Voices

For 06-26-2008

For the week of June 30-July 3 Monday – Turkey pasta salad, purple-cabbage slaw, three-bean salad, whole wheat bread, peaches.

The River City Rockets Girls U14 Soccer Team will be holding a soccer gear donation drive Aug. 1-3 during the River City Cup Soccer Tournament at Plantes Ferry Park. New and used soccer gear is appreciated. All items received, along with cash donations will be donated to PASSBACK, a 501(c)(3) organization affiliated with the U.S. Soccer Foundation, MLS Soccer, and EuroSport, which will send the donations to children in need in the United States and abroad.

The goal of Somebody Needs You is to match donors with the specific requests of needy Spokane residents. The list of requests is coordinated by the Volunteers of America in cooperation with recognized social service agencies in Spokane. If you have an item to donate, please contact the social service agency directly. Donors who can deliver items are especially appreciated. If someone you know needs help, contact a social service agency provider.

The Spokane Valley Planning Commission may make its final recommendations tonight on the Sprague-Appleway Revitalization plan. If the commission completes its work in the 6 p.m. meeting at City Hall, 11707 E. Sprague Ave., the plan will advance to the City Council for another public hearing and final action.

Crime Stoppers of the Inland Northwest rewarded 12 kids during the just-ended school year for telling on classmates who bring weapons to school. The Keep Guns out of School program works with most Spokane County school districts and some private schools, offering $75 rewards.

The Post Falls School District is participating in the summer food service program. Meals will be provided to all children without charge. Acceptance and participation requirements for the program and all activities are the same for all regardless of race, color, national origin, gender, age or disability. The program will run weekdays through Wednesday at the following schools and times. Lunches for the week of June 30-July 3.

The cool, damp weather this spring has been perfect for mushrooms. They have been popping up in gardens and lawns with abandon across the area and creating a lot of questions about controlling them. Mushrooms are the fruiting body of fungi that are growing on organic material underground and around the garden. Fungi are an important part of the decay cycle that breaks down organic material and returns nutrients to the soil. In the garden, that material can be decaying bark mulch, buried woody debris from land clearing, stumps, logs, or poorly maintained and water-stressed lawns.

At a Town Hall meeting March 25, more than 60 attendees from the Elk-Chattaroy area were assured Bridges Road in Elk was at the top of the county's list to be considered as a Road Improvement District. Most of the people present were upset at the prospect of paying additional assessments after paying property taxes for many years; yet, being tired of the unhealthy dust and auto-damaging, washboarded gravel roads, they were willing to consider anything.

CHENEY – The Cheney Police Department was able to solve several vehicle break-ins last week when it made two arrests for suspicion of a residential burglary. Commander Rick Campbell said the department received a burglary report June 17 and later during the investigation arrested Nathan D. Sallee, 19, on charges of possession of stolen property and burglary, and a 17-year-old male on charges of possession of stolen property and a felony possession of a controlled substance after the residential burglary at the 900 block of Fifth Street.

Post Falls police have launched a new volunteer-run speed reduction program to notify speeding drivers of their transgressions. The program is being undertaken by the department's Volunteers On Patrol, who will monitor areas with speeding complaints.

At first, Ralph Bartholdt thought the brain trust behind the Spirit Lake lawn mower races earlier this month had scrimped on the porta-potties. Which presented a major problem because Old West Hardware and its bathroom across Maine Street were shut for Father's Day. With the beep-beep-beep signals sent by his bladder to his brain growing stronger, Ralph watched as a red-faced man from the throng rattle the door of the hardware store in vain – and then thought darkly: "There were many people and a lot of tattoos, but not enough potty huts to support the water and coffee crowd at a T-ball game." But the Spirit Lake race watchers weren't a water-and-coffee crowd. They'd been primed with junk food and beer. Which runs its course quickly. All this is recorded in The Skinny on North Idaho blog that Ralph compiles with S-R reporter Taryn Hecker. As Ralph mulled the prospect of marking his spot publicly as he saw a dachshund do, a miracle occurred. He sighted another potty hut and then another scattered frugally along the race route "like flowers adrift of a garland." He'd been blinded by his own emergency. In the end, Ralph decreed contently: "What, after all, is a Father's Day without a burger, a plastic mug of beer, a lawn mower driven by an orange-haired boy in jeans and a dirt bike helmet pushing 42 mph and ample potty huts?" Huckleberries

Might not like to hear it, but there are many of us who don't want our precious wildlife shot down for sport (Steve Shirley letter, Valley Voice, June 7). It's way more "extreme" to prefer animals dead than alive.

The following students have been named to the third trimester honor roll at Bowdish Middle School. Sixth grade