Dan Hansen

Some members of the Spokane Regional Health Board are balking at a plan to spend up to $10,000 of public money on a sex survey. Health District staff, working with social service agencies, want to mail the survey to 5,000 county homes selected at random.

Spokane County will spend $700,000 replacing two little-used bridges in rural corners of the county. County commissioners on Tuesday gave engineers approval to request bids for the work on bridges on Darknell and Scroggie roads. The two wooden bridges will be replaced with concrete.

Two associations that lobby the Legislature on behalf of counties will get only half the dues they requested from Spokane County this year, saving taxpayers nearly $52,000. And the county is dropping its membership in the National Association of Counties, saving $6,194. That association lobbies Congress and tracks federal regulations.

Eight months ago, the mysterious death of a lamb on a west Spokane farm fed worries that an African lion was on the loose. The lamb had been killed by an animal with "major jaw power," animal control officers said. But they couldn't confirm that it was the phantom lion.

A Spokane Interstate Fair manager who was reprimanded in 1994 and suspended for five days last year is in trouble again. This time, operations manager Jim Cotter may lose his job.

The Spokane County Jail will finish the year up to $1 million over budget unless arrests slow unexpectedly or the Sheriff's Department takes drastic measures to cut costs. Built in 1986 to handle up to 460 inmates, the jail housed a daily average of 600 people last year. So far this year, the average is 650, with 700 inmates on the busiest days, Capt. Jim Hill told county commissioners Thursday.

State parks officials have closed a pedestrian bridge over the Spokane River, blocking the most popular access to trails in Riverside State Park. The suspension bridge will be closed until at least September, the state Parks and Recreation Commission announced Thursday.

It was gut-wrenching for hundreds of landowners and the three politicians forced to make the decision. But setting limits on urban development, as Spokane County commissioners did Tuesday, doesn't end the debate over land-use restrictions.

Millwood residents, who rake their leaves into the streets, can walk to the Rocket bakery and pay lower taxes than their neighbors in the unincorporated Valley, are losing one perk of living in the tiny town. They'll soon have to license their cats.

The proposed city of Mead cannot be used to circumvent tough new land-use restrictions, a state authority said Wednesday. Tuesday afternoon, just before Spokane County commissioners set aside most of the North Side as rural, Realtor Jack Dein filed plans to form a city covering about 22 square miles north of Spokane. If the city formed, any land within its boundaries could be subdivided into small lots.

Carl Bernson's retirement plans counted heavily on the money he would make developing 18 acres he had bought in 1940. "This property was my ace in the hole," said Bernson, 77, a retired nurseryman who lives on Glenrose Prairie.

A Realtor from Mead filed a proposal Tuesday to form a city north of Spokane - hours before Spokane County set new rules that would have prevented such a move. Most of the city Jack Dein proposes would be outside the urban growth area county commissioners adopted. Under the state Growth Management Act, cities can only be formed in designated urban areas.

Fearing new restrictions, landowners are flooding Spokane County with requests for subdivisions. After years of debate, county commissioners may decide tonight which areas of the county should be set aside for urban growth and which should be designated rural.

Spokane County Commissioner John Roskelley plans to take a three-week vacation this summer to go to the Himalayas. File/The Spokesman-Review

The new Mount Robinson building at Sun Mountain. Photo by Michael Guilfoil/The Spokesman-Review

Spokane County commissioners will decide Tuesday whether to give four other elected officials a raise now in exchange for cost-of-living increases they would have received later. One commissioner said she'll vote against the package because it includes county Assessor Charlene Cooney.

Spokane County is about to force one of the biggest developers around to pave a strip of gravel outside the Liberty Lake post office. Harlan Douglass, who owns the post office building at 1423 N. Molter, refused to help pay for the work last summer, when Molter was widened and improved.

Spokane County commissioners have set aside the process normally used to hire contractors so loggers can start removing downed trees from three parks soon. November's ice storm felled about 180,000 board feet of timber at Liberty Lake Park in the Valley, and at Holmberg and Bear Lake parks on the North Side, said Fran Boxer, head of county parks.

Spokane County commissioners are balking at a developer's plans to put another spring water hazard on MeadowWood Golf Course. Pacific Properties of Bellevue, Wash., which is developing 90 lots near the county's premier course at Liberty Lake, wants to pipe the development's storm water into the rough along the 15th fairway.

About 150 people gathered in a suburban school Wednesday to talk about a line that will split Spokane County into urban and rural neighborhoods. Some were curious and others concerned. A few were angry.

Michael Eirls, a clerk at Super C convenience store on North Ash, holds up the fourt promotional checks featuring Keno winner William Howard. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

Mike Potestio of Columbia Wood and Recycling moves another load of ice storm debris Friday at the waste-to-energy plant. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Spokane County commissioners have reversed a hearing examiner decision and ruled that a West Plains landowner cannot subdivide 40 acres into four lots. Kate McCaslin, in her first land-use decision since becoming a commissioner on Jan. 1, said landowner Will Payne had not shown that his neighborhood has "substantially changed" since the land was zoned "exclusive agriculture" in the 1980s. That zone classification is intended to protect prime farm land. It prohibits lots smaller than 40 acres on Payne's land, about 1-1/2 miles north of Coulee Hite Road and just west of Riverside State Park.

Spokane County golf courses lost $24,000 in 1995 on businesses that generated profits for three golf professionals. Golfers made up the difference with greens fees - money that is supposed to go toward upkeep of Hangman Valley, Liberty Lake and MeadowWood golf courses.