County delays plans for ads on Web site
Ads on the county’s Web site remain on the drawing board.
County commissioners met Thursday with Chief Deputy Assessor Kevin Best to hear about his boss’s idea to place advertisements on the assessor’s property data search Web site. Assessor Ralph Baker was ill and couldn’t attend.
The entry page to the property search averages more than 60,000 hits a day, and Baker has argued that there’s a market for ads on the site.
Baker has proposed a six-month pilot program, which would be run by an advertising agency that could get about 30 percent of the ad revenue, Best said.
Even though Baker is independently elected, commissioners would have to approve an advertising program because they control the county’s Web site.
All three commissioners asked Best to gather more data before they make a decision.
Commissioner Todd Mielke expressed concern that the county still could have liability, even with the creation of an advertising policy.
“We can disclaim all we want, but the first time anyone is wronged by one of our advertisers we’re going to hear about it,” Mielke said.
– Jonathan Brunt
Pend Oreille County
Highway 2 collision kills Newport driver
A Newport man was killed Thursday morning in a two-car crash on U.S. Highway 2 about three miles north of the Spokane County line.
The man was identified as Russell J. Milks, 55, according to the Washington State Patrol. Newport High School officials notified the man’s only next of kin, his 13-year-old son.
Milks was northbound on Highway 2 in Pend Oreille County when his Toyota was struck shortly before 9 a.m. by a southbound Dodge pickup driven by 19-year-old Jack H. Lynch, the WSP reported. Lynch was taken to a Newport hospital with minor injuries.
Compact snow and ice were factors in the collision, said WSP Trooper Jeff Sevigney. Investigators don’t think either driver was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Lynch was cited for driving too fast for conditions, Sevigney said.
– Jody Lawrence-Turner
Hayden
Cruelty charge filed in dog’s killing
A Hayden man was charged with animal cruelty and disturbing the peace Thursday for allegedly killing his neighbor’s dog.
Leonard G. Hammrich, 67, is charged with shooting Turbo, a mixed-breed golden retriever, Feb. 5.
The criminal complaint against Hammrich accuses him of shooting the dog and causing the animal “to bleed, suffer, and stagger down a public roadway.”
The dog’s owner, Viveca Duff, told a sheriff’s deputy that Hammrich told her the dog “was just walking across my pasture, so I shot it.”
In an interview with deputies, Hammrich said he had problems with dogs chasing his livestock and “he was not going to let it happen again,” according to the sheriff’s report.
Hammrich told the deputies he had shot other dogs that had gone onto his property in the past.
He told deputies that in one instance he shot and buried a dog that was reportedly swimming in a pond on his property.
Both charges filed against Hammrich on Thursday are misdemeanors.
– Taryn Brodwater