Today's headlines:
- Spokane city council formally opposes two initiatives that will appear on the ballot for Washington state voters.
- Washington 5th Congressional District candidates Michael Baumgartner and Carmela Conroy face off in a forum.
- Fire levies
- And S-P-R’s Jordy Jones speaks with actress and comedian Chelsea Handler before her upcoming show in Spokane.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
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The Spokane City Council has voted to formally oppose two of the initiatives on Washington’s November ballot.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the council voted to approve Initiative 1, the Parental Rights Initiative.
Schools would be required to notify parents when their child receives medical or mental health service. Opponents of the measure say this will unfairly out children as part of the LGBTQ community.
The council also opposes Initiative 638, which would ban – quote – biologically male – end quote – students from participating in sports.
Councilman Zack Zappone said the resolution came from conversations the council had with community members.
ZACK ZAPPONE: "LGBTQ youth have tremendous disproportionate outcomes that we see in the community from being homeless or dying at a young age, dying by suicide. 36 percent of LGBTQ youth have seriously considered suicide in the last year. And when we see anti-trans legislation passed in states, we see an increase of up to 70 percent more trans youth attempting suicide."
The council approved the resolution 6 to 1. Councilman Michael Cathcart opposed the resolution, saying that the council should not take a stand on political measures.
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[Earlier this week] [WEDS 10/13]] You heard that Spokane County Fire District 9 will ask voters to approve both a levy and a bond this November. Four other fire districts will have levies on the ballot.
Spokane County Fire Districts 2, 11 and 12 are hoping to replace existing levies at identical rates. District 3 is proposing an EMS levy at a rate of 50 cents per thousand dollars of assessed property value.
If District 3’s levy passes, it will fund 14 new firefighter/EMT positions. It will also provide 24/7 staffing for the district’s Cheney and Spangle stations.
Fire chief Cody Rohrbach says that will lighten the load for the district’s many volunteer firefighters.
CODY ROHRBACH: "We have stations that are being asked to go to an emergency call almost daily as a volunteer, as well as keep up on all the required training, which is significant. And so what happens is the sustainability of our volunteer workforce then becomes impacted."
District 3 covers approximately 500 miles in southern Spokane County. Its current regular fire levy rate is a dollar forty-eight per thousand dollars of assessed value.
The general election is November 3rd.
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Spokane County has announced that the burn restrictions that were implemented on July 29th will be lifted at one minute past midnight on October 16th.
Outdoor recreational fires–including campfires–can resume throughout unincorporated areas of Spokane County, and the city of Spokane and Spokane Valley.
Residents can also use backyard barbecues, portable outdoor fireplaces, fire pits or other patio and deck warmers as they use approved fuel.
Lands that are regulated by the Department of Natural Resources may have additional burn restrictions in place.
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The candidates running to represent Washington’s fifth Congressional district at the federal level faced off at a public forum in Spokane yesterday.
They answered questions on affordability, civil rights and healthcare in Washington, among other topics. They diverged on most answers, including how to bring prices down across the region.
Michael Baumgartner is the incumbent Republican.
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER: "You don't have to be a teaching fellow in economics at Harvard to know that if you want to bring the price down on something, you need to increase the supply of that thing. And so whether it's housing or food, the more we can increase supply of those things, the more the prices will come down."
Carmela Conroy is the Democratic challenger.
CARMELA CONROY: "In general, if you want to lower prices, you bring more things onto the market. But you can't do that if you're having a trade war. And that is something that the administration has embarked upon. It is chaotic. It is not negotiated in consultation with Congress. And that is contrary to the Constitution."
The forum last night was sponsored by the Spokane chapter of the NAACP.
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It’s been a little more than two weeks since the city of Hayden decided not to approve its contract with the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office. As S-P-R’s Ember Braun reports, negotiations are in progress but there’s more work to be done.
There are several main reasons why Hayden city council says it didn’t renew its contract with the sheriff’s office.
City leaders want to know how overtime costs for deputies are charged, why the contract includes a 40-percent overhead charge on top of deputy staffing costs, and they want the sheriff’s office to improve how it reports time spent in Hayden.
City Administrator Lisa Ailport explains.
LISA AILPORT: “There was still lack of information about and I guess trust in the numbers for the amount of overhead being charged to us. And that was predicated upon the fact that the council had been asking for reasonable accountability over the deputy’s time within the city for the money that we were giving them. And we never were able to achieve that as well. So when you build all of those things, you stack them all on top of each other, our council just felt like we didn’t make any progress in accountability.”
Moving forward, Hayden and Kootenai County officials are trying to draft what they call an enhanced law enforcement services contract.
LISA AILPORT: “For example, if we said, ‘geez, we’re getting a lot of complaints about speeders on this residential street in this neighborhood, could you send officers over to do some enhanced services related to this particular task?’ We’re no longer able to request that because we’re not paying for those additional services.”
Ailport says they’re actively working with the sheriff’s office to find a path forward. Then, the contract will have to go to the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners, including Bruce Mattare.
BRUCE MATTARE: “The next step is the sheriff should be ready, willing, and able to provide a report that accounts for the billable hours that the city pays each month.”
SPR reached out to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office for comment, but were referred to the commissioners and the city.
For now, there’s no scheduled date for when a new contract will be in place. But, Ailport says residents are still protected - the sheriff’s office is required by the state constitution to enforce laws.
She says the city has retained Matrix Consulting Group to evaluate the city’s law enforcement options.
I’m Ember Braun reporting.
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Starting today - expect delays over I-90 through Coeur D’Alene. Paving starts today and is expected to continue until Wednesday of next week. Traffic on both sides of the interstate between Northwest Boulevard and U.S. Highway 95 has been reduced to one lane.
The lane closures will be in place 24 hours a day until mid-next week. I-D-T says drivers should expect heavy congestion and traffic delays during this time - so make sure to plan ahead.
I-D-T says this paving work will allow crews to finish most of the I-90 work east of Northwest Boulevard this year.
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Officials in the Northwest say big earthquakes don’t happen often in this region, but they want people to be ready when they do.
Washington, Oregon and Idaho participated in the national Great ShakeOut earthquake and tsunami drill yesterday [Thursday].
The theme was “Drop, cover and hold on,” which is what emergency officials urge people to do when a tremor hits.
Brian Terbush is the Earthquake and Volcano Program Manager for Washington’s Emergency Management agency. Terbush estimates a million and a half Washingtonians participated in yesterday’s [Thursday’s] event. Many practiced the skills the state recommends you do during an earthquake.
BRIAN TERBUSH: “We want people to get low to the ground, so if they get knocked over, they don't fall very far, and so they have a lower center of gravity, and you're harder to knock over, and if you're moving, you're staying low, but don't move too much.”
All was done in conjunction with FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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North Idaho College President Nick Swayne will share advice on applying to college at an upcoming free, public event in Coeur D’Alene. It’s in partnership with Coeur D’Alene Public Schools.
Swayne is expected to go over ways that students can strengthen their applications and learn what colleges are looking for.
The event is happening October 29th, at the Coeur D’Alene High School Media Center. No registration is required and all high school students and their families are able to attend.
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Actress and comedian Chelsea Handler will bring her “High and Mighty Tour” to Spokane tomorrow night. In advance of the show, she got on the phone with SPR’s Jordy Jones.
Jordy Jones: You're getting ready to go on the road. Have you ever been to the Pacific Northwest?
Chelsea Handler: Yes, every time I do a tour, I come to the Pacific Northwest. I've been to Spokane many times and Spokane has always been very good to me.
So we added a second show here instead so we could reach a different audience so that people have the opportunity who can't get to Seattle. I wouldn't be coming back if the audiences hadn't been good in the first place.
JJ: You've been on tour for about a year. What does that look like for you? That's such a crazy, amazing lifestyle. You're like a rock star.
CH: I always have my hands in a lot of different things because I like to keep interested and stay motivated. So between my podcast, my touring, we're developing a TV show for me to star in as an actress. So that'll be a new endeavor.
But I'm looking up to going up to Whistler, my house in Whistler after I shoot my special and I'm gonna chill out there for a couple months, reboot, have some real experiences so that I have something to talk about, ski naked or in my bikini for my next birthday and just have a really good time. Take my dogs and get out of America for a couple months and just kind of decompress.
JJ: You work so hard to make people laugh and just shine a light. How has that been to make a career out of that?
CH: Wonderful. I mean, it's really rewarding, especially now to be a purveyor of joy and like laughter and remind people about humanity, togetherness and to just remind women to live unapologetically and to live your truth, be who you are. You don't have to shrink, you don't have to change who you are. And I am a good reminder of that.
I think for a lot of people that you can have success and you can have a big full life without doing all of the prescriptive things. So I like for everybody to leave my shows a little bit more positive, feeling a little bit more like freer and just to inject everybody with a little bit more self-assuredness and confidence.
JJ: The High and Mighty Tour, can you walk us through what this involves and how much you've loved putting it on for people?
CH: I have a really great story about taking my dog on his first international plane trip. I have a great story about the people who I bought my house from in Whistler, Canada, leaving me a manila envelope of LSD. Great family stories. I have stories about cutting out members of my family and just deciding to edit my life down to the people who I really want to spend time with.
It's all very relatable stuff for, you know, I just, I kind of tell the secrets that most people would keep to themselves because why not? It's fun and it's active. And I just like to share all of the good information I get, you know, whether it's therapy on my podcast or whether it's the LSD that I was gifted. I like to everybody to like, I like to spread the word. If I'm reading a good book, I want everyone to know about it. So it's just kind of that intention of just trying to make the world a better place and really leaving your stamp on people in a good, positive way.
If you're coming with your daughter or your father, it's probably best to try and put a person in between you and your parent, if possible. There's some stuff that I talk about that you might want to not be sitting next to your parent when you hear it.
JJ: You have had such an amazing career and now you're on tour, but tell us what it's like to be able to live life on your terms at this point.
CH: I mean, that's really the biggest gift that you could ever have is to do what you want, when you want, how you want. And to be a woman doing it is really, it shouldn't be so unique, but for some reason there is a lot of attention on that, you know, and we shouldn't, a free woman is good for the whole world. It's not, you know, something that any man should be emasculated by or should be intimidated by in any way or dislike. Like, you know, when women succeed, all people succeed. That is proven in civilization over civilization, that when women have the rights that they need, that, you know, the world is a better place to live in. And that's true. So I'm just always trying to spread that messaging. You know what I mean? I want women to feel powerful. I want them to use their voices. And I just want you to, everyone not to take themselves so seriously, like have a good time. We're only here for a short amount of time. You know, let's have a good time while we're here. And let's laugh a lot.
So I love being able to do that for people. I love being on stage and seeing, looking out and seeing two audience members who barely know each other laughing together. That makes me feel purposeful.
I like to spend time with everybody at the shows, after the shows. If you have books, please bring them. I sign all the books after the shows from the stage, take pictures and just generally just trying to spread some good vibrations in this dark time that we're all experiencing.
That was actress and comedian Chelsea Handler, talking with Jordy Jones. Handler’s “High and Mighty Tour” comes to the Fox Theater tomorrow night at 8.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Ember Braun, Lisa Leinberger, Doug Nadvornick, Jordy Jones, and me — Audrey Nelson, today’s host and producer.
Web support was provided by Anna Gyure Havlek
