Tom Lutey

There were apple orchards in north Greenacres when Elaine Davis was a little girl. There were cherry trees and strawberry fields, ring-neck pheasants and not many neighbors. The houses were far enough apart that the drapes never really did have to close. The roads weren't great, but a person could walk to church without fear of being run over.

Still feeling the burn of the 1991 firestorm, Ponderosa residents told developers Monday that any new homes built in the area would jeopardize safety. It's the cars that go along with the new homes that have neighbors worried about Broadmoor Estates North, a 49-home development proposed for the northwest end of the wooded subdivision. The neighborhood is on the southeast end of the Dishman Hills.

South Hill neighbors are vowing to fight county approval of a controversial housing development on Spokane's eastern-most edge. Southridge Development, a project with 161 houses and 99 apartments just east of Havana Street, won county approval Tuesday. The project, at the southeast corner of 29th Avenue and Havana, is being proposed by Cliff Cameron and Lanzce Douglas, neither of whom responded to interview requests Wednesday.

In the warmth of his wood-heated shop, Herman Meier grabs the rim of a giant iron wheel and pumps a gaseous breath into the lung of what was once the heart of American farming. There's a gasp, a cough and the faint scent of gasoline as the one-cylinder gas engine wakes from an 80-year slumber. Meier has a knack for raising these pre-automobile engines from the dead, and a love for what they once meant to rural America. From the late 1800s to the 1950s, gas engines powered rural America, in a large part because the vast majority of American farms had no access to electricity. Investor-owned utilities considered the cost of electrifying farms prohibitive. Utilities opted instead to stay in town where the miles of wire required to hookup one farm could electrify hundreds of customers. Rural customers who did hookup to power often bore the entire cost of the connection, which according to the Rural Electrification Administration, was often twice a farm's annual income, though a gas engine could cost as much as $90.

In the crowded entryway of his Liberty Lake home, Lloyd Halpern gathers his wife and four daughters after sundown each evening of Hanukkah to light the candles of a half-dozen menorahs and sing a song honoring their Jewish history and hope for freedom. The celebration brings them together with a depth of meaning that just a few years ago had eluded the family. "We are all Jewish in this family," Halpern says, embracing a truth that wasn't always the case.

Toilets would still flush, faucets would still run, utility bills would cost about the same. In short, Liberty Lake's sewage would still run downhill, no matter who wins the heated battle to control the community's plumbing, a consultant said Tuesday.

Another land-use fight is brewing between residents of Ponderosa neighborhood and a developer looking to create smaller than average building lots. Neighbors on the northwest edge of the Spokane Valley community say Ponderosa Properties LLC would build too many homes on too little land if city officials endorse a 49-home project called Broadmoor Estates North. The would-be development at the northern end of Ridgeview Road requires zoning that would allow roughly six homes an acre. The current neighborhood standard is half that amount, or 3.5 homes an acre.

It would be understandable if the Small family of 621 N. McDonald Road skipped Thanksgiving this year. Skipped the turkey, skipped the stuffing, skipped the country's official day of gratitude because, frankly, they could give "thanks for nothing," and not be too far off the mark. Less than six weeks ago, Annette and Aaron Small's house caught fire. The flames engulfed only their bedroom but heat from the blaze was enough to melt the blinds on the opposite end of the building and most things in between.

A major town expansion, expected to double the size of Liberty Lake, was denied Monday by the Washington State Boundary Review Board. The expansion would have added another 650 acres to Liberty Lake's western edge and married the community of 5,511 to a 3,000-home mega-development along the Spokane River. The majority of those who own parcels within the disputed property favor Liberty Lake annexation. Much of the land belongs to a subsidiary of Inland Empire Paper Co., which is owned by the same company that owns The Spokesman-Review.