Weekend in review: Top stories, multimedia

8/6/2007

Despite the deaths of four divers at Gilboa Quarry during the last four months, the quarry is as safe a place to dive as any, law enforcement officials and diving instructors said yesterday. It s not due to the quarry itself, Putnam County Sheriff James Beutler said. It s not entrapment or entanglement.

A veteran Toledo police officer was charged with drunken driving Thursday after she was stopped about 1 a.m. on southbound I-75 near Detroit Avenue for not staying within her lane while driving, the Ohio Highway Patrol said. Maureen Wade, 36, who was appointed to the police force in 1993, was charged with operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and failure to drive within marked lanes, troopers at the patrol s Bowling Green post said.

A local Republican who took money from Tom Noe to attend a presidential fund-raiser in 2003 won a challenge to the order that she pay for portions of the Ohio Ethics Commission s investigation that led to her conviction. Sally Perz, a former state representative, filed an appeal with the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals in November regarding the $4,125 she was ordered to pay for her portion of the investigation for violating state ethics laws.

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner was given a parking ticket after he parked in a handicapped parking space at the Westgate Building in West Toledo. The mayor was at the building, across Central Avenue from the Westgate Village Shopping Center, for a 45-minute massage therapy appointment for an Achilles tendon injury. Mr. Finkbeiner parked in the handicapped space early Friday evening because he wanted to keep his dog, Scout, from overheating in the sun, Brian Schwartz, the mayor s spokesman, said.

The collapse Wednesday night of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis brought back vivid memories of a southern Ohio bridge tragedy 40 years ago for E.V. Clarke, and not just because of similar route numbers. Mr. Clarke, now 76, who crossed the Ohio River twice each day to commute to work at a plastics plant in West Virginia, estimates he had been off the U.S. 35 Silver Bridge for less than a minute when it suddenly dropped into the river, taking two dozen cars and trucks into the water and another seven onto the Ohio shore below.

By a two-thirds majority, Seneca County registered voters say they want to delay demolition of their historic 1884 courthouse until officials find out whether state money is available for its restoration, a poll by Zogby International shows. The poll showed even more dramatically that almost 78 percent of likely voters in the county want a chance to vote before their courthouse is destroyed based on a 2-1 vote by the county s board of commissioners.

For South Toledo resident Dean Weygandt, motorcycle drag-racers have been an annoyance for as long as he can remember. [They re] like a pack of bees, said Mr. Weygandt, a motorcyclist himself, whose home sits along the wide, open stretch of the Anthony Wayne Trail. You could just see them flying 100 miles per hour.

Brothers Joe and Sam Niemiec know what a tree house is good for. It s good for hanging out and playing games. If you have a pulley and a box, it s good for hoisting your pet cat 15 feet into the air (even if it insists on immediately scurrying back down the ladder).

Darren Bedegarea s doctors will tell you he has cerebral palsy. His physical therapists will tell you the 9-year-old has limited mobility. But all that really matters at the moment is something anyone can tell you: Darren has the giggles. Sitting on a mottled pony named Dusty, his staccato-like laughs come out strong and short. He s giddy for a little giddyup.