No raises for county’s elected officials

Elected officials in Kootenai County aren’t getting pay raises because the county commission thinks last year’s substantial bump – in one case $14,847 – was adequate.

Yet there’s enough money in the budget to give all other employees up to a 3 percent salary increase based on merit.

The commission unanimously voted Tuesday to forgo a 3 percent pay increase for the county’s nine elected officials in the 2007 fiscal year budget, which begins in October.

The decision comes after the commission accepted the recommendation of a citizens committee in August 2005 and raised the salaries of elected officials. The committee’s suggestion was similar to a proposal by an independent consultant hired by the county to review the salaries of all 680 county employees, including elected officials.

The commission took heat for the raise, which became a focus of spring’s Republican primary when voters booted from office Commissioners Gus Johnson and Katie Brodie.

Both Johnson and Brodie said Tuesday that the salary adjustment for the elected officials was needed to bring pay in line with other Northwest governments and similarly sized businesses.

The commissioners’ annual salary is $67,000, while the prosecutor is paid $93,000. The sheriff gets $80,000 while the assessor, clerk and treasurer all get $65,000 a year. The coroner’s salary is $58,000.

– Erica Curless

Coeur d’Alene

Witness says only two shots on tape

A defense witness testified Tuesday in the second-degree murder trial of Jonathan Wade Ellington that only two of the five sounds on a 911 recording are gunshots.

Ellington is accused of deliberately running over 41-year-old Vonette Larsen and ramming the car that her daughters, Jovon and Joleen Larsen, were driving after a high-speed pursuit between him and the Larsen family that ended on Scarcello Road.

Greg Stuchman, a California forensic analyst, disagreed with the testimony of an audio engineer for Kootenai County Deputy Prosecutor Art Verharen, who had said he found five sounds in the recording that were consistent with gunfire.

But Stuchman agreed that nothing like gunfire is audible before what is allegedly the sound of Ellington ramming Jovon Larsen’s Honda Accord.

Verharen is trying to prove that Joel Larsen shot at Ellington after Ellington rammed the vehicle and ran over Vonette Larsen. The defense says Ellington accidentally ran over Vonette while fleeing from the gunfire.

– Sam Taylor

Bonner County

Pend Oreille voters kill $12.6 million levy

Voters overwhelmingly rejected the Pend Oreille School District’s $12.6 million levy Tuesday, with about 60 percent saying no. About 1,604 “yes” votes and 2,468 “no” votes had been recorded as of press time, with seven of nine precincts counted.

The levy needed 55 percent approval to pass.

“I’m disappointed,” said district Superintendent Dick Cvitanich. “It looks like we have more work to do to ensure the voters understand the need that we have.”

The biggest portion of the levy – $9.1 million – was to go to adding 45,000 square feet to Kootenai Elementary School. The school was last on the list of projects to be paid for with money from the district’s last construction levy, which passed in 1985. The money ran out before the school was complete, leaving it with just five classrooms and no administrative office or library, among other things.

The rest of the money was to go toward purchasing 25 buses, updating office technology, replacing the heating system and buying kitchen equipment.

– Meghann M. Cuniff