Pat Sciuchetti

There was a time, just a few years back, when the Spokane County Parks and Recreation Department couldn't afford to hook up its pool facilities to the sewer lines that ran right past them. It couldn't find the cash to pave the dusty dirt parking lots at Edgecliff Park and the Minnehaha climbing rocks. Times have changed, said Wyn Birkenthal, parks and recreation director. And next year, the Valley will benefit more than any other part of the county from parks improvement funding. Eight of the 10 major construction and renovation projects planned by the county Parks Department for 1998 are in the Valley.

1. Tab and Karen Bray share a kiss in her hospital bed at Sacred Heart. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Bray's medical equipment is covered with sunny decorations. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 3. The wall of Bray's hospital room is plastered with gifts and cards from friends. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 4. Karen Bray suffers from idiopathic cardiomyopathy. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Police are looking for a burglar they believe is responsible for more than 15 business break-ins last week in the Valley. The thief's tool of choice is a crowbar. The burglar or possibly a group of burglars hit three office buildings in the central Dishman area between Monday and Wednesday of last week, climbing in windows or prying open outside doors, then using a crowbar to break open inside office doors. The burglar broke into buildings at 408 N. Mullan, 524 N. Mullan and 122 N. University. Businesses hit include Printing Resources, Contractors Specialties, the law firm of Montgomery, Carroll and Gates, Dave Gregory Insurance, Systems Technical Sales Co, the law office of Arthur H. Toreson Jr., Washington Paralegal Services Inc., Chiropractic and Therapy Associates, Tad Resources International, Chase Financial Corp., the law office of Peter Daehlin, and Northwest Counseling Group. Sheriff's deputies didn't have a complete list of the affected businesses. The businesses lost cash and small-sized office equipment primarily, deputies said. The burglar, who appeared to go through the offices quickly, also took some computers, an answering machine, a camcorder and a laser jet printer. One business lost only a hammer. Detectives believe it was used it to break into other offices. Some offices were ransacked, while others had little damage or loss. In one case, the burglar plugged a sink and left the water running so it would flood, detectives said. Most of the businesses suffered damage to their doors due to prying. No suspects have been named, but an investigation continues, said Sheriff's Det. Chuck Ellis, who works out of the West Valley SCOPE station.

Spokane Valley Fire District 1 has picked an ambulance company. This week, Valley Fire commissioners plan to ink a formal ambulance service contract with American Medical Response. For years, the two parties worked with only a gentlemen's agreement. The move means Medco, a new ambulance company based in the Valley, will have to find its own customers. Not yet licensed to deal with trauma cases, Medco relies on direct requests from patients for less serious transports. Medco's lack of trauma verification was part of the reason fire commissioners voted to contract with AMR, Valley Fire Chief Pat Humphries said. But there were other reasons.

Interstate tie-up Traffic backs up in the single open eastbound lane Tuesday as repaving continues on Intersate 90 in Spokane. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

1. Pet photographer Bea Wachter shows the older Clark children, Joel, 6, Kali, 8, and Andrew, 13, how she wants them to pose with the family's horse, Whoopie. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review 2. Wachter hustles Clause the cat into a sitting with the rest of the Clark family. 3. (Photo of two dogs) 4. (Photo of two cats) 5. (Photo of one dog)

The Washington State Department of Transportation will begin repaving a four-mile stretch of Interstate 90 through the Valley next week. Drivers should expect delays, and may want to take an alternative route, DOT officials said. Work will begin Tuesday, if the weather is dry. Crews will grind down the roadway between the Sprague Avenue exit and the Pines Road exit and put down a new layer of asphalt. The project, which will cost between $750,000 and $1 million, will smooth out the badly rutted stretch of the highway, DOT said. Crews will start in the inside eastbound lane, work for about two days, then move to the inside westbound lane for about two days. Once the inside lanes are completed, workers will move to the outside eastbound lane and ramps and then to the outside westbound lane and ramps. Crews will work from 4:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. Work may take place on Saturday. The paving can only be done in dry conditions. About 60,000 vehicles travel this section of I-90 each day, said Al Gilson, DOT spokesman. A second project, on I-90 near Havana Street, will delay westbound traffic and close two on-ramps Sunday morning. Crews will be installing electronic equipment for a commute time study. The westbound Sprague Avenue on-ramp and westbound Fancher Road on-ramp will be closed between 5 and 9 a.m. and westbound I-90 traffic could be reduced to one lane during that time.

Bill Ellison is surrounded by hazards: cans of acids on his right, mystery chemicals to his left, flammable liquids behind him. Still, working in the Valley Transfer Station's hazardous materials shed isn't that dangerous, the laborer said. The real risk, Ellison said, is in the garbage. Along with chicken bones and banana peels, careless customers are tossing acids, poisons and flammable liquids into their regular garbage and dumping it at the transfer station. When it mixes together and reacts - as it did last week at the Valley Transfer Station - the results are costly and dangerous.

An 87-year-old Spokane Valley woman was found resting in some bushes Thursday afternoon, 17 hours after she had wandered away from an assisted living facility. Alice M. Wells, who suffers from dementia and sometimes thinks she's back in North Dakota or Montana, disappeared from Bethany Home, 9111 E. Upriver Drive, about 7 p.m. Wednesday, the facility's operator said.

Following four and one-half months of construction, a wider, less hazardous Dishman-Mica Road is set to reopen Wednesday. Traffic, which has been unable to travel between 16th Avenue and Schafer Road since May 14, will be allowed back on the new roadway Wednesday afternoon, according to the Spokane County Public Works Department.

A burglar hit a Valley office building over the weekend, breaking down doors and burglarizing half a dozen businesses inside. Affected businesses included Printing Resources, Contractors Specialties, the law firm of Montgomery, Carroll and Gales, and several others, sheriff's deputies said. A custodian at the office building, located at 408 N. Mullen, called police about 6 a.m. Monday when he arrived at work and found the damage. The burglar broke a second-story window and climbed in, then proceeded to kick in doors and break into closets and file cabinets, deputies said.

The Federal Railroad Administration will issue an order requiring Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad to temporarily silence its train whistles at the Valley's University Road crossing. "This is to my knowledge the first order of this type in the country," said Ron Ries, FRA regional manager. The federal agency hopes the order will reduce the railroad's liability fears, and its reluctance to participate in an important four-month test ban of train whistles at the crossing. The FRA is pushing the test-ban because it wants to use its results to design federal safety standards for whistle-free railroad crossings, Ries said. Burlington Northern's liability concerns have kept the test in limbo for months.

1. Sheriff's Det. Steve Barbieri works the south end of Sprague Avenue with the help of area residents. The Sheriff's Department is analyzing anti-crime needs in the neighborhoos. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Neighbor Josie Zeller, Sheriff's Capt. Doug Silver, detective Steve Barbieri and WSU researcher Ricky Gutierez all work in the Edgecliff neighborhood. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Carving cowboy caricatures give Gloria Strandquist particular pleasure. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review >

Sheriff's deputies have accused a 26-year-old Valley woman of running over her husband with a Jeep Cherokee during an argument Friday afternoon. Teresa L. Petschel, 26, of 208 S. Best Road, was arrested for vehicular assault Friday afternoon, sheriff's deputies said. Her husband, Randy Petschel, suffered a broken left ankle and a scraped hip and elbow.

Valley Fire District Commissioner Jim Fox has stepped down three months before the end of his term. The board of commissioners plans to appoint Joe Dawson, a West Valley School District administrator, as interim commissioner, fire board chairman Ray Allen said. A specific date has not been set. Dawson is the sole candidate for Fox's seat in the November election. He served on the fire district's civil service commission in the early 1980s and was asked to run by the fire chief and the chairman of the board of commissioners. Fox said he has become increasingly busy with his family businesses, and is unable to serve another term. He is a partner in Family Home Mortgage and a co-owner of nine Taco Time restaurants in Spokane County and Coeur d'Alene.

Rich Williams, a hazardous-materials team member, is scrubbed down while fellow team member Bob Ellis waits to do the same after investigating the site. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

Sheriff's detectives have linked a Valley man to a string of at least 40 vehicle prowlings in the Liberty Lake area. They also believe the 22-year-old is responsible for two garage burglaries and thefts of a minivan and pickup truck. Both vehicles were later rolled down hills or steep embankments. In every case, the victims made the crimes easy by leaving doors unlocked or storing keys in their vehicles, sheriff's detectives said.

Traffic stacks up on Sullivan Road at the entrance to the Spokane Valley Mall. Emergency-service officials see big trouble ahead. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

VALLEY VOICE, September 18, 1997, page V5: CLARIFICATION The Southeast Spokane County Fair in Rockford kicks off Friday at 9 a.m. and runs through Sunday, Sept. 21. To get to the fair, take Highway 27 (Pines Road) south from the Valley approximately 18 miles to Rockford and follow the signs to the fair. For more information, call 291-FAIR.

Valley Fire District officials are scoping out sites in Greenacres for a new fire station one they hope to have open in 2000 or 2001. The best location, said Valley Fire Chief Pat Humphries, would be between Flora and Barker, south of Broadway but north of 8th. That area is now served by a stations 3, 5 and 7. But more extensive coverage will be needed in the near future, Humphries said. Several new subdivisions proposed near Barker and 8th could bring hundreds of new homes in the next several years. Meadowview Terrace alone could bring 309 new residences, if it wins an appeal in Superior Court.

A 15-year-old boy riding his bike in a Tidyman's parking lot was chased, forced off the road and robbed Friday night by men flashing gang signs. Two days later, two men with a knife forced a 13-year-old girl in a Safeway parking lot to give them the zip-up shirt she was wearing. The parking lot robberies do not appear to be linked, sheriff's deputies said, but both may have involved gang members.

Sheriff's deputies arrested a Rockford teenager on Tuesday, accusing him of breaking into a gravel pit and driving around town in a tractor dumping loads of sand and gravel. Jay Justin Fricke, 18, of 24306 S. Harvard Road, was booked into the Spokane County Jail on charges of second-degree burglary and reckless burning, sheriff's deputies said. Residents had called police when they saw a man dumping sand and gravel at various places around town. A deputy sent to investigate discovered a broken gate and damaged fence at the Rockford gravel pit. He also found an abandoned tractor stuck in brush and weeds near the intersection of Harvard and Hoxie Roads, and a small wildfire burning nearby. The deputy called fire officials and left to look for a suspect. He later returned to find Fricke at the location of the fire. Sheriff's Department officials said they couldn't comment on a motive of the crime.

Ray Murphy will step down Monday. File photo