Bloglander

Former Spokane Mayor Mary Verner has taken an ad out in this week's Inlander to respond to the controversy surrounding revelations that she requested a salary assessment and retirement benefits after leaving office.

Diane Rice, Verner's daughter and a former campaign staffer, says that the ex-mayor wanted to clarify her request and to explain to the public and the people who supported her in office what Rice called a misunderstanding.

Verner writes in the ad that she wants people to understand that her intent was only ever to serve the city of Spokane and that, when she inquired about the money that she turned down during her time in office, she was not asking for it back.

She posted the same note on Facebook earlier this month.

“When I requested a salary adjustment, my motive was to determine whether my retirement pay could be calculated on the allocated salary of the position under the City Charter, rather than based on the greatly-reduced salary I chose to accept,” Verner says in the ad.

The city towed 16 cars out of Browne's Addition as its snow-plowing efforts got underway on Tuesday.

Plowing will continue tomorrow at 9 am on the east-west running streets, according to an email from the city.

You should probably move your car off the street. But if ends up getting towed, call 625-4100 and be prepared to give your license plate or vehicle identification number.

AROUND HERE

Ryan Michael Morales, chef/owner of downtown Spokane's Herbal Essence Cafe, turned himself in to Spokane Police on Monday night. The chef will be enjoying jail food for a bit: he was booked into Spokane County Jail on felony charges of hit-and-run and three counts of vehicular assault in connection with a Sunday night car crash. (Spokesman)

And we know West Central can be iffy … but a drive by??!! (KREM)

Now that the city has been plowed, Mayor Condon is deploying crews to tackle downtown berms, making lane changes all the more easy. (KXLY)

OUT THERE

Gay marriage advocates statewide are chanting the name of Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-Camano Island) — the 25th senator to show support for legalization of gay marriage here. Some are saying this is just the beginning for the debate, though. (Seattle Times)

Hugo, the Descendants and the Artist top the list of Oscar nominees: announced this morning from Beverly Hills.

Seal and Heidi Klum are getting a divorce! Didn't they know they wouldn't survive UNLESS they got a little crazy?!

VIDEO OF THE DAY

click image

• pasa47/Flickr

The Bing Crosby Theater is up for sale. Owner Mitch Silver says that he has plans to sell it this year.

Silver bought the theater in 2004 for $788,000 from the Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co., after that company's financial meltdown. The building, constructed in 1915 and originally called the Metropolitan Theater of Preforming Arts, or simply “The Met,” requires some maintenance, according to Silver, including work on sidewalks and repairing water damage on the roof.

“At this point, we don’t have a sale,” says Silver. “I had someone interested but we could not make a deal.”

The building is now valued at $807,000, the Spokane County Assessor's office told the Journal of Business. Silver says that the building could sell for $1.3 million after repairs.

The Friends of the Bing Crosby Theater group, which helped rename the theater in 2006, has been interested in purchasing the building for the community, according to Silver.

“I would love to work with the group and give to the community,” Silver says. “I have met with them, but there are no concrete plans.”

Since the Building is registered with the Spokane Register of Historic Places, repairs will have to be cleared with the register's Landmark Commission to make sure that the restoration of the building respects the historic integrity of the theater, says Kristen Griffin, a historic preservation officer with the group.

“Rehabilitation of the building means that the building can be change to be useful, but we have to protect the building’s character,” she says. “The owners would have to agree to a particular set of standards.”

According to Silver, he plans to hold an auction for the building in the spring.

A Spokane group mobilized outside the federal courthouse and inside Spokane City Hall today in a day-long event supporting the movement to end the influence of large corporations on government and elections.

The Move to Amend group in Spokane joined forces with the Occupy Spokane movement to participate in a protest called “Occupy the Courts.”

After a protest outside of the federal courthouse, members from the groups spoke to a group of panelists including former Spokane mayor Mary Verner, Peace and Justice Action League Director Liz Moore and local activist John Waite.

Move to Amend members ask that lawmakers rethink the Supreme Court's decision on the Citizens United case. In the 2010 decision, justices ruled that the Federal Elections Commission could not prevent corporations from giving unlimited sums of money to help support candidates for office, though they can't directly give or coordinate with a candidate's campaign. Individual donors are limited to giving just $2,500 to each candidate per election, according to federal law.

“Ultimately, our goals are to change the Constitution, either with a new Supreme Court that strikes down this really absurd decision or an amendment, if necessary, to explain specifically and explicitly that corporations are not natural persons,” says Bill Miller, who was part of the team that organized the events.

Move to Amend members say that they are not targeting small business and local business owners but large impersonal corporations, whom they deem greedy.

“It’s about the large transnational corporations,” says Miller. “It’s not about some mom and pop [businesses].”

Whereas Move to Amend’s main goal is to amend the Constitution to nullify the Citizens United decision, Occupy’s goals are to redistribute the wealth they say is monopolized by only a small portion of citizens.

One speaker, William Cruz, urged the panel to take action, saying that they had an opportunity to lead the nation in local protest and be an important part of the movement.

The Move to Amend Spokane group will join Occupy Spokane again on Saturday at noon at the carrousel in Riverfront Park to hold a march.

The Center for Justice and 17 other civil society groups sent a letter on Friday to U.S. Attorneys urging them to conduct a "patterns or practices" investigation of the Spokane Police Department.

The letter (pdf) to U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington Michael Ormsby and Thomas Perez, an assistant attorney general in the justice department's civil rights division, comes on the heels of a similar letter sent by former Spokane Mayor Mary Verner after she was voted out of office in November.

Verner was writing in response to the conviction of Spokane police officer Karl Thompson related to the 2006 death of Otto Zehm after an encounter with Spokane police.

"The available record in Spokane indicates that the Zehm case was not an isolated incident," the letter from the Center reads.

The letter lays out a number of claims of impropriety against the Spokane Police Department: that the Police Guild undermines reform in the department; that Tasers are disproportionately used on blacks and Native Americans; that the city attorney's office conspired to cover up for the officers involved in the Zehm incident.

"At a minimum, the evidence gathered by federal prosecutors and the grand jury in advance and during the Thompson trial offer a disturbing glimpse into the culture of the Spokane Police Department," the letter concludes.

For their part, Police Guild representatives told the Spokesman in November that they'd be fine with the feds taking a look at the department, saying they have nothing to hide.

The letter was also endorsed by the Peace & Justice Action League of Spokane, Associated Students of Eastern Washington, and Scary Feminists, among others.