Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part two, with part one having appeared in Saturday’s Tribune.

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KOOSKIA — Upon advice from their attorney, Mountain View School District 244 will no longer offer “town hall” discussions before the monthly board meetings.

“I would encourage the board to figure out a way we can have a bidirectional public discussion,” patron Marvin Wong of Grangeville stated during the public comment session at the Sept. 19 meeting in Kooskia. “This kind of discussion with questions and answers is especially important for the community to understand what’s going on.”

The board chairperson does have the ability to speak to the audience at will while still following Idaho open meeting law; however, MVSD is conducting its business meeting in a public setting and has a specific procedure in place to do so. They allow for patrons to sign up and speak for three minutes at the beginning of each meeting, but do not generally respond. When new board members were sworn in at the January meeting, the board began trying the 30-minute unofficial town hall discussion before the start of each meeting.

“The board of trustees won’t typically respond, but I can and will,” superintendent Alica Holthaus responded to Wong.

She explained a process is already in place, developed by Idaho’s open meeting law requirements.

“There are multiple paths because we do value input from the public,” Holthaus emphasized. She reiterated the public comment session is one avenue while requesting an item to be placed on the agenda is another. “As far as a two-way conversation, the board has hired someone to be their representative and that’s my position.”

She encouraged patrons to contact her with any questions.

“If I don’t have an answer — and I guarantee I won’t have all of them — I will find it,” she stated.

She tried to explain it is not fair to the public if the board discusses with patrons items that are not on the agenda, as it does not give them an equal chance to be present for a specific topic.

Patron Roger Kenyon thanked Holthaus for her “willingness to dialogue” with the public.

— Lorie Palmer, Idaho County Free Press (Grangeville), Wednesday

CBS reports on Howard murder — ‘People got to hear what actually happened’

KAMIAH — The path to justice took three years for a former state trooper to be convicted and sentenced for the murder of his wife. Now the story of this incident — involving the death of a former Kamiah resident — and subsequent investigation is laid out in a “48 Hours” report on CBS.

“The Bathtub Murder of Kendy Howard” premiered Saturday, Sept. 28, on the CBS Television Network and is available for streaming on Paramount+.

According to the show promo: “When sheriff’s deputies were called to the northern Idaho home of distraught former state trooper Dan Howard, something didn’t seem right. Howard told investigators he found his wife dead in their bathtub, with a gunshot wound to her head. Peter Van Sant and 48 HOURS report on the investigation and the case.”

The story revolves around the Kendy (Wilkins) Howard, a 1991 graduate of Kamiah High School, who was found in her home in Athol in a bathtub dead with a gunshot wound to her mouth in Feb. 2, 2021.

Dan Howard told police his wife took her own life. There was a gun found in the bathtub, though there were no prints or DNA that connected it to Dan.

“From the beginnings, it looks odd,” Kootenai County sheriff’s detective Jerry Northrup told Van Sant.

To deputies on the scene, there were things out of place. A packed duffle bag was ready to go, and a clothes dryer was running full of clean bath towels. And, police said, Dan appeared to have recently showered and changed his clothes.

“Dan knows things that most normal people, ordinary people, don’t know,” said retired Kootenai County Sheriff’s Det. Sergeant Ken Lallatin. “Things like killing someone and staging it to look like a suicide,” Lallatin adds.

Three years after Kendy’s death, Dan was charged with her murder. At his sentencing in Coeur d’Alene this May, prosecutors and the judge said jealousy and greed motivated Dan to kill his wife and stage her death as a suicide.

In an email interview with Van Sant, the CBS reporter talked about what led them to this story.

“We found the life story of Kendy Howard intriguing. Friends, detectives and prosecutors told us Kendy Howard was so close to starting over when her life was cut so tragically short,” he said. “We were also interested in the prosecutors’ assertions that while Kendy and Dan Howard’s relationship looked bright from the outside, there was a hidden story of control, abuse, and ultimately murder.”

Out of this story and the interviews, what was most surprising or interesting?

“We were surprised by a number of tiny, but intriguing clues detectives found at the crime scene: For example, the dryer was still running at about the time deputies arrived ... full of bath towels. The timer indicated the dryer had been started within a minute Howard had made a frantic-sounding call to 911 saying his wife had taken her life,” Van Sant said.

How are the victim’s family and friends dealing with the aftermath of this?

“Kendy Howard’s daughter, Brooke Wilkins, told us she cried, and was relieved when she heard the verdict,” he said, “adding, that through the trial, ‘people got to hear what actually happened.’ ”

What else of interest to note that came out of this story for you?

“Detectives wondered how Howard could have discovered his wife’s body and made that distraught sounding 911 call just a minute after starting the laundry,” Van Sant said.

— David Rauzi, The Clearwater Progress (Kamiah), Thursday