Regional news
Pinnock named senior editor for presentation
Geoff Pinnock has been promoted from design director to senior editor for presentation at The Spokesman-Review.
In his new role, Pinnock will supervise day and night copy editors, designers and staff artists. He will also be the night supervisory editor across all newsroom departments, and will be the project director for the upcoming visual redesign of The Spokesman-Review.
Editor Steven A. Smith said, “Geoff brings enormous expertise to his new role, particularly in understanding that design is content and that words, pictures and graphics must work together in service to readers.”
Pinnock, 45, started at The Spokesman-Review in 1992 as sports copy desk chief. Since that time, he’s also been design editor for sports and designer for Page One of the newspaper.
Previously, Pinnock worked in sports or news departments in Ashland and Medford, Ore., in Anchorage, Alaska, and at the Contra Costa Times in California.
A 60-year-old Spokane man was sentenced to sex-offender treatment Friday for raping and molesting a girl while she was 5 and 6 years old.
Superior Court Judge Linda Tompkins said she was making “a leap of faith” when she agreed to enroll David Eugene Thorp in an alternative sentencing program for first-time sex offenders.
Thorp pleaded guilty in November to one count of first-degree child rape and one count of first-degree child molestation.
In Thorp’s case, the alternative sentencing program substitutes six months of jail time for a prison term of 10 years to life. Thorp had already served eight months and was released Friday, but he still must complete sex-offender treatment.
If Thorp fails treatment or offends again, he could be ordered to serve at least 10 years in prison. After that, a parole board would decide whether he should remain in prison.
Thorp’s case was unusual because he implicated himself in the course of an unrelated police investigation. Thorp made the admissions while undergoing a lie-detector test regarding the death of his longtime live-in girlfriend.
Deputy Prosecutor John Love said the girlfriend apparently died of natural causes, and Thorp was never accused in her death. But Thorp admitted raping and molesting a girl whom his girlfriend was babysitting, between August 1999 and August 2001.
A witness subsequently reported seeing the naked girl lying beside Thorp on a mattress at the home shared by Thorp and the girl’s babysitter.
S-R seeks access to records in Met case
The Spokesman-Review is seeking access to sealed records in the Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co. bankruptcy case.
In a motion filed Friday, the newspaper asked Bankruptcy Court Judge Patricia Williams to strike an earlier order that allowed former executives and board members to keep their attorney-billing records secret.
The records pertain to fees paid to attorneys representing former CEO and Chairman C. Paul Sandifur Jr., members of his senior-management team and those who served on the company’s board of directors.
The fees are being paid from an insurance policy established to defend the former executives. This policy, valued at approximately $17 million, is considered among the most valuable assets of Metropolitan.
Money not paid to attorneys representing the former officers and directors may be used to repay the thousands of investors holding Metropolitan bonds. Metropolitan filed for bankruptcy protection a year ago.
The former directors and officers are defendants in several investor lawsuits. Some are being investigated for fraud by federal agencies including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Spokesman-Review asserts that sealing all aspects of the billings records is unwarranted and violates the public’s right of access to court records. Specifically, the newspaper said unsealing the attorney billing records will provide the openness necessary to assure investors and the public at large that this valuable asset is not being drained by excessive or inappropriate attorney fees.
Department to hold educational session
The city of Spokane’s planning department is holding an educational session on Tuesday on the history of planning in Spokane with a special focus on the “city beautiful” movement of the early 1900s.
The movement led to the establishment of the Spokane Park Board and hiring of the Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Mass., to write a park master plan for the city during that period. The master plan still is cited for its emphasis on preserving the Spokane River gorge from the falls downstream.
Members of the public are invited to attend the “Spokane Building Blocks” session on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall. A videotape of the event will be aired on Cable Channel 5 at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays and 6:30 p.m. Sundays. It also will be shown on the cable channel on Thursdays at 2 p.m., except for the second Tuesday of each month.
Parks Director Mike Stone and Teresa Brum, the city-county historic preservation officer, will be joined by Steve Franks, interim planning director, in giving presentations. Photographs and images of early-day Spokane will be shown, including the work of renowned Spokane architect Kirtland Cutter, whose grand architecture still graces the city today.
Huckleberries column evolves
D.F. Oliveria was writing the three-dot columns that evolved into Huckleberries long before the berry became Idaho’s state fruit. Now, his column has evolved into an online version that you can read each weekday, too. Be sure to check out Huckleberries on Monday – in print and online. You can get a sneak preview by going to his blog this weekend: www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/nhb.
Gay student booted over T-shirt message
Longview, Wash. An openly gay high school student was sent home to change after he wore a shirt that said “Too Gay To Function” during homecoming week.
Billy Zepeda, a senior at R.A. Long High School, decorated the lime green shirt with marker-drawn rainbows and wrote the phrase from the teen movie “Mean Girls” on the front. He wore it Thursday during the school’s make-your-own-shirt day.
A teacher told him the shirt was inappropriate and offensive to homosexuals, said Zepeda, 17.
School officials said students weren’t given specific rules for their designs, and shirts were deemed inappropriate on a case-by-case basis. Two other students were sent home to change, one with a cut-off shirt that exposed his stomach, and another that had an inappropriate comment, said Ty Morris, assistant principal.
“If a faculty member feels it offends them or is inappropriate … then they send them home to change,” Morris said. “You can’t micromanage it.”
Zepeda said the shirt wasn’t meant to offend.
“It’s quite aggravating,” he said. “I can’t wear my shirt because it’s discriminating against gays. … Why would I discriminate against myself?”
Other students wore shirts with gangster themes, made of bubble-wrap or duct-tape. Zepeda said one student had a shirt “talking about his gender area.”