Parker Howell

A mama duck’s ill-advised roost on a Spokane window ledge has helped her fellow fowl at the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge land $5,000. Sterling Savings Bank concluded a monthlong Bucks for Ducks fundraiser to celebrate the safe passage of the mallard hen and her 12-duckling brood, who were hatched on the edifice of the bank’s downtown office.

Another company that claimed to help save Washington homeowners from foreclosure – but purportedly did little or nothing in return for its fees – has agreed to a settlement with the state attorney general’s office. The state alleged Clearwater, Fla.-based United Home Savers LLP charged customers $1,200 or more up front, but routinely did not refund the money if it couldn’t help them, as the company promised. The now-defunct company and owners Darin and Stephanie Dietschy, of Belleair Beach, Fla., do not admit guilt in the Wednesday settlement, filed in Spokane County Superior Court.

A state hearings board this week rejected some arguments made by concerned neighbors against a city decision that cleared the way for potential big-box stores on three South Hill parcels. Some Southgate neighborhood residents contended the city violated the state’s Growth Management Act, in part by failing to use a neighborhood planning process to designate the parcels, near South Regal Street and the Palouse Highway, for development as commercial centers. But the Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board said Monday the residents failed to prove their arguments, and the board dismissed that part of the case.

After four years critiquing local development and observing urban life in Spokane, the administrator of a popular local blog signed off earlier this week. With daily posts on topics including transportation, architecture and neighborhood businesses, MetroSpokane caught the eye of city officials and journalists. But its facilitator, Brian Jennings, was spending a couple hours a day on the site, metrospokane.typepad.com. Jennings said he will no longer make new posts to the site.