Park facilities can be reserved

        INDEPENDENCE — Kenton County Parks and Recreation will start accepting reservation requests at 7:30 a.m. Monday for shelterhouses in Banklick Woods, Mills Road, Richardson Road and Pioneer parks.

        Shelterhouses are available on a first-come, first-served basis, except when a permit has been obtained in advance.

        The reservation is good from 9 a.m. until dark on the assigned day. The fee is $35.

        Reservations must be made in person at the public works and recreation office in Banklick Woods Park at 420 Independence Station Road, between Turkeyfoot Road and Ky. 17. The office is open 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

        To check on the availability of a shelterhouse, call (859) 371-9289.

PROTEST OF JAIL EXPANSION: To fight a planned expansion of the Kenton County Jail, Ezra Castle, the co-owner of Sonoma, has decorated the outside of his Greenup Street restaurant with dummies dressed in prison garb. “I've made a commitment that for each month this issue persists, I will add another dummy,” Mr. Castle said. He is part of a group of about 150 Covington residents and business owners who announced plans this week to file a class action lawsuit against Kenton County to stop the jail expansion. Opponents think a larger jail in downtown Covington will hinder downtown development. Representatives of the city of Covington, which has sued Kenton County over a payroll tax cap hike to help fund the jail, are meeting with county officials today to try to persuade them to consider alternatives to a downtown jail expansion. (Patrick Reddy photo) | ZOOM |

       

State wants input on teacher training

        COVINGTON - The state's Office of Early Childhood Development is holding public forums on a new system for training and developing credentials for people who work in day care, pre-schools and other early childhood programs.

        The Northern Kentucky forum will be from 6-7:30 tonigh at Northern Kentucky University's Covington campus, West Building Room 1, 1401 Dixie Highway.
       

Louisville police find killing suspect

        LOUISVILLE — A Chicago-area man wanted in the death of another Chicago man whose severed limbs were found in a Bullitt County hillside was arrested Thursday after police received an anonymous tip to his whereabouts.

        Jefferson County Police Lt. Jim Wesley said Joshua Ade Askeland, 18, was arrested about 9 p.m. in a house in south Louisville. Lt. Wesley said police received a tip Wednesday night. Police had thought Mr. Askeland had gone back to Chicago.

        He is being held in the murder of Matthew Bryan Adams, 21, of Chicago, who was killed Friday at a residence on Blue Lick Road in southern Jefferson County.
       

Suspended police official resigns

        MAYFIELD — Assistant Police Chief Ronnie Lear resigned Wednesday, two days before completing a suspension for selling a video cassette recorder from the evidence room.

        In his resignation letter to Mayor Wayne Potts, Mr. Lear said he had considered leaving since his suspension without pay Feb. 11. He said he could not give the job his total effort.

        The Mayfield City Council suspended Mr. Lear for 33 days over the selling of a VCR that was evidence in a theft case and for his handling of a November drug arrest. He also received a written reprimand for using obscene and abusive language to a patrolman about the officer's handling of the drug arrest.
       

Execution date nears for killer

        FRANKFORT — Ralph Baze, convicted of hiding in ambush and shooting the Powell County sheriff and a deputy in the back while they were trying to serve an arrest warrant, is scheduled to be executed April 10.

        Mr. Baze, 46, told Warden Phil Parker at the Kentucky State Penitentiary near Eddyville on Thursday that he chose to die by lethal injection rather than electrocution.

        Gov. Paul Patton signed the execution order on March 8 but did not make the action public until Thursday.

        The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 20 turned down Mr. Baze's appeal for the second time.

        Milt Toby, Mr. Baze's attorney in Lexington, expects a stay of execution. There are two more avenues of appeal available for Mr. Baze.
       

Records show loans by Wilkinson stores

        LEXINGTON — Former Gov. Wallace Wilkinson's bookstores were loaning large amounts of money to a major stockholder as early as 1998, records filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court show.

        The financial statement was part of a filing on Wednesday by Community Colleges of Allegheny County, which is asking the court to void a contract that allows Wallace's to operate its four bookstores in the Pittsburgh area.

        Eastern Kentucky University, the University of Louisville and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary also filed motions Wednesday to void contracts.

        The statement — marked “confidential” — showed the unidentified stockholder owed the company $27.7 million on March 31, 1999. That debt had been $42 million a year earlier.
       

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