Washington Voices

Last year, more than 10,000 people made their way to Garland Avenue for the street fair, and this year organizers expect at least the same number to show up. “We have really put a lot of work into it,” said Tracy Mielke, owner of A Bead Addict’s Attic on Garland and one of the street fair organizers. “We have more vendors signed up at this point than we’ve ever had before.”

The Spokane Valley City Council voted Tuesday to give acting city manager Mike Jackson the job he has held since February. The motion to give Jackson the job was greeted by applause from the crowd, which included several city employees who wanted to see who would be their new boss. By a 5-2 vote, Jackson beat out two other candidates for the position – Michael Wilson of Gig Harbor, Wash., and Paul Schmidt of Cheney. Jackson was hired by the city in 2003 as the parks and recreation director and was promoted to deputy city manager in 2007. He was named acting manager in January after former chief Dave Mercier was asked to resign.

Olive It Cafe, 3402 N. Crestline St., opened in 2008 and its menu includes local art. Not only a cafe, it is also a gallery brought to fruition by owners Arne and Kathleen “Kat” Hill who wanted to make a contribution to their community. “We wanted to create an opportunity for artists to showcase their work on the North Side,” Kat Hill said, “We noticed that most of the time in order to be able to view local art we needed to travel outside of our North Side neighborhood which gave us the idea that it would be a bonus if there were a creative corner on the North Side.”

There is a small group of people in Rockford trying to make a difference. Two years ago, Todd Hart and Mary-Lou Benson approached the town council to look into how Rockford might get its own community center.

Hannah Hornbaker, an 11-year-old student at Northwest Christian Schools in Spokane, was recently awarded a $1,000 scholarship through the Kohl’s Kids Who Care Scholarship Program. Hornbaker, a regional winner, was chosen from more than 27,000 nominees. She helped raise money for the American Cancer Society, shared her grandmother’s story of survival and met with state representatives to help pass laws supporting tobacco prevention and control.