Area registered voters should have received their Spokane County special election ballots last week.

The ballots contain Proposition 1, the Spokane County measure that would provide one-tenth of 1 percent sales and use tax to fund design, acquisition and construction of a new emergency communications system.  The measure would also help fund restoration of Crime Check and a Reverse 9-1-1 System.

Deer Park School District officials received a clean bill of health from a pair of audits conducted by the Washington State Auditor’s Office.

The office did not find any errors in an audit that looked at various school district financial activities, including cash receipting, payroll and personnel, budget compliance, bidding, enrollment and transportation reporting and disbursement and expenditures, for a period between Jan. 1, 2006, and Dec. 31, 2007.

Taxable retail sales jumped by more than 5 percent in Deer Park in 2007, according to state statistics.
According to the Department of Revenue, retail sales in Deer Park was $70.77 million in 2007 as compared to $67.1 million in 2006, a 5.48 percent increase.

Retail sales do not include sales from retail outlets and do not include sales related to construction and other non-retail industries.