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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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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.

Email
johnst@spokesman.com
Phone
(509) 459-5419

All Stories

News >  Business

Met plans to sell stake in GenPrime

Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities plans to sell its stake in GenPrime Inc. for $451,780 in cash to help settle its bankruptcy case. The sale is essentially a stock buyback for GenPrime, which will pay Metropolitan a fraction of the stock's original purchase price.
News >  Spokane

Makeup of diocese creditor panel criticized

A five-member creditors' committee appointed to represent alleged sexual abuse victims of Catholic clergy in the Spokane Diocese bankruptcy case has come under criticism. Of the five, two have hired attorneys to sue the diocese for sexual abuse. The other three have not.
News >  Business

Armor protects soldiers, Kaiser

Aluminum sheet made at Kaiser Aluminum's Trentwood rolling mill is being used as vehicle armor, protecting soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan from roadside bombs and grenades. About four million pounds of half-inch thick aluminum sheet has been sold to armor makers who rig Humvees and other army trucks, Kaiser said.
News >  Business

A taste of the old country

The scent of smoked fish and fresh-baked rye bread meet shoppers at the door of the Mariupol European Deli & Bakery. The smells remind some shoppers of a home half a world away — bittersweet memories mingling family, fear and frustration, says owner Eric Miller.
News >  Business

Three airport security officers quit

Three federal officers in charge of security at Spokane International Airport resigned Wednesday amid employee complaints and an inquiry by the federal Department of Homeland Security. The resignations of Federal Security Director David Kuper, along with screening director James Doster and screening manager Roy Fagan will not affect security measures at the airport, said agency officials.
News >  Spokane

Skirmishes start in diocese bankruptcy case

Early skirmishes among lawyers involved in the Catholic Diocese of Spokane's bankruptcy may indicate the kind of adversarial case both sides had hoped to avoid. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy was filed nine days ago and already attorneys representing alleged victims of sexual abuse by clergy want attorney Shaun Cross and his legal colleagues at Paine Hamblen Coffin Brooke & Miller off the case.
News >  Business

Itronix Corp. will move to Mirabeau

Itronix Corp., which is growing at a 20 percent clip this year, announced plans to move into a new operations center at Mirabeau Point in Spokane Valley. The Spokane-based maker of wireless computers known for durability in the field will consolidate its downtown Spokane and Liberty Lake offices into a new 100,000-square-foot building.
News >  Spokane

Court now has control over diocese finances

Sex-abuse claims against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane could reach $75.7 million, a number so large that it drove Bishop William Skylstad to file for bankruptcy protection Monday. The move suspended lawsuits, but relinquished ultimate authority over the financial affairs of the diocese to a federal court.
News >  Spokane

Diocese steps into uncharted territory

Catholic leaders of Eastern Washington are guiding their churches into the unknown. On Monday, the Diocese of Spokane will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection – a legal arena fraught with uncertainty and bound by the secular application of law.
News >  Business

Christmas shoppers out before sun

Katherine Lewis has this shopping thing nailed. She snips sales items from advertising fliers, tapes each to paper and then staples them all together. Her cover sheet reads like a battle plan, with each store listed in order ranked by when they open and proximity to one another.
News >  Spokane

Summit sells for $12.8 million

Marshall Chesrown, the top-dollar developer building the Black Rock community on Lake Coeur d'Alene, has a new venture – this time paying $12.8 million for 77 acres of prime land near downtown Spokane called the Summit property. He outbid a California development company Wednesday during a bankruptcy court auction held to get the best deal for creditors of Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities.
News >  Business

Kaiser bankruptcy reorganization moves along

Several Kaiser Aluminum Corp. subsidiaries plan to pay creditors as the company moves into the next phase of its bankruptcy reorganization, the company said this week. One subsidiary owned a 20 percent stake in a refinery in Queensland, Australia. The refinery once supplied alumina to former company smelters in Mead and Tacoma.
News >  Business

College, Trans-System team up to train local drivers

It seems they're everywhere: cruising the middle lanes of Interstate 90, parked in narrow downtown alleyways, and inching along busy city streets. Yet there's a need for many more semi-tractor trucks in the Inland Northwest and the rest of the country (see related story).
News >  Business

Engine of change

It's every boy's dream. Todd Havens runs his own little railroad west of Spokane, driving his own locomotive up and down a 4.9-mile stretch of track called the Geiger spur. The short line peels off the main Burlington Northern Santa Fe line, runs through Fairchild Air Force Base, and reaches several businesses in Airway Heights.
News >  Spokane

Ailing firm vows to repay bondholders

Another longtime Spokane financial company is struggling and may fold. Pacific Security Companies Inc. sold unsecured bonds to Spokane investors over the years and invested the money in real estate ventures.
News >  Business

15 Met brokers may lose licenses

Fifteen brokers who sold Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Inc. stocks and bonds have been accused of violating the Securities Act of Washington. The charges brought by the state Department of Financial Institutions are not criminal. They could lead to the revocation or suspension of brokers' licenses, censure, and fines ranging from $10,000 to $30,000.
News >  Spokane

County hires ex-Met manager

Longtime Spokane political strategist Erik Skaggs has taken a $55,000-a-year job as Spokane County's new director of economic development. Until last year, he also was a key figure at Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities, Inc., the Spokane-based financial services company that collapsed into bankruptcy.
News >  Business

Merger advised at Met

A court-ordered report suggests that bankrupt Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities' entire family of so-called independent companies be merged. If adopted by the court, such a consolidation would drop claims the companies have against each other and treat investors in Metropolitan and its sister company Summit Securities Inc. as equals in their ongoing bankruptcy case.
News >  Business

Deal has ranchers smiling

American cattlemen will once again sell beef to Japan after trade officials reached a deal to placate concerns about a single case of mad cow disease discovered in Eastern Washington 10 months ago. With $1.7 billion in beef sales, Japan was the leading importer of American beef until it banned imports in December.
News >  Business

Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital chief resigns

Joe Gilene has resigned as chief operating officer of Sacred Heart Children's Hospital to take an administrative job at a children's hospital in Charlotte, N.C. Gilene arrived at Sacred Heart in March 2002 from Cincinnati, where he had worked for another hospital devoted to treating children.
News >  Business

Nelson to run Empire Health hospitals

Empire Health Services has appointed a new chief executive officer to lead turnaround efforts at Deaconess Medical Center and Valley Hospital and Medical Center. Jeff Nelson, 49, will oversee the large Spokane hospitals for one year — a period in which he is expected to adopt and implement a wide-ranging new business directive designed to heal the financially troubled nonprofit organization.
News >  Business

The taste of success

Six years ago Craig and Vicki Leuthold decided to go for it. They resigned from their jobs, sold some investments, moved from their comfortable countryside home and bet it all on a trend.
News >  Business

A fresh approach to burgers

In this burger joint, there are no heat lamps. Not one microwave. There's not even a freezer. When Dave Lish says his food is fresh, he means it. From hamburger and chicken produced in Washington state, to the potatoes sliced and trucked thrice weekly to his D. Lish's Great Hamburgers restaurant on North Division.