Brian Coddington

1. Motorists drive through Millwood at the end of a work day. Drivers who used to avoid Argonne because of the railroad crossing are taking advantage of the underpass. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review 2. Traffic flows through the new underpass on Argonne Road. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

1. Top, Sheriff's deputies arrest Brandon Belstad Wednesday morning after he surrendered. Photos by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 2. At right, deputies guard a woman and her young daughter during a standoff with her son near University High School.

County commissioners approved a plan this week to dig brush and silt out of Chester Creek in hopes of stopping the flooding that has plagued residents along Dishman-Mica Road.

Longtime Spokane Valley activist Al Lewis died at his home on Wednesday, just two days after he was diagnosed with liver cancer. He was 54. His death shocked friends and colleagues, who remembered him for his dedication to his family and to the community.

After three months of waiting for Valley residents to come to her, Spokane County Commissioner Kate McCaslin decided Wednesday night was a good time to go to them. Making good on a campaign promise to facilitate community involvement, McCaslin gathered county staff members, convened a town hall-style meeting at Horizon Junior High, and then listened for two hours while Valley residents quizzed her about the proposed Valley Couplet, mass transit, growth management, responsible growth, sewers, deteriorating roads and Mirabeau Point.

Neighbors sandbag near Newman Lake to divert runoff from homes and businesses. Photo by Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review

Fifteen goats died early Sunday in a fire that ripped through the barn where they were kept. A neighbor discovered the fire in the barn behind the house at 26505 E. Rowan about 4 a.m. and called firefighters. The barn was already engulfed by flames, said Eric Olson, Valley Fire deputy fire marshal.

One at a time. Cathy Perry hands a sandbag to Joe Roszina as the two work to protect a home from the encroaching runoff at Trent and Starr Road on Monday. Overflow from nearby Newman Lake has residents scrambling to place sandbags around houses and mobile homes to divert water. Photo by Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review

Randy McGlenn plays with Charlie in the yard of McGlenn's Valley home. File/The Spokesman-Review

When Shawn Jones visited Donnie Issleb at Rosauers on Wednesday, she didn't ask the 25-year-old box boy to help her with the groceries, as she often has done. She was there to thank Issleb for saving her life. Jones was released Monday from Valley Hospital and Medical Center where she was treated for a blood clot in her lung. The 31-year-old mother of three weakened earlier this month while shopping at the Valley grocery store where Issleb works and credits his quick thinking with saving her life.

FROM VALLEY VOICE page V5 (Thursday, March 27, 1997): Correction Bob O'Neel, subject of the March 22 "Saturday's People" profile, worked at Greenacres Junior High before retiring last week. His name was misspelled and his place of work. misidentified in Saturday's Voice. Bob O'Neely keeps warm with a silver fox-skin cap. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Freshman county commissioner Kate McCaslin will host the first in a series of quarterly town hall meetings Wednesday at Horizon Junior High School. McCaslin will field questions and concerns about Valley issues. All topics are open for discussion, said Chad Hutson, county Public Works Department spokesman.

A 26-year-old woman was abducted from her Spokane Valley apartment and beaten early Thursday in a dispute over a $1,000 debt. A few hours later, sheriff's deputies arrested three suspects at a store near U.S. Highway 2 and Mt. Spokane Park Drive.

FROM VALLEY VOICE page V5 (Saturday, March 22, 1997): Clarification Wyn Birkenthal, county Parks and Recreation manager, told county commissioners the YMCA's planned Valley aquatics center will not be located in an area that would allow it to serve as an adequate replacement for Valley Mission pool. His dispute is with the proposed site of the aquatics center and not the YMCA. A story in Thursday's voice implied otherwise.

Dave Cornelius carries his wife Kathy across their flooded yard to the car. Their yard was submerged by the waters of Chester Creek, which breached its banks because of recent rain and melting snow. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

A controversial Spokane Valley road project several years in the making cleared a public hearing Wednesday night with little more than a whisper of criticism. Of the three dozen or so people who attended the hearing at the Valley's Red Lion Inn, only seven testified. Testimony took only 28 minutes. Many opened by praising county engineers for working diligently to present a compromise. Previously proposed road projects, most notably the South Valley Arterial, have drawn considerable criticism from people who said the road would pull cars away from businesses along Sprague Avenue and pump additional automobile exhaust and noise into the Dishman Hills Natural Area.

State Reps. Larry Crouse and Mark Sterk, both Spokane Valley Republicans, will hold two town hall meetings next Saturday to discuss citizen concerns and answer questions about state government. The lawmakers plan to outline key issues emerging from the current legislative session, and bills of interest to the Valley community. Those issues include property tax reform, education, welfare reform, juvenile justice reform, transportation funding and Mirabeau Point.

A 34-year-old man was abducted Friday morning from a Spokane Valley lumber yard during a dispute over a debt. Witnesses said the victim was forced out of a taxi cab he was trying to leave in and into a van. Sheriff's deputies stopped the van a few minutes later, and the victim was released unharmed.

Helen was back home Monday, battered, beaten and not quite ready to roll in the mud next to Dave and Patty Thomas' Greenacres home. A pair of Rottweilers that live down the street jumped into a pen with Helen, the Thomases's pot belly pig, last Thursday and chewed up the critter pretty badly.

Sheriff's Department fraud investigators initially thought was a scam is legitimate. Telemarketers from KWIN, a radio broadcast network, have been calling Valley residents for about a month offering to sell them discount coupon books.

A commuter couplet route proposed in the Spokane Valley is intended to take pressure off busy portions of Sprague Avenue and Interstate 90, county engineers told a group of business leaders Wednesday. Ten-year projections show Sprague and I-90 can each expect about a 40 percent increase in traffic volume in the western Valley. The Valley Couplet, which proposes two one-way roads between Thierman and University roads, will move traffic more smoothly in those areas, engineers said.

A long-running neighborhood battle over an Opportunity apartment building has spawned a driveway easement fight and a request for court protection orders. Neighbors say Gregg Phillips, who owns a six-unit apartment building at 701 S. Felts, has blocked his next-door neighbor's driveway with a pile of dirt and two parked trucks. They claim he's retaliating for complaints neighbors filed with a county zoning inspector about building code violations.

A caller who claimed to be running a promotion for a new local radio station had a simple task for Phillip Cummings: name three living U.S. presidents and he'd win $1,558 worth of prizes from Spokane Valley businesses. Cummings obliged and rattled off three names. All that was left for him to do last Thursday evening was claim the prize.

A string of weekend arrests around the Spokane Valley landed eight people in jail on drug charges. Sheriff's deputies found small quantities of methamphetamine or heroin in each case, said deputy David Reagan. Scales, syringes and glass tubes used for inhaling powders also were recovered during some of the arrests, Reagan said.