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The city of Airway Heights sent a letter to the United States Air Force and the United States Department of Defense Thursday, May 2, demanding they pay nearly $47 million in damages as the result of the 2017 contamination of the city’s water supply by Fairchild Air Force Base. According to the letter, the city and the Air Force are in agreement that Air Force activities contributed to PFOA and PFAS contamination via firefighting foam, which the city believes makes the Air Force liable for damages for “trespass, nuisance and...
Cheney Congregational Church Everyone is invited to join our Sunday morning worship service at 10 a.m. Plan to join us in the fellowship hall following the service. The “Lunch Bunch” will meet in the fellowship hall at noon on May 9. Everyone is welcome to join the group. Bring a potluck dish and share good food and conversation. The communications team will meet Thursday, May 9, in the Fireside Room at 1 p.m. The men of the church will meet at 7:45 a.m. on Sunday, May 12, at the Marketplace Bakery & Eatery to enjoy bre...
Seventy-two people have been victims of domestic violence homicides in Spokane County since 1997, the fourth-highest of any county in the state according to Washington State Domestic Violence Coalition research. Twenty-two of those have happened since 2015. It’s those statistics the West Plains Support Network is trying to combat, tackling family violence at its May 1 meeting. The meeting included a panel discussion by local non-profit leaders and family violence prevention advocates from organizations all across the West P...
Rick Mandarino checks the size of a socket while learning what it’s like to work at Hick’s Hardware. Local students visited several Airway Heights businesses to give them hands-on experience with different careers....
1 Years Ago May 7, 2009 Despite the Washington State Legislature slashing school funding statewide, the Cheney School District plans to not let the budget cuts impact its programs and teaching levels. The Medical Lake School Board held its annual hearing on Initiative 728, where school officials announced the district won’t be getting the initiative funds as promised by the state next year, or the year after. The district intended to spend 100 percent of I-728 money on class size reduction. Medical Lake first-grader Reo L...
Don Turner was a go-to administrator during his 30-year Marine Corps career, and everything a Marine is reputed to be — dedicated, firm but fair, and proven in combat in the jungles of Vietnam. But you won’t see Turner at The Traveling Wall, a mobile half-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., that will arrive in Medical Lake on June 13. He’s been to enough memorials. Enlistment Turner enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1959. After boot camp...
Airway Heights resident Sadie Reddy is the human embodiment of soda carbonation. The 23-year-old bounces when she sits, routinely throws her arms joyfully around the nearest person and brings an aura of happy chaos when she enters a room. Bubbly, effusive and infectious, you'd never guess she was once a victim of abuse. Reddy left an abusive relationship less than a year ago, and found the Women's Healing and Empowerment Network (WHEN) in the West Plains. Through it, she...
Medical Lake track and field team member Mitchell Hale hands out water to a wheelchair racer at Bloomsday last Sunday. Hale was joined by teammates Mayah Eberhardt, Mia Thompson, Maris Tuck, Allison Payne, Paige Headrick, Katie Hiatt, Carl Hiatt, Victor Long, Nicholas Henry and Zachary Lewis in providing hydration for competitors at Spokane’s annual event....
Do you want to contribute to the greater good of the burgeoning West Plains community and think you have what it takes to get things done? Or maybe you’re tired of how local elected officials are doing the jobs they were elected to fulfill and want to see them ousted. Perhaps you’re just community minded and want to give back with some community service. Regardless of your reason for running for local office, the clock is ticking — you’ll need to register with the Spokane County Elections office next week in a very narrow,...
By SHANNEN TALBOT Staff Reporter In the first long budget-writing session to wrap on time in a decade, the Washington State Legislature recently passed a $54.2 billion two-year budget that relies on more than $800 million in new tax revenue — and Airway Heights is set to get a piece of that pie. The city will be receiving $5.5 million to fund its Highland Village project, which aims to decrease the density of residents in Fairchild Air Force Base’s Accident Potential Zone 2, the zone located at the end of the base’s main...
When NAPA Auto Parts vowed they would break a world record, they certainly did not disappoint as they met their own expectations. NAPA has unofficially broken the world record of the most cars washed nationally around the U.S. on April 27 in an eight-hour period with a pending total of 9,179, surpassing REPCO's previous record of 6,277 total cars washed in Australia. Four teams that helped in the carwash at the Cheney NAPA store were the Medical Lake Jr. ROTC, Medical Lake...
Tax season is over, so now we have time to consider how our tax dollars are being spent. One glaring concern should be our funding of the Israeli military. Part of that money is used to incarcerate and torture Palestinian children as young as 10 years old — arresting them at night, harassing them, keeping them in frigid rooms, forcing them to sign confessions in a foreign language without defense lawyers or parents — in military not civilian courts. Convictions are 99 percent according to UNICEF. These terrible pro...
Frank Watson’s Guest Commentary “Religious Freedom Condemns Terrorism” is another in an unfortunately long history of predominantly conservative commentators criticizing Muslims for not condemning terrorism perpetrated by Islamic extremists. Watson is “still waiting for a Muslim spokesman to condemn 9/11.” He goes on to say that the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka were, “absolutely denounced throughout the globe…except by Islamic political and religious leaders,” who he claims, “were conspicuously quiet.” Then tangentially,...
President Trump’s pro-energy policies are on a collision course with his protectionist policies. Let’s hope, for the sake of the economy and energy independence, energy policies prevail. At a time when U.S. oil production is at an all-time high, the president’s tariffs on metals are raising the cost of pipeline and drilling materials. In the last few years, breakthroughs in extracting oil and natural gas secured America’s spot as a top energy producer. Last year, U.S. production surpassed both Russia and Saudi Arabia....
Twenty years ago, Washington voters outlawed ethnic discrimination within our state. Initiative 200, passed by a decisive popular vote, specified that employers or those granting contracts, “shall not discriminate against nor grant preferable treatment … on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity or national origin.” This past Sunday during their last minute session, our Legislature struck down the people’s initiative. Ethnic background is now a required criteria for evaluating new employees and granting state contracts. Propone...
In just over two weeks, residents will get a chance to see something unique — a fairly accurate depiction of a historical moment that shaped this country into what it is today. The Washington Civil War Association, in conjunction with the city of Cheney, will bring a two-and-a-half day reenactment of the conflict spanning the years 1861 – 1865 that claimed around 1 million American lives — more than all the major wars fought before and since combined. Ostensibly referred to as “The Battle of Minnie Creek,” or the “Battle of C...
West Plains leaders and community members gathered on Thursday, May 1, to celebrate a historic Airway Heights achievement — the long-awaited completion of the city’s massive recreation center. Following a ceremonial ribbon-cutting that included speeches from city officials and local political representatives, the center’s new staff kept busy signing up nearby residents for memberships. Airway Heights Mayor Kevin Richey thanked the building’s architects and contrac...
The American Legion is celebrating its 100th birthday this year, and Cheney’s Post 72 is right there with the national organization. According to its website, the American Legion was formed in March 1919 in Paris, France by U.S. military personnel still stationed there following the armistice ending World War I in November. Cheney veterans applied for a charter in October 1919, and were granted that in November to open the post. Originally meeting at various locations in t...
The Medical Lake High School band competed at the Music in the Parks festival at Silverwood on Saturday, May 4, coming in first place in their division, and being awarded the best overall band trophy. The choir also placed first in the division...
Six Medical Lake High students were recognized at this years Spokane Scholars award banquet, including Chloe Haynes for English, Megan Goertz for fine arts, Sarah Ransom for science, Kaden Lee for social studies and Hunter Zep for world languages. Faraz Abounorinjad, who was recognized for mathematics, also received a $2,000 scholarship, the only 1A student recipient....
Officials at Cheney School District’s Westwood Middle School have released the names of students named to the third-quarter honor roll. Last week, students receiving 4.0 and 3.5-3.9 grade point averages were featured. This week, the honor roll is concluded. 3.0-3.4 Emmett N. Allen, Mya R. Anderson, Hope C. Andreasen, Anna C. Aneti, Etlynn Anton, Alahna J. Armitage, Brayden A. Bahme, Tyler J. Baker, Ruby L. Barr, Lea A. Barrios, Joy-Anna E. Bentley, Lance K. Bigelow, Ali R. Blake-Johnson, Lexus R. Bolieu, Zachary E. Bowman, M...
Officially, the mission of Eastern Washington University’s first SOAR (Student Online Academic Review) Career Conference is to “support EWU students as they learn about exciting and innovative strategies forming in traditional and up-and-coming fields from industry leaders.” Unofficially, the May 16 gathering of students and STEM industry professionals might be better portrayed by something less formal, like the title of one of it’s several seminars: “What I wish someone h...
The Cheney Fire Department will be conducting a live-fire training exercise at 22 I St. on Wednesday, May 15. The training will start at approximately 8:30 a.m. and will end at approximately 2 p.m. Depending on weather conditions, residents in the area of the house burn may experience some smoke around their homes. The fire department is asking those residents living near the house to keep windows and doors shut during the hours of the training. First Street will be closed from H to Union streets. A detour will be set up on...
If the most recent budget appropriations are any indication, Medical Lake may be losing a long-running battle of wills with the state for funding of municipal services provided to Eastern State Hospital. The city and the Department of Social and Health Services, whose facilities — the Eastern State Hospital campus and Lakeland Village — take up about half of Medical Lake’s incorporated boundary, have been tied at the hip for decades for the delivery of nearly all the servi...
Cheney made out well when the smoke and dust from the state Legislature’s budgeting process finally cleared with passage of the capital appropriations package on April 27. While not everything in the Senate’s $136.3 million proposal for the 6th Legislative District made it through, more projects than what were included in the House’s $88.9 million offering survived the chopping block. In the end, the $95.57 million compromise had a little bit of something for just about everybody. Including the city of Cheney, which saw i...
