WA GOP Senate candidate embarks on fentanyl awareness walk
Candidates for elected office sometimes take to the road to go out and reach voters. But usually they ride in vehicles to get from place to place.
Republican U-S Senate candidate Raul Garcia is on foot this week to bring attention to one particular issue.
On Monday, Raul Garcia and a few companions set out from a recreational area near Ellensburg, enroute to Seattle. It’s a scheduled six-day trip.
“This is gonna be at least 20 every day, so this is a big walk,” he said.
And some of it done while temperatures are in the triple digits.
Garcia is an emergency room doctor who is tired of treating people who overdosed on fentanyl. He said he sees two to five cases a day, and he wants voters to know he takes the state’s fentanyl crisis seriously.
“I wanted to unite eastern and western Washington and I see no better way than doing this walk, stopping by towns, talking to people that were affected by fentanyl,” he told SPR News.
Garcia said he supports tough penalties against people convicted of dealing fentanyl. For the people who ingest fentanyl, he wants mandatory treatment.
“Every addict that has succeeded in rehabilitation has always said, ‘Thank you for making that decision for me when I couldn’t make it for myself,’ and that is why we need to do it,” he said.
Garcia says the mandatory treatment approach worked in Portugal nearly 25 years ago when the country went through an epidemic of opioid overdoses.
Garcia is a Republican who is challenging Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell, who is seeking a fifth term.
Latah Valley development moratorium to proceed
The Spokane City Council 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 this week 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 have said the city needs time to improve the transportation and fire suppression infrastructure to make it less susceptible to a catastrophic fire. Neighborhood activists like Claudia Laub said 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," Laub said. "Our area of Spokane must have improvements in existing ingress and egress for fire evacuation. We are designated as a vulnerable WUI in this state.”
WUI is the acronym for wildland urban interface.
Opponents of the moratorium, such as developer Jim Frank from Greenstone have said pausing building for a year will have no effect on the neighborhoods’ vulnerability to fire. But he said 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," he said. "The consequences of that will be far-reaching.”
During the moratorium, the city has pledged to assess the wildfire risks and ways to address them. It also said it will make plans to build a permanent professional fire station in the Latah Valley.
Air quality begins to worsen as wildfire season gets underway
The air quality in the Inland Northwest has been slightly degraded during the last few days.
Spokane County has registered in the moderate range at times this week. Some parts of North Idaho have also been classified as moderate.
Dan Smith, the north Idaho air quality coordinator for the Department of Environmental Quality, cited fires burning near Chelan for the air quality in the Panhandle.
He says a different fire, burning near Deary in Latah County, is fouling the air in north central Idaho.
For the most part, it’s been a good spring and early summer for air quality and wildfire danger in north Idaho, Smith said.
“Right now we have some open burning bans up in the northern counties, up in the northern mountains of Boundary County and Bonner County. But we don’t have any burn closures right now," he told SPR News. "We’re able to go out and do forestry and slash burning and things like that, although that’s risky with it being as dry as it is. But there are no air quality restrictions at this time.”
With few changes in the weather expected through the weekend, it’s likely the air quality will stay in the moderate range for several more days, Smith predicted.
Spokane to host immersive Van Gogh experience
Spokane will soon host an art show that will take visitors inside the works of one of the most famous artists of all time.
The works of Vincent Van Gogh are highlighted in what’s called an Immersive Experience.
Exhibition Hub Executive producer John Zeller said the experience starts with about 30 pieces in a traditional gallery, then moves into the immersion — with about 400 of his works displayed in 360 degrees over the walls, ceiling, and floors.
“You then have 3D build-outs of his paintings, like his bedroom painting from Arles in the yellow house he lived in. So you can walk into his paintings," Zeller said. "Then you are bathed in his works in the immersive gallery in his works in this incredible sound and light spectacular show for 35 minutes.”
The exhibit features an original music score, as well as the voice of an actor reading letters Van Gogh sent to his brother.
In the final portion, visitors can don a virtual reality headset and see the world through the eyes of the artist. Zeller said it features a walk through his hometown in France “where you see the countryside that he loved turn into ten of his most iconic paintings, including his Starry Night and Starry Night over the Rhone paintings.”
“Van Gogh Spokane: The Immersive Experience” opens tomorrow July 19th.
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Reporting contributed by Doug Nadvornick and Steve Jackson.