Bonners Ferry man killed in crash
A Bonners Ferry man was killed Wednesday when his motorcycle struck a car that cut in front of him about 12:40 p.m. on State Highway 200 near Clark Fork, Idaho.
Idaho State Police identified the victim as 52-year-old Daniel Krmpotich. He had been eastbound on his 1988 Yamaha when he was killed.
Officers arrested 20-year-old Clark Fork resident Oly Morris on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter. Investigators said Morris was eastbound in his 2003 Mitsubishi automobile when he turned into the oncoming lane to make a left turn.
Morris noticed Krmpotich and attempted to swerve back into his own lane when Krmpotich struck the driver’s side of Morris’ car, according to state police.
Neither Morris nor his passenger, Walter Hayes, 19, of Clark Fork, was injured.
Boise
Capitol bonds OK’d
The plan to add a pair of two-story, 50,000-square-foot, underground wings to the Capitol and renovate the existing 100-year-old building cleared a hurdle Wednesday when a citizen panel approved the sale of $130 million in bonds to finance the project.
The 5-1 vote of the Idaho Building Authority board, which oversees the state’s long-term borrowing, comes despite opposition from both candidates for governor. Democrat Jerry Brady and Republican Butch Otter favor renovation of two adjacent state buildings, the old Ada County Courthouse and the Borah Post Office, to add meeting and office space. Otter has paid for TV campaign ads against the wings.
Money to repay the bonds, at an annual interest rate of 3.45 percent, will come from Idaho’s cigarette tax revenue, which totals about $30 million annually.
Portland
Judge sends salmon back
A salmon recovery plan for the upper Snake River that has sharply divided conservation groups and lawmakers is headed back to federal agencies with a warning from a judge who says he will not tolerate any more delays.
The ruling Tuesday by U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland formally sent the plan, called a biological opinion, back to NOAA Fisheries to account for the effects of a related plan for the lower Snake and Columbia rivers.
“Given the precarious condition of the Snake River salmon and steelhead runs, the consequences of another failed biological opinion will be serious indeed,” Redden wrote.
Redden had already ruled last May the upper Snake plan needed to be rewritten to meet Endangered Species Act requirements that protect salmon and steelhead.