Briefly

Candidates warm up for debate

Before engaging in their first televised debate today, candidates for U.S. Senate warmed up this week by picking up support from different voter groups.

Rep. George Nethercutt told about 100 people in Riverfront Park on Thursday the debate will give voters a chance to see a clear difference between him and the Democratic incumbent, Patty Murray.

“I’m not worried about polls,” he told the gathering, billed as a “Women for Nethercutt” rally although about a third of the participants were men. “The only poll that matters at the end of the day is the poll of Nov. 2.”

In an interview after the rally, Nethercutt said today’s debate in Spokane and another televised matchup in Seattle next week are important for closing the gap between himself and Murray. But he refused to label them “make or break” for his chances at upsetting the two-term senator.

Murray held her own rally with teachers and met with tribal representatives earlier this week in Spokane. On Thursday she picked up an endorsement from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and her campaign criticized President Bush’s tax cuts – which Nethercutt supports and she opposes – as jeopardizing Social Security.

Those and other topics are likely to come up at the one-hour debate, which will be taped this afternoon and air at 7 p.m. on KXLY-TV channel 4, and again at 9 p.m. on CSPAN-2.

Two men accused in theft of purse

Two men were arrested Wednesday for allegedly stealing a woman’s purse, then leading officers on a car chase that ended with a crash into a fence.

The woman was in the Safeway parking lot at 2509 E. 29th when a man grabbed her bag. She would not let go and the man dragged the woman a short distance toward his car, police spokesman Dick Cottam said in a press release. She released the bag as the car carrying the two suspects started to drive away.

The woman suffered scrapes to her knees and arms. She was later treated and released from a downtown hospital, Cottam said.

Several witnesses provided a description of the car and its license number. Spokane Police Officer Craig Bulkley spotted the blue Honda and followed on his motorcycle, Cottam said.

The driver ran several red lights and stop signs along East Sprague before crashing into a fence, Cottam said.

One suspect ran to a nearby house, kicked the glass out of a basement window and jumped in. Officers entered the home and found John Clinton Kelley, 31, with a cut on his arm, Cottam said. He was booked for first-degree armed robbery, residential burglary and second-degree theft, Cottam said.

Police arrested 25-year-old James Douglas Kelly in a second home, where he was trying to hide in a bed with the covers pulled over his head, Cottam said. He was booked into jail for inflicting bodily injury during a first-degree robbery, second-degree theft and attempting to elude police.

Both men have extensive criminal histories, Cottam said. The woman’s purse was found in the crashed Honda with all its contents intact.

Planning commissioners reappointed

The Spokane Valley City Council reappointed two members of the Planning Commission to their posts this week.

David Crosby and Robert Blum each will serve three-year terms. Both have sat on the commission since it was formed in April 2003.

The commission makes recommendations to the council about how land should be used, whether new development should occur, how to protect the environment and more. The positions are voluntary and unpaid.

The city advertised the openings on its Web site and in the legal sections of The Spokesman-Review and The Spokane Valley Herald on Sept. 28, but no one applied besides the incumbents.

Councilman Gary Schimmels said the council hears from citizens who aren’t happy with the city decisions being made, yet people aren’t coming forward to participate in the government.

“If people have a problem … they need to step up, speak up,” he said.

Councilman Mike Flanigan had a different take on why others didn’t apply.

“The word’s out in the community about all the hard work this entails,” he said.

Crosby and Blum served truncated terms up until now. It was necessary for some of the terms to be short to begin a rotation process so that the commission never is comprised of an entirely new group of people. From now on, two seats on the commission will open each fall.The next opportunity to apply will be about a year from now.

Wine festival vendor had hepatitis

Kelowna, B.C. A restaurant and bar worker in this southern interior British Columbia town has been diagnosed with hepatitis A, and the implications may go well beyond the province.

Health officials said Wednesday the bar manager at My Martini Place was contagious when she served food and drinks during the Okanogan Wine Festival, which draws 60,000 visitors from around the world. She is now recovering, officials said.

A provincial medical health officer, Dr. Leila Srour, said the estimated 400 people who ate or drank at the restaurant and lounge between Sept. 28 and Oct. 5 should waste no time getting a hepatitis A vaccination.

Because of the festival in one of Canada’s principal wine-producing areas, as many as 2,000 others may be at risk, Srour added.

Vaccinations will be provided free, she said, adding that anyone who ate or drank at My Martini Place and has jaundice or symptoms similar to stomach flu should contact a doctor immediately.

Riot police disperse Bush protesters

Jacksonville, Ore. Police in riot gear fired paintballs filled with cayenne pepper Thursday night to disperse a crowd of protesters assembled in this historic gold mining town where President Bush was spending the night after a campaign appearance.

Witnesses said Bush supporters were on one side of California Street chanting “Four more years,” and supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry were on the other chanting “Three more weeks.” Police began moving the crowd away from the Jacksonville Inn, where the president was to arrive for a dinner and to spend the night following his speech.

“We were here to protest Bush and show our support for Kerry,” said Cerridewen Bunten, 24, a college student and retail clerk from Ashland. “Nobody was being violent. We were out of the streets so cars could go by. We were being loud, but I never knew that was against the law.”

Bunten said she was pushed by police as she held her 6-year-old daughter.

Jeff Treadwell, 37, an auto mechanic from Medford who joined the protesters, estimated about 500 people were assembled, counting both Bush and Kerry supporters.

Jacksonville City Administrator Paul Wyntergreen said the protest was peaceful until a few people started pushing police. Police reacted by firing pepperballs, which he described as projectiles like a paintball filled with cayenne pepper. Two people were arrested for failing to disperse. There were no reports of injuries.

Oregon police issue Amber Alert

Mount Angel, Ore. Oregon State Police have issued an Amber Alert for an 11-year-old boy who may have been abducted from a neighborhood in Mount Angel, which is just northeast of Salem.

Tanner Kahn, who has brown hair, was last seen wearing shorts and a long-sleeved shirt with a camouflage pattern, according to the Amber Alert.

Police think he may be with 38-year-old Jeffrey Eggiman, and traveling in a dark gray Ford Ranger with the license plate “X-KAHN.”

George Ogilvie, an Oregon State Police volunteer, said Eggiman was an ex-boyfriend of Kahn’s mother.

Anyone who sees the car is asked to call police.

Body found in Everett motel

Everett A disturbance and a report of children crawling out the window of a motel led to the discovery of a man’s body in the motel room, police have revealed.

Kaare Morgan Johnson, 22, of Everett, was found dead Oct. 6 at the Everett Motel after a caller told police that several children went through the window, one calling to her mother to hurry, according to a search warrant filed recently in Everett District Court.

Investigators found a revolver near Johnson’s body, according to the court papers.

Authorities have not given the cause and manner of Johnson’s death. According to the warrant, the room was registered to a woman police have been unable to locate.

Elk-killing charges dismissed

Enterprise, Ore. A judge in Wallowa County has dismissed all charges against two Nez Perce men who killed two elk for annual tribal ceremonies when hunting season was closed.

Irvin Watters, 77, of Lapwai, Idaho, was charged with taking two cow elk in July 2003 on Boise Cascade Corp. land near Wallowa. Watters had told Judge Phillip Mendiguren that he took the elk for his tribe’s annual Friendship Feast.

His son, Irvin Watters Jr., was charged with aiding his father. Both men pleaded innocent.

The judge dismissed all charges against the pair, ruling they “had a right pursuant to treaty to kill elk on lands that were ceded to the United States by the Nez Perce.”

Cheney absent from voter guide

Salem, Ore. Alert voters leafing through this year’s Oregon Voters Pamphlet might notice something missing: Vice President Dick Cheney.

Fred Neal, pamphlet supervisor at the state Elections Division, said that the 40-page booklet lacks a separate section on President Bush’s running mate because Republicans decided not to file the material.

“I’m confident it was a conscious decision,” Neal said.

Tracey Schmitt, Western spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said the party in this case chose to only place a statement from Bush in to the pamphlet.

She said there was no deep campaign strategy afoot in their decision to not submit a separate pamphlet statement for Cheney, and pointed out that the vice president has campaigned frequently in Oregon.

Kevin Mannix, state Republican chairman, told the Oregonian that it was his guess that the Republican national campaign is focused on Bush and didn’t see a need to send out any additional information on Cheney.

In contrast, photos and statements of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards, both appear in the pamphlet.