Mike Prager

More than two years of contract negotiations between Spokane County and its deputy sheriffs have been put on hold after the county filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the deputies. The county says the deputies association illegally changed its position on salary increases prior to binding arbitration that was scheduled to begin Tuesday.

Efforts to raise property taxes to buy homes and land around Fairchild Air Force Base dimmed Wednesday as “no” votes piled up – especially in rural and poorer areas of the county. “They just couldn’t afford to do it,” Airway Heights Mayor Patrick Rushing said of voters in two lower-income neighborhoods near the base, which rejected the measure.

Criminal justice reform ideas for Spokane drew positive reviews Wednesday evening from people knowledgeable about the system. The Spokane Regional Criminal Justice Commission last week released 58 pages of draft recommendations calling for sweeping changes focused largely on moving nonviolent offenders into alternatives to incarceration.

A tax measure to protect Fairchild Air Force Base from civilian encroachment was trailing in Tuesday night’s count, but the race was too close to call. Spokane County Proposition 1 received a 51 percent “no” vote out of nearly 80,000 ballots counted so far.

Removal of the smoking area at the downtown Spokane bus Plaza has officially been declared a failure. Work will start today on a $70,000 contract to restore the smoking area on the east side of the Plaza where smokers had previously been allowed to congregate.

The Ridpath Hotel and its east wing building have been added to the Spokane Register of Historic Places. The vote by the Spokane City Council will make the troubled and empty hotel eligible for a special property tax assessment and give the owner a property tax cut for a decade.

The drive into Spokane International Airport has become much greener in the past two years. The airport is in the middle of a three-year effort to install huge new beds of trees, shrubs and flowers, as well as a trail.

The Spokane Regional Criminal Justice Commission has released 58 pages of recommendations for getting better bang for the bucks that go toward cops, courts, jail, probation and treatment. The three-member commission, appointed a year ago by the Spokane mayor and county commissioners, issued the recommendations Thursday following a lengthy examination of the system.

A tentative labor contract for the Spokane police union appears dead on arrival in City Council chambers because it fails to embrace the recent voter-approved mandate about investigating officer wrongdoing. At least four of the council’s seven members Friday reiterated pledges all had made earlier to reject any proposed labor contract with the city’s police force that fails to include provisions allowing for the independent oversight added to the City Charter earlier this year by overwhelming vote of Spokane voters.

The Spokane Police Guild has approved a tentative contract with the city that calls for 8 percent in salary increases over four years, plus retroactive pay dating to the expiration of their last contract at the start of 2012.

The battle over bikini baristas moved this week to the Spokane County Courthouse, as county commissioners said they will hear from the public on their own version of an espresso stand dress code. County Commissioner Shelly O’Quinn said she has received numerous emails from constituents asking the county to consider a minimal clothing law for servers at java stands in the unincorporated county.

The Spokane Valley City Council won’t support a new tax to move homes out of Fairchild Air Force Base’s crash zone, saying county commissioners should have tried harder to find the money elsewhere. Proposition 1 on Tuesday’s ballot would raise as much as $18 million in property taxes over nine years to buy manufactured home parks on the south side of Airway Heights and pay to relocate hundreds of people living there.

A strong autumn storm packing lots of rain, wind and snow down to mountain pass levels is forecast for the region this weekend.

Davenport Hotel owner Walt Worthy said Tuesday that Spokane firefighters threatened to pull convention and meeting business from his hotel because of negative television ads in two Spokane City Council races this fall. Worthy and the Davenport Hotel were linked to the ads through political contributions.

Three Spokane Municipal Court judges will get a $17,000 salary bump, the City Council decided Monday. The judges had been receiving the lowest pay among all of the state’s municipal judges.

Drivers frustrated with long lines getting off Interstate 90 westbound at Liberty Lake should be seeing traffic move more freely thanks to a new roundabout where the exit, Harvard Road and Mission Avenue converge. Transportation and Liberty Lake officials held a ceremony Friday to celebrate the new roundabout, which was completed earlier this fall.

Historic preservation agents sent Spokane back to work on its effort to list the city’s signature parks and boulevards on historic registers. Spokane’s Park Board is seeking listings on the local, state and national historic registers to document the deep history of the city’s wide-ranging park system that includes work by the renowned Olmsted Brothers landscape firm.

A tenth of a penny sales tax that pays for local mental health and criminal justice services was extended through 2019 by Spokane County commissioners on Tuesday. Commissioners Todd Mielke and Shelly O’Quinn voted in favor of the extension. Commissioner Al French was away on other county business.

Spokane County commissioners said Tuesday they want to keep the state’s new legal marijuana business away from neighborhoods. Commissioners said the new recreational marijuana trade, approved by voters in Initiative 502 last November, would be allowed to thrive in land-use zones most appropriate for that activity.

Spokane City Council members voted Monday to continue appealing a $700,000 jury verdict in favor of a Spokane police officer who was fired after allegations he threatened to kill his wife during a messy divorce six years ago. The council approved a $60,000 increase in its contract with an outside law firm to carry the appeal against Officer Jay Mehring. The Spokane firm, Winston & Cashatt Lawyers, will now have an authorized maximum fee of $105,900.

All-terrain vehicle enthusiasts are pushing to get more access to local roads, including roads in unincorporated Spokane County. But Spokane County commissioners last week said they are initially reluctant to open county roads to ATVs, despite a new state law allowing it.

As ballots hit Spokane County voters’ mailboxes, Fairchild Air Force Base’s commander issued a rare warning Friday about possible encroachment near the base. Col. Brian Newberry, commander of the 92nd Air Refueling Wing, said Friday that mobile home parks on the south side of Airway Heights are incompatible with Air Force operations. The parks, with 188 units, are located within an “accident potential zone” at the northeast end of the main runway at Fairchild.