Zappone, Savage advance as primary winnows local election candidates
Spokane city voters have likely advanced one incumbent and one multi-time challenger to the November general election.
Preliminary results show sitting Councilmember Zack Zappone took more than 51% of the vote in his three-way District 3 race with challengers Christopher Savage and Cody Arguelles.
In his fourth run as a council candidate, Savage advanced with a second-place finish against fellow conservative Cody Arguelles.
The current vote count shows Savage got about 29% of the vote, while Arguelles, a military veteran and entrepreneur, took about 19%.
Spokane Valley voters picked the finalists for two council races. Incumbent Laura Padden won a three-way race with about 52%.
Her opponent in November will likely be Brad Hohn, who won 35 percent.
In the other race, Mike Kelly has likely advanced to the general election against Kristopher Pockell. Both ran unsuccessfully for legislative seats last year. Kelly received about 45% of the primary vote, and Pockell had almost 33%.
All Spokane County ballot measures on track to pass
By a near three-to-one margin, Spokane voters agreed to sign back up for a property tax hike that goes toward water monitoring measures.
The aquifer protection area has been in place for 40 years but for the last 20, Spokane city residents haven’t been part of it.
This authorizes the fee to be collected for another 20 years. While Spokane residents will pay $15 per year, homeowners in more rural areas may see a property tax bump of closer to $30.
Meanwhile, voters in Spokane Valley authorized another tenth-of-a-cent in sales tax to raise money to hire more police officers.
City officials say they need to increase the investment in public safety to keep up with growth and an increasing number of calls for service.
The measure received more than 59% support.
Patrons in two rural fire districts approved tax measures to fund their emergency medical services.
The measure in District 8 allows the district to collect up to $0.50 per $1,000 of property value.
The current assessment is $0.29 per $1,000, and 61% of voters approved the increase, restoring the rate to its former value.
The measure in District 13 renews an existing tax to fund emergency services, also at a rate of $0.50 per $1,000 of property value.
That has the support of nearly two-thirds of voters.
International committee to present on pollution in US-Canadian rivers
Inland Northwest residents have a chance tonight to learn more about pollution in the Kootenai and Columbia rivers.
Wednesday evening, a joint U.S.-Canadian committee will share what it’s learning about the fallout coming downriver from four British Columbia coal mines.
The committee was appointed last year by the International Joint Commission. That body addresses problems at the border, including pollution in shared waters.
“One of the things the Study Board is doing is looking at the full scope of pollutants and the full geographic scope of the pollution and coming up with a robust, we hope, set of recommendations for making sure that this pollution is mitigated and resolved and reduced in the future," said Jennifer Ekstrom, North Idaho director for the Idaho Conservation League.
The committee of scientists is almost halfway into its two-year review. One of the things it’s investigating is selenium pollution in the rivers and the fish that swim in them, she said.
Selenium is an element that’s released when coal is mined and processed.
"One of the things that we'd like to see out of this study is actually research done farther downriver to the point where we don't see elevated selenium any longer," Ekstrom told SPR News. "Right now the study ended north of the border of Washington state and British Columbia."
The scientific committee’s public meeting will run Wednesday, Aug. 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Kootenai River Inn in Bonners Ferry.
Spokane to consider new leadership for housing navigation site
A central hub for Spokane’s scattered site homeless shelter model will be getting new leadership this fall.
The housing navigation center on Cannon Street is being redefined.
Come October, the site will no longer have beds. It will be designated exclusively to daytime drop-ins, with information and transportation to connect adults with various homeless shelters and services.
This reinforces Spokane’s move towards a more scattered site shelter model, which places smaller shelters for specific populations around the city.
The Cannon site was previously run by Revive Counseling and Empire Health Foundation, now known as Waters Meet Foundation. But the new role means a new operator.
Volunteers of America and local nonprofit Jewels Helping Hands, both applied to run the site. The R.I.S.E. Center, which is based out of Tacoma, also threw its hat in the ring.
The city will take August to consider the proposals. Then, it will likely recommend a new operator to City Council sometime in September.
Pending Council approval, a new operator will start October 1.
I-90 repair project scheduled to begin in eastern WA
The Washington State Department of Transportation will begin construction on I-90 in Spokane, Adams and Lincoln counties in three weeks.
The project will remove, replace, and rehabilitate about 20,000 lineal feet of guardrail, project engineer Pete Corley said.
He told SPR News this will also help repair guardrail that was affected by the Gray Fire a few years ago near Medical Lake.
"That part of that fire jumped I-90 and burned a good chunk of guardrail—the wooden blocks, the wooden posts—so the guardrail that was directly affected got replaced immediately after," Corley said. "But we're also addressing anything that got left behind that wasn't identified and wasn't a critical need."
Corley said people should expect lane closures on I-90 out in the rural area between Grant County and Medical Lake throughout the day and possibly at night. The project is set to last until mid-October.
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Reporting by Doug Nadvornick, Owen Henderson, Eliza Billingham and Monica Carrillo-Casas.