Bulletin: July 13, 2017

These reports are from the previous four issues of the Daily Bulletin in Colfax. They are reprinted here for the benefit of Gazette readers who reside outside of Colfax. Some accounts have been updated.

PRIMARY

BALLOTS GO OUT FRIDAY

An estimated 17,000 ballots will be mailed out by the Elections office Friday so voters in Pullman and Garfield can decide which candidates will advance.

Pullman has a four-way race for council position two with Dan Records, Garren Shannon, Troy Smith and Austin Brown. They also have a four-way race for school board position four, where incumbent Karl Johanson is being challenged by Nathan Roberts, Lipi Turner-Rahman and Elizabeth Siler.

Garfield has two three-way races. Mayor Ray McCown is being challenged by Jarrod Pfaff and Terri Lindeman. Seat five candidates are Kevin Pickron, Rebecca Strange-Jones and Tom Tevlin.

Garfield also has a $62,000 street maintenance and repair levy on the ballot at an estimated rate of $2.63 per each $1,000 of assessed valuation. Voters in Colfax Cemetery District Six will receive a primary ballot to decide on a levy proposal seeking $250,000 at an estimated levy rate of 67 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation. The sum is requested for maintenance and operations and the purchase of equipment.

St. John Cemetery District Three has a proposal for a $14,000 maintenance and operations levy on the ballot at an estimated rate of eight cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation.

PULLMAN CANDIDATE WITHDRAWS

One of the three-way Pullman races on the Aug. 1 ballot has already been decided after Hannah Krauss, one of two challengers to Pullman City council incumbent Al Sorenson, announced she is withdrawing from the race. Krauss posted her decision on Facebook Thursday night. She urged Pullman voters to cast their ballots for Eric Fejeran in the primary race.

Fejeran is chairman of the Whitman County Democrats. Krauss in her posting said she felt the challenge would be stronger with just one other candidate.

Krauss missed the deadline to officially withdraw as a candidate, so the ballot will go out with all three candidates listed for Pullman seat seven.

Top two finishers in the primary will advance to the general election.

ANOTHER CANDIDATE DROPS OUT

Elizabeth (Liz) Siler Monday announced on her campaign Facebook page that she was dropping out of the race for the Pullman School Board seat for district four. Siler is the second candidate to opt out of the primary race too late to be removed from the ballot but before the ballots are sent out to voters Friday.

Pullman voters will still have the task of narrowing the school board race to two candidates in the Aug. 1 primary election because Siler was one of four candidates. Still in the race are board incumbent Karl Johanson and challengers Nathan Roberts and Lipi Turner-Rahmen.

Siler, who is an English as a second language specialist with the WSU English department, said on her Facebook page she is "so overextended that I do not believe I could do the job that this position requires." She said she realized she was too late to legally withdraw her name from the ballot, but wanted to let voters know before the ballots were mailed out Friday. She urged voters to cast ballots for either of the two challengers in the race, Roberts or Turner-Rahmen.

Hannah Krauss last Thursday announced she was dropping out of the race for Pullman city council seat seven. Her departure left two candidates, incumbent Al Sorenson and challenger Eric Fejeran, in that race. Her name will also be on the ballot, but the now two-candidate contest makes the primary election round of voting for that position moot.

THREE

VEHICLES SCRATCHED

Colfax City Police Friday afternoon received a report of three vehicles sustaining scratch marks while parked along Wall Street just west of the Main Street intersection. The damage was not believed to be the result of a random "keying" type of vandalism, because the scratches on the passenger-side doors all appeared to be at the same level above the sidewalk and suggested the vehicles had been scratched by something rolling along the sidewalk that came into contact with the doors.

CHARGED WITH ASSAULTING CHIEF

Formal charges of third degree assault and malicious mischief were filed against Keiona Zachow, 20, Palouse, July 5. The assault charge alleges Zachow spit on Palouse Chief Jerry Neumann when he arrested her at the scene of a domestic violence complaint June 29 in Palouse. The report said Zachow turned and spit on Neumann after he had grabbed her left arm and told her she was under arrest.

According to the arrest report by Palouse Officer Joe Handley, he responded to a residence on N. K Street in Palouse for the third time. Zachow reportedly had been pounding on the door and had previously pulled a six-foot pole out of the yard and was using it to ram the house.

Zachow was allowed release from jail on her own recognizance and ordered not to go within of 1,000 feet of another residence in Palouse. She reported to the court she would be living in Colfax, and she was scheduled to make a first appearance in court Friday.

NEW ART

CONTEST

OFFERS $500 IN PRIZES

Deadline for entries in a new Colfax Arts Council competition, "Inspired Palouse," will be July 24. Artists can submit their entries by JPEG to inspiredpalouse@gmail

.com

The Inspired Palouse contest will be open to all media, including painting, fabric art, sculpture and photos. The format calls for a plein air (open air) perspective. Artists can complete their work on site in the traditional plein air manner or sketch or photograph a site and complete the entry elsewhere.

Open air subjects must be selected from within a 40-mile radius of Colfax.

Entries will then undergo judging Aug. 5-6 and winners will be notified Aug. 7 to bring their accepted art to the Center Aug. 14 for an exhibit which will be set up Aug. 16-17 and opened to the public for a week, Aug. 18-25, for viewing and voting for a People's Choice Award. An artists' reception will be Aug. 26 and more than $500 in prizes will be awarded by the Arts Council.

Entry fee will be $20 for one submission or $30 for up to three. Entrants will be required to put the entries up for sale with the price determined by the artist. The Arts Council will receive a 20 percent commission to help finance the prize fund.

For more information:

[email protected]

CAR CRASH ON MAIN STREET

Colfax police and fire units Monday responded to a report of a one-car accident in front of Columbia Bank, 201 S. Main, at the intersection of Main and Canyon at about 5:30 p.m. According to the report by Colfax Officer Jaelene Bryan, Michael Wright, 40, Spokane, lost control of the 2001 Ford Mustang he was driving and went up over the sidewalk curb. The northbound car came to a halt against a light standard after demolishing one of the city's concrete-clad waste containers and breaking off a newly-planted tree.

Wright, who was not injured, told Officer Bryan he fell asleep while driving north through town. He said he woke up when the car's air bag hit him. Wright said he was headed home to Spokane after working on a landscaping job in Pullman.

The small tree and the heavy waste container apparently absorbed most of the force of the impact. The light standard did not appear to be damaged. The front of the Mustang Wright was driving sustained extensive damage.

The tree was recently planted at the site to replace a tree which was removed because its growth had blocked sight lines at the intersection. It was among four replacement trees planted by city crews earlier this year.

HITS DEER NORTH OF COLFAX

Kaylee Fink, Priest River, Idaho, was unhurt Monday night when the car she was driving collided with a deer on Highway 195 north of Colfax. According to the Washington State Patrol report, Fink was driving a 2011 Chrysler 200 southbound at 9:44 p.m. when the deer ran into the highway just north of mile marker 41.

STORAGE BURGLARY SUSPECT JAILED

A $25,000 bond was set July 6 for pre-trial release of Jerry E. Glass, 46, former Pullman resident who has been wanted on an arrest warrant listing charges related to alleged break-ins of storage units in several locations in the area. Glass was arrested at the Spokane Police Department and booked into jail here at 2:44 p.m. July 5.

The arrest warrant was issued after he failed to appear in court here Nov. 4 on charges of second-degree burglary, four counts of possession of a stolen firearm and possession of stolen property.

According to the arrest report, the case against Glass began Aug. 28 when Glass was allegedly discovered inside a rented storage unit at Oakesdale. The man who rented the Oakesdale unit confronted Glass, who eventually departed the scene in a Honda Civic.

Deputies traced the car's license to Glass and went to his residence on Country Club Road in Pullman. Glass at the time of his arrest was a farm employee for Washington State University.

Among other items, a warrant search of the residence turned up one gun reported missing from a storage unit in Moscow, four guns from another unit in Moscow, two safes reported missing from a unit in Colfax and a computer printer missing from a unit in Pullman. Deputies also said they located a key ring at the residence which had several padlock-type keys.