Pat Sciuchetti

More than two years after planning began, Spokane County fire districts have merged their four dispatch centers into one facility downtown. Now a month old, the new combined communication center at 508 N. Wall handles all fire and emergency medical service dispatching for the county. Fire chiefs from District 8, District 9, Valley Fire and the Spokane Fire Department believe the change will improve response times and save money. The consolidation also has allowed the districts to afford upgraded technology and new digital pagers for all firefighters.

A man with a McDonald's patch on his coveralls robbed the Jack in the Box restaurant on North Pines Road early Saturday, escaping with cash and leaving three employees locked in a break room. The suspect also swiped the video tape from the restaurant's surveillance system, sheriff's deputies said. The man wore a nylon and a black ski mask on his head and was armed with a large, dark gun with a tapered barrel, employees told police.

Wetlands and dried up funds are hampering efforts to clean out Liberty Lake's silt-clogged drainage ditch. The 1.5-mile Liberty Lake drain, which regulates the lake's water level, must be cleaned out to prevent flooding and water pollution, said William Funk, director of the Water Research Center at Washington State University. Unfortunately, Funk said, the once-abundant state and federal grants used for such projects have dried up.

County commissioners have awarded Carroll Construction of Spokane a contract to complete $460,000 in repairs and renovations to two Valley pools and a north Spokane pool. The work at Terrace View and Park Road pools in the Valley and Holmberg pool in north Spokane will be finished by June, when the facilities open for the season, said Wyn Birkenthal, county Parks and Recreation Department director. Improvements will include patching all cracks in the pool tanks and covering them with a new shell.

Duane Olm shows up early each morning to clean the animals. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Nova Services, a non-profit job training and placement agency, is planning an $850,000 project that will give it a new home on 2.5 acres in the Spokane Industrial Park. Nova currently serves disabled and disadvantaged clients in a leased 12,000-square-foot building near the entrance of the industrial park. The building, with its uphill ramp and narrow doorways, hallways and bathrooms, has proven inconvenient to some of those clients, said Nova executive director Linda Brennan. The new facility, which Nova will own, will be designed to meet the access needs of the disabled. Nova's new building will be located on Marietta Avenue at the north end of the industrial park, Brennan said.

Students in the FHA class at East Valley High have collected, repaired and washed more than 500 stuffed animals. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Sheriff's deputies arrested four men on charges of armed robbery and burglary after a break-in at a Valley home Friday afternoon. A 20-year-old man told deputies he was in his home in the 9000 block of East Montgomery when the intruders threatened him with a gun before taking his stereo equipment and money.

1. Karen Bray returned home on Jan. 18 after nearly dying from heart transplant difficulties. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Karen and her husband Tab, are trying to rebuild the life they had before her heart problems. 3. Karen and Tab Bray go for a walk on the streets outside her parents' Valley home. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

An unkempt man in his late 20s robbed the Value Village store at 13112 E. Sprague Monday afternoon. The man entered the store about 5 p.m. and handed the cashier a note demanding money, sheriff's deputies said.

The owner of a Spokane video production business plans to turn the former Greenacres fire station into a filming and editing studio. Gene Colburn, owner of Northwest Video Systems, said he chose the building at Appleway and Michigan because of its location and its large garage, which has high ceilings and good lighting control.

Terrance Martin displays a small portion of his collection of models. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Getting elected was the easy part. For Melford "Bud" Robinson, realizing his goal of becoming Fairfield's new mayor now hinges on his health. Robinson, who was elected mayor of the small farming town south of the Spokane Valley on Nov. 4 by a vote of 131-0, has never been sworn in. Just three weeks after winning the election, doctors told the 73-year-old ex-Marine he needed immediate heart surgery. During surgery, he suffered a minor stroke. He's since struggled to overcome lingering kidney infections.

1. Jim Corbett spends hours and elbow grease lovingly restoring his '58 Chevys. Few details escape his attention, including a crooked vanity plate on his Corvette. Photography by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review 2. Jim Corbett, who turns 58 this month, has a collection of '58 items which includes his '58 Cameo pickup truck, car license plates from all 50 states and the District of Columbia from that year, and the car in the artwork on his jacket back. 3. Above, Corbett's '58 Impala is immortalized on his workshop wall. 4. Lynn Corbett, walking with Jim at right, claims his first '58 Chevy helped catch her eye.

Sharon Hedlund is a prosecutor, but you'll rarely see her in court. Her office is in the bedroom of a former drug house. Her main jurisdiction is a deteriorating Valley neighborhood. Her goal is prevention - not prosecution. Hedlund is a neighborhood oriented prosecutor, hired by the Sheriff's Department to help the Edgecliff neighborhood turn itself around. She began the task this week, setting up her office in the small gray house that serves as the SCOPE Edgecliff station at 7206 E. First. "Our main goal is to reduce crime (here)," said the 31-year-old Spokane native. "I can prosecute to my heart's content, but that won't do it." Hedlund's job is made possible by a $131,000 federal grant. She joins property crimes detective Steve Barbieri, who began working out of the SCOPE station last summer. She'll also share the small house with 23 SCOPE volunteers, community members who are being trained to fight crime and deterioration in the one-mile-square neighborhood bordered by Sprague on the north and Eastern and Park on the west and east.

A 45-year-old Spokane man was arrested Saturday after he tried to run over a sheriff's deputy at Valley Self Storage on 11302 E. Sprague. Nicholas T. Dyer, of 1029 W. First, was arrested for attempted second degree assault. The suspect had been renting a storage unit at the facility, sheriff's deputies said. He came into the office about 9:40 a.m. demanding the name and phone number of the person renting the unit next to his. Dyer believed the renter next to him had stolen some of his property, the manager said. When the manager refused to give him the information, he began threatening her, deputies said. The manager then called 911.

1. Mark Jones' son Josh takes aim with a bow. 2. Mark Jones says neighbors will one day be proud of the archery range he hopes to develop. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 3. Caleb Jones takes aim with an old-fashioned recurve bow in the yard next to the family house on Linke Road in the Valley. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Theater Arts for Children is presenting "Wizard of the Mall," a musical spoof of the Wizard of Oz, this month at the the west end of University City Shopping Center. In the show, Dorothy takes a journey to the mall, and has encounters with both the wicked clerk and Glinda, the good clerk. The musical runs Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Feb. 22. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Fridays, 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Cost is $2.50.

Mark Grover

Sheriff's deputies arrested a 22-year-old Valley man Tuesday after an employee of Yoke's grocery store on East Sprague said the man he attempted to pass a fake $100 bill. Randy Jay McGlenn, of 415 N. Farr, was arrested at 3:30 p.m.

Voters' overwhelming support of a $6.785 million Valley Fire District 1 levy on Tuesday surprised even fire district officials. Eighty percent of voters supported the fire levy, which represents about half of the district's 1999 maintenance and operations budget.

A Spokane developer has suffered a setback in his plans to subdivide a 24.5-acre plot on the east shore of Liberty Lake. County hearing examiner Mike Dempsey has returned Rex Harder's preliminary plat application to divide the land and create the MacKenzie Bay Beach Properties subdivision. The development would contain about 35 lots for single family homes.

Sheriff's deputies are looking for two teenagers suspected of shattering the glass door of a Valley business and stealing several boxes of cigarettes. Witnesses who were at a car wash across the street from Halpin's Pharmacy and Treasure Room, 11406 E. Sprague, on Thursday evening say two teenage boys kicked the window out of the business's north-side door. The boys entered and then left with several white boxes, believed to be cartons of cigarettes, sheriff's deputies said.

A thief hit the Liberty Lake Elementary School construction site last Thursday, breaking open two large tool boxes and taking $1,500 in power and hand tools, sheriff's deputies said. Nemitz Sheet Metal Inc. and its employees lost about $1,100 worth of tools, including a sawsall, electric drill, battery drill, battery charger and various smaller items.