Child care workers rally for state help

Calling for higher state subsidies, unionized child care workers on Friday delivered hundreds of diapers to the governor’s office.

“Time for a change,” read some of the disposable diapers, which were clean. “Raise subsidy rates up from the bottom.”

The protest was organized by the Service Employees International Union, which 10,000 Washington child care providers voted to join in November. Since June, the workers have been bargaining for higher rates for state-subsidized children.

Longtime Spokane child care provider Nancy Gerber said that the industry wants to provide quality care but can’t do it at the low rates the state is paying. Some 70 percent of the 13 children she cares for are subsidized by the state.

The state now pays about a third of the market rate, according to Sue Winn, a provider who’s on SEIU’s negotiating team. That works out to $7 to $28 a day for an infant, depending on region, she said.

If those rates continue, Gerber said, “we couldn’t afford to stay in business.”

The unionized child care providers are seeking a 15 percent increase, Winn said, with the state offering 3.5 percent.

Hal Spencer, a spokesman for the governor’s budget office, wouldn’t confirm those figures. “We don’t negotiate in the media,” he said.

Reardon, Wash.

Victim identified in fatal crash

The victim of a fatal crash in Lincoln County was identified Friday as Reardan, Wash., resident Steven Craig Heier.

Heier, 54, was southbound on state Route 231 five miles north of Reardan when a northbound concrete mixer, owned by Spokane Rock Products, crossed the center line in a curve Thursday evening, according to the Washington State Patrol.

Trooper Jim Hill said the concrete mixer had its drop-down rear wheels deployed to spread out the 65,500-pound weight of the vehicle’s load of wet sand.

Hill said the driver, 52-year-old Gregg Ed Soady, of Veradale, Wash., told investigators his truck crossed the center line when its load shifted as he entered a right-hand curve at approximately 45 mph.

Soady steered sharply to get back in his lane, but the maneuver caused the trailing drop axle to jut about two feet into the southbound lane, Hill said.

Heier’s 1992 Saturn was totaled when it struck the concrete truck’s drop axle. Soady was uninjured, and his truck wasn’t seriously damaged.

Hill said the accident is still under investigation, but “we don’t see speed as a factor in this collision.”

coeur d’alene

2003 DUI overturned

Roy Richard DeFranco testified he never burped or barfed in his mouth as he sat in a patrol car after he was stopped for suspicion of driving under the influence in 2003.

The Coeur d’Alene man’s attorneys successfully argued that whether DeFranco, now 60, belched didn’t matter. What did matter is whether Idaho State Police Trooper Gerald Stemm would have known if he had.

Idaho’s Court of Appeals overturned DeFranco’s conviction recently, saying Stemm didn’t monitor DeFranco for the required 15 minutes before giving him a breath test to determine if the man had been drinking.

Officers are required to monitor a suspected drunken driver for 15 minutes before administering a breathalyzer. If a DUI suspect burps or regurgitates in his mouth, it could skew the test results. If a burp is seen, heard or smelled, the clock starts over.

According to an Idaho Court of Appeals opinion, Stemm placed DeFranco in the patrol car then went to his trunk to get some paperwork. Stemm said he could see DeFranco through the back window.

Though Stemm said he could have heard DeFranco if he had burped or coughed, the appeals court disagreed.

“Stemm could not have heard or smelled a belch or regurgitation because of the trunk lid and the rear window separating the men and the sound of the cruiser’s running engine,” Judge Karen L. Lansing wrote.

The opinion overturns DeFranco’s DUI conviction.

Latah County

Man killed in logging accident

A 44-year-old St. Maries man was killed Friday morning in a logging accident in Latah County, according to the Latah County Sheriff’s Office.

The identity of the victim wasn’t released Friday because authorities in Benewah County had yet to notify his relatives.

Authorities responded to the Feather Creek area north of Bovill, Idaho, just before 10:30 a.m., according to a press release.

The Latah County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officers are investigating the cause of the accident, the release said.