Nicholas Deshais

Scott Chesney, Spokane’s planning director who was fired last month, lost his job not only due to his “inability to lead,” but also because he used city funds to buy a leather portfolio embossed with his name as well as personalized hard hats for his employees. Notes in Chesney’s personnel file written by his supervisor, Jan Quintrall, said his department “has been in the crosshairs all year,” and that Chesney had “failed in the leadership role.” Quintrall also took aim at City Council members in her notes that became part of Chesney’s file. She referred to two of them, including Council President Ben Stuckart, as “arrogant” for questioning decisions within the planning department.

Cameras used to snare red-light runners will now be used to nab school zone speeders. Children who walk or bike to Longfellow, Finch and Stevens elementary schools may have a safer route next year as the city works to launch a camera pilot program that has been shown to drastically reduce speeds near schools in other Washington cities.

New student housing near Gonzaga University and an apartment building in Kendall Yards will get tax breaks for 12 years after the Spokane City Council agreed that the projects fell under a program that encourages residential density for people who earn less than an average income. The projects are among a handful that have been approved since the council rewrote the rules governing the program two years ago. A study showed that it had been used for developments on the outskirts out of town – not really the sort of density the program was meant to encourage. The council voted to strengthen the income requirements, and amended where such tax exemptions are allowed.

A scuttled deal between the region’s two largest fire departments has led Spokane Mayor David Condon to accuse the Spokane City Council of playing politics with public safety. Condon said he was “surprised” when the council voted against an agreement on Monday that he said would have put the city and Spokane Valley at the forefront of emergency medicine by allowing the departments to share a medical director and integrated emergency medicine coordinator, moving the region toward a “collaborative medical ecosystem.”

Short-term rentals in the emerging “shared economy” took a step closer to lawful reality in Spokane on Monday night, as the City Council passed an emergency resolution asking the state to relax a law that could squelch such deals. Councilman Mike Allen, who sponsored the resolution, said Spokane has become a trailblazer when it comes to short-term rentals that are offered on sites like Airbnb.com.

Spokane’s mayor would no longer have to be the highest-paid city worker under a proposal voters may decide next year. Councilman Mike Fagan is proposing to give the city’s Salary Review Commission the power to set the mayor’s wage, a change that would require approval from city voters. The idea was first proposed by Mayor David Condon after the blowback he received when he proposed giving himself a raise based on the city charter, which currently requires him to be the top-paid city worker.

’Tis the season – for lights to be strung on everything. Trees. Buildings. The occasional pet. An urban park. This holiday season, Spokane’s Riverfront Park will feature the first of what’s hoped to be an annual event, the Spokane Winter Glow Spectacular. Thirty displays showing different holiday scenes will ring an inner loop in the park, and they’ll twinkle through the month of December.

The city of Spokane violated laws protecting disabled people when terminating an employee who suffered a stroke, according to a jury verdict Tuesday. The judgment also focused on Heather Lowe, the city’s human resources director, for her role in the dismissal of Liane Carlson, who worked under Lowe. Carlson had worked for the city for five years as a human resources specialist and analyst, and was the city’s coordinator for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Almost $50,000 in proposed salary increases for 12 nonunion city employees were stripped from Mayor David Condon’s 2015 budget proposal Monday night, including those for the mayor’s cabinet, as Spokane City Council members approved a modified budget with more than $600,000 in new spending focused on their own priorities. The council was nearly unanimous in its support for the budget and its changes, largely authored by Council President Ben Stuckart. Councilman Mike Fagan voted against the budget.

If you flush less, you pay less. That’s the idea behind Spokane’s proposed sewage rates for the next three years. According to the plan, which will be considered by the Spokane City Council on Monday, apartment dwellers and the bottom 20 percent of water users will be given discounts on their monthly sewage bills. Multifamily residences would pay $2 a month less, and low water users would see their monthly bills shaved by up to $5.

When three potential names for the plaza next to Spokane City Hall were recommended to the City Council last month, Isamu (Som) Jordan’s name wasn’t included. City Council President Ben Stuckart put Jordan’s name on the list anyway, saying the swell of support for Jordan on social media convinced him that Jordan, a local musician and former Spokesman-Review writer who died last year, should be honored. Stuckart eventually proposed naming a stage and annual music festival after Jordan, and the council unanimously supported the idea.

Two historic buildings on Spokane’s storied auto row will be demolished as part of a master plan to build a large downtown campus for an auto dealership. The decision to remove the buildings at 1023 and 1027 W. Third Ave. came after Megan Duvall, the city’s new historic preservation officer, realized she could use a provision in the city’s demolition ordinance allowing for the razing of historic buildings as long as their destruction supported the rehabilitation of an adjacent historic structure.

The new plaza next to Spokane City Hall has a new name: the Spokane Tribal Gathering Place. Spokane City Council members unanimously approved the name, which will be accompanied by the phrase, “The Place Where Salmon is Prepared,” written in Salish, the region’s native language.

The new plaza next to Spokane City Hall has a new name: the Spokane Tribal Gathering Place.

Below blue California skies last month, Spokane city officials trekked to downtown San Francisco to argue for “green bonds.” In two gleaming Bay Area skyscrapers in the heart of the city’s financial district, Mayor David Condon and City Council President Ben Stuckart, along with the city’s financial gurus, pleaded for favorable ratings for what will be the largest bond issuance in the city’s history – with a type of bond that was first used in the country just last year.

Jerrie Allard, head of Spokane’s Community, Housing and Human Services Department, is leaving the city next month after eight years. Brian Coddington, the mayor’s spokesman, said Thursday that Allard had indicated to the mayor she wanted to retire last week. Her last day at the city will be Dec. 12. Allard, 56, was paid about $95,000 per year.

Scott Chesney, Spokane’s planning director who was abruptly ousted from his position last week, said Wednesday he was taking the “high road” and ending his role at the city. Chesney did not give details on why he was forced to resign, but his silence is in line with that of Mayor David Condon and Jan Quintrall, head of the city’s Business and Development Services and Chesney’s supervisor, who both said they could not comment on the matter because of personnel confidentiality.

Spokane Mayor David Condon said Monday there was no possibility for Scott Chesney to return to City Hall after being pushed out of his job as the city’s planning director last week. Making his first public comments on the matter, Condon said he’d met with developers who had questioned the decision that led to Chesney’s forced resignation but didn’t place undue weight on what they said to him. He also noted the “magnitude of interest” in Chesney’s abrupt departure from the city.

Within a day of being ousted as Spokane’s planning director, Scott Chesney gained influential supporters both within and outside City Hall. Walt Worthy, developer of the Grand Hotel Spokane being built downtown, and Dave Black, who brought Target to the South Hill, said separately that Chesney’s dismissal was unneeded and called for his reinstatement. Their support comes on the heels of that from Jim Frank, president of Greenstone Corp., which is developing Kendall Yards, and Ron Wells, who is renovating the Ridpath Hotel.

Hours after the city planning director was forced out of his job on Wednesday, one of Spokane’s premier developers publicly called on the mayor to hire him back. Jim Frank, president of Greenstone Corp., which is developing Kendall Yards, sent an email to numerous city and business leaders Wednesday evening after hearing that Scott Chesney, Spokane’s planning director since 2011, abruptly left the city.

Hours after the city planning director was forced out of his job on Wednesday, one of Spokane’s premiere developers publicly called on the mayor to hire him back.