Today's headlines:
- Cities and counties around the country are taking action to restrict and regulate power-and-water-guzzling data centers. Spokane County will not be one, at least for now.
- An elections goof in Spokane County. The wrong ballots are sent to a few thousand people.
- Progress made on two north Idaho wildfires, despite a desperately dry landscape and intense demand nationwide for firefighters.
- We’ll continue our conversations with Spokane legislative candidates. We’ll talk with Democrat Michaela [michelle] Kelso.
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The Spokane County commissioners have chosen — for now — not to declare a moratorium on data centers within unincorporated areas.
Commissioner Chris Jordan yesterday proposed the county put a nine-month pause on the approval of permits for facilities that use more than 25 megawatts of power. Jordan says the county can use the time to study the issue and develop appropriate regulations.
“Energy affordability is one concern I'm hearing about, as well as water efficiency as it relates to the aquifer. There's concerns about noise and some other issues. So a significant public outcry followed the reporting. As we heard, I think my office probably received over 1,000 emails with probably a 10 to 1 ratio, at least, of negative or concerned,” he said.
Jordan notes that other municipalities, including Kootenai County, have taken similar actions. He says he anticipates the Washington legislature will also act on data centers next year.
Commissioner Al French says the county need not wait nine months. He says he and Commissioner Josh Kerns have written a zoning ordinance that can address some of the concerns, while at the same time, allowing businesses to pursue their data center projects.
“We already have a good understanding about the impacts of what these data centers mean, and also what we can do to protect the community and allow for this critical infrastructure to be developed here in Spokane County," French said.
Commission chair Mary Brooks — the swing vote — said she needs to do more homework and that she’s not yet ready to commit to making a decision.
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Spokane County elections officials say they sent the wrong ballots to two groups of voters in advance of the August 4 primary election.
The auditor’s office says people in Airway Heights received ballots that did not include the levy for the Spokane County Library District. The city is home to one of the district’s branches and voters help to fund it. That affects about 5,000 people.
Voters in one Sixth Legislative District precinct received ballots that didn’t include the Spokane Transit sales tax question. That affects nearly 800 voters.
Auditor Vicky Dalton has apologized. She says her office is sending out information to the affected voters this week, telling them how to proceed and correctly cast their votes.
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Crews are moving closer to controlling the Turner fire, one of two wildfires burning in Boundary County.
Turner is about two-thirds contained. Officials say crews have a strong line around the perimeter to keep it from advancing.
They’re not as far along on the second fire, the Upper Smith, which is burning in steep terrain about 20 miles northwest of Bonners Ferry.
Forest Service fire behavior specialist LaWen Hollingworth says the landscape is really dry. It’s kind of a Jekyll-and-Hyde situation. She says the Kootenai River basin received more than its usual precipitation for the last year.
“If you look at precipitation alone, it doesn't really tell the whole picture. The full picture comes when you look at the snow water equivalent for the Kootenai River basin which is sitting at about four or 5% for that snow water year or for the water year,” Hollingsworth said.
About 600 people, many from outside the region, are in Boundary County to work the two fires. Deputy incident commander Mark Goeller says, considering the national wildfire situation, they’re lucky to have them.
“The Pacific Northwest, Oregon and Washington got hammered with lightning last week. They took 10 incident management teams in one day to deploy those to Oregon. Not to mention the fires that were ongoing in Colorado, the Great Basin in Utah, Nevada, California, Florida, Minnesota. We're in kind of uncharted territory in regards to the number of teams and where they are so widely dispersed across the United States," he said.
Fire officials say the next few days will be critical with a chance for thunderstorms and gusty winds on Thursday and Friday.
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Michelle Kelso hopes the third time is the charm. The Spokane Democrat is making a third run at a state House seat in the Sixth Legislative District. In 2022 and 2024, she lost to Republican Jenny Graham. This time, Graham is not on the ballot. Neither is Republican Mike Volz. This time Kelso is running for that seat and she has five challengers in the August primary. The top two move on to the November election.
We asked Kelso which issues she’s emphasizing in her campaign.
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Michaela Kelso: I think first and foremost what our people are needing is affordability. I see so many Facebook posts and articles about how we pay too much in taxes and we're not getting enough in return, how prices have gone up.
In ’23, I think it was, I helped write a resolution in support of rent control bills because the housing prices here had gone up and the research that I did at that point showed that, during the pandemic, 18 months from March of 2020 until later in ’21, housing prices here in Spokane had gone up 35. Down south in Walla Walla, they had gone up even further than that and that wasn't because people were making more money. It's because we had such a great influx of people who realized that our cost of living was lower than where they came from and they could now work remote.
So the locals were basically priced out of the local housing market because people could come from California or the west side or wherever they came from and simply outbid people very easily like that and it has stayed that way.
Housing is the largest single expense that most people have and it has gone to the point where it is no longer a third for many people, it's half of their income. I mean, my own kids, one of them had to move back home because, during the pandemic, they had such a hard time finding a job or keeping a job and they held out as long as possible. But when the option was like visit them for their birthday at their car or let them move back in, I let them move back in. Of course I did.
DN: So what can the legislature do to alleviate that? I mean the legislature has been run by Democrats for years here in Washington.
MK: Yes, so the rent control bill was a good first start, but we simply do not have the inventory that we need.
I drive through my district on a near daily basis and I see a lot of apartment complexes go up and I like that, but I look at them and I'm like, who in the world can afford to live there? I know my kids could not. Somebody can afford and so that's good these people that can afford to live there they will have a place to live, but we do not have enough affordable housing.
I believe the last Point in Time Count for our homeless population was 1,100, which is actually almost 100 less than last year and our numbers have been going down, but we need to find a way to provide affordable housing at every level and we don't have that yet.
DN: So besides housing what are the other issues top two or three on your list?
MK: Well, unfortunately these days, for some people, the next highest or the highest expense these days is medical. Health insurance rates, now that the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act have gone by the wayside, people are staring into their empty wallet. It's like eat or insurance, eat or insurance. That's not a choice anybody should have to make.
Additionally we have our rural hospitals. The Sixth has a large rural area. Two-thirds of the voters in the Sixth live in rural areas. Only one-third lives in Spokane town. So we need to make sure that our rural residents can access doctors where they live so they don't have to drive into town. We need to make sure that they can afford to buy the medications that they are being prescribed and so that is the other thing, that we support our medical facilities, that we make medical care more affordable and on top of that, truly accessible because just because you have health insurance doesn't mean you actually can afford to go to the doctor.
Michelle Kelso is a Democrat, running for the Sixth District House seat that Mike Volz will vacate at the end of the year. Hear more from her on Inland Journal, tomorrow at 12:30 on SPR News. Tomorrow, we’ll visit with Republican Jennifer Morton.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting was contributed by Doug Nadvornick, today's host and producer.
