County commissioners are shuffling their Conservation Futures shopping list to take advantage of a half-price sale. They accepted Parks Director Doug Chase’s recommendation to snap up 552 acres in the Saltese area south of Liberty Lake and Spokane Valley.
County commissioners agreed Tuesday to consider a bicycle helmet ordinance. Users of skateboards, roller skates and scooters also might be required to wear helmets in unincorporated portions of Spokane County.
The Spokane County assessor’s office undervalued scores of properties for years, according to a state audit for 2008 and 2009. The report released Monday says new construction on 157 properties in the Cheney area was added to the tax rolls seven years late on average during the two-year audit period. Seventy-one of the parcels had a value of more than $100,000, according to the state auditor’s office.
County commissioners lowered their sights Tuesday for a building-height increase aimed at snagging a 1 million-square-foot distribution center. The potential West Plains warehouse needs to be almost 50 feet tall because of automated storage-and-retrieval equipment, but county light industrial zoning allows only 40 feet.
Spokane County must hire a consultant and submit to close supervision by state officials to continue work on a $66 million project to improve Bigelow Gulch Road. The Washington State Department of Transportation stripped the county of independent authority to acquire land for the Bigelow project and other federally or state-funded projects.
County commissioners caught a couple of rays of economic sunshine Friday. They learned two unnamed companies are interested in surplus Spokane County land that was acquired for the Geiger Spur railroad.
Local governments are fighting a federal order to send the IRS 3 percent of what they owe their suppliers and contractors. Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton estimates the unfunded congressional mandate, which takes effect in January, will cost the county around $100,000 in staff time for preparations.
There will be no Spokane County jail bond measure this year and less chance of a legal challenge when a vote is scheduled, probably next year. County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to abandon a controversial declaration of emergency that was necessary for a vote this year.
Spokane County commissioners plan to decide today whether to keep a jail bond measure off the ballot this year. Commissioners appear to be leaning in that direction and have scheduled a news conference this afternoon to announce their decision.
An 18-month project to preserve the hopes and dreams of generations of Spokane County residents is nearing completion. Paper may crumble, but faded writing in scores of oversize books at the county auditor’s office will continue to tell the stories of long-forgotten sweethearts who married, bought property and were laid to rest.
Washington’s Public Records Act often produces sharp reactions from government officials, especially when it is used as a blunt instrument. When former Spokane County appraiser Josh Bungen used anonymous email addresses to request hundreds of thousands of assessor’s records, county commissioners endorsed legislation to darken the sunshine law.
Anonymous requests for hundreds of thousands of Spokane County assessor’s records have been traced to a former employee. Appraiser Josh Bungen, who resigned Jan. 5, used untraceable Hotmail email addresses to request what Assessor Vicki Horton said was enough documents to cripple her office.
County commissioners want to change a height restriction that could block a million-square-foot distribution center on the West Plains. Business and government officials say the Colliers International real estate firm is studying several sites near Spokane International Airport for an undisclosed client, but a 40-foot height limit is too low.
Six Spokane County right-of-way workers received layoff notices Tuesday in the wake of severe criticism by state officials. The notices, effective April 29, apply to everyone in the right-of-way office except the secretary, who may be assigned other duties.
Land-use changes to accommodate a new jail on the West Plains were about as welcome as a strip search in public testimony Thursday. Eleven people, including Medical Lake City Administrator Doug Ross, objected to the jail in a Spokane County Planning Commission hearing. No one other than staff and consultants spoke in favor of the proposal.
Voters may get a chance to decide whether Spokane County needs more than three commissioners to run local government, the number it’s had since Washington became a U.S. territory in 1854. Karen Kearney, a civic activist and unsuccessful Spokane City Council candidate, said she soon will ask county commissioners to schedule a vote on increasing the size of the board to five members.
Spokane County residents’ “clean green” yard waste won’t have to travel so far next month, saving the Spokane Regional Solid Waste System around $2 a ton. A contract change approved this week by county commissioners and the Spokane City Council will send yard waste to the Barr-Tech composting center near Fish Lake starting April 4.
The state of Spokane County isn’t as bad as it might have been and things are looking up, county commission Chairman Al French said Friday. French told some 215 business and civic leaders that Spokane County finished 2010 in better financial condition than other counties in the state and the nation.
A man who shot a retired teacher to death in a 2002 road-rage case had his first-degree murder conviction overturned. Christopher W. Conklin was improperly denied an opportunity to withdraw his guilty plea, the Washington Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
Spokane County will pay $300,000 to settle a former Geiger Corrections Center guard’s claim of on-the-job discrimination and harassment. Beverley Ridley-Gardner complained of racial and gender discrimination as well as harassment for reporting problems such as male guards fraternizing with female inmates.
A resort along the Idaho state line, focusing on the Cabela’s sporting goods store, was approved this week. Spokane County Hearing Examiner Michael Dempsey granted a conditional use permit for the 348-room Riverview resort and a controversial riverside trail.
Two phases of Spokane County’s $66 million project to improve Bigelow Gulch Road don’t qualify for federal right-of-way reimbursement. On top of that, the Washington State Department of Transportation said Monday, three more phases “may be at risk” because of county blunders.
As part of its plan to prevent another economic meltdown, the federal government is cracking down on library trustees. Spokane County Library District trustees recently joined library boards around the state in asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to excuse them from a requirement to register as financial advisers.
