John Craig

Public records show an Oldtown, Idaho, veterinarian helped Jeanette and Swen Bergman ship dogs all over the United States before animal-cruelty charges were filed against the couple.

Sven and Jeanette Bergman will get back $20,000 in cash that Pend Oreille County authorities seized earlier this month along with scores of allegedly abused dogs. District Court Judge Chuck Baechler ordered return of the cash and some other items Wednesday, but said he will wait until Monday to rule on the Bergmans' request for the return of 205 dogs, four horses and two cows.

1. Sven Bergman 2. Jeanette Bergman

Bittersweet reunion. Mary Spang slips a treat to a mastiff she calls Hyacinth at SpokAnimal. She is trying to get possession of the dog that was stolen from her yard and ended up at the Newport puppy mill that was raided earlier this month. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Students were in make-shift classrooms all over town Tuesday after part of the Colville Junior High School library roof collapsed Sunday. No one was in the building when the roof fell, shortly before a volunteer entered the building about 2 p.m. and noticed minor flooding from a broken pipe.

The first agreement in years between Pend Oreille County's two Superior Court judges is causing a stir among the county's lawyers. The county bar association was preparing a letter last week to protest a reduction in the number of days in which defendants are arraigned and lawyers may present motions in criminal and civil cases.

Gail Mackie of SpokAnimal C.A.R.E. hugs mastiff taken from Mountain Top Kennel. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

Paul Bash got his 1977 Ford pickup truck back from the Pend Oreille County Sheriff's Department - again - Thursday. It cost him only $395 this time. In 1993, when Bash was convicted of growing marijuana, he had to buy the truck back at a sheriff's auction for $500. Bash, 45, wasn't charged when deputies raided his Cusick-area home again last June and found 30 pounds of marijuana. The prosecutor's office, citing a state appellate decision, determined the search was invalid because officers ignored a locked gate and a "No trespassing" sign to get the information that convinced a judge to issue a search warrant.

A Colville area man whose 1990 first-degree manslaughter conviction was overturned because of ambigious language in an instruction to the jury has pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. Victor A. LeFaber was sentenced to a year in prison under a plea bargain this week which spared him another trial.

Pend Oreille County officials were shaking their heads Tuesday at an avalanche of phone calls from people who seem to care more about animals than humans. Deputy Prosecutor Tony Koures has gotten far more calls about his case against two alleged dog abusers than last year's case involving an 11-year-old boy who was so brutalized by his parents he lost use of his left hand.

A Pend Oreille County couple accused of keeping 220 dogs in deplorable conditions and cheating dog buyers out of thousands of dollars were released from jail Monday without bail. Sven and Jeanette Bergman emerged from jail with their heads hidden behind their coats. They declined to talk to reporters.

Pend Oreille County commissioners are planning a new building to replace one they sold in hopes of bringing new jobs to the county. The county Mental Health Department will have to move out of the former Key Tronic building in Newport in April. The new owner, Northwest Composites of Marysville, Wash., will start remodeling the building then to accommodate one of its manufacturing operations.

Muddy and washed-out roads are causing problems for school buses in some of the rural districts around Spokane. Most problems were concentrated in southern Spokane County and Whitman County.

Construction will begin later this month on the Martin Hall regional juvenile detention center at far less cost than anticipated. A consortium of nine Eastern Washington counties was pleasantly surprised two weeks ago when the lowest of nine bids came in about $480,000 less than architects predicted.

Stevens and Pend Oreille counties escaped Hulk Hogan-style budgetary choke holds with fewer bruises than might have been expected. Pend Oreille County commissioners adopted a $5 million 1997 current expense budget Tuesday that avoids layoffs despite major revenue losses.

Pend Oreille County commissioners upheld a shoreline permit Monday that will allow public boat access to Bead Lake. About 85 percent of the shoreline of the 720-acre lake nine miles north of Newport is publicly owned, but the only public access is by hiking.

Jack Henderson, the longtime Newport city administrator who has outlasted almost all of his regional counterparts, will retire next week. Photo by John Craig/The Spokesman-Review

Pend Oreille County Sheriff Doug Malby has been ordered to explain in court why he didn't obey a judge's order to return property seized in a drug raid. Malby said this week he hadn't heard about Superior Court Judge Fred Stewart's Dec. 12 order directing him to appear in court on Jan. 9 - one day before Stewart retires. Malby speculated that the judge may have been misled.

The Lincoln County Courthouse will have a "grand reopening" Friday, one day before the anniversary of the Dec. 21, 1995, fire that gutted the building. County employees will give tours of the renovated courthouse after a public ceremony at 1 p.m.

The "Mother Teresa" of U.S. Highway 395, Loon Lake's Teresa Waunch, is shifting her traffic-safety sights from the federal government to the state Legislature. She's called a public meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Loon Lake Elementary School to generate support as her Project 395 citizens group gets ready to go to Olympia in January.

Cabin owners are protesting a proposed boat ramp that would make Bead Lake in Pend Oreille County accessible to the public. Forest Service photo

Nickelson

Hazen & Jaeger Funeral Home in Spokane has been fined the state maximum of $4,000 for a mix-up that was discovered a year ago when mourners looked into a casket and found the wrong man. Glenn Gossman had told his family he wanted to be cremated, but he wound up in George Thiele's clothing and casket. Thiele was cremated. Thiele was a pilot who "definitely didn't want to be cremated," his brother, Richard, said at the time. "If you're flying an airplane, the worst fear you've got is fire. You don't want any part of that." Mourners had to be turned away at the cemetery when Thiele's graveside service was canceled at the last minute while Hazen & Jaeger searched for his remains. The service never was rescheduled.

1. Jacobsen 2. Local officials are concerned about several large billboards along Highway 2. Photo by John Craig/The Spokesman-Review