Pia Hallenberg

Almost 100 people showed up for an urban farming open house on Tuesday evening at the downtown library. The meeting was the first action step following the local food conference in April, and it was opened by City Council President Ben Stuckart. “I’m in this because I want a goat,” Stuckart said, before he explained that the municipal code regulates what types of gardening and animal keep is allowed in residential areas.

The Hillyard Festival is expecting between 2,000 and 3,000 people to stop by this weekend. Focused in Sharpley-Harmon Park on the 6000 block of Market Street, the festival brings food and craft vendors, nonprofit organizations and lots of fun games to Hillyard.

Timothy Woods jokingly admits that his career as a volunteer for Riverside State Park began for purely selfish reasons: to keep the Centennial Trail free of pinecones and pine needles so it is easier for him to ride his bike there. “I was out riding and I stopped and asked the man who was weeding and cleaning up the trail if he needed any help. He said yes,” Woods said.

Timothy Woods jokingly admits that his career as a volunteer for Riverside State Park began for purely selfish reasons: to keep the Centennial Trail free of pinecones and pine needles so it is easier for him to ride his bike there. “I was out riding and I stopped and asked the man who was weeding and cleaning up the trail if he needed any help. He said yes,” Woods said.

The loud hammering coming from the gymnasium in the basement of Central United Methodist Church doesn’t come from a building improvement project – it comes from several personal improvement projects. On a recent Friday afternoon, Change for the Better, a program that’s part of the church’s $100,000 initiative to help the homeless, is organizing toys for Goodwill Industries of the Inland Northwest and producing leather bracelets reading “Change Spokane” to sell at local craft fairs and markets.

Susan Cairy is the volunteer program coordinator for the Spokane County Juvenile Court, and she’s looking for a few good people who would like to become Court Appointed Special Advocates. CASA, as the program is known, also appropriately means “home” in Spanish. Many of the juvenile court cases deal with finding permanent homes for children who have been neglected, removed from their biological homes or whose parents have abandoned them.

The Refugees’ Harvest Project is getting ready for another urban harvest season, and it’s looking for refugees who are interested in volunteering and for growers in the Spokane-area who would like to donate extra fruit and vegetables. Maria Ladd, public relations coordinator for Refugee Connections Spokane, which is the umbrella organization for the harvest project, said the program has its fruit and vegetable giveaways at East Central Community Center. But volunteers will go outside the neighborhood to gather donations.

The Comstock and Manito/Cannon Hill neighborhood councils held a joint meeting Tuesday evening and voted to recommend a crosswalk design for the intersection of Manito Boulevard and 29th Avenue. The winning design features a painted crosswalk connecting the two green medians on Manito Boulevard.

Paul Breithaupt’s plans to move a newer building to a lot near the intersection of North Market Street and East Queen Avenue, where Hillyard’s Alaskan Tavern burned down in 2010, met a roadblock at the Spokane City-County Historic Landmarks committee meeting on June 19. Because the lot is located within the Historic Hillyard District, the landmarks commission must issue a certificate of appropriateness before any building – constructed from scratch or hauled in on wheels – may be erected within the district.

Neighbors near South Crestline Street and the Woodfield Place neighborhood were surprised Monday morning when 25 maple trees were being cut down along Crestline Street, between 49th and 53rd avenues. “I was just shocked,” said Jeanne Corkill, who lives on nearby South Martin Street. “I’d been out of town for a week and then suddenly the trees are gone.” Corkill said she never received any notification of the work or why it was being done, but that signs were put up Tuesday morning after she and her husband Jeff Corkill emailed “everybody” and called City Hall.

The pools are open, but a lot of kids aren’t swimming. The Spokane Parks Foundation’s Make A Splash in a Kid’s Life campaign gave out 210 pool passes in 45 minutes on June 8. More than 1,300 children remain on the waiting list for a pass.

The city will host a community workshop on Tuesday to gather input on the Division Street Gateway Project. The Division Gateway area covers the Division and Browne Street and Division and Ruby Street couplets between Interstate 90 and Sharp Avenue.