Latah Valley building moratorium reaffirmed
The Spokane City Council has reaffirmed its support for a one-year moratorium on new building in two neighborhoods in the Latah Valley, Latah/Hangman and Grandview/Thorpe.
The council on Monday night held a required public hearing, two months after initially adopting the moratorium as an emergency ordinance. Then it voted 5-2 to formally accept the reasoning behind the moratorium.
Supporters of the measure say the city needs time to improve the transportation and fire suppression infrastructure to make it less susceptible to a catastophic fire. Neighborhood activists such Claudia Laub says it’s about time.
“Let us just build it and that infrastructure will follow has never worked for the Latah Valley. We are not a baseball field in Iowa," she said. "Our area of Spokane must have improvements in existing ingress and egress for fire evacuation. We are designated as a vulnerable WUI [pronounced Wooey] in this state.”
WUI is the acronym for wildland urban interface.
Opponents of the moratorium say pausing building for a year will have no effect on the neighborhoods’ vulnerability to fire. But it will have other harmful effects.
“You’ve created in Spokane now a culture of disinvestment in housing and most major investors in housing are looking elsewhere because you’ve provided an unstable environment in which to make those investments. The consequences of that will be far-reaching," said Jim Frank from Greenstone.
During the moratorium, the city pledges to assess the wildfire risks and ways to address them. It also says it will make plans to build a permanent professional fire station in the Latah Valley.
Spokane County sales tax proposal to go on November ballot
The Spokane County Commissioners have agreed to allow voters to decide in November whether to reauthorize a one-tenth-of-a-cent sales tax to pay for services in the juvenile justice system.
It’s a tax that consumers in Spokane County have paid for years. Voters last authorized it in 2015. The version on the ballot in November would extend it for another 10 years.
County officials say the tax raised nearly $16 million last year and paid the salaries for more than 30 employees who work in the juvenile corrections system and operate the county’s detention center.
Catholic accountability groups ask victims of sexual abuse to step forward
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has run into a legal wall trying to get documents that could incriminate Catholic priests and bishops for sexual abuse. A judge last week said Ferguson may not enforce subpoenas his office served on Washington’s Catholic leaders.
But three groups looking to hold misbehaving priests accountable are vowing to help Ferguson. At a press conference in Spokane yesterday, Peter Isely from the Catholic Accountability Project asked people who may have evidence to abuse to come from.
“We’ll help you with this. We’ll walk you through this. The attorney general has vowed to take the case to court, up the chain to the Washington Supreme Court. We’re confident we’re going to win there. But, in the meantime, he needs your evidence," he said.
Isely says the groups have handed over about 7,500 pages worth of documents to the state. They say those documents include evidence that the three Catholic bishops in Washington, including Spokane’s Thomas Daly, are covering up evidence of abuse.
Spokane athletes chase their Paralympic dreams this week
U.S. track athletes begin their Paralympic trials tomorrow [Thursday] in Miramar, Florida. Several Spokane athletes have dreams of making the team that will compete in Paris, beginning next month.
Some have won medals at national and world championship meets, but have never competed in a Paralympics. ParaSport Spokane track coach David Greig thinks one or two of them may get that chance this year and he’s excited for them.
“It’s cool to see the buildup and then the pressure of all of it, but them rising to the occasion or learning from it, same as with the Olympic side of things. There’s ups and downs and trials and triumphs," he said.
The Spokane athletes include sprinter Taylor Swanson and wheelchair racer Bob Hunt. Both won medals at last fall’s ParaPan American Games in Chile. Long jumper and sprinter Lindi Marcusen has some of the best jumps among her peers in the U.S. this year.
If any or all of them make the Paralympic Games, they’ll get international attention because of the growing popularity of para sports worldwide.
“The sport is just awesome to watch. Any of the sports are just awesome to watch and I hope really see it and learn, get an appreciation for that skillset that the athletes have in that sport and don’t just see the disability," Grieg said.
He says the competing athletes may not know immediately whether they make the Paralympic team, due to the limited number of athletes invited to the games. He says they should find out by Sunday, but the public announcement won’t be made until early next week.
The Paralympic Games will take place in Paris August 28 to September 8.