Columbia Missourian Newspaper 1981-09-29

              74th Year - No. 13 Good Morning! Ks Tuesday. September 29. 1981 2 Sections - 14 Pages 25 Cents
U. S. market rallies; world losses heavy
NEW YORK ( UPI) - U. S. stock
prices staged their biggest advance
in six months Monday as market
guru Joseph Granville's forecast of a
" blue Monday" on Wall Street back-fired
into a major rally.
Most world markets, however,
buckled under tumultuous selling
triggered by the prediction that
Monday would be one of the gloo-miest
days in U. S. financial history.
Interest rate and recession fears
also weighed heavily on foreign equi-ty
markets.
The London stock market closed
with some of the heaviest losses in
its history in frantic trading. The
normally stable Tokyo stock ex-change,
where 600 million shares are
traded daily, sustained the biggest
drop on record for a single session.
Stocks also skidded in Paris, Hong
Kong and Sydney. But a late- sessi- on
buying spree on the Toronto ex-change
swept away earlier losses
and pushed stocks sharply higher.
The Dow Jones industrial average,
which represents 25 percent of the
value of all stocks on the New York
Stock Exchange, surged 18.55 to
842.56 at the close after plummeting
almost 15 points in the first hour of
trading.
It was the Dow's largest gain since
the blue chip indicator rose 19.09
points March 25. Turnover on the
NYSE was the busiest in 216 months.
Analysts said some of the buying
surfaced on U. S. markets about
noon, when 443 top- not- ch stocks were
selling at their lowest levels this
year.
Gold dropped $ 23.50 an ounce ( 26
grams) in London in the face of ru-mors
that interest rates would rise,
but bounced back in New York. The
U. S. dollar strengthened abroad but
tumbled in New York. Last week
Granville, who was on a European
tour, issued a gloomy outlook for
world stock markets and on Friday
forecast the " blue Monday."
Some panelists on the widely fol-lowed
" Wall Street Week" television
show said Granville's statements in
Europe were " like hitting a person
on crutches with a baseball bat."
That was in reference to the fact the
market already is on the skids. Prior
to last week, the closely followed
Dow average had fallen 170 points
since mid- Jun- e.
When asked about Granville's pre-diction.
Budget Director David
Stockman said on Monday's ABC's
" Good Morning America": " One day
doesn't make a trend and we're
going to have to wait and see."
The Financial Times index of 30
Industrials on the London exchange
plummeted 29.4 points to stand at
445.3 by the afternoon.
The decline was the worst in Lon-don
since March 1, 1974, when the in-dex
fell 32.8 points as the market
opened and another 25.5 points with-in
30 minutes when it became appar-ent
then Prime Minister Edward
( See ORDERS, Page 8A)
Mew nsone
Beginning today, county hospital
is called Boone Hospital Center
By Anne Voegtlin
Missourian staff writer
After 60 years, Boone County Hos-pital
is changing its name and mak-ing
Centralia the home for the hospi-tal's
first outside clinic.
Today, the hospital becomes
Boone Hospital Center.
The hospital Board of Trustees
voted Monday to adopt the new
name in recognition of the hospital's
changing role.
Patsy Moore, hospital director of
community affairs, said the board
may make the change since the state
charter for the hospital does not stip-ulate
the facility's name.
" It's very heavy on a trustee to
change tradition," board Chairman
Jack Estes said. " But we feel this
better identifies the hospital as a
center of health care than just ' a
county hospital.' "
Hospital Administrator Max Poll
said he thinks the time is right for
the name change. " It recognizes the
community education center we
have become, the addition of the new
facilities and certainly ( the hospital)
as a referral center."
The board also voted to buy a
building in Centralia in which to es
tablish a general medicine clinic.
The clinic will be operated by the
hospital and staffed by hospital per-sonnel.
Poll said details have not been
worked out, but tentative plans call
for the clinic to be open seven days a
week and staffed by one or two phy-sicians.
" In the past six months, we have
received a lot of conversation from
the citizens of Centralia with con-cern
about having physicians," Poll
said. " The requests from the city
have reached a crescendo."
Centralia has been concerned
about attracting and keeping physi-cians,
Poll said. " We can help in the
big area they have trouble with
physician recruitment."
The hospital administration said it
hopes to open the clinic by the end of
October.
The board also approved a request
from the hospital administration to
obtain bids on a proposed 15,000- square- fo- ot
( 1,350- square- met- er)
warehouse with 1,750 square feet
( 157.5 square meters) of attached of-fice
and freezer space. The ware-house
would be built on a site away
from the hospital.
Liability suits alarm
municipal workers
left ' unprotected9
By Gordon Lee
Missourian staff writer
Two years after leaving his job,
Gary McConnell still pays for the
privilege of being a Boone County
employee.
Periodically, McConnell, a third- ye- ar
law student at the University,
interrupts his studies and goes to
federal district court in St. Louis.
But McConnell's trips to court have
nothing to do with his law studies. He
and his attorney are there at the be-hest
of the judge.
McConnell, a former investigator
in the Boone County prosecutor's of-fice,
is a defendant in a personal lia--
Insight--
bility suit brought against him in
1977, when he was a county employ-ee.
Melvin Leroy Tyler, now in the
Missouri State Penitentiary for rape
and armed robbery, charged that
McConnell and several other law en-forcement
officials violated his civil
rights during the investigation that
led to his conviction. Although this
suit was filed several years ago, it is
just now coining before the courts.
Because the suit is against McCon-nell
nprsnnallv. rather than against
the city or county, neither Columbia,
on whose cases McConnell worked,
nor Boone County, has any responsi-bility
for helping in his defense or
paying court costs.
While there are no definite statis-tics
on the number of lawsuits filed
against government employees na-tionwide,
public officials express
alarm at the rising number of law-suits
aimed at them.
" More and more actions against
governments have appeared during
the past five years," Columbia City
J Counselor Scott Snyder says. " Whole
' new worlds of liability have opened
up."
Most cities are protected from
f. suits that name the municipality as
If- - a defendant, and many give protec- -
to higher officials and adminis--- i.
trative managers through personal
liability insurance. Protection for ition k -
other workers, however, is not so
widespread. Police officers in many
cities, for instance, are not protected
against personal liability suits.
Because the doctrine of " sover-eign
immunity" protects govern-ments
from many legal actions, law-suits
aimed at individual employees
have gained in popularity.
Many cities, on moral and ethical
grounds, shy away from providing
blanket liability coverage for all em-ployees,
Snyder says. " Personal lia-bility
suits pose real ethical and rep-resentational
problems for me. How
can I represent both the city and the
employee?"
Snyder says employer and worker
interests may diverge during liabili-ty
cases. For example, in a lawsuit
alleging racial discrimination, the
city would not want to be known as a
defender of discrimination, Snyder
says. City policies stress non- discriminat- ory
employee behavior, but
if liability protection were provided,
the city might find itself defending
illegality.
" We don't want to defend people
for breaking the law," Snyder says.
David Burch, a lecturer in politi-cal
science at the University, is con-ducting
a study of personal liability
suits against Missouri government
employees. He says some govern-ments
whose employees are sued
choose, as a matter of policy, to pay
defense costs.
Others decide on a case- by- ca- se
basis. Some have a blanket policy of
not becoming involved in any suits
whatsoever.
Columbia provides personal liabil-ity
coverage for its employees as
long as they are acting within the
scope of their jobs, says Finance Di-rector
Harold Boldt. But determin-ing
the legal scope of certain jobs
can be difficult.
" There are lots of gray areas in
terms of police procedures," Boldt
says.
Gary McConnell's predicament is
similarly gray. As a former county
employee involved in a liability suit,
his out- of- poc- ket defense costs are
mounting. Under current proce-dures,
McConnell's former employer
has no obligation to aid in his de-fense.
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Listening to Katharine Gunnell, 217
Elliot Drive, address the Boone Coun- -
ty Home Rule Charter Commission is
commissioner Paul Sturgeon.
Executive role
in home rule
is questioned
ByCurtVosti
Missourian staff writer
The Boone County Home Rule Commission Monday
heard praise at its first public hearing on the proposed
home rule charter, but citizens also expressed concern
about the role of the county executive in the plan.
More than 50 people attended the meeting, the first of 11
around the county to elicit public reaction on the proposal
to restructure county government. Next spring, county
voters will have the final say on whether home rule is
adopted.
Under the proposal, the county executive is elected at- lar- ge
and would not have a seat on the seven- memb- er
county commission. The executive also would " nave no veto
power over commission decisions.
Jim Cook, 105 Westwood Ave., told the charter commis-sion
that the executive should be brought into the county
commission as an at- lar- ge member.
" What you have done by taking the chief elective officer
out of the legislative process is to create an elected city
manager," he told the commission. The issue of county
executive will be troublesome."
Donald Scruggs, 1913 Vassar Drive, questioned the lack
of executive veto power, telling the commission its propos-al
will remove " traditional power" given such executives.
Commission Chairwoman Rhonda Thomas said the veto
power was withheld because the commission wanted to
avoid giving a single official an inordinate amount of
power.
Bruce Gloria, Route 3, advised commission members
that they had not gone far enough in modifying the existing
structure of county government.
" It seems to me what you're offering the voters is nei-ther
fish nor fowl," he said. " There is too much of the pre-sent
system and not enough home rule to giver the voters a
choice."
County Court Presiding Judge Bill Freeh affirmed his
support of the home rule concept but repeated his conten-tion
that the executive should be brought into the new com-mission.
" The most important thing home rule can do for the
county is to give the people the greatest amount of free-dom
of choice in their government and provide a system
that will challenge and attract people," Freeh said.
The commission's next hearings will be at 7: 30 p. m.
Thursday in Centralia, Hartsburg, Rocheport and at Blue
Ridge Elementary School in Columbia.
4Quiet Monday'
Columbia's brokerage houses had
a quiet day Monday while their coun-terparts
in New York and other cit-ies
went wild.
Trading activity here appeared to
be about average as local brokers
watched the ticker tapes record
steep drops, only to rocket skyward
later in the day.
" The market was volatile, the
most I've ever seen," observed Wil-liam
Bayer, a broker for Newhard,
Cook & Co., 10 N. Garth St.
At Edward D. Jones Co., 907 E.
Broadway, broker Tom Baumgardn- e- r
was not surprised to see Ameri-can
markets defy a predicted slump.
" There are just too many bar-gains,"
Baumgardner said. " The
market has been down for days and
days. Now people are stepping in to
buy up those good stocks."
Baumgardner said he detected no
fear, panic or excessive selling
among his clients. " We had an inor-dinate
number of calls, but they
were mostly out of curiosity."
EPA budget threatened by cuts
New York Times
WASHINGTON The Reagan ad-ministration
is seeking to slash the
staff size and operating budget of the
Environmental Protection Agency
by more than 30 percent over the
next two fiscal years. The proposed
move has led some civil servants in
the agency to question its ability to
carry out tasks mandated by Con-gress.
The cuts in money and personnel
would come at a time when the agen-cy's
workload is increasing at a rap-id
rate because of programs enacted
by Congress, including the new Su- -
perf und to clean up hazardous wast-es
across the country and the broad
effort to protect human health from
their toxic chemicals, including the
cleanup of drinking water.
Byron Nelson, chief spokesman for
the " environmental agency and now
on a trip through the West with EPA
administrator Anne M. Gorsuch,
said of the proposed budget and per-sonnel
cuts:
" We must emphasize that all of
the figures are very preliminary.
The administrator has not signed off
on some of them or even seen some
of them.
" We along with other units of gov
ernment, except Defense, have been
asked -- to examine alternatives for
the next two fiscal years to help
meet the president's goal of a bal-anced
budget and we are requested
to work within those percentage fig-ures.
There is still waste within this
agency that can be eliminated with-out
impeding progress toward the
nation's environmental goals."
Morgan Kinghcm, EPA comptrol-ler,
said the agency had received a
notice from the Office of Manage-ment
and Budget that it was to make
the additional 12 percent budget cuts
proposed by the president last week
for the fiscal year starting Thurs-day.
Kinghorn said he did not know how
the cut would be applied. '-- We do not
know what further cuts will occur
beyond the proposed 12 percent," he
said.
Suzanne Weise, director of press
service for the EPA, said the agency
had not received any notice of a re-duction
in its force of civil service
employees. She said, however, that
" a sizable number of cutbacks in
personnel are anticipated in the
( See EPA, Page 8A)
ln wia
today
7 p. m. Workshop on college
entryre- entr- y, sponsored by
the University Career Plan-ning
and Placement Center,
110 Noyes Building, free.
7: 30 p. m. County Court
meets, court chambers, fifth
floor, County- Cit- y Building.
Index
Business 7A
Classified 5- 8- B
Comics 6B
Opinion 4A
People 5A
Sports 7- 9- A
Weather 2A
Gotelro
Fulton farmer corners escapee
By Michael Nahrstedt
Missourian staff writer
FULTON A 76- year-- old Fulton
man Monday captured a convicted
murderer who had climbed two bar-bed
wire fences to escape from Ful-ton
State Hospital's maximum secu-rity
unit 14 hours earlier.
Timothy Cason, 21, became the
first patient to escape from the hos-pital
in 14 years, said Mike Benzen,
hospital assistant superintendent.
Cason, whom Benzen described as
" extremely dangerous," was re-turned
to the maximum security unit
Monday afternoon.
Leo Chapman said he had been
fishing near his farm when passers- b- y
alerted him to Cason's escape. He
said he grabbed his automatic rifle
from his house and soon spotted a
J man walking toward his barn. Chap
man said that when Cason saw him,
he ran into some bushes.
Chapman fired three shots toward
the bushes, which was enough to
make the man return to the road.
" I made him lie down in the road,
spread- eagl- e, and held the gun on
him," Chapman said.
Within five minutes, about 30 cars
carrying local law enforcement offi-cers
arrived to take Cason to the Cal-laway
County Sheriffs Department.
Officials said Cason escaped about
1: 15 a. m. Monday and was captured
about 3: 15 p. m.
Benzen said Cason had to climb
two 8- fo- ot ( 2.4- mete- r) chain link
fences topped with barbed wire and
wrapped with another razor- shar- p
wire to escape the Biggs unit, where
the hospital's most dangerous pa-tients
are confined.
" It's hard to believe that a man
could've gotten through there," Ben-zen
said. " Apparently we had Spi- derm- an
incarcerated here."
" Walkaways' patients with
grounds passes who leave the hospi-tal
are a frequent problem at the
hospital, but " this is the first one in
14 years that can be termed an es-cape,"
he said.
Cason had been transferred to the
hospital about six weeks ago from
the Missouri State Penitentiary,
where he had been sentenced to
serve life in prison for murder.
Chapman said he has been trou-bled
by walkaways from the hospital
for years, including an incident in
which an escapee shoved a rifle in
his face and threatened to steal his
wife.
" It's getting to be a nuisance," he
said.