Today's headlines:
- Due to high temperatures and gusty winds, Avista warns of possible power outages.
- The State Supreme Court rules on a WSU-related case, hear from the student's mother.
- Spokane County’s Bear Lake remains closed today, an update on search and rescue.
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The state supreme court has ruled Washington State University has a duty to protect students from the “foreseeable harm” caused by fraternity hazing.
Jolayne Houtz’s son, Sam Martinez, died of acute alcohol intoxication during a Alpha Tau Omega fraternity event involving hazing in 2019.
In 2022, a judge dismissed Houtz’s case against the university.
An appeal court reversed that decision, the supreme court upheld that ruling.
Houtz says it's been a “long wait for justice.”
“We’ve never had one moment in front of a jury to you know, have them make a decision, and this is that moment, and it feels right,” she said.
A jury trial comes next, but that could take a year.
The timing of today’s decision is coming at an important time, Houtz says, as students get ready to go back to school.
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Many rural hospitals have given up on delivering babies. But Lewiston’s hospital is going the other direction. Two of its nurse-midwives have returned to obstetrics care.
They had temporarily lost their hospital privileges due to a lack of supporting physicians.
Lewis-Clark Valley nurse-midwives Andrea Hedrick and Nicole Jones say they’re once again delivering babies at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Lewiston.
The midwives’ hospital privileges at St. Joe’s were restored after two physicians, Dr. Lindsay Kern and Dr. Caroline Rolofson, agreed to take on 24-7 coverage for those deliveries.
Hedrick and Jones have both met with patients to inform them of the change.
Both the midwives and the doctors supporting them are employed at another hospital across the river, TriState Health, but they deliver babies at St. Joe’s because TriState has no birth center.
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Gusty winds are expected again tomorrow in the Inland Northwest. Avista is warning it may cut the power to areas at high risk of wildfire if it senses danger.
The goal of the utility’s Public Safety Power Shutoff program is to prevent wildfires.
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Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown says she has created a city work group to study the potential impacts of large data centers within city boundaries.
Her action comes after a vote by the city council to impose a one-year moratorium on the permitting of computer data centers. Brown’s office says the group will look at issues such as how much water those facilities require, how much wastewater they create and how much noise they make.
The mayor says city Administrator Alexander Scott will lead the group. It will also include representatives from several city divisions and work with the city’s Climate Sustainability Board and the Plan Commission.
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Spokane County emergency workers will be out at Bear Lake again today.
They’re searching for the body of a man who disappeared a week ago. They spent several hours in and around the lake yesterday, but say the murky water and lake bottom were a problem.
They plan to try again today. Bear Lake Park will again be closed to the public.
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Next week, Spokane voters will decide whether to continue paying sales tax for public transportation. $.08 is routed to Spokane Transit. $.02 of that is scheduled to sunset at the end of 2028.
The agency is asking voters to continue that for another 20 years.
Yesterday, we talked with Kitty Klitzke and Lance Speirs from the transit board about why voters should extend the tax.
Today, we hear a dissenting view from Gavin Cooley of the Spokane Business Association.
Cooley is the former chief financial officer for the city of Spokane. He says STA could run just fine without on the remaining six-tenths of a cent.
Gavin Cooley: I kind of went back and dug up all my old spreadsheets and everything and it turns out that from 2017 through now they collected $169 million in the tax. But what they did was they added $234 million to the reserves and I thought, wow. They increased their reserves from $40 million to $274 million over that time period, which was way more than the tax. And the closer I looked, the more I realized they didn't spend a single dollar of the tax on what they said they were going to do.
What we thought back in 2016 that they didn't need that additional two-tenths, because they already have a permanent six-tenths, which, as this tax expires, is over $100 million a year. They didn't need that additional two-tenths and it went all into the bank.
DN: Transit officials dispute that. Spokeswoman Carly Courtright sent us a statement that says STA collects about 122-million dollars in sales tax revenue, while its operating budget is 143-million. She writes that the agency balances its bottom line with passenger fares and grants. She says, over the years, STA has built its reserve by saving money from project grants and COVID relief funds and by benefitting from stronger than usual sales tax collections.
DN: Another of Gavin Cooley’s points: is this the right time for Spokane to allocate this much money to public transit?
GC: Is that the priority right now when Spokane has the second highest overdose death rate in America? And they have either the second or first highest rate of hospitalizations for non-lethal, non-fatal overdoses.
I mean, we're just in a terrible position. People say, oh, it's not that bad. I'm like, no, we're number two in the nation of jurisdictions over 300,000. That's like number two out of, I think, 238 jurisdictions and it’s getting worse.
I just don't think that's the time to be talking about expanding, whether it's STA or any other service, until we deal with – it's almost like if I came home and I saw my house was on fire and then I decided to go grocery shopping because that's important too and I may not have a house when I get back.
DN: Cooley and others believe Spokane Transit is trying to win a race to the ballot for public dollars, at a time when other agencies are preparing their own tax proposals. The Safe and Healthy Task Force, for example, is preparing a plan to fund more public safety and behavioral health-type programs. It recently decided to wait until next year before submitting something to voters.
GC: If we vote for this now, that won't pass next year. It's just we don't have those billions of dollars to pass one and pass another and then pass another. We're approaching double the rate of sales tax in Spokane that Kootenai County 20 miles away has and we need to reasonably compete. And so I don't think we can say all of the above. We have to make tough choices, tough, prioritized choices. And so that's what this conversation is about.
DN: Transit officials say their agency has been planning this ballot measure since 2024 and targeted the August election, even though it is competing against two of those other public asks, from the Spokane County Library District and the West Plains Aquifer Protection Area. As for waiting until other public priorities are identified, spokesman Carly Courtright says her agency believe the community’s priorities should be determined by the public through the way people vote.
Proposition 1 is on Spokane County’s August 4 primary election ballot. If it doesn’t pass, Spokane Transit officials say the agency would lose 30-million a year in annual funding, beginning in 2029.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting was contributed by Noel Glasca, Rachel Sun and Doug Nadvornick.
Jordy Jones hosts and produces the show.
Web support is provided by Anna Gyure Havlek.
