Spokane Wa

Victims of clergy sexual abuse and parishes that will pay part of the costs have voted to approve a $48-million settlement, setting the stage for the Spokane Catholic Diocese to emerge from bankruptcy. In documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, 161 people who filed abuse claims, individual parishes and other creditors voted to accept payments outlined in a court-mediated settlement. The settlement would pay individual victims $15,000 to $1.

Dennis P. Hession was sworn in as Spokane mayor, replacing former Mayor James E. West, who was recalled last month after a City Hall sex scandal. In remarks during a 10-minute ceremony in City Council chambers, Hession, 55, pledged "to be bold and creative" in moving beyond the circumstances of the last seven months. "It's not the situation that defines us ... but how we respond to it," Hession said of the scandal that brought him to office.

The Spokesman-Review newspaper ran interviews with two men who alleged that Spokane Mayor James E. West, a Republican foe of gay rights, molested them when they were young. West, 54, denied the allegations, but acknowledged he "had relations with adult men." No criminal investigations are underway, according to the sheriff and police departments, which said the statute of limitations for any charges had run out. West said he was not gay.

Amid a mushrooming scandal over allegations he molested at least two boys and used city-owned computers and internship offers to solicit sex with young men, the mayor of Spokane, Wash., said Monday he would take a few weeks of leave to prepare a vigorous defense against the charges. The mayor, James E.

In this normally placid city, which some call "the world's biggest small town" and where a road sign proclaims there have been no traffic fatalities this year, the shocking questions about the mayor and the local newspaper just keep coming. Is Mayor James E. West a pedophile, as two men alleged to the paper last week? Did he offer young men jobs and perks in a bid to have sex with them?

The state of Washington will defer to the FBI in an initial investigation of Mayor James E. West, who has been accused of using his office to seek sexual favors from men, the attorney general said Thursday. Atty. Gen. Rob McKenna said the state would prefer to wait for the outcome of a preliminary FBI investigation into whether any crimes had occurred.

The City Council voted Tuesday night to ask Mayor James E. West to resign, hours after he told a national audience he would survive allegations that he offered city jobs to men he met online in gay chat rooms. The vote was advisory. The mayor can only be removed from office by a recall election. A group of residents has begun circulating a recall petition. The vote came after 90 minutes of sometimes emotional testimony during which supporters noted that West had not been charged with any crimes.

Mayor James E. West on Friday rebuffed new calls for his resignation, saying he would be willing to take a polygraph test to show he did not molest two boys decades ago. "This has been an embarrassing, humiliating and painful experience, but it does not distract me from doing my job -- from leading -- and it doesn't need to distract the city," West said at a news conference. State and local Republican Party leaders were the most recent voices to join a chorus calling for West's resignation.

A recall petition against Mayor James E. West over a homosexual sex scandal can proceed to the signature-gathering phase, a judge ruled in Spokane. Superior Court Judge Craig J. Matheson threw out two of the allegations made against West by Shannon Sullivan, a Spokane resident, but said the allegation that West improperly offered city jobs to prospective male dates could be put before voters.

Spokane Mayor Jim West, embroiled in a City Hall sex scandal, will face a recall election Dec. 6 now that opponents have gathered enough signatures to put his fate on the ballot. Elections Supervisor Paul Brandt said that workers stopped counting after verifying 12,684 signatures, 117 more than needed for a recall election. West, 55, is accused of misusing his office by seeking dates from young men over a website and offering them gifts, trips and jobs at City Hall.