Intermountain Gas seeks higher rates
Natural gas customers in Idaho might have to pay $12 more a month for heat and hot water.
The Intermountain Gas company has asked state regulators for permission to increase prices for both residential customers and businesses.
Residential customers would pay about $12.30 more a month under the proposal.
Businesses would pay a typical increase of about $55 a month under the proposal.
On Friday, company officials said they won’t profit from the increased rates, but will use them to pay for higher costs in natural gas supplies.
The proposed rate increase follows two years of lowered rates for Intermountain Gas customers.
If the Idaho Public Utilities Commission decides to approve the new rates, they would become effective Oct. 1.
Spokane
Baby cut from womb released
A baby who was cut from his mother’s womb in late June has been released from a Spokane hospital.
Salvador Gomez’s 27-year-old mother, Araceli Camacho Gomez, was found dead in Columbia Park in Kennewick on June 28.
Twenty-three-year-old Phiengchai Sisouvanh Synhavong, of Kennewick, is accused of killing the mother, taking the baby from her womb and trying to pass him off as her own.
The baby was sent to Deaconess Medical Center after paramedics found him not breathing. He was released from the hospital Thursday.
His father, 34-year-old Juan Felipe Campos Gomez, of Pasco, has two other children, 2-year-old Brenda and 10-year-old Juan Carlos.
Synhavong pleaded innocent to aggravated first-degree murder. Her trial is scheduled for March 30.
NAMPA, Idaho
Officer shoots, kills fleeing man
Idaho State Police have confirmed an officer shot and killed a 29-year-old man who resisted arrest early Saturday morning.
An incident task force is now investigating the shooting, which took place on state Highway 30 in south-central Idaho. Police say the man broke free from an officer who was trying to arrest him.
The Twin Falls County man tried to drive away in a pickup truck. Authorities say an officer fired a single shot, killing the man after he refused to stop.
Police say the victim will not be identified until his family has been told of his death.
COEUR D’ALENE
Developer plans to appeal rejection
A developer plans an appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court as part of a lengthy battle over plans for a French-style luxury golf community overlooking Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Kootenai County commissioners rejected plans for the Chateau de Loire golf community last year.
Developer Geraldine Kirk-Hughes appealed the decision in district court, where a judge this week upheld the county’s rejection.
Kirk-Hughes said she now plans to appeal to the state’s highest court.
The proposal is for an 18-hole golf course and 500-unit residential housing community on 578 acres near the entrance to Beauty Bay State Park.
The project was first proposed in 2005, when it was estimated to cost $150 million.
County commissioners rejected the initial plan in 2006, and last year voted unanimously against the project after determining it was incompatible with its proposed location.
In this week’s decision, District Court Judge John Luster said the commissioners showed evidence to support their concerns, which included water services, the potential disturbance of wetlands, and runoff and erosion from steep slopes.
Kirk-Hughes had argued that the county decision was “arbitrary” because a similar development had been approved while her project wasn’t.
But Luster wrote that while the approved project “was similar in certain ways,” it “involved a different property with different plans.”
Bev Twillmann, a spokeswoman for the group Neighbors for Responsible Growth, said Luster’s decision was “a win for the county and a win for the citizens.”
“The citizens presented tons of information and the commissioners took the time to listen,” Twillmann said.
The Kirk-Hughes Development company could also submit another application for the project, but Kootenai County civil attorney Pat Braden said a decision on that possibility had not been made.
LEWISTON
Rape count filed; mom also charged
A 23-year-old man has been charged with the rape of an underage girl in North Idaho. His mother also faces a felony after authorities say she intimidated a witness in the case.
Patrick Graber has been charged with felony counts of statutory rape and lewd and lascivious conduct.
His mother, 46-year-old Theresa Graber, has been charged with a felony count of witness intimidation in connection with the charges against her son.
Clearwater County Prosecutor Clayne Tyler said the investigation is ongoing and dates back to 2004 in Orofino, Idaho.
Both Grabers are scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 29.
Patrick Graber is the father of a 15-month-old boy who died last summer after another relative left the child in a locked car and temperatures approached 100 degrees.