Jim Camden

Mayor Dennis Hession gained a bit of ground on Councilwoman Mary Verner in the second day of counting, but Hession still has a significant gap to cover to keep his job. Meanwhile, Wednesday's new count totals were enough to convince Spokane City Councilman Brad Stark to concede to Richard Rush, guaranteeing three new faces on City Council next year.

The axiom that all politics is local might not be correct every year. But for the Inland Northwest this year, it's pretty close. Washington and Idaho voters have very local political choices to make by Tuesday: mayors and city council members, school board members and school levies, fire district commissioners and emergency medical service levies.

With less than a week left in Spokane's municipal campaigns, spending in the mayor's race has topped $400,000 and passed the amount spent in the 2003 election. It's not a record – at least not yet – running slightly behind the amount spent in 2000 during the city's first campaign for a strong mayor. One council candidate has the largest single contribution received since the city went to district elections. The Realtors Quality of Life PAC spent more than $11,000 on a mailer for City Councilman Brad Stark, which is listed as an in-kind contribution to his campaign.

Mayoral candidate Mary Verner said she would consider seeking advice from a Seattle attorney who once represented the city in its battles over River Park Square if city legal staff thought it would be helpful. Verner, who has said several times during the campaign that she doesn't want to reopen the controversy, said Thursday she would consider consulting with O. Yale Lewis, the city's original special counsel on River Park Square, but only if she and City Attorney Jim Craven agreed it would be constructive.

Washington Republicans moved swiftly to cut off the scandal involving Rep. Richard Curtis of La Center, removing his name from the House GOP Web site within hours of his announced resignation. A spokesman for the state Republican Party said Curtis' political career was over, but discounted any long-term political effect for other party members. Curtis' decision to resign stands in contrast to that of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, of Idaho, who announced plans to resign and then changed his mind as he tries to withdraw a conviction for soliciting sex in an airport restroom, Josh Kahn said.

Rudy Giuliani's brief stop in Coeur d'Alene in August was worth about $100,000 to his campaign – and may have put the city on the map as far as a place for presidential candidates to raise money. Federal campaign records show that Giuliani, the former New York mayor trying to win the Republican nomination for president, collected slightly more than that amount from North Idaho and Eastern Washington just before, during and after his Aug. 23 visit to the Lake Coeur d'Alene home of John Magnuson. Tickets for the Kidd Bay Island reception, at a residence dubbed Laissez Faire, went for $500 each.

Mayor Dennis Hession continued to stick by a claim that Councilwoman Mary Verner once discussed a tribal casino in downtown Spokane, even though it was described by leaders of three area tribes as "misinformation." Meanwhile, a Spokane business leader who Hession said would help bolster the claim said Thursday he recalls no conversation with Verner over putting a casino into the Rookery Building as a way to save it from demolition.

AIRWAY HEIGHTS – Airway Heights voters have an unusual choice on the Nov. 6 ballot for an open position on their City Council. Ron Welker suspended his campaign because he's thinking of moving out of town; Kevin Richey isn't eligible because he moved to town too recently.

Spokane's mayoral race started as a relatively civil affair with disagreements over management style, but it has evolved in recent weeks into a fight over decisions made or not made by Dennis Hession and Mary Verner. With ballots already mailed out and just over two weeks before the election, each candidate is likely to continue talking at forums and in ads about what they see as the other's vulnerabilities with voters.

The Washington National Guard's largest unit is being put on alert for the possibility of another tour in Iraq. Gov. Chris Gregoire said Friday afternoon she has received notice that the 81st Heavy Brigade Combat Team may be activated. Earlier in the day, the Department of Defense said the 81st is among guard units from seven states that are being scheduled for deployment next summer.

At first glance, the race in northwest Spokane's District 3 might seem to be between two very similar candidates: two Indian Trail residents, practically neighbors, a pair of silver-haired 66-year-olds pointing to their experience in government as a good reason to pick them for an open city council seat. Lewis Griffin and Steve Corker are both talking about the need for better planning and pushing "impact fees" to help pay for the cost of new or wider roads in the city's rapidly growing Five Mile and Indian Trail neighborhoods. Both want the neighborhoods to have a greater say in the type of development that occurs in and around them.

Mary Verner denied Thursday that she'd dismiss Spokane's fire chief if she becomes mayor and challenged Mayor Dennis Hession to produce someone who said she had. Hession denounced attacks on his wife as "outrageous" and challenged Verner to have them withdrawn. The exchanges came in another meeting between the city's mayoral candidates, a televised debate on KSPS-TV.

Bob Apple got elected to the Spokane City Council four years ago as a community activist seeking changes at City Hall. Now seeking re-election, he's facing Donna McKereghan, a community activist seeking changes at City Hall. That's not unique in Spokane politics, because challengers almost always have some activism on their resumes, and some bone to pick with the city's governing structure.

The effort to override a presidential veto of a children's health insurance program brought a U.S. senator and local health care professionals to Sacred Heart Medical Center on Friday morning. Sen. Maria Cantwell said President Bush didn't understand the challenge most Americans face over health care when he vetoed an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, commonly called SCHIP, earlier this month.

Calls to bring the troops home tomorrow, or on the first day of the next president's term, aren't just unrealistic, they're impossible, Sen. Patty Murray said Tuesday. It would take up to 18 months to get them all out, unless the United States wanted to leave tanks and other weapons behind, she said.

Mayor Dennis Hession accused Councilwoman Mary Verner of supporting an Indian casino in downtown Spokane, saying Monday she came to him a year ago with an idea to save a historic building from the wrecking ball with a gambling operation. Verner disputes it, and suggested that Hession wasn't just mistaken, he was lying. She knows of no such proposal for the now-demolished Rookery Building and insists the meeting never happened.

Spokane is in good shape now, and could be even better in the future, an upbeat Mayor Dennis Hession told the City Council on Monday night. Offering what is informally known as the annual "State of the City Address," Hession listed everything from tax incentives for the Kendall Yards development project and the expanding University District to more library hours and shorter waits for building permits as reasons the "winds of change" are blowing through Spokane.

The gloves are off in the Spokane mayor's race, just in time for a whole string of face-to-face meetings between Dennis Hession and challenger Mary Verner. The two candidates made that clear last week in the first of about 10 debates or forums, when they fought for advantage on every question at the normally staid League of Women Voters Forum.

By 2010, finding items with asbestos could be very difficult, and making or importing them could be illegal. The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a ban on asbestos products Thursday, the culmination of a six-year effort by Sen. Patty Murray. A similar bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

Spokane's Veterans Affairs Medical Center will reopen a 24-hour emergency department Sunday. That's one year to the day since Spokane veteran Clinton "Foxx" Fuller died after arriving at the VA hospital with shortness of breath, only to find the emergency department had closed for the day, five minutes earlier.