Question: Will the paper be presenting short bios of the candidates for Spokane City Council? If so, will it be soon for the primary? – L. Borhauer

Answer: You should already be seeing primary coverage in the main newspaper and in our Voice sections. Editorial endorsements also will be published shortly for some competitive races. – Steve Smith, editor

Why no coverage of air base damage?

Question: Perhaps you can get your fellow journalists to explain why there has been no information about Kessler Air Force Base, The second largest Air Force hospital is damaged and closed, and 6,000 Air Force active duty personnel and their families have been left homeless. Why has there not been any mention of the fact that active duty military must be invited into an area here in the states and then cannot be used on police duty? – Margaret Jones, Medical Lake

Answer: Kessler has been mentioned in a couple of our wire stories, but the human tragedy of New Orleans really has overwhelmed some of the secondary targets and victims of Katrina.

We’ve had several stories that have mentioned the complex dance required of local, state and national officials before troops can be sent into a community. But those complexities don’t apply to the National Guard or to FEMA or other agencies that could have and should have been involved earlier and more aggressively. – Steve Smith, editor

Better tax coverage please

Question: In “Lakeland asks for expansion,” your subhead reads: “Taxes won’t be raised to fund $14.2 million bond.” On reading the story I see that is not at all what school officials said, but instead “the new bond wouldn’t result in a higher tax rate.”

Two days later you reported that assessed values in Kootenai County rose 27 percent over last year. I call that a 27 percent increase in property tax paid if the rate is unchanged. “Taxes won’t be raised” is apparently The Spokesman-Review’s interpretation.

How can you justify such a claim? What is your definition of a tax increase? – Alan Barber, Sandpoint

Answer: You are correct that the subhead should have said “tax rates” instead of “taxes.” The tax rates will go down while the overall amount of money raised goes up.

However, it’s not as simple as you suggest either. Tax calculations are complicated. Even though property valuations can increase dramatically – an average of 27 percent this year in Kootenai County – that doesn’t mean taxes go up 27 percent. In fact, it’s estimated that tax bills actually could go down for anyone whose assessment is below 27 percent.

How can taxes for some folks go down when spending is up? It doesn’t happen often, but the construction boom means that the overall tax base has grown so much that those properties new to the tax rolls are absorbing much of the increased costs of government countywide.

It remains to be seen how much of that $14.2 million bond in the Lakeland district is absorbed by the expanded tax base. What seems certain is that tax bills in Lakeland would be lower without the bond. But it’s unclear whether, or how much, tax bills will go up because of it.

Like I said, it’s complicated. – Ken Sands, online publisher