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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
John Stucke

John Stucke

Current Position: Asst. Managing Editor (Front Page)

John Stucke joined The Spokesman-Review in 2000. As Metro Editor, he directs local news coverage and oversees newsroom reporters. He has reported on business, health care, bankruptcy and agriculture for the paper.

All Stories

News >  Business

Sacred Heart layoffs fewer than expected

Layoffs at Sacred Heart Medical Center will be fewer than anticipated this spring as the hospital treats record numbers of patients and rebounds from last year's dismal financial performance. Regardless, the ultimate loss of 175 employees at Spokane's leading private employer announced Tuesday will send shudders through the local economy. Hospital president Mike Wilson said 155 employees accepted early retirement or voluntary separation packages. Up to 20 more employees likely will be laid off as the hospital reassigns staff to fill vacancies and comply with union seniority rules.
News >  Business

Met files plan for liquidation

The thousands of creditors holding notes from failed Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities should receive a small recovery beginning this fall, according to a reorganization plan filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The amended plan envisions the sale of all remaining Metropolitan property and financial holdings. The money would be placed in special creditors' trusts and disbursed by a trustee.
News >  Business

Avista Energy anticipates loss

Avista Corp.'s energy subsidiary has misjudged the volatile natural gas market and warned Wall Street analysts that it will lose money in the first quarter – its only loss in nearly five years. "Markets didn't respond as we anticipated," said Avista spokesman Pat Lynch, referring to natural gas prices that have doubled during the past couple years.

News >  Spokane

Dual creditor committees still in place

The Catholic Diocese of Spokane lost a bankruptcy court fight to disband a committee representing victims of clergy sex abuse. Fearful that the Chapter 11 case will cost millions in lawyer fees, the diocese asked U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Patricia Williams to consider whether she had jurisdiction to dissolve one of the two creditors' committees appointed by the U.S. Trustee's office.
News >  Business

Trentwood rebounds amid Kaiser losses

Kaiser Aluminum Corp. lost $746.8 million last year amid bankruptcy write-downs and the surrender of benefit plans including those for pensions and retiree medical coverage. There was some good news: sales of fabricated aluminum rose sharply as evidenced by renewed hiring at the Trentwood rolling mill.
News >  Business

‘Time right’ for Lincoln remodel

The Lincoln Building will undergo an $8 million remodel this year, the latest in a string of big-dollar downtown Spokane projects. Built on the corner of Lincoln and Riverside in 1963, the building once was the home of Lincoln Mutual Savings Bank and in recent years has served as second-tier office space.
News >  Business

Bondholders get cash from Pacific Security

Bondholders of troubled Pacific Security Companies Inc. are recovering some of their money. The Spokane company managed by David Guthrie is selling assets and returning the proceeds to investors as part of its ongoing receivership case in Spokane County Superior Court.
News >  Business

Sacred Heart plans staff realignment

About 185 Sacred Heart Medical Center employees are poised to accept early retirement and voluntary separation packages this week as part of a hospital plan to cut staff. Together with a two-month hiring freeze, Sacred Heart will realign its workforce, then decide if it needs to make layoffs, hospital managers have said.
News >  Business

Met-owned insurance firms ordered sold

Insurance commissioners from Washington and Idaho have ordered the combined sale of three insurance companies owned by bankrupt Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co. Money from the sale should boost the financial recovery of Metropolitan creditors, estimated now at around 15 cents on the dollar, and marks significant progress in the bankruptcy case.
News >  Spokane

Investor seeking answers

Gerry Hanson stands to lose more than $1 million in the Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities fiasco, and he wants some answers. Hanson, who lives in Sparks, Nev., was recovering from prostate cancer when the company he entrusted much of his money with began to stumble.
News >  Business

Business is going places

About 20 years ago, Steve and Linda Mitrovich came up with an idea. Here they were, living within a few hours' drive of the spectacular Canadian Rockies, and it was nearly impossible to find good hiking maps.
News >  Business

Deadline looms for Met bankruptcy plan

Investors battered by the failure of Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co. should get a look next month at a revised Bankruptcy Court plan that estimates a return to them of 15 cents on the dollar. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patricia Williams issued a terse 30-word order last month for lawyers in the case to submit the new plan of reorganization to hasten the conclusion of Spokane's largest business failure.
News >  Spokane

Woman files claim against priest in bankruptcy court

A Spokane woman has filed a bankruptcy court claim alleging that a Roman Catholic priest in Spokane leveraged his influence as counselor and spiritual adviser into a sexual relationship that ended about 20 years ago. The claim by Joan Healy-Hartill is reportedly in excess of $10,000 to reimburse her for counseling expenses. It is among the few formal claims alleged victims of sexual abuse have filed in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case of the Spokane Catholic Diocese.
News >  Business

Stolen identity

Be on time. Work hard. Have fun. Treat customers well. And please … deposit your paycheck quickly. That could pass as the new job description for employees at Sonic Burrito.
News >  Business

Maintenance mechanics, millwrights keep economic engine running

Their stories couldn't have started much differently. Dave Embree was screwed up on drugs for nine years. Ask him to roll up his sleeves and he'll show you the needle holes. Though he didn't finish the 10th grade, Embree has turned his life around and is learning a trade.
News >  Business

Engines of change

Ed Willey shakes his head when he hears people complain about job prospects. "Send them to me," he says with a laugh. "We're the best-kept secret in town!"
News >  Spokane

An excellent impression

The impressionist paintings gracing the walls of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture drew hundreds of visitors Sunday. By showing the works of some of art's greatest names including Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the museum is proud to have gained the prestige necessary to display such paintings and sculpture.
News >  Business

The rewards are heartening

Every day, Darren Powell teaches students how to thwart a leading killer of Americans. It's not work for the squeamish or the nervous. But the rewards – both personal and financial – are high for cardiovascular technologists.
News >  Spokane

Diocese wants committee dissolved

Worried that lawyer fees will run into the millions of dollars, the Catholic Diocese of Spokane wants the federal judge overseeing its bankruptcy case to dissolve a committee representing victims and cap legal costs. Now two and a half months into the bankruptcy, the diocese and competing victims' groups are still fighting over one of the most basic steps in Chapter 11 cases – establishing creditors' committees that represent the interests of investors and lenders, or in this case, the victims.
News >  Business

Met denied access to documents

A judge's ruling Wednesday scuttled efforts by Metropolitan Mortgage to collect potentially damaging documents pointing to alleged malfeasance by its former auditor. The ruling is a small victory for that auditor, Ernst & Young LLP, which is fighting claims that it was negligent in an accounting fraud that ultimately sent Metropolitan into bankruptcy.
News >  Business

Sacked by a scam?

Lola Emter is exhausted. From the moment her little Spokane Valley sports-bag company went public, her life has been dominated by angry investors, lawyers, unscrupulous stock dealings and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
News >  Spokane

Farm cuts worry Palouse

Jerry Snyder's family has deep roots in the Palouse and a long history with one of wheat country's most popular government programs, Food for Peace. So the fourth-generation wheat and cattle farmer was disappointed, al- though not terribly surprised and not yet overly worried, when the Bush administration proposed cuts to that program, also known by its government designation of PL 480 Title II.
News >  Business

Unraveling Met’s mess

Workers have stripped the big green letters that once glowed "Metropolitan Financial Center" from the downtown Spokane highrise. At 17 floors, the white building beamed strength and prosperity.
News >  Spokane

Motion seeks to include parishes

Plaintiffs suing the Diocese of Spokane for sexual abuse filed a court action Friday asserting that Catholic parishes, schools, charities and other entities should be made available to settle the diocese's bankruptcy debts. The move has been anticipated and came amid a rapid-fire series of events this week.