LILACS to the Washington State Legislature for passing the Tiffany Hill Act, which gives victims of domestic violence a warning when the person under a restraining order is near. Hill was shot by her ex-husband after she repeatedly told authorities he was violating the restraining order (64 days in a row!) but no one believed her. With this tool she might have been saved, and her three children, sitting in the back seat of her car, would not have had to witness such a terrible act.

LEMONS to COVID-19 scammers, who range from people selling depleted supermarket items at hugely inflated prices, to loan scammers preying on desperate small businesses with mafia-like interest loans, to dubious charities set up to take advantage of good peoples’ generosity. In times like these the worst of us come out. Our hope is that the best of us produce such great acts of kindness that it towers over the greedy and the cowardly.  

LILACS to Breean Beggs for championing HB 1590, which will put about $6 million per year toward affordable housing and mental health services in Spokane. Most of our homeless come from this sector: veterans, domestic violence victims, low income, disabled, elderly or mentally ill people. Housing them may ease the streets a bit and give the vulnerable much needed help at a time when housing prices are skyrocketing. It will cost us one tenth of one percent on our sales tax, which adds to only pennies a day for most of us. 

LEMONS to Red Lion Hotels for abandoning Spokane. Once a proud Spokane company, the corporation frittered away its Spokane offerings and gradually let the brand diminish and become another faceless national company. Here’s to a great 50 years, though. 

LEMONS to Governor Inslee for signing a bill that will rid our stores of plastic bags. Paper bags will be eight cents each. If the goal is to move us to paper bags, why not charge for plastic bags and make paper bags free, as they were for most of us right up through the 1990s? Knowing how communicable deadly viruses can be, do we want to encourage shoppers to bring their used bags into stores in order to save eight cents? We agree that plastic bags are poor for the environment and would encourage efforts to manufacture biodegradable bags.

LILACS to schools systems who are planning to delay high school graduations and let them enjoy the ceremonies in the summer months. It’s painful to have to miss a hallowed tradition. And we are hoping that many who lost loved ones during the stay-home period are able to hold memorial services so that they’ll have a time and place to grieve. Those public ceremonies give us a chance to express our grief and accept love and hugs from loved ones; we NEED that sense of closure.

LILACS to Spokane City Councilwoman Kate Burke for floating the idea of free public transit. If we truly want to curtail traffic downtown and get serious about auto emissions, we should be funding the 11 percent budget gap that rider fares cover in the STA budget. It’s true that some people might choose to ride the bus all day since it’s a warm place in the winter, but perhaps that could be prevented by periodically vacating the buses as part of the schedules. There would be some savings in processing the fare money and in printing out transfers, as well as time savings for the drivers as people fish through their pockets for the proper fare.