Five more parks to get splash pads
Five more Spokane parks will get new splash pads.
The Spokane Park Board on Thursday decided unanimously to place the water features at Manito Park, Franklin Park on Division Street, Pacific Park in the Indian Trails neighborhood, Glass Park near NorthTown mall and Underhill Park in the East Central neighborhood.
Park Director Barry Russell said neighborhood groups and schoolchildren will be consulted in the coming months to help shape each splash pad’s design. They are expected to open before school lets out next summer, he said.
Five other splash pads are under construction or open. Those are at Audubon, Chief Garry, Coeur d’Alene, Friendship and Thornton-Murphy parks.
The splash pads are being paid for with $3.5 million of the $43 million park improvement tax measure that voters approved last year. Many of the parks selected previously had wading pools.
If enough money is left, the Park Board decided that an 11th splash pad will be built near Joe Albi Stadium.
Jonathan Brunt
Olympia
Court grants stay of execution to Yates
The state Supreme Court has granted a stay of execution for condemned serial killer Robert Lee Yates Jr.
An order signed Thursday by Chief Justice Gerry Alexander says Yates qualifies for a delay while appealing his death sentence.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge John McCarthy signed Yates’ death warrant Sept. 5 and set the execution date for Sept. 19.
Yates plans to argue that his trial lawyers were ineffective and that Washington’s lethal injection system constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Yates was sentenced to die in 2002 for killing two Tacoma women.
He also was sentenced to 408 years for murdering 13 people in three other counties, including Spokane, but avoided the death penalty in those cases through a plea deal.
Associated Press
Spokane
Man, 27, charged after Freya crash
A driver speeding south in the northbound lanes of Freya Street at Second Avenue on Wednesday night went airborne over the median at Hartson Avenue and hit another vehicle.
Police say Chris B. Foiles, 27, of Boise, drove a 2008 Subaru Impreza about 60 mph the wrong way on Freya.
Police say Foiles almost hit a patrol car before slamming into the median at Hartson, which propelled him in the air about 30 feet. He then rear-ended another vehicle traveling south on Freya Street.
The Subaru caught fire after that collision, and the rear-ended vehicle narrowly missed a utility pole before both cars came to a stop.
Foiles was arrested on charges of vehicular assault.
The driver of the other car was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital. Both cars were severely damaged.
Pia Hallenberg Christansen
Police seek witnesses to downtown assault
The Spokane Police Department is looking for witnesses to a Wednesday evening assault near West First Avenue and Lincoln Street.
A man was found about 9 p.m. lying in the alley between Lincoln and Monroe streets, bleeding from his head.
He didn’t know what had happened but said he had been robbed. He had a stab wound to his back.
A witness reported seeing a group of men running from the alley at the time of the assault.
Anyone with information is asked to call (509) 242-TIPS.
From staff reports