Washington Voices

For the past couple of years, Spokane urban forester Angel Spell has been holding an informal coffee hour at Atticus on Howard Street every Monday afternoon. There is no agenda, no sign up sheet and no need to call in advance – that’s just how Spell likes it. “I look at this like a professor has office hours: You can just drop in,” Spell said over coffee on Monday.

It takes a lot of people to build a city. Private business owners and elected officials come and go. Some become legends because of the buildings they build, the laws they pass and the events they create. Others work in the background doing the legwork for big projects, and where nothing would be completed without their dedication, they rarely end up seeing their name commemorated on a plaque or a building. Such a man was former Spokane Parks and Recreation director William “Bill” Fearn, said Hal McGlathery who’s now leading an effort to name the 1-acre conservation site located where the Downtown YMCA used to be after Fearn.

Winter report from the hen house: All is quiet among the chickens this winter, although we’ll see how our feathered friends fare during these cold months under the care of … gasp … a man! They are, after all, used to gentle female care and an occasional kiss on the beak from their mama Joan.