John Craig

Several major road projects in Spokane Valley are about to join those already challenging motorists in Spokane. Getting across the Spokane River will be one of the bigger difficulties in both cities.

Don't tell Dick Jensen, Duane Broyles or Duane Sunwold that nothing interesting ever happens in Spokane. They are among a growing number of Spokane residents working to tell the colorful stories of larger-than-life characters who built the city.

Spokane Valley residents may continue to fill firefighters' boots for charity while they're in traffic. But the City Council on Tuesday laid to rest, at least for the time being, a proposal to broadcast meetings and other city information on the Internet. A staff report said the cost might be around $100,000 a year.

Spokane Valley firefighters responded to a two-for-one vehicle fire and 227 other calls in the seven days that ended Wednesday. Deputy Fire Marshal Bill Clifford said two vehicles, parked side by side in a driveway in the 9600 block of East Valleyway Avenue were destroyed May 9 when one of them caught fire. The cause remained under investigation Thursday.

The Spokane Valley City Council won't give back the big yards it took from Greenacres residents in a zoning flip-flop. A motion to keep faith with a zone change the council granted in January 2005, and later nullified, died Tuesday in a 3-3 tie.

Spokane Valley Mayor Rich Munson has asked the federal government to pay for the emergency communications system that would be built with a 0.1 percent sales tax increase on Tuesday's election ballot. Acting as president of the Association of Washington Cities, Munson says in letters to the state's congressional delegation that the federal government should bear the cost because it ordered the change.

Spokane Valley firefighters responded to 196 calls in the seven days that ended Wednesday, including a couple of animal-ignited power poles. A bird nest shorted out electric wires and caused a transformer fire near the corner of Trent Avenue and Best Road on Monday that caused a power outage and knocked out traffic signals.

Spokane Valley wants a guaranteed $300,000 share of federal community development block grant money administered by Spokane County. That proposal is to be considered this evening by the county's Housing and Community Development Advisory Committee.

The Spokane Valley Fire Department is appealing for information about a fire someone set April 24 in a stack of wooden pallets behind a store. The arson was reported shortly after midnight at the Dollar Store, 15303 E. Sprague Ave. It caused little damage but much concern, according to Inspector Bill Clifford, who asked anyone with information about the fire to call 928-1700.

Spokane Valley's car dealers urged the City Council Tuesday to put the pedal to the metal on the way to "Auto Disneyland." That's the dealers' vision of a future in which the current Auto Row on East Sprague Avenue would become a "Celebration of Transportation."

Stevens County commissioners will conduct a public hearing Monday to decide whether Lake Spokane-area residents should be allowed to create the county's first park district. If commissioners find enough public support, they may place the proposed Lake Spokane Park and Recreation District on the Nov. 4 general election ballot.

Among 428 calls in the fortnight that ended Wednesday, Spokane Valley firefighters pulled a 15-year-old girl out of a 12-foot-deep hole and treated an 11-year-old boy whose face was burned by an exploding aerosol can. Inspector Bill Clifford said the girl was walking in the 18700 block of Appleway Boulevard on April 12 when she fell into a 3 ½-foot diameter hole at a construction site. It was about 7:30 p.m. and getting dark, and the girl didn't see the hazard, which was covered with a thin sheet of plastic, Clifford said.

Paul Revere has nothing on "Valley Mike" Wolther. Except that the British really were coming. Wolther, a real estate agent whose nickname is his trademark, inadvertently lit up the Internet this week with an old-fashioned paper handbill that dubiously warned a jail might be coming to Spokane Valley.

A divided Spokane Valley City Council agreed Tuesday to endorse ballot measures providing taxes for buses and emergency communications. The council also approved a letter of intent to negotiate with University City Inc. for a site on which to build a new City Hall.

Spokane Valley city officials are kicking firefighters' Fill the Boot fundraising drive out of city streets. "We're not telling them they can't have a fundraiser," Mayor Rich Munson said. "We're just telling them they can't stop traffic to do it."

Spokane Valley city officials are kicking firefighters' Fill the Boot fundraising drive out of city streets. "We're not telling them they can't have a fundraiser," Mayor Rich Munson said. "We're just telling them they can't stop traffic to do it."

Spokane Valley plans to solicit bids soon for a new Barker Road Bridge that is designed to last 50 years, but a state lease says it must be abandoned or demolished in 30 years. Steve Worley, the city's senior engineer for capital projects, told City Council Tuesday that the proposed agreement for use of the Spokane River is a boilerplate lease intended more for commercial enterprises than municipal governments.

Some of the most enthusiastic support for Spokane Valley's proposed Sprague-Appleway Revitalization Plan at a March 13 public hearing came from the wife of a city employee. No one pointed out that relationship when Anngela Wakan addressed the city Planning Commission.

It was hard to tell the Republicans from the Democrat when Spokane County Commissioners Mark Richard and Todd Mielke squared off against former Commissioner John Roskelley Tuesday. In testimony before the Spokane Valley City Council, Republicans Richard and Mielke urged the council to endorse a 0.1 percent sales tax increase for emergency communications.

Spokane and Spokane Valley city officials hope voters will approve a new tax to patch the potholes in their street budgets. A vehicle registration fee, authorized last year by the Legislature, is the most likely possibility in the short run. But some city officials think a "street utility" may be their best bet.