Nicholas Deshais

LaVerne Biel announced today that she would run for the District 2 seat that became vacant yesterday when Mike Allen said he would not seek a second term. Biel ran for Councilman Jon Snyder in 2013, but came in last in the primary with 20...

Spokane City Councilman Mike Allen, who was first appointed to the City Council in 2007 to fill the seat left vacant when Mary Verner became mayor, announced today he would not seek re-election this year.

When city leaders encouraged Spokane voters to pass last year’s street levy, they promised that existing property tax rates wouldn’t change. Now that promise is in jeopardy.

A crowd of vaccination opponents hoping to dissuade the Spokane City Council from kicking Councilman Mike Fagan off the county health board erupted into shouts of “coward” when a chance to publicly testify was denied them Thursday afternoon. The shout, which first came from Fagan, was aimed at Council President Ben Stuckart during a meeting in a stifling City Hall basement room that has low capacity and poor visibility because of giant pillars that block sightlines. Many attendees had to stand.

About 50 people packed the City Council briefing center on Thursday to hear the council’s discussion regarding a letter to Councilman Mike Fagan asking him to “clarify” his recent questioning the safety of vaccination and linking recent infectious disease outbreaks are linked to illegal immigration.

Are you happy with the direction the city is going, with the productive tension between the mayor and city council? What about the $150 million cut from the city's massive effort to prevent sewage from entering the Spokane River? Do you think the mayor's pay...

There’s an old landfill on East Sprague Avenue that used to be set on fire whenever its piles grew too high. After a massive fire ravaged downtown Spokane and destroyed 300 buildings in 1889, the charred debris was pushed into a ravine that cut toward Peaceful Valley. These early wanton disposals of waste have made a headache for the city as it continues work to solve a modern waste conundrum. Both old waste sites are in the way of the construction of massive tanks the city will build to capture sewage so that it can be properly treated instead of released untreated in the river.

Three days after the Spokane Regional Health District asked every adult and child in the region to get vaccinated against measles, health board member and Spokane City Councilman Mike Fagan questioned the use of vaccines and said recent outbreaks of contagious disease are linked to illegal immigration. “LOTS OF CONTROVERSY ON WHETHER OR NOT GOVT SHOULD MAKE VACCINATIONS MANDATORY,” Fagan wrote Saturday on his personal Facebook page, where he has more than 1,000 friends. “I believe that more will rise to the surface as the vaccination debate heats up. Kind of like the global warming thing, one day there is, and another day there isn’t. Only science will tell.”

Three days after the Spokane Regional Health District asked every adult and child in the region to get vaccinated against measles, health board member and Spokane City Councilman Mike Fagan questioned the use of vaccines and said recent outbreaks of contagious disease are linked to illegal immigration.

An ongoing audit of taxes paid by telephone companies operating in Spokane has turned up $700,000 in unexpected funds for the city, including more than $500,000 in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties from CenturyLink. Along with funds from T-Mobile, the money discovered so far comes from just two companies, and city officials say there’s likely more to come, though they couldn’t predict how much in unpaid tax remains. “That’s a number I can’t even tell you. There’s no way of knowing,” said Tim Dunivant, the city’s budget director, noting that every telephone company operating in Spokane will have its tax bill examined. “All the big ones. Even some of the small ones. Verizon we just completed, and everything was fine.”

Spokane has more than 200,000 people living within its borders. In its history, the city has had many more people conducting business, writing stories, creating art, helping the needy and tending to the sick. Now, with the creation of a Spokane Citizen Hall of Fame, there’s a way to recognize these residents of yesterday and today, with an eye toward educating those who will lift Spokane up tomorrow. Nominations are being solicited in six categories: Economic development and business, education, public service and philanthropy, innovation and leadership, arts and letters, and science and medicine.

I'll let this video speak for itself (in a language I don't understand).

On the heels of the recent resignation of Jan Quintrall for buying city employees food and beverages using a city credit card, Spokane Councilwoman Karen Stratton has filed legislation to officially set how much staffers can be reimbursed for meals. The bill says that city...