Region in brief: Warming center will open for days

Tue., Jan. 5, 2010

From Staff Reports

With cold weather predicted, a Coeur d’Alene warming center will open tonight at 8 p.m. and remain open through Thursday.

The Fresh Start Warming Center, at 1524 E. Sherman Ave., will be open from 8 p.m. until 2 p.m. the following day.

The center offers hot food, showers, laundry, telephone and Internet access, sleeping mats, sleeping bags and blankets. It has a capacity of 64, with overflow handled by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 501 E. Wallace Ave. The church has room for 40 more people.

For additional information, please contact Howard Martinson of Fresh Start, at (208) 661-1524 or the office at (208) 667-9798.

Meeting will cover beach cleanup

NORTHPORT, Wash. – Plans to clean up industrial waste from “Black Sand Beach” on the upper Columbia River will be discussed at a 7 p.m. public meeting on Jan. 14 at Northport High School, 408 10th St.

The beach contains slag, a waste product contaminated with heavy metals from Teck Resources’ Trail, B.C., smelter. Teck stopped dumping slag into the river in 1995.

The company entered into an agreement with the Washington Department of Ecology to remove slag from the beach in the fall of 2010. The beach is about three miles south of the Canadian border.

Written comments on the cleanup plan may be submitted to the Ecology Department through Feb. 5 at chgr461@ecy.wa.gov.

Morning Star trial delayed by judge

The first of numerous lawsuits alleging abuse of a former resident of Morning Star Boys’ Ranch was delayed on Monday while the Spokane County Superior Court judge assigned to hear it reviews pretrial motions in the case

Trial of the civil case, brought by Kenneth Putnam, will begin today in Judge Kathleen O’Connor’s courtroom. Putnam is one of 19 former residents accusing the ranch of allowing physical and sexual abuse by ranch employees. It is expected that O’Connor will rule on several motions this week, as well as begin to seat a jury in the case.

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