Rice suggested as new Seattle schools chief

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, November 5, 2006

SEATTLE – Former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice has been suggested as a possible replacement for Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Raj Manhas, who is leaving after four years as head of the district.

Manhas announced late last month that he will step down at the end of the school year. He has been widely criticized for trying to erase a $35 million budget deficit in part by closing and consolidating schools.

Manhas on Saturday said he was not being forced out.

“I have every intention of fulfilling my contract, which ends in August 2007,” said Manhas, 55. “My direction comes from the election board.”

Some Seattle School Board members this weekend denied that a deal with Rice was in place, but others confirmed Saturday to a Seattle newspaper that he was suggested as a replacement by current Mayor Greg Nickels.

Board members said Nickels called them last week to suggest they hire Rice, who took a particular interest in education during his 11 years on the city council and eight years as mayor, from 1990 to 1998.

Fisherman’s body found in Hood Canal

The body of a 51-year-old Silverdale man was pulled from Hood Canal on Sunday, ending a search by Coast Guard, Navy and Jefferson County officials.

The Coast Guard began searching Saturday evening after a 5 p.m. report that a recreational fisherman had not returned from a crabbing trip, Coast Guard officials in Seattle said.

A Naval Base Kitsap search-and-rescue boat joined the search with a Port Angeles-based Coast Guard HH-65 rescue helicopter and the Everett-based Coast Guard patrol boat Blue Shark.

The man’s 16-foot skiff was located on the eastern shore of the Toandos Peninsula across Hood Canal from Naval Base Kitsap.

The search continued until 7:44 a.m. Sunday, when a Coast Guard rescue helicopter found a body floating about a quarter mile south of the boat’s location.

The man was not identified, pending notification of kin.

Jefferson County sheriff’s office was investigating a cause of death.

Renton: Controller, pilots faulted in collision

A federal investigation into a midair collision between two planes that killed a student pilot and instructor has found that both pilots and an air traffic controller were at fault.

A probable cause statement from the National Transportation Safety Board said while one pilot failed to understand advisory information from controllers, the other failed to maintain visual separation. The board also found that traffic advisory information from air traffic controllers was inadequate.

A single-engine Cessna 152 and a deHavilland Beaver DHC-2 collided Aug. 4, 2005, over I-405 northeast of Renton Municipal Airport. The Cessna crashed into the vacant Kennydale Elementary School, killing student pilot Chun Kit Ho, 25, of Seattle, and instructor Kevin Germario Dukes, 26, of Renton.

The second aircraft, a float plane that damaged its right pontoon in the collision, made an emergency landing beside a runway at the airport, located at the south end of Lake Washington. None of the five people aboard was hurt.

Tacoma: Jury convicts man in woman’s slaying

A former death row inmate has been convicted of beating and strangling a woman 10 years ago.

A Pierce County jury deliberated for just over two hours Friday before finding Cecil Davis guilty of second-degree murder in the death of 45-year-old Jane Hungerford-Trapp on April 14, 1996.

“It’s a relief to have it finally here,” the woman’s daughter, Jessie Trapp, said afterward. “I just appreciate everything that everybody did.”

Davis, who was previously convicted in a 1997 rape and murder, was long suspected in the 1996 killing. He was charged last year after better DNA technology.

Boots with the word “DieHard” embossed on the soles were found at Davis’ mother’s home in January 1997, and a forensic scientist determined that a bloody print next to Hungerford-Trapp’s body was made by the left boot. Tests later revealed that the blood found in the soles of the boots was from Hungerford-Trapp.

Davis, who took the stand Thursday in his defense, denied killing Hungerford-Trapp.

Associated Press