"That's just an inexcusable number of fatalities for a community our size," said Spokane City Administrator Jack Lynch.
Lynch spoke last week about those sobering numbers. The deaths are why neighborhood groups, government officials and police traffic units have been conducting a Pedestrian Safety Awareness Week since Monday, April 8.
For everyone's sake, slow down.
Look Both Ways -- Also at the kickoff of the pedestrian safety week was Spokane Police Cpl. Brad Hallock, a traffic investigator: "When you're talking a 200-pound person versus a 3,500-pound vehicle, the person's going to lose every time."
Clean Money -- We "need to get off this notion that being well-funded and taking money from rich guys is somehow dirty." -- A December 1999 e-mail from former Permanent Offense treasurer Suzanne Karr to anti-tax boss Tim Eyman. That e-mail was one of dozens of documents and interviews cited in a report released by the Washington Public Disclosure Commission on Eyman's concealment of consulting fees that he paid himself.
Safety in Numbers -- The lower end of the middle -- that's where Spokane appears in an annual study of the 327 safest/most dangerous American cities.
Based on six FBI crime categories, such as rape and aggravated assault, Spokane ranks as the 138th most dangerous city, reports Morgan Quitno Press, the Kansas-based research company that conducts the study. That's about the same place Spokane has ranked for the past several years. It's a better ranking than some cities we could name, like, oh say, Tacoma (34th), Seattle (88th most dangerous) or Portland (91st). On a happier note, Boise boasts a low 252nd most dangerous, and Bellevue, Wash., takes 295th.
Resum & eacute;s, Please -- The Spokane Parks Department wants someone to build a science center on the north bank of the Spokane River. Two groups say they're interested in taking on the project, according to Parks Director Mike Stone.
The responders are a team made up of CH2M-Hill and Robert Perron's Perron Collaborative, which originally designed Riverfront Park; and a team headed by a local nonprofit group ("The Inland Northwest Science and Technology Center") working with Seattle's Pacific Science Center. The next step: choosing between the two sometime in the next few weeks.
