THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS: NEWS

Latest updates, photos and video in West Michigan

AP File PhotoNot willing to campaign again: Former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer announced his decision Thursday.

DETROIT — Former Mayor Dennis Archer, who has been touring the state for months gauging voter interest, announced Thursday he will not run for governor in 2010.

The 66-year-old former Michigan Supreme Court justice and president of the American Bar Association said he is unwilling to make the personal sacrifices necessary to seek the office.

Archer said the time it would take would be like "marrying the state."

"It is worth marrying, but I'm not prepared to make that personal sacrifice," Archer said at a morning news conference. "I made up my own mind because I know how much time it takes."

GRAND RAPIDS -- Customers of Grand Rapids' sewer system will see average rate increases of nearly 15 percent next year. Water bills are expected to rise about 2.5 percent, according to a rate study released today.

About 8.7 percent of the sewer increases can be attributed to improvements while the remaining 6 percent is due to the recent defection of customer communities using a new sewer plant to the north, said Utility Finance Officer Michael Wolski.

Courtesy Photo/Joe ShermanVeronica Bowers is shown holding her daughter Charity, 7-months, while steering her missionary family's houseboat down the Amazon River in Peru last February. The mother and daughter were killed in 2001 when a Peruvian air force plane shot down a private plane carrying American missionaries in Peru's Amazon jungle region.

A new federal probe of the 2001 downing of a plane carrying West Michigan missionaries in Peru concluded the CIA operated outside the law and then lied to Congress and federal officials, according to U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

"We cannot have a community that operates outside the law and covers up what it does and lies to Congress," Hoekstra said today.

Hoekstra said he will press for criminal investigation following release of the report by the Office of Inspector General.

Veronica "Roni" Bowers, 35, of Muskegon, was holding her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, when their plane was misidentified by as a potential drug-smuggling aircraft and fired upon by a Peruvian air force jet. A bullet struck Bowers in the back, killing her and the baby.

Bowers' husband, Jim, then 37, son, Cory, 8, and the pilot survived the crash that followed the shooting.

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WHITE RIVER TOWNSHIP -- Two Grand Valley State University students were found dead Wednesday in a vehicle in northwestern Muskegon County, apparently overcome by carbon monoxide from a charcoal grill, state police said.

Police identified the victims as Amber Rose Brown, 20, of Montague, and Douglas William Ward, 26, of Aiken, S.C..

The pair had told others on Monday they planned to go camping on property owned by Brown's family, police said.

Press File PhotoLoving couple: Dee and Jerry Kamsickas were fans of the Grand Rapids Griffins. Here, they attend a 2006 game.

Shelly Walters leaned in to take her father's hand. She told him, "I love you, Daddy," and assured him the doctors were here now, that he was going to be OK.

Jerry Kamsickas couldn't speak but shook his head no.

It's not that he didn't believe.

It's just that he wanted to be with his wife, Dee, who died less than three weeks earlier.

Press Photo/Paul L. Newby IINice shot: Martin Luther King Leadership Academy reading specialist Sheri Manett looks over the shoulder of student Jose Gavia, 8, as he uses a satellite camera Wednesday, Geographic Information Systems Day, at Grand Valley State University.

ALLENDALE TOWNSHIP -- For students who don't get to travel much, Wednesday's Global Information Systems Day opened up worlds.

Sponsored by Grand Valley State University's Department of Geography and Planning, the GIS Day led area schoolchildren through the use of the global positioning system, geocaching, Google Earth, global positioning system cameras, and software such as AcrGIS and Google Sketch-Up.

About 200 students were invited, most of them middle-schoolers. Fourth-graders from Martin Luther King Leadership Academy in Grand Rapids also attended.

Press Photo/Katy BatdorffThe Grand Rapids Community College smoking ban was approved in July after a 3,000-person survey showed 78 percent of employees and 63 percent of students support a smoke-free campus.

GRAND RAPIDS -- The signs have been posted, a map published and a five-month campaign on the negative effects of smoking is coming to an end.

Starting today, Grand Rapids Community College becomes a smoke-free campus, with the use and sale of all tobacco products banned from college property.

The ban includes GRCC's M-TEC centers in Grand Rapids and Holland, its two Learning Corners and all parking lots and city-owned property within the downtown campus.

The ban also applies to vehicles -- private and college-owned -- parked in GRCC ramps.

• Comstock Park: 'Daily 5' boosts students' literacy
ALPINE TOWNSHIP -- After getting large group instruction on word blends, students in Patti Johnson's second-grade class at Stoney Creek Elementary School one by one told her what they wanted to do next.

• Plainfield Township: New criteria eyed for tax breaks
PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP -- Starting next year, companies requesting real and personal property tax abatements probably will need to give the Township Board extra information.

• Sparta Township: Wind energy ordinance approved
SPARTA TOWNSHIP -- The Township Board approved an ordinance regulating wind energy systems.

• News briefs for November 20

Courtesy PhotosRichard Crawford, right, died in an Indiana crash Tuesday, en route to visiting his son Keith, just returned from duty in Iraq.

MIDDLEVILLE -- Richard Crawford was sleeping when his son Keith, serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division, called early Monday.

Keith told his father he "was on American soil."

Richard Crawford, a trucker and retired Army sergeant, told his son he would see him this week. He had a delivery down South, and would swing by Fort Campbell, Ky., where Keith, the older of his two sons, was stationed. He couldn't wait to see his son.

"But he didn't make it," his wife, Margaret Crawford, said Wednesday, her voice quivering. "He didn't get to see him."

Press Photo/Hollyn JohnsonA student laughs after choosing the correct answer during her American Culture class at Adelante High School. As part of an overhaul of Grand Rapids alternative high schools, Adelante has been offering classes on Sunday and has been partnering with Fifth Third bank.

GRAND RAPIDS -- Strict-discipline academies aimed at addressing problems that lead to bad behavior are part of a planned overhaul of the district's alternative education, Grand Rapids educators say.

The specialized schools are part of a 16-point plan to better serve alternative education students, and includes extensive use of technology, better-trained teachers and partnerships with businesses and colleges.

The moves come as teachers call the Southeast Career Pathways alternative program "out of control," saying they don't feel safe because students act without fear of consequences.

Teachers union leaders said the district has not moved quickly enough to improve security at that school and others. Union officials are mounting a campaign in hopes of a community response.

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Grand Rapids Press Editorial Page Editor Ed Golder and Press Business Reporter Julia Bauer joined Press Politics Editor Jeff Cranson to discuss:

-- Rescue plan (or bailout) for automakers

-- President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet selections

-- The 2010 Michigan governor's race

-- Upcoming legislation in the lame-duck session

Here are a few of the top headlines from Wednesday:

• Driver to be charged with vehicular homicide for East Grand Rapids teacher's death; wife recovering

• Road builders group recommends 18 percent fuel tax replace current rates

• Police investigate U.S. 31 crash that killed Middleville trucker

• As bailouts add up, a generation wonders who will pay up

• Hoekstra plans to propose bailout alternatives

See all of Wednesday's news stories

Press Photo/T.J. HamiltonA bus toured through the scenes of New York City in one of the song and dance numbers during the Radio City Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes.

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is unapologetically exuberant, relentlessly radiant and shamelessly uplifting.

In other words, the extravaganza is precisely the type of escapist entertainment that we all could use right about now. The 90 minute spectacular, starring the world-famous Radio City Rockettes, completely envelops the audience with infectious holiday cheer. Only a bonafide Grinch would be able to resist the sparkling costumes, brilliantly choreographed dance routines and charming glamour of the Rockettes.

The dancers appeared Wednesday night for a sold-out show at Van Andel Arena. Some tickets remain for two shows Thursday. The multimillion-dollar production will hit arenas in 18 cities throughout the Midwest and South.

Larger view of photos

HOLLAND -- Jerry Thomas and Bruce Lor high-fived each other as they left City Hall Wednesday, celebrating the fact their businesses will be able to sell beer and wine on Sundays starting this weekend.

"We knew it was just a matter of time," said Thomas, owner of Guppies Casual Dining and Billiards, located in the Lincolnshire Plaza on Lincoln Avenue, just south of U.S. 31.

The City Council Wednesday voted 8-1 to strike down a city ordinance banning the Sunday sale of beer and wine, which had been in place since 1969. By the same margin, it also made the change an emergency ordinance, meaning it will go into effect immediately, instead of next month.

Dan GrahamShari Graham

GRAND RAPIDS — A truck driver who police say ran a stop sign, killing former East Grand Rapids teacher Daniel Graham last month, is to be charged Thursday with vehicular homicide in an Ohio court.

Georgel Dinu, 48, of Cleveland, Ohio is expected to be arraigned Thursday in Bryan Municipal Court for the Oct. 31 death of Graham, according to court records.

Meanwhile, Graham's wife, Shari Graham, 60, recently was moved from a Toledo hospital to Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids, where she undergoes nine-hour days of "intensive therapy," said her brother-in-law, Lou Graham.

"She is whipped and very, very weak," he said.

"I don't know what I want to happen to the driver, and I haven't talked to Shari about it. My brother is gone and everything is focused on Shari," Lou Graham said.

Kenneth Zaagman was detail-oriented and cared about the grieving families he helped, a trait he inherited from his father. Whether working at his funeral home or making repairs at the church he attended, Mr. Zaagman always wanted things to be just right, said his son, Bob Zaagman.

Diagnosed in June with cancer, Mr. Zaagman died Tuesday. He was 86.

"His interest was his business," Bob Zaagman said, referring to Zaagman Funeral Home, where the elder Mr. Zaagman worked for about 60 years.