Local Government

It’s been one week since Spokane’s implementation of a stricter homelessness law – and the method is yielding more police citations and connections to resources, Mayor Lisa Brown said in a Monday email to City Council.

Spokane County wants residents to paint the town green this week to honor local veterans.

Spokane Valley City Council meetings are usually fairly eventful amid tensions between Councilman Al Merkel and the other council members, but on TuesdayOct. 28, everything came to a head for Councilman Rod Higgins.

In Spokane, homelessness has been on local streets and minds for years, and either Spokane City Council incumbent Zack Zappone or newcomer Christopher Savage will be elected to help address the problem.

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown declared a city emergency Wednesday to speed up the process for local residents and homeless people to access more resources following colder weather, a change in city law and instability within the federal government.

Smog, and lots of it, blanketed Spokane for years.

A handful of business owners and homeless people downtown react to an amended law that broadens the ability of city police to addressing homelessness, granting officers discretion whether to make an arrest, issue a ticket, offer services or some combination thereof.

Three residents sued Spokane City Council candidate Alejandro Barrientos on Monday, questioning whether he resided in the district he is running to represent .

It was an oddity of Spokane politics.

Dawn Sherman and Gary Adams were both clad in winter coats and beanies, trying to keep warm in Tuesday’s frigid autumn air.

Public safety and homelessness remain the top issues facing the Spokane region, and residents show an overwhelming dissatisfaction with the local response to their concerns, according to the latest survey from Greater Spokane Incorporated.

Homelessness has permeated Spokane streets and minds for years, and Spokane City Council hopeful Kate Telis or Alejandro Barrientos will be next in line to address the problem.

The annual fire and police levies are once again on the ballot in the small southern Spokane County towns of Rockford and Spangle. The towns typically run one-year levies each year to pay for services or for contracts to provide needed emergency services that they can’t afford without the taxes.

Candidates for Spokane City Council’s northeast district on Thursday tackled – often with opposing views – perhaps the city’s most complex and contentious topic: homelessness.

Just more than three years after the Spokane City Council passed protections to make it “easy to hire but hard to fire” full-time staff in their office, some are moving to remove those protections in the face of a $13 million budget deficit and calls to cut staff citywide.

Alongside pumpkin picking and apple cider sipping, Spokane County residents can now add a bonfire to their fall to-do-list.

Landowners in a Spokane County water district voted against a proposed housing development in the Pasadena Park neighborhood north of the Spokane River, where Cowles Real Estate wanted to build around 400 homes on 100 acres of land.

Voters in Liberty Lake this November will choose a new candidate to occupy the fourth city council position.