AP Top Kansas News at 5:45 a.m. CDT
Monday, June 29, 2009
County prosecutor sought fee in lawsuit
ASHLAND, Kan. (AP) -- A Clark County prosecutor is facing an ethics complaint after seeking a referral fee from a lawsuit connected with a traffic case he investigated.
Gerald Woolwine, a longtime prosecutor, didn't file criminal charges in the July 2008 two-vehicle crash that killed John "Phil" Rovenstine of Cheney and another person.
He gave Rovenstine's widow, Donna Rovenstine, the name of a Wichita attorney who works on personal injury cases if she wanted to pursue the case in a civil court.
That attorney obtained a $650,000 settlement from the other driver in the crash in early March. Woolwine then sought a $52,000 referral fee.
"To me that's kind of like getting paid twice to do your job," said Rovenstine, who refused to allow the referral fee and has filed a complaint with the disciplinary arm of the Kansas Supreme Court.
Legal ethics experts are split on whether it's ethical for Woolwine to benefit personally from a settlement tied to a criminal case that he was involved in. Woolwine said he's done "further investigation, and it doesn't appear a referral fee would be proper.
------ Death toll in Okla. turnpike crash rises to 10
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The death toll from a chain-reaction collision in northeast Oklahoma, which began when a tractor-trailer slammed into cars stopped for a previous accident, climbed to 10 on Sunday.
Shelby Hayes, 35, of Frisco, Texas, died about 7 a.m. at Freeman Hospital in Joplin, Mo., the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said. "There were family members with her this morning," said Tina Freeman, a spokeswoman for Freeman Health Systems.
Hayes had been pinned in the wreckage of her vehicle for about two hours after the accident on Interstate 44 on Friday before she was freed by emergency crews. She was taken to the hospital in critical condition with head, internal and external injuries.
Hayes' husband of 16 years, Randall Hayes, 38, and their son, Ethan Hayes, 7, were pinned in the vehicle for between eight and nine hours and were pronounced dead at the scene.
Cynthia Olson, 55, of Crossroads, Texas, who also was in the vehicle, died as well. Olson was Shelby Hayes' mother, Wanda Hayes said.
"They were on their way to Sarcoxie, Mo., for Shelby's great-grandfather's funeral," Wanda Hayes, Randall Hayes' mother, said Sunday from Garland, Texas. "I heard about this about 1:30 a.m. from Garland police. They tracked me down and I immediately went to Joplin to be with Shelby and make arrangements to get my boys home.
------ Cartoon-shape drugs hit KC streets
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Drugs shaped like popular cartoon characters including Snoopy and Transformers are showing up in Kansas City, and local officials are worried that children could mistake the dangerous tablets for vitamins or candy.
Drug dealers are marketing the pills as Ecstasy, but law enforcement officials said the tablets often don't contain any Ecstasy but rather a combination of other drugs. Tests generally find drugs that treat stomach parasites, but methamphetamine and heroin have been detected.
They can cause seizures, spiked blood pressure and heart rate, even death among children, said H. Westley Clark, director of the federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment.
The brightly colored pills have turned up shaped like President Obama's head, along with Homer and Bart Simpson, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other characters. Experts say the pills target teens and young adults to promote the drug as light fun, rather than a dangerous experiment.
"Someone leaves this around ... kids pick them up and boom," Clark said.
Clark said that while dealers are advertising their drugs as Ecstasy, most of the cartoon-shaped tablets are made up of other drugs. About half tested in Kansas City and Johnson County, Kan., over the last year were combinations of drugs used to treat stomach parasites and have effects similar to Ecstasy. The most common variation is called BZP, which is banned by the federal government and illegal in many countries.
------ Residents in dying Kansas town hoping for buyout
TREECE, Kan. (AP) -- Almost everyone who lives in the tiny southeast Kansas community of Treece knows there's not much of a future here. The 100 or so residents are hoping the federal government will buy them out like it did for Picher, Okla., just over the state line.
But the Environmental Protection Agency believes problems in Treece, a former mining town, can be fixed and there's no need for the government to move anyone.
Treece experienced decades of prosperity before starting to become a ghost town, with heavy metal-tainted water and soil and a landscape of gray mine waste. The ground beneath the town has been undermined for metals, and its landscape is dotted with cave-ins and uncapped shafts that are filled with brownish water that is not safe for human consumption.
Local residents say their fate was sealed when the government bought out residents of nearby Picher and helped settle them elsewhere. The Picher school district laid off almost all its employees and auctioned off everything about two weeks ago. Its post office is to close July 6 and City Hall will follow on Sept. 1.
Treece Mayor Bill Blunk, who expects to be the city's last mayor, said the loss of Picher's jobs, shopping, recreation and public services has made the situation in Treece irreparable.
"If I could afford it, I'd move tomorrow," Blunk said. "I see no future. If they don't buy us out ... my term will be up in 2011 and I don't think we'll be incorporated at that time."
------ Death toll in Okla. turnpike crash rises to 10
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The death toll from a chain-reaction accident on an Oklahoma turnpike this weekend has risen to 10.
Freeman Hospital in Joplin, Mo., said Sunday that 35-year-old Shelby Hayes of Frisco, Texas, had died. She had been in critical condition with head, internal and external injuries after Friday's crash.
Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., said Sunday that the condition of 12-year-old Andrea Reyes, of Phoenix, Ariz., was upgraded from critical to serious.
Some victims of the accident had been trapped in the wreckage for up to nine hours after a tractor-trailer slammed into cars that had stopped on the highway because of a previous accident.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol says a routine criminal investigation is under way.
------ Kansas stimulus projects taking shape
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- Sitting around a conference table, members of the governor's Cabinet pondered the impact of nearly $2 billion in federal stimulus money flowing into Kansas. Funding for schools, highways and the unemployed is aimed at helping maintain education quality, create construction jobs and help residents who were recently laid off.
But, Lt. Gov. Troy Findley said, much has changed since the group first convened in March: The state has seen a continued decline in state revenues, corresponding cuts in its state budget and rising unemployment.
Kansas expects to receive approximately $1.95 billion to use through fiscal year 2011. Critics of the stimulus package said they will look for waste, and President Obama's administration has said it wants details about jobs created or saved and every road paved or bridge repaired using the federal dollars.
"All of it is being used one way or another to forestall cuts," said Budget Director Duane Goossen.
"Findley told the heads of state agencies that they also must be prepared for transparency and accountability," Goossen warned. "We must be very strategic"
The list of projects and programs isn't elaborate. The Department of Transportation is allowing the state to complete all the projects it outlined 10 years ago under its comprehensive program.
------ Smoky river still offers comfortable float
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) -- Take a slow float down the Smoky.
It's here that the view might be the same as it was 40 or 50 years ago, or even 140 years ago when ol' Buffalo Bill Cody graced the water's edge.
The river still runs as calmly as it did back then, when the likes of Cody, western outdoorsmen and American Indians camped alongside it, or used it as a way of travel. Catfish still find refuge beneath the surface and deer a haven along the brushy embankment.
And this 20-mile section of river that feeds into Kanopolis Lake still welcomes visitors, whether by canoe, kayak or something else.
For instance, a trip through Kanopolis State Park takes a river rider by caves, a wildlife area and Indian petroglyphs.
"You can really feel lost, and that's the whole idea," said Nolan Fisher, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers park manager at Kanopolis Reservoir.
------ Mo. women help build home for single mother
JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) -- Julie Martinez-Smith and Kelly Leondelapaz were each looking for a sign.
The two women didn't know each other, but both found their prayer answered in the other person.
Martinez-Smith was moved to tears by an episode of the television show Extreme Home Makeover and wanted to help someone.
"I was bawling and told my husband I wished we could afford to do this for someone, that I wished God would give us the opportunity to do this," Martinez-Smith said.
Leondelapaz was dreaming of owning a home, but said there was no way for the single mother of two to do it alone.
"I knew for a fact that we would never have been able to afford (to buy a house) -- unless they got a job," Leondelapaz said, joking as she motioned to her two sons, Trayquan, 6, and Keyshawn Peavler, 2.
------ Advertising gimmick turns into balloon business
PARSONS, Kan. (AP) -- Wil LaPointe had a great idea for an advertising gimmick to bring in customers to his business, but what he did not count on was his gimmick drawing him in so he would end up leaving the very business he was promoting.
LaPointe had purchased a 15 foot cold air inflatable, roof top balloon, in the shape of a hot air balloon. The red, white and blue colors of the balloon promoted his U.S. Cellular business in Tulsa.
In 1988, a man entered LaPointe's business to ask about where he had gotten the balloon, as he thought he was the only one to use them and sell them in the area.
As they moved deeper into conversation, LaPointe expressed his interest in purchasing a bigger balloon -- like 50 or 60 foot tall to put on his business.
"The guy said it would have to be a regular hot air balloon to be that size," LaPointe said. "I asked him, 'Have you got one?"'
The man said he did. He worked for Arrow Star, Raven Industries, which made hot air balloons and still does today for the military. Staying with the red, white and blue theme, LaPointe ordered the balloon.