Nicholas Deshais

Despite a nearly $500,000 estimating error on a bridge renovation project, Spokane City Hall is standing behind its decision to put a small-businessman with no engineering training in charge of its engineering division. Kyle Twohig, 32, took over the city’s engineering services department in June after City Engineer Mike Taylor was reassigned to focus on a major water project. Twohig, who is paid nearly $90,000 a year, owns a coffee stand in Spokane and previously sold custom snow skis. He also helped manage construction projects in the Seattle area before returning to Spokane in 2008.

The Spokane Arts Fund traded a paintbrush for a microphone Tuesday when it announced its new executive director, Shannon Roach. Roach, who will take over on Oct. 1, comes from the performing arts community in Seattle, where she led an all-ages music venue, the Vera Project, before leaving to run the Northwest Chapter of the Recording Academy, part of the organization that produces the Grammy awards, in 2011.

The battle at the ballot box briefly entered City Hall on Monday night, as supporters and opponents of Envision Spokane’s Bill of Rights squabbled over changes to the initiative process. The changes, which dealt primarily with swapping out the legal review of the city attorney for one earlier in the process by the city’s hearing examiner, were passed 6-1, with Councilman Mike Fagan opposing.

A housing plan on the east fringe of Spokane that has been dormant since the 1970s may soon get a jumpstart if tax subsidies for the 220-acre development are approved by city and county officials. The subsidies are part of a tax-increment financing plan to be considered by the Spokane City Council on Monday. The effort would allow construction of streets, sidewalks and water facilities, not just in the planned development of 1,500 residential units but also for the “light industrial” section of town bounded by Freya and Havana streets and Princeton and Broad avenues.

The state’s top civil liberties watchdog group is arguing that a proposed Spokane law doesn’t go far enough in requiring City Council approval before the city purchases surveillance equipment such as unmanned drones. In a letter to City Council members, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington said Thursday it supported the “overall intention” of the ordinance written by Council President Ben Stuckart, but that it “excluded from its scope some key pieces of surveillance equipment.”

Compare East Sprague Avenue with South Perry Street and someone’s bound to call you crazy. One is a dismal stretch of concrete and dilapidated storefronts located in a prime spot between the University District and the hospitals. The other is a walkable, tree-lined haven with trendy eateries – a shining example of what can happen when a neighborhood center does everything right.

Breaking Ground at Huntington Park

For decades, riding a bike west on the Centennial Trail out of downtown Spokane entailed pedaling next to cars, waiting at red lights and navigating rutted roads. By the end of summer, that will be just a memory.

Call it a race for supremacy at City Hall. A tug of war between the mayor and City Council president. Just don’t call it boring.

Jon Snyder knows he’s in a fight for his political life. His two opponents in the race to represent Spokane City Council District 2, John Ahern and LaVerne Biel, are making sure he knows it. Two years after joining the council in 2009, Snyder watched two of his progressive compatriots fall to their more conservative opponents.

Envision Spokane, a group that has failed twice at the ballot box with its far-reaching Community Bill of Rights, has countersued a coalition of business and government groups that sought last month to keep Envision’s initiative off the ballot with legal action. The countersuit filed Wednesday argues that the coalition is seeking to “mis-use the judicial process” and cannot show it would be injured by the initiative simply appearing on the ballot. The suit also claims that the coalition’s legal action was directly intended to suppress public involvement with the electoral process.

A legal review of citizen initiatives filed in Spokane has been proposed by city leaders as a way to bring “certainty, clarity and transparency” to a form of participatory democracy that Washingtonians helped usher into American politics more than 100 years ago. Standing side by side at City Hall, Spokane Mayor David Condon and Council President Ben Stuckart announced Wednesday they would work to amend the city’s initiative process by adding a “quasi-judicial” legal review of the initiatives by the city’s hearing examiner, a position currently held by Brian McGinn.

Spokane Mayor David Condon and Council President Ben Stuckart announced Wednesday proposed reforms to the citizens initiative process.

About 10 men openly carrying their firearms went to the Spokane City Council on Monday to show their support for gun rights. The council unanimously supported a firearm ordinance sponsored by Councilman Mike Fagan that he said “synced up” city code with state law. Councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin was absent.

About 10 men openly carrying their firearms went to Spokane City Council Monday to show their support for gun rights. The council unanimously supported a firearm ordinance sponsored by Councilman Mike Fagan that he said “synced up” city code with state law. Councilwoman Nancy McLaughlin was absent.

Lay down your arms – at least when attending a Spokane Shock game or Bon Jovi concert. Spokane city leaders are considering changes to local ordinances that strengthen rules banning firearms in public assembly facilities, specifically the Convention Center, the INB Performing Arts Center, Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena and Joe Albi Stadium. Among other things, the ban clarifies that even handguns carried by individuals with concealed pistol permits are prohibited.

The troubled candidacy of Mark Hamilton came to an end Friday. A Superior Court judge ruled that Hamilton failed to meet residency requirements for a Spokane City Council seat and prohibited his name from appearing on the general election ballot in November.

The Spokane Police Department is denying that it sold a submachine gun to former Assistant Chief Scott Stephens, despite its own internal affairs investigation saying Stephens’ possession of the SWAT-style weapon contributed to some officers feeling he was “capable of carrying out the threat” to “go home and get a rifle” and resort to violence. “Scott did not buy an MP-5 from the Spokane Police Department,” police Chief Frank Straub said Wednesday, explaining that Assistant Chief Craig Meidl was mistaken when he claimed otherwise in internal affairs documents from last December’s investigation into reports that Stephens had made threatening comments after learning of his demotion.