The Newport Miner the voice of pend oreille county since 1901
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
www.pendoreillerivervalley.com
Volume 116, Number 8 | 2 Sections, 20 Pages $1.00
Passing firefighter notices smoke By Don Gronning Of The Miner
OLDTOWN – West Pend Oreille Fire District firefighter Ray Hanson was driving home from the Newport City Council Monday night. “I came across the railroad tracks by Concept Cable and looked over and saw smoke,” Hanson said. “It didn’t look right.” So he looked closer and determined the smoke was coming from the roof. He knocked on the glass door of the home at the corner of Highway 41 and Fourth Street to notify the woman inside. “She was surprised,” Hanson said. “She had no idea there was a fire.” There was no smoke in the living area. Hanson told her the house was on fire and they needed to get out. “So she closed the damper on the stove and left,” he said. Hanson had already called 911. Hanson said that he wasn’t the only person to notice the fire. “Just as I stopped, another woman stopped and asked if what she was looking at was what she thought it was. I said yes, the house is on fire,” Hanson said. “At least one other passerby stopped,” he said. “Sometimes people don’t know what they are looking at.” Hanson said it was fortunate that it was still so light out. “In the dark it might have been a different story,” he said. See Fire, 10A
Miner photo|Don Gronning
The state Fire Marshall was on scene of an Oldtown house fire Tuesday morning taking pictures and investigating the cause. He said there was no indication the fire was suspicious but that the cause was unknown Tuesday.
School shooting threat puts community on edge
Emergency declared to by-pass civil service By Don Gronning Of The Miner
NEWPORT – The Newport City Council was asked to declare a Public Safety Emergency in order to expedite hiring of a third officer for the newly reformed Newport Police Department. Interim Police Chief Mark Duxbury told the council that they could hire another officer without going through the Civil Service Commission, which won’t have its first meeting until March 22. Duxbury, who has been working seven days a week, was called out on four calls in the middle of the night in the last seven days – two domestic violence and two prowler
calls. Duxbury says calls like domestic violence need a backup. He said he was able to get help from Priest River and Bonner County, as well as the Kalispel Tribal Police. The city just hired another officer, Raul Lopez, but Duxbury doesn’t get overtime, and Lopez does. He said it would be costly to have Lopez work overtime as backup. City attorney Tom Metzger wasn’t at the city council meeting, but city administrator Ray King found a provision where an officer may be hired in a public safety emergency which threatens life or property. Duxbury says he still has a list of people who applied before and
one of them is already certified in Washington as a peace officer, so the person wouldn’t have to take to the equivalency course. Council member Ken Smith didn’t want an open-ended state of emergency so he proposed the council revisit it in three months. The council members present – Mayor pro-tem Keith Campbell, Brad Hein, Nancy HawkesThompson and Smith voted yes. Mayor Shirley Sands and councilmember Mark Zorica had excused absences. Duxbury also told the council that the Newport School District was considering hiring a school
Selkirk student arrested, charged with harassment By Don Gronning Of The Miner
See emergency, 2A
Newport wants to get school resource officer back By Sophia Aldous Of The Miner
NEWPORT – If the Newport School Board has its way, there will be a school resource officer in the district again, hopefully by April. The board voted unanimously at its Monday, March 19 meeting to pursue negotiations with the City of Newport to hire a school resource officer.
“We really do take security at our schools seriously, especially in light of recent events,” said board chairwoman April Owen in a phone interview on Tuesday. “A school resource officer is part of that.” School resource officers (SROs) are sworn law enforcement officers who are responsible for providing security and crime prevention
services in schools. The school district formerly had a contract for a resource officer with the Pend Oreille County Sheriff’s Office, but the position was terminated in May 2017 by Sheriff Alan Botzheim due to lack of manpower. Prior to that, the district had an SRO for three years, paying $50,000 annually for the officer to patrol school district grounds
at the elementary, junior high, high school and Pend Oreille River School for 40 hours per week. Funds for the position came from the passage of the 2014 Maintenance and Operations levy and again in the replacement levy passed in February 2017. The Pend Oreille County
IONE – A comment from one Selkirk High School student to another resulted in the arrest of the 17-yearold boy Monday, March 12. He pleaded not guilty to harassment threats to kill, a felony, when he was arraigned in Pend Oreille County Superior Court Thursday, March 15. Bail was originally set at $25,000 but Superior Court Commissioner Phil Van de Veer agreed to a request from the boy’s attorney, Karen Lindholt, to accept a $2,500 cash bond. According to a statement of probable cause, two witnesses told the school principal that the 17-year-old boy made a statement about shooting up the school Monday. The boy allegedly said something to the effect of “you shut up or somebody might shoot up the school,” after another student told him to turn around and shut up in a morning class, according to a statement of probable cause from the sheriff’s deputy investigating the case. Selkirk High Principal Greg Goodnight questioned the boy, who admitted to making the remark and was expelled. He left school with his parents, Goodnight said. The Sheriff and Pend Oreille Counseling were called. The deputy interviewed the witnesses when he arrived at the school. Then he went to the boy’s house and asked his parents to speak to him. The parents weren’t surprised he was there and told him that the boy was on the Asperger’s Spectrum and had trouble reading social cues. The boy and his parents agreed to the interview. The boy said he had been told by his counselor when he came to school that there were rumors that he had
See Officer, 2A
See school, 2A
B r i e f ly New storage tank to be automated PRIEST RIVER – The Priest River City Council approved $14,000 to Trindera Engineering Monday night to automate the water system’s transfer to a new storage tank, in the case of the a catastrophic failure. The city is working on replacing an aging, million gallon water tank with a smaller, newer 400,000-gallon water tank. The new tank would only be used if the current water system failed.
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Mayor Jim Martin said switching to the water tank would be time and labor intensive, so the automation would be worth the $14,000.
Lock your vehicles PRIEST RIVER – The Priest River Police Department is reminding citizens to lock their vehicles. The PRPD has received multiple reports of items being stolen out of vehicles during February and March. “As far as we know, the vehicles were not broken into but accessed through unlocked doors,” police
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chief Drew McLain said. “The suspect in the cases from last month and this month has been caught, but every year thieves take advantage of citizens who leave their vehicles unlocked in Priest River. We would like to take this chance to remind everyone to please lock their vehicles when unattended in order to deter crime and protect your property.” McLain thanked the citizens who called in, making it possible to apprehend the suspect. If you think you may have been a victim of a car prowling or if you happen to see anything suspicious call Bonner County Dispatch at 208-265-5525.
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