Jim Camden

The Spokane County sheriff's race has some of the strangest twists in local politics this year, all of them tied to the Spokane Valley. The race will likely be decided in September, solely by the county's Republicans, because Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich and Spokane Valley Police Chief Cal Walker are running in the GOP primary, and the Democrats so far have no candidate. That's unlikely to change before 5 p.m. Friday, the deadline for candidates to file.

Would-be judicial candidates can't file for a 10th Spokane County district court seat next week. A visiting judge said the position doesn't exist until the county commissioners come up with the necessary money. "It's a political decision by the county commissioners whether to fund a district court, or any other service," Stevens County Superior Court Judge Allen Nielson ruled this morning. "In the end, it's the county commissioners that have to come up with the money and juggle these other things."

Howard Delaney wants to run for the 10th judicial seat in Spokane County District Court. Problem is, say elections officials, the county only has nine district judges. Delaney can't file for a seat that doesn't exist.

A Washington state board might revise the proposed rule that allows pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions that conflict with their beliefs. The state Board of Pharmacy agreed Thursday to reconsider the language in a controversial rule it tentatively approved in June, which allows a pharmacist who personally opposes the morning-after birth control pill to refuse to fill the prescription and refer the patient elsewhere. The board ordered staff not to file draft language that is necessary to complete the process for the rule to take effect.

PASCO – Telling Northwest electricity customers how much of their monthly power bill is used to save fish would be useful consumer information, some representatives of businesses, farms and utilities said Friday. But if knowledge is truly power, then why not take it a step further, countered environmental and tribal representatives. Tell them how much of their electricity bill also goes for irrigation, or supporting the barge industry or paying off failed nuclear plants.

Washington state voters will not get a chance in November to decide whether certain sexual predators should face life in prison after a single offense. Initiative 921 – also known as Dylan's Law in honor of a North Idaho boy who was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed – failed to collect enough signatures for sponsors to turn them in for verification.

Participants in the Northwest's long-running debate over salmon and dams will have a chance Friday morning to air their views at a congressional hearing in Pasco. They're not likely to say anything that will surprise their allies or opponents in the controversy. Instead, they'll try to acquaint outside members of Congress with their views on the problem of too few fish in a river system with so many dams.

Washington state canceled the registrations of nearly 850 voters Thursday, saying they were felons who are barred by state law from casting a ballot. Forty were removed from the rolls in Spokane County. But by late afternoon Thursday, county elections officials were acknowledging that one of those voters likely was improperly bumped from the list and will have to be reinstated despite the safeguards that state and local officials say should prevent such errors.

For more than 15 years, one of the most storied runs of Northwest salmon has teetered on the brink of extinction. Last week, a panel of scientists served notice that the millions of dollars being spent to restore the Snake River sockeye are not getting the job done, and extinction could be inevitable. The Independent Scientific Review Panel did not tell the Redfish Lake run of sockeye to "drop dead." But it did say those fish could go extinct, despite current efforts, and suggested that continuing to spend money on the four existing programs can't be justified as sound science.

Sign one of nearly a dozen initiatives circulating this spring, and you may be part of an effort to give voters a chance to make law in November. But most petition drives fall far short of the number of signatures needed to make the ballot and are never submitted to the secretary of state's office. Ever wonder what happens to your name and address on a petition that never gets turned in?

The theft of more than $20,000 from an elderly Spokane couple by the woman who was supposed to be caring for them could wind up benefiting a local women's shelter. Sharmain Reuben was ordered this month to pay $4,000 to Anna Ogden Hall, in restitution for theft from Arnold and Lois Barnes.

Congress is about to tell the Bush administration to lay off the Bonneville Power Administration's rate system. The compromise version of the $94.5 billion emergency spending bill to pay for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the cleanup of last year's hurricanes in the Gulf states includes a small section that bars the White House from proceeding with a plan to use some money from surplus power sales to reduce the deficit.

Two commissioners from a rural fire district in northwest Spokane County will not face ouster this year because the 16 charges listed in a pair of recall petitions aren't legally sufficient, a Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday. A recall by an organization calling itself A Group of Concerned Citizens of Fire District 5 had submitted a list of complaints against Commissioners James Ryan and Greg Lucht alleging everything from illegal closed meetings and improper bidding of contracts to intimidation of the staff and "blatant disregard of their civil duties."

YAKIMA – Washington Democrats called for a "rapid exit strategy" from Iraq, with the United Nations in charge of a peace conference and the rebuilding of some 15 years of war damage. In a platform that takes issue with most aspects of President Bush's foreign policy, they also called for "peaceful resolution" to disputes with Iran, an end to the embargo with Cuba and support of the Kyoto Treaty on global warming.

YAKIMA – The place is the same, but a quick look around shows that it's the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are holding their statewide convention here this weekend. The Republican red shirts have been replaced with Democrat blue.

The Spokane City Council has approved extending municipal water services to an area north of the city limits outside the Urban Growth Area. The council voted 6-0 on Tuesday night to override staff objections and begin negotiating with developer Peter Rayner to provide city water to 16 homes he wants to build on 10 acres east of Indian Trail Road. It reversed a decision from 2004 that refused to extend city water into the area.

The owners of the River Park Square mall owe their former manager $6.5 million for uncompensated work his company performed, a state Appeals Court ruled Tuesday. The three-judge panel refused to overturn a 2004 jury verdict in favor of R.W. Robideaux and Co., which was fired as the mall management company in late 2002 after a dispute over compensation for the redevelopment of the downtown mall.

The city of Spokane and the owner of the defunct Spokane Shadow soccer team are ending their deal over Joe Albi Stadium. The City Council approved in a 6-0 vote Tuesday night an agreement that gives Bobby Brett's Red Card LLC a payment of $330,000 in return for canceling the five years remaining on the team's lease. Red Card will give up revenue from advertising at the stadium, and the city will get out of certain other costs it bore under the lease.

YAKIMA – Immigrants who are in the United States illegally should go back to their home countries before they can be part of any "guest worker" program, Washington state Republicans said Saturday. Illegal immigrants should have no special rights, and any babies they have while in the United States should not be citizens, the delegates also said.