Region briefs 2/25/04

House panel defers MU funding to other education

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A House committee voted Tuesday to reduce the University of Missouri's budget by the amount of the state's next payment on $35 million in bonds for a new basketball arena at the Columbia campus. The $2.8 million taken from the university's $388 million proposed budget would be appropriated instead to elementary and secondary education in the fiscal year that starts July 1. Members of the House Appropriations-Education Committee, on a voice vote, approved the funding reduction as an amendment to the university system's budget. Rep. Mark Wright, R-Springfield, sponsored the amendment, saying he thought the university could replace the money in its budget from other sources.

Doctor gets six month jail sentence for resisting

LEBANON, Mo. -- A central Missouri doctor, who said she feared law enforcement after criticizing the medical care provided to Camden County jail inmates, has been sentenced to six months in jail for resisting arrest during a traffic stop. Dr. Ramona Miller also was fined $500 during her Monday court appearance. She was immediately released on $5,000 bond, pending a possible appeal. Jurors in Laclede County, where the case was heard in December on a change of venue, convicted Miller of resisting arrest. But they found her innocent of the charges that led to her arrest -- speeding, failing to yield to emergency vehicles and failing to drive on the right half of the road.

Body found in rubble of house damaged in fire

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Crews found a body Tuesday among the rubble of a home near an area where a paramedic responding to a house fire was shot and injured, authorities said. Investigators were at the scene Tuesday afternoon to collect evidence in the case, police spokesman Darin Snapp said. No further information was immediately available. Paramedic Mary Seymour, a 15-year veteran of the Metropolitan Ambulance Service Trust, was in critical but stable condition Tuesday after undergoing surgery Monday for two gunshot wounds. Both bullets pierced her right lung, and one also grazed her heart, said Dr. Hillary Chollett, director of trauma services at Research Medical Center.

Toll roads get hearing in Senate committee

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Supporters said Tuesday that tolls could be an important tool for repairing and expanding Missouri's crumbling roads, but opponents countered they would impose an unfair tax and still fail to raise enough money to fully pay for projects. The Senate Transportation Committee heard testimony on proposals that would ask voters to approve a constitutional change allowing toll roads. The committee did not vote on the measures, and even the sponsors acknowledged they were long shots for passage this year. Committee chairman Jon Dolan, R-Lake St. Louis, said it was important to discuss toll roads, but that other transportation reforms, such as his proposal to end the transfer of highway money to other state agencies, must come first.

All charges dropped in airport ferret death

CLAYTON, Mo. -- A St. Louis County judge has dismissed all charges against a New York man who authorities said killed a ferret at Lambert Airport after airline officials said he couldn't take the animal on board his flight. Stefan Albrecht, 37, of Yonkers, N.Y., was accused of beating the ferret to death on Feb. 7, 2003. Albrecht kept the ferret in a carry-on cooler on an American Airlines flight from New York to St. Louis as he was bound for Phoenix, authorities said. When flight attendants realized he had the animal, they told him he was unauthorized to bring it on board and could not take it on his next flight, American officials said. Authorities said Albrecht took the ferret to an airport restroom, broke the ferret's neck and flushed it down a toilet, then told airline workers what he had done.

MoDOT finds new interim leader in former employee

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The state Department of Transportation has a new leader, and director Henry Hungerbeeler's last day will be March 1, the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission announced Tuesday. Dave Snider, who retired from the department as director of operations in 1999, is the department's new interim director. He takes over for Hungerbeeler, who announced in December that he would resign, effective June 1. Snider, 66, is expected to serve as interim director for four to six months while the commission searches for a permanent replacement. Hungerbeeler inherited an agency in turmoil because of a failed highway plan and sometimes triggered more criticism with his blunt assessments of Missouri's road funding needs and his defense of the department's actions.

-- From wire reports