Sandpoint may raise the roofs

Sandpoint The Sandpoint Planning Commission will consider next week an amendment to the city code that would allow a maximum building height of 60 feet in the downtown commercial zone.

Now the current maximum height for buildings is 45 feet. The amendment would allow taller buildings “where such height would be appropriate,” according to the proposal. Buildings taller than 45 feet would require a conditional use permit or a planned unit development process, according to the proposed amendment.

If approved, the recommendation would be forwarded to the Sandpoint City Council for final approval. The Planning Commission meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 1123 Lake St.

Man gets prison for gang killing

A 33-year-old Spokane gangster was sentenced Wednesday to almost eight years in prison for killing a rival gang member in June 2002.

In an appearance before Superior Court Judge Tari Eitzen, Willie Ramone “Bone” McClain admitted killing Vincent E. “Nook” Roberts at Roberts’ apartment at 2407 S. Grand Blvd.

McClain had been charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary and witness tampering, but was allowed to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter.

Court documents indicate the killing was retaliation for an earlier fight at Club Kamikaze, in which two members of McClain’s 8 Trey gang suffered gunshot wounds.

McClain was accused of robbing Roberts, a member of the Insane Crips gang, of drugs and money in addition to shooting him in the chest. After his arrest, McClain allegedly asked a witness to change her testimony.

McClain also faces about 25 years in a federal prison for drug convictions in U.S. District Court.

Man sentenced in murder-for-hire plot

A Grant County man who persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to let him out of prison after kidnapping his wife is headed back to prison for trying to hire a hit man to kill her.

The same judge who sentenced Howard Ralph Blakely for the second-degree kidnapping in October 1998 gave him 25 years on Tuesday for two counts of soliciting first-degree murder.

The victims were to have been his now-former wife, Yolanda, and his daughter, Lorene L. Blakely.

Lorene Blakely helped police catch her father when he kidnapped Yolanda Blakely at knifepoint in Othello, Wash., and drove her to Gallatin County, Mont., in a box in the back of his pickup.

While serving his sentence for the kidnapping, Blakely tried to hire a fellow inmate at the Airway Heights Corrections Center to kill his ex-wife and daughter. The inmate cooperated in a sting investigation.

The murder-solicitation charges were filed a week before the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Blakely’s 71/2-year sentence last June in a decision that stripped judges of their power to impose above-standard sentences in 17 states.

The ruling would have set the 68-year-old Blakely free, but the new charges kept him behind bars until his new conviction earlier this month.

The Grant County prosecutor called for a maximum standard sentence of 431/3 years, but Superior Court Judge Evan Sperline accepted the defense recommendation of 25 years. Sperline imposed $20,000 in fines.

Yolanda Blakely told the FBI that her kidnapping was motivated by Blakely’s demand that she drop a divorce claim to assets that included $1.2 million from the sale of property, $460,000 in a stocks-and-bonds account, and some real estate.