West’s last day should be ‘pretty much normal’

Today will be Jim West’s last day in office, and it probably won’t involve anything special, the mayor said Wednesday.

With the results of his recall election scheduled to be certified Friday morning, West said he expected to be moved out of his City Hall office by sometime late today so it could be turned over to Mayor Pro Tem Dennis Hession the next day.

He expects to be answering phone calls, mail and e-mails, “just pretty much the normal stuff I do every day,” after the daily morning cabinet meeting. West has said he will leave any appointments to vacancies on city boards and commissions to Hession.

The last ballots in Spokane’s historic recall election will be counted this afternoon after the Spokane County Canvassing Board meets at 2 p.m. to consider what to do with about 315 ballots that have questions about a voter’s signature or some mark on the ballot.

A final report on the total ballots on the recall – which passed with about 65 percent of voters agreeing with the statement West misused his elective position for personal gain – will be delivered to the Canvassing Board at 9:30 a.m. Friday. When those results are certified, West is officially out of office and Hession becomes the mayor pro tem under the city charter.

West said he doesn’t intend to come to City Hall on Friday morning and has a chemotherapy session scheduled that afternoon.

The Spokane City Council is expected to appoint Hession on Monday to serve the remaining two years and 12 days of West’s term. The council is also expected to select a replacement to the post of council president from among its ranks at that same meeting. An appointment to fill the seat of the council member who becomes council president will likely occur in early 2006.