Dan Hansen

A house near Browne Mountain is the latest addition to Spokane County's list of historic landmarks. The house, at 5705 S. Custer, was built in 1908 for Guy Browne. It "stands as a reminder of the enormous impact and great influence the Browne family had on the growth and development of early Spokane," the City-County Historic Landmarks Commission wrote in a memo to county commissioners.

Hasson

One of Spokane's hottest political potatoes is about to plop like a Titleist in county commissioners' laps. On the recommendation of the golf advisory committee, commissioners will hold a hearing Dec. 2 to decide whether to increase greens fees.

Some Spokane County employees will work longer days starting in 1998. And all full-time county workers eventually will clock eight-hour days if county commissioners get their way in labor negotiations. About half of the county's 1,831 employees now work 7-1/2 hours a day, not including unpaid lunch breaks. The others work eight hours.

Exotic dancers wept but Christians praised the Lord after county commissioners voted to end "lap dancing" at a popular Spokane Valley strip club. The new regulations, which become law in February, are 36 pages long. But the most contested section is one that requires nude or seminude dancers to stay at least four feet from customers.

Spokane County voters proved once again Tuesday that they hate new taxes more than potholes. For the fourth time this decade, drivers turned back attempts to raise money for street repairs. This time, it was a tax that would have added 2.3 cents to the cost of a gallon of fuel sold anywhere in the county. The tax would have raised about $4.7 million a year for five years, to split between Spokane County and the cities and towns within its boundaries.

More land should be off-limits to development, Spokane County voters decided Tuesday. And they're willing to pay to see that it is. The same voters who rejected a gas tax to fix roads supported a property tax to buy parkland that can't be developed. With 27 percent of precincts reporting, the conservations futures tax had 56 percent support.

Customers, employees and strippers from an adult entertainment hot spot are flooding Spokane County with form letters protesting regulations that would end "lap dancing." By Friday, county commissioners had received about 1,000 preprinted protest cards mailed by the Deja Vu nightclub in the Spokane Valley.

Barbara Lampert. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review

It may have seemed this summer that every road in town was closed for repairs. Hardly, city engineers say.

Cherie Rodgers. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review

Route of the problem People attending Wednesday's STA hearing try to make sense of a handout listing proposed bus route changes. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Thao Tiedt

Spokane Transit Authority buses on the five routes that lead to Lewis and Clark High School will probably be packed Wednesday afternoon. STA board members are inviting riders to the school for a hearing on proposed changes that would affect nearly every route in the county.

People screamed four years ago when the county started charging homeowners $10 a year to solve runoff problems. The day the bills arrived in the mail, one courthouse secretary did nothing but answer telephone calls from angry taxpayers. Now an advisory group is recommending that the fee be four or five times higher.

Spokane will lose $440,000 earmarked for a Centennial Trail bridge unless plans that haven't jelled in six years come together in the next 82 days. The U.S. Forest Service says it will take back its money unless trail organizers can say by Dec. 31 where they'll build the bridge, when they'll build it and how they'll raise additional money that will be needed.

Unhappy trails. Spokane County does not have the money to repair the damage done to the Centennial Trail five months ago by spring floods. Photo by Liz Kishimoto/The Spokesman-Review

Spokane County commissioners will limit the county's role in an agency they contend wastes money. On Tuesday, commissioners gave 30 days' notice that the county no longer will keep track of finances for the Spokane County Community Network, which deals with children's issues and operates independent of county government. The network will have to find another fiscal agent.

The off-road riding area is part of the 2,900-acre Liberty Lake County Park. Photo by Liz Kishimoto/The Spokesman-Review

Boxes containing the ashes of the dead are stored in the coroner's office. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Amend

Their ruling upholds a decision made earlier. The Newport Highway may be one of the busiest roads in the county, but it's no place for a tire store, Spokane County commissioners decided Tuesday. Commissioners ruled that Alton's Tires cannot build a store on eight acres adjacent to the highway.

Liberty Lake companies that pay $100 a year to use public land are getting too good a bargain, Spokane County Commissioner John Roskelley contends. Five companies lease 90-foot-wide strips along Appleway Avenue. They include Egghead Software, which leases about an acre, and Telect Inc., which wants to increase its lease from about 1 acre to 2-1/4.

A West Plains man can't subdivide farmland just because it's not profitable to farm, county commissioners ruled Tuesday. Since the 1980s, Will Payne's land has been zoned "exclusive agriculture," a zone intended to protect prime farmland by prohibiting lots smaller than 40 acres. Payne argues that his land, just west of Riverside State Park and about 1-1/2 miles north of Coulee Hite Road, is infertile. It should be zoned "general agriculture," which allows lots as small as 10 acres.