Sheriff’s Office sees applicant shortage
The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office is concerned about a shortage of applicants for technical assistant positions.
Spokane County Civil Service employees expect at least three openings in the next six months, but only eight people have signed up to test for the job next week, said Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Dave Reagan.
The deadline to apply for the test is 4:30 p.m. Friday, Reagan said.
Duties include transcribing police reports and the statements made by suspects, prisoners and witnesses. Technical assistants sometimes testify in court regarding the accuracy of their work.
Job descriptions and openings can be found at www.spokanesheriff.org/ employment/openings.
Olympia
State makes request for pandemic flu meds
Washington has asked the federal government to reserve the state’s full allotment of federally subsidized anti-viral medicine, to be used in case of a flu pandemic, state officials said Wednesday.
The Bush administration has plans to buy enough medication to treat 44 million people nationwide, or about 15 percent of each state’s population. States can buy more to bring their stockpiles up to 25 percent of their populations under a federal program. The federal government would pay a quarter of the cost for the extra medicine.
Washington state’s federal allotment is 913,000 courses, and the state was given the option of buying 643,744 more – allowing for treatment of about 1.6 million of the state’s 6.4 million people.
In a letter Monday, the state Department of Health notified the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it wanted to reserve the right to purchase the additional courses of treatment.
Health Secretary Mary Selecky said the state has six months to determine how much of the additional medicine – which she said would cost the state about $10 million – it actually intends to order.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Search for plane continues into 5th day
The search for a missing plane with three people on board continued into a fifth day Wednesday with still no sign of the plane.
The last known location of the aircraft was about 10 to 15 miles southwest of Anchorage. The last contact with the twin-engine, propeller-driven plane was at about 8:30 p.m. Friday.
Aboard the plane were Ralph Aiken Jr., an East Wenatchee city councilman; Rick Posusta, of Boise; and Ian Beer, of Port Orchard, Wash.
Six Civil Air Patrol aircraft were looking Wednesday. At least three of them were equipped with floats for landing on water, said Mike Haller, a spokesman for the Rescue Coordination Center in Anchorage.
Rescuers are going back and checking previously searched areas, Haller said.
“They are tightening up a few of the areas, relooking and relooking,” he said.
All three aboard the plane were experienced pilots. Two were getting training on the Aero Commander, owned by Commander Northwest of East Wenatchee.