Jonathan Brunt

Mayor David Condon’s choice to lead the Spokane Police Department has spent much of his career managing and working for large law enforcement agencies. But it’s medium-size police forces serving cities like Spokane where Frank Straub thinks the greatest innovation can occur. “If you really want to be innovative in policing and you really want to get things done in policing, you get much more done in a department this size than you do in an Indianapolis-size department or Chicago or New York,” said Straub at a City Hall news conference after he was introduced as Spokane’s new chief.

Spokane Mayor David Condon announced today that he has chosen Indianapolis Director of Public Safety Frank Straub as the next leader of Spokane’s police force.

Spokane City Council members aren’t overly enthusiastic about the two finalists picked to lead the Spokane Police Department, but they’re content with the choices. Spokane Mayor David Condon is expected to name the city’s new police chief as early as this week. He will choose either Daniel Mahoney, the commanding officer of the Ingleside Police Station within the San Francisco Police Department, or Frank Straub, Indianapolis’ director of public safety.

A Spokane County couple lost their home to a fire this morning

It may have started as a joke, but the controversial photo of state Rep. Matt Shea standing on his Democratic challenger’s property has become a political hot potato for Republicans. The chairman of the Spokane County Republican Party, who was characterized in The Spokesman-Review and other media last week as backing Shea’s decision to post the photo to his Facebook page, now says his position was misunderstood and that he’d actually been trying to persuade Shea to remove the photo.

The chairman of the Spokane County Republican Party is standing behind state Rep. Matt Shea’s decision to post a picture of himself on the Internet standing on his Democratic challenger’s property despite public outcry that cuts across partisan lines. “This looks like a fabricated issue following a poor primary performance,” county GOP Chair Matthew Pederson said of complaints by state House hopeful Amy Biviano and others that Shea went too far with the photo, which was posted to the incumbent lawmaker’s Facebook page along with the location of a nearby intersection. Shea explained in the Facebook post that he had been door-belling the neighborhood, which was just added to the 4th Legislative District this year.

Spokane’s first police ombudsman will soon be out of a job, and the city may be without a permanent replacement for several months. Mayor David Condon has decided not to renew Ombudsman Tim Burns’ three-year contract that expires Aug. 24, said City Administrator Theresa Sanders. He will keep his job, however, until Oct. 31.

It’s going to cost more to play ball in Spokane. The Spokane Park Board voted last week to raise the per-hour cost of using softball and baseball fields. In the face of significant deficits, the board has adopted a policy aimed at recouping as much of the cost of certain activities as possible.

The Spokane Park Board on Thursday agreed to tear down the western addition to the former Broadview Dairy building, which sits mostly on land it bought to expand Riverfront Park. The board voted 7-1 to approve a $297,000 contract with Talisman Construction to demolish the addition. Although most of the building is on park land, a portion of it is on land owned by the Huckleberry Bay Co., a real estate holding company.

Incumbents representing Washington and Eastern Washington in Congress advanced easily in Tuesday’s primary to the general election, but their November opponents say they’re confident that the races aren’t over. U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, won 54 percent of the vote in a four-way primary race to retain her seat representing Washington’s 5th Congressional District. She will face Democrat Rich Cowan, the founder of North by Northwest Productions, who took 35 percent of the vote. McMorris Rodgers and Cowan eliminated two long-shot candidates.