A1 121913

T H U R S DAY, DECEMBER 19, 2 013

OutlookOutlookOutlookThe OthelloOutlookThe Othello

PUBLISHED SINCE 1947 • HOME OF THE OTHELLO HUSKIES • w w w.OTHELLOOUTLOOK .COM • VOL . 77 NO. 51 • $1 H 33° / L 20° H 31° / L 23° H 35° / L 25° H 36° / L 30° H 39° / L 29° H 37° / L 26°Partly Cloudy Cloudy Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Partly Sunny Cloudy

Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday

Santa set to visit Othello Dec. 20

page A64

NEW LISTING TRIPLEWIDE WITH ACREAGE

Over 2,200 sq. ft. Valley Mansion triplewide home. 2 acres of quiet, country location just a few miles out of town. Home has 3 beds, 2 baths, den, vaulted ceilings, large kitchen and much more. You’ll also find a shop,storage shed, and livestock shelter on property. R1359 $160,000

REDUCED A PATCH OF PARADISE

1848 sq. ft. of nice, country living on a 1 acre lot. New paint inside and out. Carpet, vinyl, kitchen appliances and more all only two years old. Great condition, excellent view lot. All for $165,000. R1358 $160,000

Get the free mobile app athttp:/ /gettag.mobi

get the free mobile app at

GETTAG.MOBI

Scan with your SmartPhone and go

straight to our listings!

NorthwestMultiple Listing Service

610 S. First in Othello (509) 488-5651

Eric Olsen • Broker • 989-0838

FOR MORE PROPERTIES GO TO www.sunbasinproperties.com

Gail Earl • 331-6497Pete Olsen • 488-9823Lynn Olsen • 488-9823

Meghan Olsen • 989-9721

NEW CONSTRUCTION

Another quality-built home from Olsen Homes. Popular plan features 4 beds and a bonus room upstairs; den, living and family room down. 2-10 Homebuyer’s Warranty included. MLS#508439

Come In For Your Personal

New Construction Consultation

OLSEN HOMES, LLC.OLSEN HOMES, LLC. REDUCED PRICE

Single level 4 bedroom, 2 bath home on a low traffic cul-de-sac. Has plenty of yard and garden space, patio off the kitchen, new gutters outside, fresh paint inside. This home has everything at your fingertips and is move-in ready. R1335 NOW $148,750

Opinion A2 | Community A3 - A5 | Schools A6 | Neighbors A8 | Sports B1-B2 | Cops & Courts B3 | Legals B4 | Classifieds B5 | Outdoors B6

see DOGS | A4 4

City welcomes Shawn Logan as new Mayor

Huskie Boys go 3-0 to start season

off right

PHOTO BY eRIK PAGUe

Albert Cruz, one of the handlers at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center, hugs Roxy during an event held Wednesday, Dec. 11.

page B14 page A44

BY eRIK [email protected]

CONNELL — Living in prison can be a harsh reality to cope with, but for a special group of inmates at Connell's Coyote Ridge Corrections Center, the companionships they've built with man's best friend over the years serves as a reminder that even their lives still have value to the dogs they train. Three years ago, the prison created a program in which qualified offenders take owner-ship of dogs from animal shelters in the area temporarily, train them and then reintroduce them to the shelter or foster families with renewed hopes their im-proved behavior will speed up the pro-cess of adoption.

Adams County Pet Rescue partnered with the program this past March and

adoption coordinator Jamie Krueger said the work trainers have done with the dogs they've given them have gone a long way in helping ACPR find homes for 610 dogs thus far in 2013.

Krueger said the program's been a windfall for their organization and re-called a story of a dog named Cha Cha who, similar to her handlers at the pris-on, got the second chance she deserved and is now happy in her forever home thanks to the dog program.

"She kept getting out of her owner's yard so they relinquished her to us and guess what, she broke out of our shelter, as well," she said. "So, this was honestly her last chance to come and get training. She was adopted to a gentleman in Spo-kane and it's a love story for them."

The CRCC program has plans to in-crease the number of dogs they can train

at a time to 22 with 50 handlers and both ACPR volunteers and CRCC programs director Lori Telleria said they would love to help more dogs find homes with help from trainers.

"Any time you can get more people in-volved in this type of program, it's good for them," Telleria said. "It's hard to put into words how the person's tempera-ment changes as much as the dog's. They relate to them."

The latest addition to the program is the introduction of puppies and Telleria said she's already seen the positive af-fects of it, recalling a story when one of the guards had her hand clasped on her pepper spray, ready to break up a fight, when the two inmates noticed one of the pups out of the corner of their eyes and

Humans and dogs rehabilitate together at Coyote Ridge


School Resource Officer Scot LaRose will serve his last day as the Othello School District's go-to law enforcement officer Dec. 20, after Othello Police Department officials recently decided to reassign him to city day patrols. OPD Chief Steve Dunnagan said the department determined re-locating LaRose to a city beat shift was a better use of its finite resources and said the officers will continue to cover Othello schools going forward.

"At this particular point in time, allocating one full-time officer to sit at the schools is not a good use of our resourc-es," Dunnagan said. "In reality, all officers are responsi-ble for the schools, so instead of having one single officer at the schools, all the day shift officers will be assigned schools."

Dunnagan said "luxuries" like the SRO position are not a priority right now and will ask all his officers to be respon-sible for learning each school's building plans, front of-fice employees and general and emergency operations the schools follow going forward with the new staffing reali-

ties. With 13 officers total and four officers on duty during the school days, Dunnagan said he was looking forward to seeing these officers learn about who and what makes the schools function and being able to share that with other members of the OPD.

"There will be four new faces that all of our students will get to know, the administrators will get to know and four new officers who will come to know intimately the schools and the school grounds," he said.

LaRose was the SRO for the last year and a half and had his office at McFarland Middle School, whose administra-tors said they'll greatly miss him and the services he pro-vided. Principal Dennis Adams said LaRose was a good representative for the OPD in the daily lives of students and was visible on a daily basis building those relation-ships.

"That in and of itself is a great thing in helping the com-munity, at least the young people in the community, to have a little more respect for the police department," Ad-ams said.


RITZVILLE — Judge David Frazier, of the Adams County Superior Court, sentenced Sharon Provost, con-victed of one count of animal cruelty and another count of unsafe confinement or transportation of animals Nov. 14, to two months of jail time during the Thursday, Dec. 12, sentencing hearing at the Ritzville court.

Provost, 77, was also sentenced to two years proba-tion, with conditions requiring her to relinquish owner-ship of any dogs she may own, stemming from the 2008 case in which Adams County sheriffs found evidence of unsafe conditions for the many dogs she had at her home in Lind.

School resource officer to be relocated to city's daily patrols

Provost sentenced to two months in animal cruelty case

PHOTO BY eRIK PAGUe

Provost looks on as her counsel argues for a more lenient judgment during her sentencing hearing in Ritzville Thursday, Dec. 12.

see OFFICER | A6 4


During the city council meeting held Monday, Dec. 9, council members renewed the city's three-year water rates with a 6-percent increase to be felt by city water customers in their first bills in January. The city will include flyers with the first water bills explain-ing the need for the increase, which has typically consisted of 4-percent increases to rates in the past, is mostly due to the city anticipating growth in

water demand and choosing to fund projects addressing future stresses up front, rather than taking on debt.

According to the flyer, the typical Othello family will pay an average of $3.55 more a month for water under the new rates and city administra-tor Wade Farris said it's a price increase people will have to adjust to in order for the city to maintain the current and fu-ture needs of the water system.

"This is to fulfill the city's re-sponsibility to provide the citi-zens of Othello with a clean,

reliable and steady source of water and at the current rates, we just couldn't do that," Farris said.

Three big projects the city plans to roll out in coming years for the water system in-clude next year's $2.6 million project to drill Othello's ninth well east of the city. Another $2.1 million well is currently slated to begin in 2017 and the city is also just starting a six-year plan to rehabilitate the city's water towers at a cost of $265,000 a year. Farris said the city's been adamant about

paying for all of these without taking on debt and added that the cost of each would only increase as time goes on if the city didn't act now.

"The other responsibility we have to the city is to have a bal-anced budget and to not go into debt and Mayor Tim Wilson has been very adamant about that," Farris said. "The city is basically debt free because we pay ahead."

Farris said city staff and finance officer Spencer Wil-

New wells and system maintenance prompt city to raise rates

see WATER | A4 4

Documents

A1 121913