County will send inmates to Geiger
Geiger Corrections Center will expand by 76 beds in a shuffle made to accommodate more federal inmates at the Spokane County Jail.
Spokane County commissioners unanimously approved on Tuesday a $1 million loan to Geiger to renovate an old gym to hold medium-security county inmates currently housed at the jail. Space at the jail would be taken by federal inmates.
Last year, the jail set limits on how many federal inmates it would hold, forcing the U.S. Marshals Service to move about 60 inmates to the Benton County Jail in Kennewick.
Geiger will repay the loan with interest within two years through the daily rates the county and cities pay it to house inmates, said Geiger’s director, Leon Long.
– Jonathan Brunt
Ice Palace named among best in U.S.
Riverfront Park’s Ice Palace has been ranked as one of the top 10 public ice rinks in the country, according to an article in USA Today.
The Ice Palace was chosen by the newspaper in consultation with Kristi Yamaguchi, Olympic figure-skating gold medalist in 1992. Spokane’s outdoor venue was compared favorably to Wollman Rink in New York’s Central Park.
In the listing published last Thursday, Yamaguchi said of the Ice Palace: “It’s a perfect place for families to skate together, very pretty and not too different from Wollman in New York.” The list included the Oakland (Calif.) Ice Center; RecZone in Raleigh, N.C.; the Ice Rink at Rockefeller Center in New York; and the Depot Skating Rink in Minneapolis.
– Mike Prager
Claim settled for deputy’s crash
On Tuesday, Spokane County commissioners agreed to pay $90,000 to settle an accident claim involving a sheriff’s deputy.
Dennis D. Elliott was driving south on Market Street on Nov. 13, 2003, when Matthew Smith, who was driving a sheriff’s car, pulled in front of him, according to a claim Elliott filed with the county.
Elliott suffered shoulder and back injuries and had $23,000 in medical bills, said Russell Van Camp, Elliott’s attorney.
– Jonathan Brunt
Boise
Tax break targets developers
New legislation would give subdivision developers in Kootenai County and Idaho’s other two most-populated counties a big property tax break.
The bill, introduced Tuesday in the House, “puts a legitimate process in place for developers to be assessed and taxed on lots they haven’t sold,” said Scott Turlington of Tamarack Resort, the ski and golf resort south of McCall that penned the legislation. “They would be assessed at one-third of current value.”
That’s more than many lot owners at Tamarack are paying now under a tax loophole created in 2002 known as the “developer’s discount.” It gives developers and land speculators in rural areas a tax break designed for farmers, leaving owners of half-million-dollar lots paying less than $20 a year in taxes.
Turlington’s bill creates a new tax break, just for developers. The “developer’s discount” doesn’t apply in counties with more than 100,000 population – Kootenai, Ada and Canyon; it also applies only to land that once was farmed and only in rural areas. Those restrictions are lifted in the new bill.
– Betsy Z. Russell