Pia Hallenberg

It was standing room only when the Browne’s Addition Neighborhood Council held a special meeting Jan. 16 at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture. On the agenda was one thing: Peaceful Valley Community Center’s possible move into All Saints Lutheran Church on South Spruce Street. Mark Reilly, director of Peaceful Valley Community Center, had barely started his presentation when he was peppered with questions about current programs at All Saints and their impact on the neighborhood.

They marched for justice. They marched for peace. Most of all, they marched as a reminder of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his forceful words. Mikel Stevenson, of Spokane, joined Monday’s Unity March to show his respect for King and his timeless message. More than 1,000 people turned out for the annual parade to support civil rights despite the cold and fog.

When Clare Timberlake, a 20-year-old Gonzaga University junior, returned from Christmas break there was quite a surprise waiting for her inside the campus-area rental she shares with three other students. When she opened the door it smelled like someone had died, and when she turned on the lights she found the house had been burglarized and trashed.

It’s a chilly Friday afternoon in northeast Spokane. Kim Bailey and Sandy Smith have been watching the weather forecast carefully for a couple of days, hoping it wouldn’t start snowing again. The two women are volunteers at Neva-Wood COPS, just east of NorthTown Mall off Wellesley Avenue, and they are getting ready to go out on their almost weekly neighborhood observation patrol.

The community organization Project Hope has hired Joel Williamson as its first executive director. Williamson worked as City Councilman Jon Snyder’s legislative assistant for a year and a half, and he’s Project Hope’s first full-time, paid staff member.

The city of Spokane’s dog park opened in December 2010 and it’s been well-used by pooches since then. The park, which is within High Bridge Park in west Spokane, is being constructed in several phases – a solid fence was the first thing to be completed – and now the park may get running water thanks to a grant from pet food maker Nutro Co.

For the past couple of years, Spokane urban forester Angel Spell has been holding an informal coffee hour at Atticus on Howard Street every Monday afternoon. There is no agenda, no sign up sheet and no need to call in advance – that’s just how Spell likes it. “I look at this like a professor has office hours: You can just drop in,” Spell said over coffee on Monday.

It takes a lot of people to build a city. Private business owners and elected officials come and go. Some become legends because of the buildings they build, the laws they pass and the events they create. Others work in the background doing the legwork for big projects, and where nothing would be completed without their dedication, they rarely end up seeing their name commemorated on a plaque or a building. Such a man was former Spokane Parks and Recreation director William “Bill” Fearn, said Hal McGlathery who’s now leading an effort to name the 1-acre conservation site located where the Downtown YMCA used to be after Fearn.

When Hobbs Smith arrived into the arms of his parents, Eric and Mery Smith, a year ago, doctors realized right away that he wasn’t exactly like his two older siblings. A few tests later Hobbs was diagnosed with Down syndrome, but that didn’t rattle the family. “We weren’t sad or anything,” said Eric Smith. “My wife and I kind of locked eyes and said to each other, ‘Well, here we go.’ ”

The quiet at the Riverstone Family Dental Clinic on a recent Monday morning was like the quiet before a storm. At least that’s what the people behind the IDEA Clinic, located at Riverstone Family Health Center at the Northeast Community Center, were hoping.

The Sinto Senior Center was packed to the rafters on Dec. 21 when clients, staff and friends roasted Scott Niemeier, who’s leaving after serving as the center’s director since 1990. “He has been the best director the center has ever had – and I’ve only known the one,” said Rose Aeck, much to everyone’s amusement. “We should all raise our glasses and toast him. We love you and we hate to see you go.”

The Canadians are famous for it. The Norwegians did it in loud checkered pants. The Scots and the Dutch still argue about who invented it some 500 years ago, though the Scots usually win the argument. It’s curling. It involves carefully sliding a 40-pound granite rock down the ice, sometimes with two teammates sweeping in front of it. And for the first time since the early ’80s, it’s possible for curling enthusiasts to get a fix in Spokane.

In the past three years, the University of Idaho’s Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival has engaged in more outreach to regional schools. Last week it was the Mead High School jazz choir’s turn to get a little special attention. Festival artistic director John Clayton stopped by to work with the choir and its repertoire.

The huge conifer on the front lawn of Paula and Dan Campbell’s house on West 33rd Avenue had a humble beginning: It arrived as a live Christmas tree in a pot in 1974. It was the Campbells’ second Christmas at the house, and the tree was about 5 feet tall.