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Shawn Vestal

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News >  Spokane

Vestal: Barbieri and Smith are putting their money where their values are

Not long after Don Barbieri and his partner, Sharon Smith, moved into the beautiful top floor of Barbieri’s Upper Falls condo project on the Spokane River, they lost one of their favorite neighbors. The People’s Clinic – a low-income health care service run by the Washington State University nursing school – closed in 2008 after 10 years. One of the clinic’s locations was at the YWCA, just down the riverbank from the condo, and they had been supporters of its mission to serve Spokane’s neediest citizens.
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: North Face founder returns to Spokane to share experiences of his entrepreneurial climb

Hap Klopp was riding in a Copenhagen taxi last year when he spotted a familiar design on the shoulder of the driver’s jacket: the North Face logo.

“I was thinking, ‘I don’t remember getting involved with the design of gear for taxicab drivers,” Klopp said. “ ‘This is getting a little far afield.’ ”

The North Face – which sold $12 billion worth of backpacks, tents and puffy coats last year – has definitely flown far from the gear-and-granola days when Klopp started it in a storefront on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California.

A&E >  Food

A Southern Idaho gem, finger steaks are tough to reproduce at home

When I visit my family in Southern Idaho, I will often get my hands on a basket of finger steaks before I hug my mother. That has more to do with geography than the order of my affections. If I fly, I get off a plane in Boise, drive a rental car down Vista Avenue to the Bad Boy Burgers drive-through, and hit the freeway home, traveling at a rate of roughly one finger steak per mile.
News >  Spokane

With Spokane police chief Frank Straub out, reforms must continue

Former Police Chief Frank Straub described his management style as direct, honest and blunt, but denied Wednesday that he had been abusive or obscene while managing sometimes difficult changes in the Spokane Police Department. Straub also said he believes a wide-ranging series of reforms and new initiatives – including federal oversight of the department’s practices and a shift toward a more precinct-oriented model of community policing – are established firmly enough that his successor can move forward with them.
News >  Spokane

Don’t blame school district employees for any cuts

It took Spokane school administrators one week to shift from saying they were glad to be able to give raises to classroom aides, whom they’d been paying Wal-Mart wages, to blaming employees for “budget cuts” that might drive up the price of school lunches and district child care. It was an astonishing show of bad faith.
News >  Spokane

Condon builds fat stacks of campaign dollars

With about two months until Election Day, the elephant in the room is the mayor’s money. Mayor David Condon has outstacked the fat stacks he put together four years ago, raising $345,000 as of the most recent filings with the state Public Disclosure Commission. That’s more than he raised four years ago, when he held a 2.5-to-1 fundraising edge over incumbent Mary Verner. It’s more than any candidate for city office in the state has pulled together this year, and it’s more than anyone running to be Spokane’s strong mayor has ever raised.
News >  Marijuana

Enforcement savings byproduct of legal pot in Washington

Boy did a lot of people suddenly start smoking marijuana. Washingtonians and visitors have spent almost a quarter-billion dollars on retail weed since legalization. It’s a lot of money. Enough to cover a week’s worth of Forest Service firefighting costs this August. Enough to pay Marshawn Lynch for almost 21 years of Beast Mode at his current compensation.
Shawn Vestal
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Washington Supreme Court’s late work on charter schools gets low grade

In January 2014, Spokane Public Schools approved the first charter school in the state, Pride Prep. A couple of months later, a challenge to the voter-approved law establishing charter schools went to the state Supreme Court. By September 2014, Spokane’s second charter school, Spokane International Academy, was authorized. A month later, the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the challenge.
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Larry H. Miller’s Madison Street closure plan still possible

The word on the street – the word about the street – is that Larry H. Miller plans to take another stab at closing part of Madison. Which might surprise those who assume that the city already did, given that the dealership has blocked the street between Third and Freeway avenues for a couple of years now. The dealership has a tentlike structure there – neighborhood leaders call it the “Quonset Hut” – and under its city permit it can stay there through the end of 2017.
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Police shouldn’t get say in their own oversight

When the committee charged with picking the top candidates to be Spokane’s next ombudsman made a decision, they formalized it through a standard bit of Robert’s Rules of Order. A representative of the police lieutenants and captains union made the motion to approve the finalists.
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Better preparation for wildfires would help in fighting them

As we welcome firefighters from Australia to help battle this year’s tragic, costly and historic wildfires, it’s worth asking ourselves whether we’re doing enough to protect our own state. State fire program budgets have not been restored since huge cuts following the recession. Last year, lawmakers rejected most of a $4.5 million request to add equipment and firefighters. And coming up with money to reduce the load of dead or dying timber in the forest has been similarly tough, said Peter Goldmark, state commissioner of public lands.
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Lawmakers have authority to fund schools, not necessarily ability

The Washington Supreme Court has diagnosed the illness correctly. But the justices must wish they could prescribe a different treatment. The court has held the Legislature in contempt of court for its failure to produce a stable, long-term funding plan for the state’s schools. The justices ruled in 2012 that lawmakers were violating their constitutional obligation to amply fund the schools – violating the rights of the state’s children, in essence.
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Law enforcement accountability a worthy aim

The latest report posted online by the citizens board charged with reviewing the performance of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office consists of three paragraphs. It involves the case of Will Berger, who died after a confrontation with deputies in 2013 at Oz Fitness on the South Hill. Berger’s family has sued the county for $20 million. The report of the Citizens Advisory Board, written in the form of a letter to Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, noted that the panel had reviewed the investigative files, and that it had followed up with questions that the department’s “subject matter experts” answered. None of the questions or answers was specified. The letter concluded that deputies had acted in “full compliance” with their training and department policies.