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Megan Cooley

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All Stories

News >  Voices

An issue of sewer installation, streets

The Spokane Valley City Council has a simple question for residents: Do you want to pay for better streets or will you settle for poorer quality roads in some neighborhoods? Voters will answer Sept. 14, but many citizens say the council's request is more complicated than that.
News >  Voices

City Council agrees to cap plan-reviewing fees

The Spokane Valley City Council made a business-friendly move at its meeting Tuesday night. The council unanimously agreed to put a cap on the amount developers have to pay the city to have their plans for new buildings reviewed.
News >  Spokane

Pay boost for council faces fight

A group of Spokane Valley citizens wants to freeze a City Council pay hike before it takes effect. About 50 people have organized to fight the salary increase, which was announced Aug. 2. If the group can gather 6,174 signatures by 5 p.m. Sept. 10, voters will decide whether to give the council a raise on Election Day in November.
News >  Voices

Longtime Valley educator moves on

Skip Bonuccelli is spending the last days of August following the same routine he has for years. He's attending meetings, fixing up his office and talking with students and parents in the halls of a school. But what in the world is Skip Bonuccelli, the longtime Central Valley School District spokesman and educator, doing in north Spokane?
News >  Voices

Longtime Valley educator moves on

Skip Bonuccelli is spending the last days of August following the same routine he has for years. He's attending meetings, fixing up his office and talking with students and parents in the halls of a school. But what in the world is Skip Bonuccelli, the longtime Central Valley School District spokesman and educator, doing in north Spokane?
News >  Voices

School registrations approaching

It's the time of year when back-to-school commercials invade your television and summer pastimes that were fun in June become booorrr-ing. It's also time to register your children for school if you're new to the area, have a kindergartner or hope to transfer schools within your district.
News >  Spokane

Valley chamber official dies in crash on U.S. 2

Ken Holloway's goal for the Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce was to have 711 members this year. At the organization's breakfast meeting Friday, 32 new members joined, surpassing Holloway's goal. But the 56-year-old chamber vice president missed the milestone. He died Thursday on U.S. Highway 2 behind the wheel of his car.
News >  Spokane

Valley takes budget to people

Spokane Valley City Manager Dave Mercier is gearing up for a tour. No, he's not trading in his ties for rock 'n' roll. Mercier and other city staffers will hit the road next month to talk to residents about the city's 2005 budget.
News >  Spokane

Six agencies make pitches for funding

Beau Mellem worked three jobs, but he still couldn't cover his medical expenses. When doctors had to replace a valve in his heart last year, the 23-year-old Spokane Valley resident turned to Project Access for help. Now Project Access, an agency that gives specialized medical care to low-income patients free of charge, is turning to the city of Spokane Valley. It was among six agencies at the City Council meeting Tuesday night that asked for money from the 2005 budget.
News >  Spokane

Back to school already?

The scene at Skyview CCS Elementary School Monday morning was typical for a first day of school. Parents snapped photos of wide-eyed kindergartners shuffling toward their new teachers. Older students donated supplies to their classrooms' stash. And mothers gripped lattes in doorways, catching up with one another.
News >  Voices

Law passes requiring larger back yards in new homes

The Spokane Valley City Council unanimously passed a law Tuesday that will require new homes to have bigger back yards. It also allows tall houses to be built just 10 feet apart. The amendments to the city's interim comprehensive land-use plan help clean up some clumsy language in the law.
News >  Voices

Sweet memories

An old produce scale hangs in the garden shed at the Nelson home, but it has been almost a decade since any fruits or vegetables weighed it down. Before he died, Bob Nelson's garden and orchard produced some of the Spokane Valley's finest peaches, plums and tomatoes. Nelson also grew Hearts of Gold cantaloupes, a melon once wildly popular here. Hearts of Gold are hard to find today — possibly due to changes in the climate and irrigation techniques — but memories of their sweet flesh are still ripe in the minds of longtime Valley residents.
News >  Spokane

Study sheds more light on businesses along couplet

Matt Jankowski doesn't need a study to know that revenues at his Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant have dropped, but he has one now anyway. The Spokane Valley Business Association released a study Wednesday that shows how businesses along the one-way portion of Sprague Avenue have fared since the Sprague-Appleway couplet was built four years ago. Fifty-five percent of business owners there reported a drop in revenues. That decline averaged 27 percent, the study said.
News >  Spokane

Council backs ballot measures

The Spokane Valley City Council wants your vote. On Tuesday, the council unanimously endorsed two items on the Sept. 14 ballot: increasing property taxes to pay for street improvements and permanently joining the two fire districts that protect the city now.
News >  Spokane

Return of the fashion classics

If the word "alarming" comes to mind when you think of recent teenage girl fashion, you're not alone. Tight tops have been paired with ultra-low-rise pants, and shocking styles once seen on the red carpets of Hollywood could be seen in some classrooms last year. Well, brace yourselves. The model currently gracing the main page of the Gap's Web site wears an outfit that's truly shocking.
News >  Spokane

Valley studies business registration fee

Spokane Valley business owners have a mixed reaction to the news that the City Council might require them to pay the city an annual registration fee. The council is considering charging companies that do business in Spokane Valley $13 a year. Nonprofit organizations would pay $3.
News >  Spokane

Making peace with his past

Time is supposed to heal all wounds, but Ken Coman sent two apology letters and $250 for good measure. Fifteen years have passed since Coman was a student at Keystone Elementary School in Spokane Valley. The 26-year-old is now a father and recruitment manager in Ogden, Utah, but he never forgot a mistake he made in the fifth grade.
News >  Voices

Mary Glidden lived a full life

"Woman! Clean that up," a patient snapped at Mary Glidden after spitting into a tissue and throwing it on the hospital floor. The Middle Eastern man, injured during Desert Storm, didn't know he was barking orders at a major in the U.S. Army Reserve. He saw Glidden's blond hair, petite frame and pretty face and assumed he could intimidate her from his hospital bed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
News >  Spokane

District outlines plans for Valley library

If the Spokane County Library District could write a children's book about its future, it would include illustrations of construction workers in yellow hard hats driving backhoes and hammering nails. If the district wrote an adult version of the story, it likely would be shelved in the mystery section. It's unclear who will run the Valley library next year and whether voters will one day agree to fund the district's plans.
News >  Spokane

Valley pay hike in works

Spokane Valley City Council members and mayor are on track to more than double their salaries. Unless citizens oppose the new salaries, the mayor's monthly pay will increase to $1,200 from $500, the deputy mayor will receive $1,000 rather than $400, and the five other council members will earn $900 instead of $400.
News >  Spokane

Pet licenses not wildly popular

Spokane Valley City Councilman Richard Munson loves his springer spaniel Bailey, but he doesn't have much compassion for people who don't license their pets. If you're one of them, you might consider making Rover legal before you're slapped with a $200 fine.
News >  Spokane

Architects present WV plans

Flow is not the first word that comes to mind when one pictures students navigating the halls of a high school. But good flow is one of the West Valley School District's goals as it plans to remodel West Valley High. "I like the traffic patterns," school board member Jim Williams said after looking over the future layout of the school Wednesday.
News >  Voices

Changes to planning regulations proposed

The Spokane Valley City Council is considering changes to its planning regulations that would ensure that vehicles parked in driveways wouldn't jut out into road and that would only require houses to be built five feet from their side property lines, regardless of their height. The amendment also would clean up some clumsy portions of the city's interim comprehensive land-use plan, which Spokane Valley adopted from Spokane County when it incorporated. The code includes regulations that don't apply to urban areas and there are some redundancies and ambiguities in the law, Community Development Director Marina Sukup said.