05/13/2007

Week in Review

CRAWFORD

County jail inmate found dead in jail cell

GRAYLING — An inmate at the Crawford County Jail was found dead in a cell, in what authorities said was an apparent suicide.

Sheriff Kirk Wakefield said the body of Cecil Allen Gugin, of Roscommon, was found in a cell just before 8 a.m. last Sunday, when breakfast was served. Gugin, 38, died from self-inflicted asphyxiation, Wakefield said.

Cameras are trained on the cells and are continually monitored by officers, but it appeared Gugin was asleep on his bed, Wakefield said.

Gugin was not on suicide watch. He was held since Feb. 16 on a string of felony charges stemming from an incident in which he allegedly held a woman captive for two days, beat her with a baseball bat, threw knives at her and eventually assaulted another man with a shotgun.

EMMET

Voters reject proposal for athletic complex

PETOSKEY — Voters in Petoskey overwhelmingly defeated a multi-million dollar proposal to build and operate a new school athletic complex.

Two related millage requests on Tuesday's ballot failed by an approximate margin of 60 percent to 40 percent, said John Scholten, school superintendent in Petoskey.

"I think the need is definitely there, but we approached this by surveying the public,” he said. "So we put it up to the voters. Right now, it's pretty clear the voters are not prepared for this project.”

Elise Harrington and her husband own Alan's Northside Restaurant in Petoskey, where she said virtually all the customers buzzed on Tuesday about the local school millage requests for the athletic complex. The buzz was not good, she said.

"We only heard one person who said they would vote for it. I don't know if they're all expecting it to fail, but I think they want it to,” Harrington said.

School officials asked voters for $15 million in new athletic facilities, plus hundreds of thousands more each year to maintain and operate them.

The failed proposals sought a combined 0.75 mill increase for Petoskey Public Schools, with the new taxes anticipated to raise nearly $1 million a year to build and operate a new football stadium, track and soccer complex on land adjacent to the high school campus. The two proposals were not bound together, but supported each other, said district business manager Kent Cartwright.

The proposals included a 0.5-mill increase over 20 years to finance construction and a 0.25-mill increase over seven years to operate and maintain the complex. The taxes would have cost an additional 75 cents for every $1,000 of a property's taxable value.

Petoskey woman sentenced in guard plot

NEWBERRY — A woman who admitted plotting the murder of her estranged husband, a prison guard, murder of her estranged husband, a prison guard, was sentenced Tuesday to 10-20 years in prison.

Tammy Jo Williams, 40, of Petoskey, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy count in March. She originally was charged with solicitation of murder, punishable by a life term, before entering a plea bargain.

She and her boyfriend, Robert Paul Dalgliesh, 43, admitted trying to get inmates at the Newberry Correctional Facility to kill the guard. The inmates, whom Dalgliesh approached, tipped off authorities.

Police say Williams masterminded the scheme to get insurance money.

Dalgliesh also got a 10- to 20-year sentence last month.

GRAND TRAVERSE

Landing gear fails, but instructor, student safe

TRAVERSE CITY — An NMC flight instructor and his student are crediting good training and calm heads for a successful landing after their plane's landing gear malfunctioned during a training flight.

Art Heilig, 23, was conducting a training flight with student Paul Hurlbert, 21, in a Cessna 172 RG when the pilots realized their landing gear had malfunctioned shortly after takeoff around 9:30 a.m.

"I could look out the side and see the gear,” Hurlbert said. "After that it's just kind of standard procedure we train for.” The plane circled the runway for several hours to burn fuel before Heilig landed the plane about noon today with just one of three landing gear wheels down. The plane sustained minimal damage, and the pilots weren't hurt. Spectators at the airport's observation area could see the pilots climb out of the plane and shake hands on the runway after the landing.

"It was pretty uneventful,” Heilig said. "We stood by ourselves for a few minutes, which was kind of nice. It gave us a chance to breathe.”

Police were urged to search by sister

TRAVERSE CITY — Deanna Fredrickson urged state police on more than one occasion to look for her missing sister in the Williamsburg woods where authorities believe they found Dawnette Marie Harrell's body.

But early on in their year-long investigation, police refused to comb the woods near the home of Justin Stair, the alleged father of Harrell's unborn child and the last person to see the Traverse City woman before she disappeared in April 2006, Fredrickson said.

Last month, Fredrickson again demanded that investigators look in the woods.

"I had a meeting with Detective (Mark) Harris and I told him that I wanted them to go out in the Williamsburg area near Justin's house and search in the woods. That is what I told them in the beginning and they refused to do it. They said it was a waste of time,” Fredrickson said Sunday. "The second time I went in there ... I asked them and told them that they needed to go out there and search that area. (He) was the last one to see her and I thought that that was where you would begin looking.”

On May 4, police searched and found remains they believe to be Harrell's in a shallow grave just outside the property line of Stair's parents' Whitewater Township home, family members said.

Traverse City passes smoke-free ordinance

TRAVERSE CITY — Work places in the city will soon go from puff to snuff.

City commissioners Monday unanimously approved a smoke-free ordinance to extinguish smoking inside work sites, public places, buses, taxicabs, common areas in apartment buildings and business cars occupied by more than one person. Smoking will be allowed at food-service establishments, private homes, cars and in tobacco specialty stores.

An audience mostly full of smoke-free supporters cheered after commissioners unanimously signed on to the new rules, which will go into effect Aug. 5.

"It is literally a breath of fresh air to see all of you so committed to doing the right thing,” said Lisa Danto, coordinator of the Traverse Bay Area Tobacco Coalition.

Several spoke to the health risks posed by inhaling secondhand smoke.

Others urged officials in Grand Traverse County, where some elected leaders have been reluctant to pursue a similar measure, to follow the city's lead. County Commissioner Herb Lemcool pledged to try to make the county and the state smoke-free.

There are 15 Michigan counties with smoke-free rules.

Arts center plans new visual arts center

INTERLOCHEN — Interlochen visual arts director Kaz McCue waited for months for this day to arrive.

Thursday, Interlochen Center for the Arts held a groundbreaking ceremony for its $6.25 million Herbert H. and Barbara C. Dow Center for Visual Arts. The formalities began at 11:30 a.m. with brass fanfare and were followed by remarks from six speakers, including McCue and Willard Dow II, the son of Herbert and Barbara Dow.

Barbara Dow was an Interlochen trustee from 1984 to 1995. An avid supporter of the visual arts program, she died in 2005.

For McCue, the groundbreaking couldn't have come soon enough. Visual arts classes are housed in what originally was a maintenance shed constructed in the 1930s or '40s. With such a small space, many of the programs — drawing, metal-smithing, painting, sculpture, photography, print making, fiber art, ceramics and digital media — ­are scattered throughout campus.

McCue said there isn't adequate room for all of the programs to thrive in the existing building. The new plans will allow visual arts students to work out of the same space.

Parking deck talks are set to begin

TRAVERSE CITY — City talks for two new public parking decks now can officially begin.

City commissioners last week unanimously authorized the start of discussions with Old Town property owners for a public deck there and with Snowden Companies for a possible parking structure at 305 W. Front St.

Old Town businesses, including Hagerty Insurance Agency, requested the city help with parking. A deck has been proposed for the block bound by Cass, Lake, Union and Eighth streets.

On West Front Street, developer Gerald Snowden offered a public parking opportunity at his site.

Meanwhile, the Grand Traverse County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority continues to pursue public parking nearby at Federated Properties' West Front property.

Local emphasis may squeeze out sellers

TRAVERSE CITY — Brownwood Farms was to sell its local fruit-based products this weekend at the first Farmers Market of the season, but don't expect to find the Williamsburg merchant's preserves, salsas and sauces among the stalls next summer.

Traverse City's Farmers Market, a popular spot for green thumbs, veggie vendors and foodies, opened Saturday. But big changes to the decades-old market means some sellers like Brownwood's Jeff Hughes will be left out of the mix in 2008.

The city's Downtown Development Authority approved new rules this year to emphasize area growers, said deputy director Rob Bacigalupi. Vendors now must come from a local seven-county area and sellers must be growers.

That means Hughes can't offer his jars of fruity concoctions, because, even though he uses local cherries and strawberries, he doesn't grow his ingredients. He thinks the rules are unfair and single out jarred food. Hughes wonders why bakers still can sell locally made bread, even if they don't grow their own grains.

"It's because some merchants downtown don't want us there, and that is the only reason,” he said. "They feel we are taking away from their business.”

Brownwood's goods and other vendors in similar situations will be "grandfathered” in this season before being ousted next year. The changes were recommended by a market committee made up of farmers and DDA members.

Commissioners back off energy-saving plan

TRAVERSE CITY — Grand Traverse County officials are backing away from a project designed to improve energy efficiency, a proposal that prompted some commissioners to scoff at the concept of global warming.

Those commissioners' views, voiced at a March public meeting, in turn prompted criticism from some members of the public.

A county board committee this week questioned the cost of joining the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement and suggested they instead go their own way and set individual goals to improve energy efficiency.

County Administrator Dennis Aloia and some commissioners questioned the agreement's requirement to establish what the county's level of greenhouse gas emissions were in 1990.

"I don't understand the philosophy of why we go back to 1990 to get a baseline,” Aloia said. "I don't know why we don't set a baseline now and then try to meet some goals.”

Commissioners in March equated climate change research and projections adopted by scientists worldwide to a socialist plot by the Sierra Club, United Nations, Al Gore and President Jimmy Carter.

Commissioners Margaret Underwood, Dick Thomas, and Addison "Sonny” Wheelock also denied any link between human activity and global warming.

The proposed agreement, already adopted by Traverse City officials, calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 and prescribes a specific protocol to help reach the goal.

MANISTEE

Man sought in attempted robbery

MANISTEE — Police are searching for a man who attempted to rob Manistee's House of Flavors restaurant.

The incident occurred just after 10 p.m. on April 27, said a report from city police. An employee opened the restaurant's side door and told police she was confronted by a man who grabbed her arm and told her to "give me your money.” The employee was able to get away and lock the door, keeping the man out of the restaurant.

Police used a tracking dog to trace the man to a parking area, but he was not found.

The suspect is about 40 years old, has medium-length reddish-blond hair, a slightly crooked nose and a medium build. He was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt and a white T-shirt and is between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 10 inches.

OTSEGO

Accused biter runs a day care

GAYLORD — A Gaylord school bus driver accused of biting two middle school girls in separate instances also runs a home-based day care now under investigation by state officials.

Patricia Lynn Lawes, 44, was put on administrative leave last week pending an internal investigation by officials at Gaylord Community Schools. Digital video footage from the bus is being reviewed and the driver could be fired by school trustees, something they could consider at a meeting next week.

Police were notified of the alleged assaults.

Lawes recently was transferred to drive another bus route after being reprimanded for speaking inappropriately to students, said school Superintendent Cheryl Wojtas.

Lawes has a clean driving record and has been licensed to operate a school bus since September 1998, said Fred Woodhams of the Michigan Secretary of State's Office.

The alleged biting incidents may have prompted state officials to launch an investigation into Lawes' day care center on Fisher Road, said Maureen Sorbert, spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services. She declined to release details of the current probe.

Lawes can still baby-sit up to six children at her home business seven days a week, but the investigation could change that, Sorbert said.

WEXFORD

Woman accused of stealing jewelry

CADILLAC — A Cadillac woman is facing embezzlement charges after she allegedly stole jewelry from a Cadillac Wal-Mart.

Stephanie Koehl, 22, is charged with two counts of felony embezzlement after the store's video surveillance allegedly showed the Wal-Mart employee had been stealing jewelry from the store since November 2006, state police said in a statement.

State police are looking for the woman's male accomplice, who allegedly sold the items to a pawn shop, where the jewelry was recovered.