretching from Sandpoint to Moscow. The Federal Communications Commission accepted applications for noncommercial educational FM stations during a brief window last October. It was the first chance in seven years that community groups had to apply for an FM station. It could be the last opportunity for quite some time. Few frequencies are available for new stations.

HUETTER – The Huetter mayor unseated in an upset November election will remain in an elected city post for the next two years to the surprise of the new mayor and two new council members. Newly elected Huetter Mayor Brad Keene found out just minutes after he took office on Jan. 9 that former Mayor Jackie Meeks was appointed to a vacant City Council seat during a Dec. 30 special meeting of the council. Keene and two new council members found out about the appointment only after Meeks moved from the mayor's seat to a council seat following their swearing in.

A master plan envisioning $57 million worth of new and improved parks, trails and other outdoor amenities over the next two decades will be presented Tuesday for approval by the Coeur d'Alene City Council. The Coeur d'Alene Parks Master Plan has been in the works for 18 months, with planners soliciting input from the public at dozens of community meetings and through many surveys.

Coeur d'Alene School District may be seeking a $32 million two-year levy this spring, including about $20 million to build a new Lakes Middle School. School board trustees were presented the levy recommendation at their meeting Monday evening. They took no action on the long-range planning committee's proposal, but may decide at their next meeting to put that levy or a modified levy to a public vote.

POST FALLS – Seven gambling machines are set this morning to make sounds they never did in all their years of play. Post Falls police plan to crunch and crush at 10 a.m. the machines seized from the Post Falls Eagles club in a September 2006 illegal gambling raid. The machines will be loaded on to the back of a dump truck and destroyed with a backhoe outside police headquarters, said Post Falls Police Lt. Greg McLean.

POST FALLS – The Post Falls City Council unanimously approved the appointments of 13 new and returning board and commission members Monday in a special meeting. Most were appointed to the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission, with others being selected for the Library Board, Urban Renewal Agency and Urban Forestry Commission.

A Spokane man may have been trying to kill his estranged pregnant girlfriend Wednesday night when he forced her into a rented car and crashed it into a power pole, officials say. The driver, 24-year-old Christopher Bouck, showed up at the downtown store where Candace Bellinger works and forced her into the car, saying he was going to kill her by crashing into another vehicle, said Spokane County sheriff's Detective Dave Thornburg.

A North Idaho man shot himself Monday evening after breaking into his ex-wife's Post Falls apartment and attempting to kill himself in front of her, her friend and four children. The incident began about 4:30 p.m. when the 35-year-old man called his ex-wife threatening to kill himself at her home at the Ross Point Apartments off Second Avenue. Post Falls police were unable to locate him at that time, said Lt. Pat Knight.

In a season of good cheer, traffic safety experts and law enforcement officers urge people to not drink and drive. Even so, sobering statistics show that gains made in decreasing DUI fatality rates in the 1980s and 1990s have become stagnant in the 2000s. From 1980-92, the DUI fatality rate dropped in Washington state by two-thirds, said Shelly Baldwin, impaired driving program manager for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. During that period, 5,420 people died in DUI crashes.

SUNCREST, Wash. — A man died in a fire that Stevens County authorities believe was caused by a propane-fueled space heater. The identity of the man remained unknown Thursday. The Stevens County coroner will have to check medical records to verify his identity, officials said.

Kathleen Miller spends three weeks stringing lights, arranging poinsettias and hanging decorations for the Gaiser Conservatory Holiday Lights show at Manito Park. Miller designs and maintains all the conservatory's displays, but this annual flower and plant display is special.

A Washington State Patrol trooper fired a Taser at a Spokane driver Friday evening during a downtown traffic stop after he said the man exited the car and approached him in a threatening manner. Trooper Jerry Wier pulled the vehicle over about 8:50 p.m. near Third Avenue and Sherman Street. The driver pulled to the back of a secluded parking lot, said Mark Baker, a WSP public information officer.