Mike Prager

Parts of the lower South Hill and Peaceful Valley have been seeing an increase in criminal activity, shown in part by an upswing in the number of graffiti incidents reported to the COPS Southwest police volunteers. Spokane City Council members were told about the problem during a town-hall meeting on Jan. 16 with representatives of neighborhood organizations from the downtown area, lower South Hill, Peaceful Valley and southwest Spokane at Council Chambers.

Six of seven Spokane City Council members are headed to Olympia today as part of a wider effort by civic leaders to lobby state legislators on issues important to Spokane. Councilman Brad Stark said he opted out of the trip when he realized that all of the other council members were going. The cost is $675 per person, including three nights of lodging.

Spokane City Councilman Rob Crow says the city needs to do more to help the poor, the young and the elderly. Crow is calling for a $218,000 increase in the city's program that provides grants to agencies that help people in need.

Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession's use of a public affairs firm with a political tie to his campaign was blasted Thursday by one of Hession's potential opponents in the race for mayor this fall. Councilman Al French, who is expected to announce his candidacy for mayor at the end of January, said on Thursday that Hession has plenty of expertise within City Hall and doesn't need a pricey consultant to tell him how to explain the need for more efficiency.

Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession announced Wednesday that he is running for mayor this fall, a move that had been widely expected after Hession was appointed to the post more than a year ago. Hession cited a list of accomplishments since the City Council elevated him to mayor in December 2005 after the recall of then-Mayor Jim West.

When Spokane Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch took a controversial sick leave last September, his boss, Mayor Dennis Hession, hired a public relations firm to help explain Lynch's absence to the public. On Tuesday, the Spokane City Council unanimously approved a $1,400 bill to pay for the services of the Gallatin Group, a Pacific Northwest-based firm with an office in Spokane.

Copies of the Vox student newspaper were pulled at Gonzaga Prep High School this week after a front page story quoted a Prep student as saying that he had used marijuana and found it to be a positive experience. The Rev. Kevin Connell, the principal at Prep, said he gathered copies of the newspaper that had been made available in the school library to prevent further circulation of the article, which named the 17-year-old student.

There's a new comet very visible low in the early evening sky, but with all of the cloudy weather in recent days, it's been impossible to see. That may change tonight. Arctic air is expected to bring the kind of crisp clear skies that are perfect for catching views of celestial bodies, and Comet McNaught is now one of the brightest objects in the sky.

It's been a year since the Spokane City Council approved a new ethics policy and an ethics committee to enforce it. The fifth member of that seven-member committee, Gonzaga University professor Ron Large, was confirmed by the council on Monday. Four others were confirmed last week.

Mayor Dennis Hession has declined to release an early version of a $260,000 independent efficiency study to the public or City Council because, he said, it was found to have errors that needed correcting. Assistant City Attorney Pat Dalton cited an exemption in state public records law that allows the city to maintain confidentiality of "preliminary drafts."

Get ready for some real winter. Arctic cold is expected to plunge into the Inland Northwest late next week following a series of Pacific storms that should bring a mix of snow, rain and wind through Wednesday.

The Spokane City Council on Tuesday approved a resolution seeking to annex 134 acres of tax-rich land along North Division Street. At the same time, Spokane County leaders said they will sue the city if it doesn't abandon the annexation. In a 6-1 vote, council members approved a resolution notifying the Boundary Review Board of the city's intent to annex the slice of land that includes the North Division Costco store and Holy Cross Cemetery. Residents of a planned unit development just west of Costco appeared before the council to protest the annexation.

The Spokane City Council on Tuesday approved a $942,000 settlement with a family after a 2004 traffic accident at an unmarked intersection left a 6-year-old boy badly injured. On March 18, 2004, a flatbed truck carrying lumber was northbound on Pittsburg Street and passing through an intersection without stop signs or signals at Lyons Avenue when it collided with a small four-door car that was eastbound on Lyons, police said.

A controversial annexation by the city of Spokane is expected to take another step today when City Council members hold a public hearing on annexing a 134-acre tax-rich commercial strip on the west side of Division Street north of Francis Avenue. The hearing is scheduled for the latter part of the council's 6 p.m. legislative session in Council Chambers at City Hall.

A threat of more fresh snow on Saturday may bring trouble for the region's motorists, but with temperatures barely climbing out of the low 30s through Monday, it could lay the base for the season's gold standard: a white Christmas. "Right now it looks like a 70 to 80 percent chance of snow on the ground (Christmas morning)," said forecaster Jeffrey Cote of the National Weather Service in Spokane.

Spokane may have overcharged the public for police accident reports, overpaid for the $2 million gondola renovation and failed to adequately monitor an ambulance contract that led to overbilling. Those were among the draft findings of the state auditor's office, which reviewed the city of Spokane's books for budget year 2005. The report was made public this week.