Mike Prager

A Spokane City Hall effort to save the 1934 Rookery and 1915 Mohawk buildings downtown has drawn a purchase proposal from just one private development company, which wants to renovate the buildings for residential and commercial uses. Wells & Co. of Spokane met Monday's deadline for submitting its proposal for the $4.8 million properties at Riverside Avenue and Howard Street.

Things were busy enough Friday at the House of Charity without having to clean up a couple of hundred gallons of water sprayed inside the shelter when a sprinkler pipe froze and then burst. It was part of long night for a shelter staff working hard to make sure Spokane's homeless had a warm place to spend the bitterly cold night. The shelter took in an extra 25 guests as temperatures dropped to 3 degrees and winds gusted to more than 30 mph just before dawn Friday.

Recalled Spokane Mayor Jim West lashed out at The Spokesman-Review on Thursday, hours after the FBI announced that a criminal investigation into his conduct in office did not produce enough evidence to warrant federal public corruption charges. "There was a mob mentality created by the local newspaper," West said.

Installation of a new gondola ride in Riverfront Park last fall was just the start of what could be a series of major changes in Spokane's century-old park system. The gondola has drawn nearly 13,000 riders in a little more than three months of limited operation during its fall-winter schedule.

If the Spokane City Council wanted to send a message that ethics and family values are important qualities in local government, they couldn't have found a better candidate than Rob Crow. At 36, Crow is a successful small-business man, father and regular churchgoer. A resident of the fast-growing Five Mile Prairie neighborhood, Crow was named recently to fill a council seat vacated after the recall of Mayor Jim West last December.

There is hope for human services agencies that were denied money by the budget-conscious Spokane City Council. Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession said he would support an effort to restore grants to at least two of the agencies.

Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession on Friday threw his support behind a proposal to streamline any future recall elections of Spokane city officials. "The state's system of recall is very, very cumbersome," Hession said during a breakfast appearance before the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce.

An anonymous donor has offered the city of Spokane more than $1 million to complete a historic renovation of the Moore-Turner Heritage Garden on the lower South Hill, officials said on Wednesday. The city-owned garden of nearly three acres was once the playground of U.S. Sen. George Turner and his wife, Bertha. In 1903, the Turners hosted touring President Theodore Roosevelt. Their garden was the frequent setting for exclusive social occasions.