TUESDAY November 26, 2013
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Shaffer in court in probation case today GOOD MORNING Winter storm may snarl travel plans for Thanksgiving DALLAS (AP) — A winter storm system blamed for at least 10 fatal accidents in the West and Texas threatens to dampen the Thanksgiving holiday for millions of Americans traveling this week. Nearly 300 American Airlines and American Eagle flights were canceled in and out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Monday due to the weather, spokeswoman Laura Masvidal said, mirroring disruptions at the air hub a day earlier. Some of the country’s busiest airports — New York, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Boston and Charlotte, N.C. — could see big delays. Icy roads led to hundreds of accidents and at least 10 deaths, half of them in Texas. On Monday, the storm brought a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain to parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, southern Kansas and Texas. But as the storm continues east, there are fears of heavy rain along the busy Interstate 95 corridor and sleet, freezing rain and snow away from the coast and at higher elevations. Tom Kines, a meteorologist with AccuWeather, said it will be “primarily a rain event” for the East Coast, with up to three inches of rain dousing travelers. “The further inland you get — especially as you get into that higher terrain — you are going to deal with frozen precipitation,” Kines said. Snow could fall in western Pennsylvania and the interior of New England. Up to 9 inches could blanket northern parts of West Virginia, where the National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning from Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon. Jeff Smidt is traveling Wednesday from his home in Toronto to visit his family in Andover, Mass., just outside Boston. “My understanding is that I’m traveling at like the worst time ever,” he said.
BY PATRICK REDMOND predmond@kpcmedia.com
LAGRANGE — Christy Shaffer, a Topeka woman who gained national attention when she was released from prison after serving only 77 days for her role in the death of a toddler, is expected to appear in a LaGrange County courtroom this morning, this time accused of violating the terms of her probation. Shaffer, 35, was arrested Nov. 12 and charged with possession of methamphetamine and maintaining a common nuisance, both class D felonies. The arrest came after she was implicated in the Nov. 1 arrest of two Topeka
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recent arrest and alleged failed drug test violate terms of her probation for her 2011 conviction involving the death of 16-monthold Alissa Guernsey. Guernsey died in 2009 while in Shaffer’s care. Only a short time earlier, the Department of Child Services had placed the child with Shaffer. Following Guernsey’s death, an autopsy determined her death was the result of blunt-force trauma. In 2009, a LaGrange County grand jury charged Shaffer with two counts of neglect of a dependent. In 2011, Shaffer avoided a trial by pleading guilty to a single charge of neglect of
Cold, hard reality Lakeland students feel chill of life as a homeless person BY PATRICK REDMOND predmond@kpcmedia.com
LAGRANGE — No one thought it would turn out to be the coldest night of the season when members of Lakeland High School’s DECA club picked Saturday night to sleep outside in cardboard boxes to try to understand what it’s like to be homeless. “We thought it would be 40, 45 degrees,” Robert Albaugh, the club’s sponsor and a Lakeland economics and business teacher, said Saturday night as he and two students huddled close to a fire pit in front of the LaGrange First Church of God. “As luck would have it, it’s the coldest day of the year so far.” Like the weather or not, six members of the club showed up Saturday afternoon dressed for the occasion. Some wore insulated coats and heavy gloves, others sported thick, fur-lined hats. They set about constructing a simple shelter out of plastic and a couple of pieces of cardboard. “This is really humbling,” Lakeland junior Nathan Stroup said later as he sat near the fire Saturday night. Stroup, deep inside an insulated camouflage coat and bibs, said even he wasn’t immune to the Saturday’s frigid cold. “It’s very cold, but very humbling to see what the homeless population has to go through,” Stroup said. “It makes me very grateful for what I have.”
a dependent. LaGrange County Circuit Judge J. Scott VanDerbeck then sentenced Shaffer to 10 years in prison. However, then months later, VanDerbeck stunned many involved with the case when he modified Shaffer’s sentence to time served, 77 days, and ordered that she be placed on six months of home detention and serve three years on probation. Several organizations formed since then have protested Shaffer’s sentence, and those groups often attack the prosecutor for not charging Shaffer with murder. Bernadine Buffaci, a suburban Philadelphia resident and leader SEE SHAFFER, PAGE A8
Obama rallies support
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Stung by plunging approval numbers at a low point in his presidency, President Barack Obama is urging donors to buck up and making a thread-the-needle appeal for bipartisanship with Republicans even as he calls for replacing the House GOP majority and holding his Democratic edge in the Senate. Obama is seeking to gain back his political standing in the aftermath of his administration’s botched launch of health care enrollment by defining himself as a pragmatic victim of tea party conservatives while casting his policies on the economy and immigration as popular remedies that could win bipartisan support. “Right now in this country there is at least one faction of one party that has decided they are more PATRICK REDMOND interested in stopping progress than advancing it, and aren’t interested Lakeland High School junior Nathan Stroup wears an insulated in compromise or engaging suit and sits near a fire trying to fend off frigid temperatures Saturday night. By sleeping outside in cardboard shelters, a group in solving problems and more interested in scoring points for the of Lakeland students raised money to help two local charities and next election,” he told Democratic learned what it might be like to be homeless. donors in San Francisco on Monday. proposed the idea, it didn’t seem Austin Hollifield, the club’s For Obama, the call for comproit was going to be so difficult, vice president, said he quickly mise is a veiled olive branch that realized how hard it was to simply Albaugh said. also disguises a threat. “At first, this seemed like a imagine people spending the “What we’re looking for is not winter living in cardboard shelters. good fun idea, but when you’re the defeat of another party, what “Even with a fire pit, it’s cold,” out here in the cold … we’re we’re looking for is the advancesurviving,” he explained. “And he added. ment of ideas that are going to When the club members first SEE HOMELESS, PAGE A8 vindicate those values that are tried
Intersection to be switched to two-way stop BY BOB BRALEY bbraley@kpcmedia.com
MY COMMUNITY NEWS
men charged with manufacturing methamphetamine. That prompted the county probation department to give Shaffer a drug test that allegedly revealed trace amounts of methamphetamine in her system, said LaGrange County Prosecutor Jeff Wible. Shaffer Today’s hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. and deals only with a charge that Shaffer allegedly violated her probation. LaGrange County’s probation department believes Shaffer’s
ALBION — The Noble County Commissioners Monday voted 3-0 to convert a four-way stop intersection to a two-way stop, but delayed implementing the plan. The change would allow traffic on C.R. 1000E, also known as Allen Chapel Road, to move without stopping through its intersection with C.R. 415N, also called Lisbon Road. Traffic on C.R. 415N would continue to stop for stop signs at the intersection. People spoke both for and against the proposal Monday during a public hearing before the commissioners. A second traffic study for the intersection, which the commissioners requested Aug. 19, had not been completed because the group doing the study said it wouldn’t be
necessary, Noble County highway engineer Michael Fitch said. Commissioner Chad Kline agreed. “We requested Region III-A to do another study,” he said. “They said a traffic study would have been a waste of time.” The second study had been requested to determine if traffic on C.R. 415N was significantly heavier during the fall, when Orchard Hill Farms does much of its business. Orchard Hill is on C.R. 415N east of C.R. 1000E. Region III-A said it had considered that information in the original study, Fitch said, adding “They said they had taken into account all of the seasonal changes at that time.” The study showed the intersection warrants only a two-way stop for east-west traffic, Fitch said. One criterion for a four-way stop
DAVE KURTZ
Traffic on C.R. 1000E, southeast of Kendallville, may not have to stop at this intersection with C.R. 415N in the future.
would be nearly equal traffic flow, but C.R. 1000E has approximately five times as many vehicles per day as C.R. 415N.
Another justification for a four-way stop would be if C.R. 415N had eight hours per day in SEE INTERSECTION, PAGE A8
Area personal income tops national average FROM STAFF REPORTS
Per capita personal income grew faster than the national average in all four counties of northeast Indiana during 2012, says a new federal report. Income also grew faster than the state average in three of four local counties. Only Noble County trailed the state average. Income grew at a 4.9 percent
rate in Indiana and a 3.4 percent rate nationwide in 2012, says the report by the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis. Locally, LaGrange County showed the highest rate of growth in 2012, at 9.6 percent. DeKalb County had the highest per capita income in the four counties at $34,533 per year.
All four counties remained well below the state average income of $38,119 and the national average of $43,735 during 2012. Locally in 2012: • DeKalb County’s personal income per capita of $34,533, an increase of 5.0 percent from 2011. It ranked 52nd in the state and was 91 percent of the state average and SEE INCOME, PAGE A8
Per capita income 2012 COUNTY
DeKalb LaGrange Noble Steuben Indiana U.S.
INCOME
CHANGE
$34,533 $26,846 $31,846 $33,231 $38,119 $43,735
+5.0% +9.6% +4.1% +5.4% +4.9% +3.4%
SOURCE: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE