From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
The field has been set for Washington’s and Spokane’s general election. We’ll tell you which candidates move on…and which don’t.
- The man accused of setting a Spokane wildfire on Saturday makes a first court appearance.
- Washington’s insurance commissioner is in Spokane today to talk about wildfires and homeowners’ insurance.
- Reporter Anna King went to Spokane’s fairgrounds this week to meet people who are large animal owners and driven from their homes by wildfire. She’ll tell us some stories.
___________________________________________
The man accused of starting one of the three wildfires that burned hundreds of structures in Spokane appeared in court today [TUE]. Northwest Public Broadcasting Anna King was in the courtroom.
The purpose of the hearing was to determine release conditions for 37-year-old Aaron Forrest Farinacci. He was arrested Monday by investigators who found a lighter and waterproof matches in his possession.
The Spokane Sheriff's Office said a witness saw him crouching in the grass near where the Old Trails Fire started. That was the first of three fires that started on Saturday; burning through neighborhoods in Spokane. Farinacci is suspected of first degree arson.
At the court hearing, the honorable Judge Tony Hazel read the release conditions.
Judge Tony Hazel: “With respect to the release conditions, the court will adopt the $1 million bond that's already in place and adopt all the proposed release conditions as suggested by the prosecution.”
His arraignment is set for August 6th at 3 p.m.
In Spokane, Washington, I’m Anna King.
________________________________________________________
Thousands of Spokane residents who are still displaced or lost their homes due to Saturday’s fires have been without mail service.
The Nine Mile post office is closed because it’s in an evacuation zone.
Postal Service spokeswoman Janella Biggs says residents can take two steps to notify her agency where they would like their mail forwarded -- or where their mail should be held for pickup while their local post office is closed.
“The main thing they want to do is call 1-800 ASK-USPS and they will be guided with their address information and their name as to where they can go to get mail and packages that are being held safely in an area that is not being impacted by the wildfires," she said.
The mail for Nine Mile customers is routed to the Liberty Park post office at 1602 East Sprague.
Biggs says the Nine Mail mail will return to its rightful place once that post office is reopened. Delivery will resume too, except for homes on routes with road closures.
If customers want to forward their mail to a temporary address, they can do that at USPS.com.
_____________________________________
(NOTE: THIS MEETING HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO ANOTHER DAY.)
Washington Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer is in Spokane today. She has come at an opportune time.
She has come to talk about insurance and wildfire risk. She has a public meeting scheduled.
Many rural residents have seen their homeowner’s insurance premiums go up or go away because of the risk of wildfire.
Kuderer has been developing two strategies in response.
One is a grant program to fund those who have lost insurance to make them insurable again.
“The idea would be we would go into the areas in a pilot program, the areas where the non-renewals and cancellations we are seeing and with the grant program, we would help them fortify their homes against the wildfire risk,” she said.
That plan passed in the Senate last session, but failed in the house. Kuderer says it will be reintroduced next session.
The commissioner has also met with the organization that develops the risk assessment of properties for the insurance industry. She wants it to put more emphasis on the firefighting capabilities in a given area to better reflect the actual risk.
Kuderer’s public meeting will be held today at 5:30 at Shadle Park High School. _____________________________
Republican Michael Baumgartner and Democrat Carmela Conroy will stage a rematch in a race for Washington’s 5th District Congressional seat. Baumgartner finished first in a 12-candidate race. He nabbed 48% of the vote. Conroy was second with 21%. Independent Nate Powell, the Spokane firefighter, finished third with 14%. Baumgartner defeated Conroy for the seat in 2024. In the 4th District, Yakima County Commissioner Amanda McKinney, a Republican, will face Democrat John Duresky, a retired Air Force major. The winner will replace Dan Newhouse in D.C. In another Washington Congressional race, 3rd District Democratic incumbent Marie Gluesenkamp Perez will face a challenge from state Senate Republican leader John Braun.
Callie Gee claimed her spot in Spokane County’s November election. Gee is a Democrat who hopes to replace fellow Democrat Vicky Dalton as county auditor. Gee took more than 45% of the vote in a runoff against Republicans Michael Cathcart and Dale Whitaker. Cathcart has a 3% edge in the race for the second spot on the November ballot.
Yesterday’s election didn’t have any effect on any of the other county races. Commission candidates Amber Waldref and Suzanne Schmidt ran unopposed for their seats, as did Sheriff John Nowels, Assessor Tom Konis and Treasurer Mike Volz. The candidates in the clerk’s and prosecutor’s races got a look at how they stand with voters, but all will move on to November. For clerk, Republican Dave Lucas leads by four points over Democrat Elliot Robison. For prosecutor, incumbent Republican Preston McCollum leads by a point-and-a-half over Democrat Danny Tarkenton.
Three of the four ballot measures on the Spokane County ballot are on their way to victory, through two of them are still close.
Spokane Transit’s bid to extend part of its sales tax for 20 years is right around the 50-50 mark. Yes is 50.4%.
The Spokane County Library District’s property tax levy is ahead by a 52-48 margin.
The city of Cheney’s street utility tax renewal has 54% approval.
The outlier is a measure to create a West Plains Aquifer Protection Area, which has only 44% support after the first count.
In Spokane and eastern Washington legislative races, it was a good day to be an incumbent. 6th District Senator Jeff Holy ran unopposed. 7th District Senator Shelly Short has a big lead over Independent Ronald McCoy. They’ll face off again in November.
In state House races, the 3rd District, Democratic incumbent Natasha Hill has a big lead in a three-way race. Hill won more than 63% of the vote. She’ll face Republican Tony Kiepe in November.
In the other 3rd District state House race, an open seat, Republican Natalie Poulson took about a third of the vote in a four-way race against three Democrats. Second place right now belongs to Pam Kohlmeier. She’s up about a point and a half against Luc Jasmin.
In the 4th District, Republican incumbent Rob Chase won a tight race against Democrat Rob Tupper. Chase has nearly 43% of the vote. Tupper has 41%.
In the other 4th District race, an open seat. Hillary Pham and Trent Maier are top two among four Republicans.
In the 6th District, two open seats. Democrat Michelle Kelso won a six-way race with about 30%. Republican Alan Nolan is second with 26%. But Republican candidates won nearly 60% of the total vote.
In the other 6th District race, Republican Jonathan Bingle has a big head start for the November election. He took 51% of the vote and will likely face Democrat Julia Payne in three months. Payne and Independent Aaron Croft collectively took 49%.
In the 7th District, the Republican incumbents, Hunter Abell and Andrew Engell, ran unopposed, as did 9th District incumbent Republican Mary Dye. Dye’s seatmate, Joe Schmick from Colfax, won his primary against Democrat Karina Wallace. They’ll face off again in November.
_________________________________________________
This week, our colleague Anna King has come to Spokane to report on the wildfires. Anna is a senior correspondent for Northwest Public Broadcasting. She’s based in Richland. She’s a master of observation and details. She’s been to the checkpoints in north Spokane to talk with people whose lives have been disrupted. She went to the fairgrounds to see people who brought their large animals to a safe place. That’s what I asked her about.
DN: Tell me what you were looking for and what you found.
Anna King: Yeah, I had heard that there were a lot of animal evacuees with their families that were there at the fairgrounds, and sure enough, it took me a while. The fairgrounds is a big place.
But when I traveled back between many barns and buildings, I came upon this scene where there was a stable with a lot of stalls and horses in it, and their owners were scrambling around, cleaning stalls, filling water buckets, trying to feed their animals, trying to care for them, and they were caring for their neighbors' animals as well. Several people were not there that had animals, and they were taking care of those horses too. Everybody was helping each other.
You could tell that the animals were stressed because there was horses, donkeys, emus, and they were all making a cacophony of sound. Horses were winning, pawing at the ground, banging up against their stalls. The animals can smell the smoke, and they're stressed, and they're obviously kind of upset because the owners say that they're not eating, they're not drinking, and so one owner had actually poured water on the grass on the ground to try to entice the horse to eat a little bit of grass and get a little bit of moisture down its gullet, you know, to kind of sake a little bit of thirst because the horse was just so upset.
I was there, and I met this gal named Lou Hill. She's 46 from West Spokane, and I was struck by her because she has an executive level job at a non-profit in town, but she boards her horses north of Spokane, and when I met her, she was just in her work clothes, and she was caring for her horses, Lola and Bubbles. They're big, both warm blood crosses, so they're like draft horses, very tall. They're dressage horses, so they're highly trained, and they were just beautiful animals, but they were obviously just very stressed out. She said they're not used to being in stalls, they're used to being in large pastures and paddocks, and so being stalled in a 10x10 is just kind of upsetting for them.
When I talked to Lou about her experience of having her horses evacuated, she said she had to trust that the stable owners were going to be able to evacuate her horses because she couldn't get to them, and she was just trying to scramble her own life together. She said it's very sobering when somebody writes a phone number on the back of your horse to mark that horse as whose horse that is, and loads it in a trailer, and then hoping in the future you'll be reunited with your horse. She was calmer now that she had reached the barn, and she was able to kind of be reunited with her horses, but it's just a very stressful situation.
You can hear more of Anna King's observations from her visit to the Spokane County Fairgrounds Thursday on Inland Journal at 12:30 pm.
SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Anna King and Doug Nadvornick, today’s producer and host. Digital support is provided by Anna Gyure Havlek.
Thanks for listening. This is SPR News.
