Spokane County officials want voters to continue criminal justice sales tax
Voters in Spokane County will decide next month whether to renew an existing sales tax that partially funds the county’s criminal justice system.
Measure 1 on the November ballot would continue the one-tenth-of-one-percent sales tax voters last approved in 2015. Officials say they expect to collect about $16 million this year. Seven million goes to pay for activities at the juvenile detention facility. The rest goes to the adult correctional system.
Speaking at a Wednesday press conference, Sheriff John Nowels said the number of juvenile crimes has increased the last two years, making this an important time for voters to take action.
“We are having a great demand for these resources as time goes on, so it will be very critical for us to, number one, renew this tax to keep our communities safe, and also, it would be very devastating to the county’s budget and for things that our citizens expect if we had to replace these funds in other budgetary areas,” Nowels said.
The current sales tax for criminal justice facilities expires at the end of next year. The new tax, if approved, would take effect in 2026.
Spokane city, county law enforcement heads back federal fentanyl proposal
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and colleagues introduced a bill in the Senate that aims to stem fentanyl smuggling by focusing on the nation’s transportation networks.
Her legislation would devote more resources to inspections and new screening technology at airports and sea ports, along railroad lines and highways, and ports of entry at U.S. borders. It also seeks to improve information sharing among federal, state and local authorities.
Cantwell’s office said she drafted the proposal after a statewide listening tour that included Spokane.
In a statement Wednesday, Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall and County Sheriff John Nowels said they thought Cantwell’s bill would help.
Hall said the legislation would better coordinate law enforcement capabilities across different methods of transportation. Nowels said disrupting the flow of fentanyl and other drugs is “much needed” and will help save lives.
Cantwell’s legislation has been referred to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, but it has not yet been scheduled for a hearing or vote.
Spokane summer air quality hit best levels in eight years
The air quality around Spokane this summer was the cleanest it’s been since 2016, according to the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency.
In a statement, Mark Rowe, the agency’s air quality monitoring manager, said he credits the cleaner air to a couple of key factors: a mild year for wildfires and wind patterns that worked in the Inland Northwest’s favor.
One important metric is the concentration of fine smoke particles in the air, called PM2.5. A 24-hour average above 100 fails the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particle pollution.
Spokane’s highest 24-hour average for PM2.5 came August 3. The rating was 82 – considered moderate on the Air Quality Index.
Environmental group tries to reduce salmon-killing runoff
Autumn in the Northwest means coho salmon are swimming back to their spawning grounds – if toxic runoff from roads doesn’t kill them first.
The fish are found in many parts of Washington. Pilot projects around Puget Sound are trying to help them by reducing the pollution.
Dakota Keene is with Stewardship Partners. The group is filtering the runoff from one downspout off a freeway bridge in Seattle.
“This is scalable, up and down the I-5 corridor and beyond,” Keene told KUOW public radio. “Beyond our state.”
Keene says the group’s filter boxes remove more than 90 percent of a salmon-killing chemical that comes from car tires.
A state-funded effort to treat all the I-5 bridge’s runoff has been postponed until 2027. Other stormwater projects are in funding limbo as well.
Advocates say saving salmon from deadly runoff is feasible, but funding hasn’t matched the scale of the problem.
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Reporting was contributed by Doug Nadvornick, Brandon Hollingsworth, Monica Carrillo-Casas and John Ryan.