In brief: Condon promotes services director

Spokane’s neighborhood services director has been promoted to a new position by Mayor David Condon.

Jonathan Mallahan will oversee human services, code enforcement, neighborhood services and the East Central Community Center as the new division director for Neighborhood and Community Services.

Code Enforcement Supervisor Heather Troutman was named the interim director of neighborhood services.

The new division is a conglomeration of departments that used to be under the General Administration and Economic Development divisions.

Shortly before taking office, Condon announced that he was dismissing General Administration Director Dorothy Webster and dismantling that division.

Mallahan, who was hired as the neighborhood services director in 2008, will earn $100,412 in his new position.

City spokeswoman Marlene Feist said the reorganization and new position won’t cost the city more money, in part, because the city does not plan to hire a new general administration director.

Webster, who was hired by the city in 1989, earned about $123,000 last year.

In 2003, the city agreed to pay her six months salary if she was ever terminated, on top of an amount for unused sick and vacation time.

Jonathan Brunt

Suspect arrested near robbed bank

Spokane police quickly arrested a man in his hotel room across the street from a bank they say he robbed Friday.

David D. Thometz, 49, was booked into Spokane County Jail on suspicion of first-degree robbery. Police say he entered the downtown Washington Trust Bank, 706 W. Second Ave., demanded money and fled with an undisclosed amount of cash. He did not display a weapon.

Officers swarmed the area about 9:15 a.m. and arrested Thometz in his room at the Carlyle Hotel, 206 S. Post St., just down the street from the bank.

Thometz was arrested in May 2010 for robbing another Spokane-area bank. He was also sentenced to a year in jail after burning down his Spokane Valley home in May 2008. He told investigators a voice in his head named Jack told him to do it.

Thometz served time in a county jail for second-degree robbery and was placed on 60 months of community supervision with the Department of Corrections in December.

He is supervised out of the Spokane field office by the Special Needs Unit because he is a mentally ill offender. A corrections officer last had contact with him on Tuesday.

Staff reports