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By AL STOVER Staff Reporter The Airway Heights Planning Department has issued two notices of application and State Environmental Protection Act review checklists for projects. The commission will hold public hearings for both projects at its March 15 meeting. The first application is for phase one of the Garfield Road/Sixth Avenue reconstruction project. This project includes reconstructing a transportation loop along Garfield Road and Sixth Avenue from its intersection with...
A family-friendly video arcade, a high-end RV resort and a retail store are a few of the features in Northern Quest Resort and Casino's upcoming expansion project. During a Feb. 22 press conference, representatives from the Kalispel Tribe Economic Authority announced it will soon break ground on the resort's 40,000 square foot, nearly $20 million, project. In addition to the aforementioned items, the expansion will include two additional food vendors and modifications to the...
At its Feb. 21 meeting, the Airway Heights City Council passed a resolution that waives the requirement for the city manager to live within the city limits. The Revised Code of Washington chapter 35A.13.050 requires the city manager to reside within city limits after he or she is appointed to the position, unless council waives the requirement. The resolution updates the employment contract to live within 35-45 minutes of the city limits. During the Feb. 13 study session, where council saw the resolution for the first time,...
Because of high runoff water conditions, the city of Medical Lake's water reclamation plant has been pumping into its secondary outfall that flows underneath Brooks Road and eventually into Deep Creek....
Medical Lake will soon see Avista crews around town changing out old high pressure sodium and other style streetlamps and replacing them with new, brighter and more energy efficient Light Emitting Diode (LED) lamps — thanks to an agreement with the state’s Transportation Improvement Board. The city has been awarded a $104,000 grant from TIB’s Relight Washington Program to provide for conversion of standard street lamps to LEDs. The City Council approved the contract with the TIB at its Feb. 21 meeting last Tuesday, with...
Eastern Washington University basketball player Felix Von Hofe autographs a team poster for a young fan after the Eagles' 89-77 win over the visiting Idaho State Bengals last Saturday....
While Spokane County roads seem to have taken the brunt of the recent rains and snow melt, cities on the West Plains have experienced their own set of problems. Both Cheney and Medical Lake's water reclamation plants have seen unusually high flows from their respective sewer systems; something the Airway Heights plant seems to have dodged. Where all three cities have seen similar impacts is in their street conditions. Circumstances last evening Thursday forced Medical Lake...
Cheney High School swimmer Noah Prophet is carried out the door by his teammates before they left for the 2A/3A/4A boys state swimming meet in Federal Way, Feb. 18....
Cheney’s City Council has elected to fast-track proposed changes to the way the city plows streets after snow starts to accumulate. At its Feb. 14 meeting, the council unanimously approved all three readings and final passage of changes to the city ordinance proposed by the Police Department governing snow removal. The changes remove language defining the hours vehicles must be off the streets in order for plows to clear snow once a minimum of two inches has accumulated, which was previously between midnight and 6 a.m. U...
Youth in Airway Heights might have an opportunity to learn some gardening skills and make a little bit of extra money this summer. Project Hope Spokane, in collaboration with the Spokane Regional Health District, is working on bringing a youth gardening program to Airway Heights. The idea for the program was generated out of the Community Cafe meetings. Heather Wallace, district health specialist with the Neighborhood Matters program who facilitates the meetings, said the gardening program would be organized through Project...
In a Feb. 16 Cheney Free Press Story about Wayne Fugere receiving the “Medical Lake Senior Volunteer” of the year, Norita Fugere was incorrectly referred to as Rita Fugere. The Fugeres have five children — it was written they have four children — and they have lived in Medical Lake since 2002 and not for 18 years....
Cheney single-family to multifamily housing ratio has undergone some significant changes in the past decade, as evidenced by a staff report presented to the city’s Planning Commission at its Feb. 13 meeting. According to information from Public Works Director Todd Ableman, the city’s housing mixture has shifted over the past 20 years, with multifamily construction accounting for 64.4 percent of the total housing units in 2016. In 1996, the percentage of multifamily to single family was 51 percent — 1,284 total single-family u...
There are good things and bad things about working in the "horrible" media. One of the good things is through our work, we get the chance to become a little bit of an expert on a lot of subjects. As we go about our reporting, we have opportunities to go places others don't, talk to people most can't and observe things many people don't have the time to take in. For instance, in covering the Cheney School District since 2004, I have observed many of the situations associated...
Cheney’s police department is proposing changes to the city’s snow removal ordinance it hopes will lead to less confusion and conform to current practices by utility crews when the snow flies. The current ordinance requires vehicles be off city streets between midnight and 6 a.m. whenever two or more inches of snow accumulates. The exception to this are vehicles parked in the central business district, defined in the ordinance, which must be off the streets between 3 – 6 a.m. The proposed changes remove all of this, excep...
The pieces for Airway Heights’ recreation center project continue to fall into place. In a Feb. 8 news release, the city announced that the project was approved by the state’s project review committee (PRC) to use design-build as an alternative project delivery system. J.C. Kennedy, Parks, Recreation and Community Services director, and staff traveled to Olympia in January to present the project to the committee. His presentation focused on why the method was a good fit to deliver the recreation center. Kennedy said city att...
By AL STOVER Staff Reporter Medical Lake’s quest to receive state funding for police services provided to Eastern State Hospital continues. At the Feb. 7 City Council meeting, Mayor John Higgins announced he testified, via Skype, in front of the Legislature’s Ways and Means committee regarding Senate Bill 5159. The bill, introduced in the current legislative session by senators Michael Baumgartner, Steve O’Ban and Steve Conway, would add chapters to the Revised Code of Washington requiring Western and Eastern state hospi...
NASA Astronau retired Air Force Col. Bob Behnken answers questions from Hallett Elementary students. Behnken, along with three other astromauts, visited the Medical Lake school on Feb. 8....
As of press time Tuesday night, the Cheney School District’s $52 million capital facilities bond was barely receiving the 60 percent voter approval needed for passage. According to information from the Spokane County Election Department’s website, the bond was receiving a 60.21 percent approval, garnering 3,591 votes for to 2,373 against. The 5,964 total votes amounted to just over 30 percent of the 19,788 ballots sent out to voters taking part in the only two measures on the Feb. 14 ballot — Cheney and Orchard Prairie Schoo...
Feed Medical Lake, a charity that serves a free dinner at St. John's Lutheran Church from 5–6 p.m. on the second Monday of every month, continues to go strong after five and a half years. "There were a couple of people who thought this was going to be a one-time meal, or it would just last a couple of months, but I didn't listen to them," Feed Medical Lake director Joanna Williams said. "It's an amazing thing that we're still going and we've been able to add a second meal." In...
The Cheney Historic Preservation Commission’s first meeting of 2017 was abbreviated last Thursday due to a session of the Cheney Municipal Court going longer than anticipated. The commission did meet long enough, however, on the staircase landing in the hallway at City Hall to accomplish two important items — re-elect new officers and get to know its newest commissioner. Lee Pierce has been named to fill the commission seat previously occupied by Fred Lauritsen, whose third term expired in December 2016. Lauritsen came to...
Medical Lake residents may notice something different about the city’s street lights in the coming months. During the Jan. 26 Planning Commission meeting, City Administrator Doug Ross announced that Avista Utilities will install energy efficient light-emitting diode (LED) lamps in the street lights within city limits. According to Ross, the bulb replacement is being done through the state Transportation Improvement Board’s Relight Washington program. He said he learned about the program from Gloria Bennett, the Northeast Reg...
For Rosario Rodriguez, President Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration - authorizing construction of a U.S–Mexico border wall and imposing entry restrictions on residents from seven predominantly Muslim countries - strikes very close to home. The Eastern Washington University political science major is the daughter of immigrants living in Sunnyside, Wash. Rodriguez said she also has Muslim friends and friends who are LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, q...
The city of Airway Heights recently received a $50,000 grant from the Washington Community Economic Revitalization Board. The grant will fund a feasibility study to develop a master plan for industrial-zoned property south of 21st Avenue, which Development Services Director Derrick Braaten called the "Airway Heights Industrial Center." According to the state Department of Commerce's website, the CERB grant program provides funding to local governments and federally-recognized...
Unable to find money in the city’s 2017 budget, the Cheney City Council gave approval at its Jan. 24 meeting to the Municipal Court to apply for grants to help fund a domestic violence victim’s advocate. Court administrator Terri Cooper has requested to apply for two, $5,000 grants, both from the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence against Women. The first is from the Criminal Justice Responses to Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking Grant Program while the second comes from the Rural Sexua...
