Dan Hansen

Here are some questions and answers about the proposed city-county consolidation: Question: Will the executive be elected by voters or appointed by the council? Answer: The executive would be elected by voters countywide and would have powers similar to that of a strong mayor or state governor. He or she would not vote with the 13-member council, but could veto council decisions. Vetos could be overridden with a vote of nine members.

Wildlife agents plan to use technology made famous in the O.J. Simpson trial to prove a Ukrainian immigrant poached bears in northeastern Washington. Gallbladders and other bear parts found in Nikolay Senchenko's Spokane Valley home will be tested at a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lab in Ashland, Ore., said Washington wildlife agent Ted Potter.

Wildlife agents charged a Ukrainian immigrant with snaring at least three bears in northeastern Washington following an investigation that used hidden videocameras to help identify the alleged poacher. Agents found three large snares and worry more may dot the remote ridges and tangled creek bottoms in Pend Oreille County. Nikolay Senchenko, 45, is charged with illegally killing wildlife and attempting to kill grizzly bears, a threatened species.

Walk in the Wild officials say they'll shut down the zoo and get rid of the animals if they don't raise $2 million in the next nine months. The money, at least 10 times more than was raised in the zoo's most successful fund-raiser, would pay for a planned move to North Idaho's Silverwood Theme Park.

Merging of minds: Proponenets of consolidation discuss how to beat the odds at a Friday morning meeting in their Riverside Avenue office. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

The proposed charter written by Spokane County freeholders sets a firm schedule for consolidating Spokane city and county governments. Here's what would happen if voters approve consolidation: Feb. 6, 1996: Primary election for executive and council members. March 12, 1996: Final election of 13 council members and executive.

Here are some questions and answers about the proposed city-county consolidation: Question: Would the new government need fewer workers than now are employed by the city and county? If so, who would be terminated? Answer: There's little research on the matter.

Like an arranged marriage between unwilling partners, the merger of city and county governments causes hard feelings and cold feet. A survey three years after Athens, Ga., merged with Clarke County found 85 percent of employees wishing it'd never happened. "I'm starting to enjoy it now. The first three years were hell," said Gwen O'Looney, mayor of the government formed in 1991.

1. Thoroughbred horse farms dot the rolling hills around Lexington, Ky. Photo by Associated Press 2. Athens, Ga., is home to a thriving arts community that includes the "World Famous Traveling Panoramic Encyclopedia of Everything Elvis." Photo by Associated Press

It would change Spokane more than Expo '74, draw more attention than Bloomsday and cause more political upheaval than the "Contract With America." But after 30 years of talk, and little more than a month before the election, campaigners say many people still don't know what city-county consolidation is all about. "What is it again?" asked a visitor at the Spokane Interstate Fair campaign booth for We The People, the group promoting consolidation. "Why haven't I heard of it?"

By next summer, Spokane talk show hosts might not have Steve Hasson and Dexter Amend to kick around. In fact, the entire County Commission and Spokane City Council will disappear if voters decide Nov. 7 to consolidate Spokane city and county under a single, regional government. No more coroner.

Chipped windshield season is coming to the North Side. Spokane County road workers, who spent several weeks putting oil and gravel on 60 miles of asphalt roads elsewhere in the county, are beginning the work this week in rural and suburban areas north of Spokane.

Judy Luck tries to organize the teen shelf to make room for new books at the Airway Heights Community Library. The tiny library used to be a two-car garage. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Lindy Cater figures the empty coffee can was her downfall. "I'm usually tanked up on coffee," she said. "We didn't have any in the house." So Cater started her weekly drive from her Spokane home to her Seattle job without her usual dose of caffeine that Sunday afternoon in 1992. She set the cruise control and settled in for the long commute.

The proposal to build a north-south freeway through Spokane was already 5 years old when Dale Stedman went to work for the Inland Automobile Association in 1951. Stedman spent much of his 43-year career championing the freeway that would ease congestion on Division Street and other arterials.

FOR THE RECORD: August 29, 1995: Clarification: A version of The Spokesman-Review will not be available through the Prodigy on-line computer service until sometime this fall. An article Saturday implied otherwise.

Momentum, which helped bankroll the 1992 election of Spokane County freeholders, has earmarked $100,000 for convincing voters to support the city-county merger those freeholders proposed. "Unified government, a single government, is clearly the vehicle that allows a community ... to build a prosperous future," said Susan Meyer, executive director of the economic development group.

Ernie Sims, foreground, and Wendy Kapelke of the state Department of Transportation work on sprinklers along I-90 just west of the Sprague interchange. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Visitors to Glacier National Park face more travel restrictions along the Going-to-the-Sun Road for the rest of the tourist season. No parking is allowed at Logan Pass, a popular tourist destination. The road itself - the only route through the northwest Montana park - will be closed for construction for at least three days before winter. Completed in 1933, Going-to-the-Sun Road pierces some of the most rugged scenery in the Northern Rockies. It is on the National Register of Historic Places as an outstanding engineering achievement.

Traffic on Spokane's Post Street bridge will have to lighten up and slow down. In an effort to keep the 78-year-old bridge from crumbling into the Spokane River before it is replaced, the city Transportation Department last week dropped the speed limit on the concrete bridge to 20 mph.

Jim Hanley's father, Arch, founded Acme Electric in Spokane after WWII. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

Ten rutted miles of Interstate 90 will be repaved this summer because asphalt put down in 1991 lasted only half as long as expected. The work, between Pines Road in the Spokane Valley and the Idaho border, will cost about $1.3 million. The original paving was part of a large package of I-90 improvements that cost $3.3 million.

Raising Upriver Dam may anger fishers and silence rapids, but researchers predict it would do little damage to plants along the Spokane River. City engineers want to add 1-1/2 feet to the height of the dam, located near Felts Field airport, to generate an additional $170,000 worth of electricity each year. The extension would add another half mile of slack water to the pool that extends four miles behind the city-owned dam. Researchers Michael Folsom and Robert Quinn counted 142 trees and numerous shrub thickets they believe would be drowned by the rising water.

(For the Record from Wednesday, August 2, 1995:) Brigham Young led Mormon pioneers to Utah in 1847. A story in Sunday's Regional section named the wrong church leader. Church members gather in a meadow just west of Spirit Lake, Idaho, Saturday morning before beginning the trip to Mount Spokane.