Chicago-style eats
Wednesday Mostly cloudy today; expect more rain C8
Cheese, tomato deep-dish pizza recipe D1
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June 29, 2011
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High court peppers lawyers over school funds obligation to pay for education, sometimes in directions neither side’s lawyer expected. Peninsula Daily News The justices aren’t expected for sevnews sources eral months to rule on whether Olympia OLYMPIA — The Chimacum-inspired insufficiently pays local school districts lawsuit claiming that the state isn’t pay- for education, which a coalition of educators and parents led by former Chimaing enough for public school education got its day in court Tuesday — the state cum School District Superintendent Mike Blair thinks it doesn’t. Supreme Court. Blair, who retired from the top ChiAnd an animated panel of justices peppered lawyers on both sides with macum schools post last year, has led the questions about the state’s constitutional plaintiff Network for Excellence in
Suit has Peninsula roots
Suspected shooter in fatality ID’d
Washington Schools, and the lead lawsuit petitioner is Stephanie McCleary, his former administrative assistant who has two children in Chimacum schools.
2018 plan Part of the state’s argument is that the 2009 Legislature already put a plan in place to fully fund local education by 2018, reducing the need for local tax levies then. “The thing I heard that was most frustrating is that it’s not going to even
start to be funded for another six years — maybe — and my kids will be out of school,” said McCleary, who has a daughter who is a senior at Chimacum High School. Thomas Ahearne, the Seattle lawyer who represents the statewide coalition, won the lawsuit in King County Superior Court in February 2010, when Judge John Erlick ruled that the state was violating the state constitution by not fully covering the cost of local education. Turn
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Lawsuit/A6
What
do new green boxes in PA mean?
Police waiting for results of crime lab investigation before considering charges By Arwyn Rice and Leah Leach
Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — Bobby J. Smith is the man suspected of fatally shooting his neighbor last week, but police don’t yet know the circumstances of the shooting, Port Angeles Police Chief Terry Gallagher said Tuesday. Police had not identified Smith, 58, as the man suspected of shooting Robert Fowler, 63, on June 20 until Tuesday. Consideration of any charges that might be filed in the death will await results of a State Patrol Crime Lab investigation, which is expected to be completed July 12, Gallagher said. “What we are currently investigating is the circum-
stances of that shooting,” Gallagher said. “The facts have not been determined to an absolute degree,” he said, “and until we have in our possession the final report from the state crime lab, we will not have any comment on the circumstances in that case.” Smith, who lives at 211 E. Vashon Ave., called Port Angeles police at 1:25 p.m. that day and told a 9-1-1 dispatcher that he had been involved in a shooting with a neighbor.
Keith Thorpe (2)/Peninsula Daily News
Bicyclists approach the new “bike box” at the corner of First and Laurel streets in downtown Port Angeles on Tuesday.
Bicyclists, motorists must heed newly designed lanes
Next door to where died Neighbors confirmed that Fowler lived at 209 E. Vashon Ave., next door to the house where he was killed. Turn
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PA teacher up for top national honor Peninsula Daily News
OLYMPIA — Port Angeles High School astronomy and geology teacher John Gallagher is one of the state’s six finalists for the national award for excellence in teaching that could result in a $10,000 prize and a weeklong visit to Washington, D.C. The national winners of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching — a science teacher and a math teacher — will be announced by President Barack Obama next spring. The award is the highest recognition that a kindergarten-through-12th-grade mathematics or science teacher may receive for outstanding teaching in the United States. The state recognition is “an exceptional award going to an exceptional teacher,” said Port Angeles High School Principal Garry Cameron.
NEW
Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — A downtown street got a splash of color last week after light-green “bike boxes” — a first for Port Angeles — were painted at two intersections. The boxes, placed June 21 where First Street meets Oak and Laurel streets, are intended to improve safety for bicyclists when passing through crossroads or making a turn by allowing them to get in front of traffic at red lights. Vehicles are barred from stopping in them even when they are turning right on a red light, which may become an issue when the city adds green bike boxes to the Lincoln Street intersection later this summer. The city chose to install them on First Street because it’s aiming to make Port Angeles more bike-friendly, said Glenn Cutler, city public works and utilities director. The timing also seemed right since the city had just finished resurfacing the road and adding bike lanes. “We just said, ‘Hey, we have an opportunity to start fresh,’” Cutler said. The same wasn’t done on Front Street downtown, which received bike lanes after being repaved last year, because not enough research had been done, Cutler said.
National winners will receive $10,000 from the National Science Foundation and spend a week in Wa s h i n g t o n , Gallagher D.C., meeting with the president, the state secretary of education and members of the Office of Science and Technology, said Hilary Seidel of the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, which announced the state finalists — three in each discipline — on Tuesday. “John Gallagher is the best person, teacher and role model that I’ve ever had the opportunity to work with,” said his former co-teacher, Byron Weeks, in the nomination form on the state website at http:// tinyurl.com/3rrnn7j. Turn
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