Mike Prager

City street crews will start their annual fall leaf cleanup next Monday, but city officials are asking residents not to rake or dump yard leaves into the streets. To save money on leaf cleanup, the city last year ended the practice of picking up yard leaves placed curbside.

Norway maples are by far the most common street trees on the South Side. A newly completed inventory of trees on public rights of way lists 4,256 Norway maples out of the total of 14,961 street trees, or 28 percent. These trees are big, too. Average diameter of the Norway maple trunks is nearly 17 inches.

SOUTH SIDE VOICE, October 31, 1996, page S5: CORRECTION Officials at Manito Park are spending $800 for 10 new but oak trees near the Grand Boulevard park entrance. The cost was incorrectly reported in last week's South Side Voice. 1. Maggie Owen of the Spokane Parks Department cleans up a pile of leaves along Manito Blvd. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review 2. Kerman and Holly Barker Love take in the colorful sights along Manito Boulevard. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Homeowners can help Spokane's "urban forest" by selecting trees that are easy to care for and that will provide greater diversity of trees to the city. City parks staff offers these suggestions on the best trees to plant:

City officials say the new traffic lights on Fourth Avenue at Walnut and Maple will reduce the number of traffic accidents at that busy downtown location. In 1994 and 1995, police reported 45 accidents at the two intersections, including two accidents involving pedestrians at Fourth and Maple.

Plans to develop eight acres of city park land at 43rd and Havana are being put on hold for the fourth year in a row, city officials said this week. The Spokane Parks and Recreation Department bought land for Ben Burr Park in 1991 and worked with residents the following few years to plan a design for development.

Tim Ward works a bulldozer Tuesday at Schweitzer Mountain Resort. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

1. Above, Bob Barros sits with his dog Max to enjoy the passing scenery in the South Perry business district. Barros runs a photography business out of the old warehouse in the background. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Right, Diana Ellison operates a gift shop out of a unique buildingat 10th and Perry.

The effort to get the Rockwood neighborhood placed on the National Register of Historic Places has cleared its first governmental hurdle, but two steps remain. Some 330 homes, Hutton Elementary School and one apartment building occupy the 180-acre district in southeast Spokane.

Neighbors living atop Sunset Hill west of downtown like their tranquil surroundings near Indian Canyon Golf Course. That's why they are so concerned about a plan to expand apartment dwellings nearby.

The COPS neighborhood crime-fighting effort on the South Hill is expanding to cover a wider area. Residents living in the southwest section of the city are organizing a new COPS shop to be housed in the lower level of an apartment building at 820 S. Monroe. COPS Southwest should open within a month, after details of a lease are worked out through City Hall, said Shirley Wilson, an organizer of the new COPS shop.

The view area along High Drive on the South Hill is getting a new look for the sake of safety. City engineers plan to spend up to $65,000 installing new sections of guardrail to protect motorists from going off the bluff or from hitting trees.

Flooded basements and streets are getting more common in parts of southeast Spokane, especially with the homebuilding boom near Browne Mountain. For example, Doug Kelley, who lives near one of the affected areas, near 57th and Freya, said, "For 10 months of the year, I've got a swamp in one corner of my back yard."

Summer, which officially ends Sunday, will no doubt be remembered as a hot one.

A rainbow arch leading to the Grant Park play area is symbolic of the diversity and community spirit in this ethnically mixed section of southeast Spokane. Neighbors living near the park spent two years working to improve the play area and the park's landscaping.

Construction is under way at Empire and Cook on 172 new apartments for low-income families and seniors. The apartments are being built through a partnership of public and private entities that one legal expert said is the first of its kind in the state of Washington.

1. Civilian Conservation Corps alumni Earl Cahill, Larry Tipke and Fred Blood visit the iste of old Camp Seven Mile off Aubrey White Parkway. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review 2. The suspension footbridge over the Spokane River at Bowl and Pitcher, shown in this 1941 photo, is just one of the projects built by the CCC. File photo/The Spokesman-Review 3. Fred Blood, second from left, was a young cook in 1937 when he served in the CCC at Chatcolet, Idaho. 4. (Photo from In Life only): CCC crew built the stone Vista House on the summit of Mount Spokane. This scene is from 1937. File/The Spokesman-Review

The Rev. Edward Glynn is Gonzaga University's 24th president. File/The Spokesman-Review

Darren Prouty does a quick, curbside repair for a customer at Precision Propeller. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

The Morgan Acres Fire Department is one of the smallest volunteer districts in the state. It's no surprise that the department is looking for more volunteers. Officials in the 1.5-square-mile district are looking to add to their staff of 15 volunteers and a full-time chief. The district has 1,700 residents in an area bounded by Francis, Crestline, Lincoln Road and the vicinity of Havana.

Residents of the North Hill area are still looking for a commercial site to house a new COPS shop. They've been talking about organizing a Community Oriented Police Station since last January.

Spokane police officer Percy Watkins was one of the first neighborhood resource officers assigned under the city's community-oriented policing program. In the past three years, he became something of a celebrity in northeast Spokane working around the schools, community center and the Northeast COPS station.

Some neighbors think fixing Hazard Road would lead to speeding drivers. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

Precarious conditions. Nathan Hunt, left, and Tainya Adamson battle a wall of flames with towels Tuesday after a fire raced uphill from Interstate 90 toward Post Falls homes. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review