WA wildfire officials: keep drones away from fire zones
Washington's Department of Natural Resources wants to keep wildfires small. Doing that depends on an aggressive initial attack on fires on the ground and from the air.
But that strategy is hampered when members of the public fly drones over local fires. That happened last weekend at a wildfire near Mullen Hill Road, south of Spokane.
DNR spokesman Ryan Rodruck says when a drone is buzzing around a fire, aircraft can’t get close.
“That's why we've been so successful at keeping these fires to ten acres or less. Because we are able to put heavy air resources on them in a very short amount of time.”Rodruck told SPR News. “But if there's a drone in the area we either delay those resources or have to ground those resources. And we get into a point where minutes and even seconds matter when it comes to spread of that wildfire.”
Luckily in the Mullen Hill road fire, the unknown operator flew his drone away just a few minutes after ground crews arrived. Air attack planes were not significantly delayed.
Rodruck says flying a personal drone over a wildfire is a federal crime.
Latino voters say Harris’ emergence changes their view on election
While some Latino voters are undecided and others have already made up their mind, there is one thing Latino voters in eastern Washington agree on: Kamala Harris has changed the trajectory of the remaining presidential campaign.
In the last presidential election, Cristian Gonzalez, now 23, voted for Kanye West as a joke.
And just a few weeks ago, faced with the same Democratic and Republican nominees as four years ago, he wasn’t sure if he was going to vote at all.
But when President Joe Biden dropped out and Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in, the importance of Gonzalez’s vote changed.
“I am more inclined to vote for Kamala Harris,” he told SPR News. “I haven't decided yet, though I may still, you know, just not vote at all or, like, for each of the parties and vote independent again, but I am rooting for Kamala Harris.”
Others might be following suit.
In a recent survey through the Northwest Progressive Institute, independent voters in Washington are almost evenly divided post-Biden, with 41% backing Harris and 43% backing Trump. Another 10% support Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Organizations get gun violence prevention money
Twenty-one groups from around Washington will be getting a total of seven-point-six million dollars in grants to aid efforts to disrupt gun violence.
Two of those organizations are at least partly based in Spokane.
The money is coming from the Department of Commerce as part of its Community Reinvestment Project.
In a statement, the Department said the grants will go to organizations in communities that were disproportionately affected by the so-called “War on Drugs” in the 1970s and ‘80s.
According to the Commerce Department, the money will help create “trauma-informed, culturally competent programming” by and for members of communities most affected by gun violence. The programs include mentorship, youth development, social wellness and advocacy.
The Spokane-area groups that will get a slice of the grant funding are The Family Guide and Yoga Behind Bars, which has operations in Spokane, Pierce and King counties.
New Idaho PAC opposes open primary proposition
A new political action committee opposes the open primary and ranked choice voting initiative headed for Idaho ballots this fall.
Jake Ball, from Meridian, said campaigners for the initiative got him to sign the petition last fall after he believed it would simply end the closed Republican Party primary.
He told Boise State Public Radio he didn’t realize it would eliminate partisan primaries and implement ranked choice voting, changes he’s opposed to.
“I feel like I was deceived and I am more than willing to do what I need to do – what I can do, rather – to secure the defeat of this effort,” said Ball.
About two weeks ago, Ball formed a political action committee called Idaho Fair Elections to challenge the initiative.
But Ball is also involved in Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s lawsuit against the initiative. He signed an affidavit about his experience three days after forming the PAC. And when Labrador was a congressman, Ball was his district manager.
Despite his political connections, Ball says he was genuinely unaware of what the initiative would fully do.
Because Idaho Fair Elections formed so recently, it hasn’t yet filed financial reports that would show who’s funding it, and how its donations are spent.
CDA area fire district proposes levy increase
Residents in the suburbs just north of Coeur d’Alene will decide this fall whether to temporarily increase their emergency response levy by $3.5 million a year.
The Northern Lakes Fire District is asking voters to consider increasing the levy from $62 per $100,000 in taxable assessed value to $94 per $100,000.
That comes out to about an $11 increase per month for the median homeowner in Kootenai County.
The fire district says this will allow them to keep firefighters whose jobs are currently paid for by a grant, hire additional staff to meet growing needs and reduce response times.
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Reporting was contributed by Steve Jackson, Monica Carillo-Casas and Owen Henderson.