Columbia Missourian Newspaper 1982-12-02

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75th Year No. 69 Good Morning! It's Thursday, December 2, 1 982 2 Sections 1 2 Pages 25 Cents
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Up a street Larry Smith, manager of Taum Sauk Wilder-ness
Outfitters, 911 E. Broadway, is not used
to portaging city streets but these canoes had
Grant Hodder
to be moved from the store to a storage area
to make room for something more seasonal
snow skis.
By Lenny Heymcnn
Missourian staff writer
When the Boone County Court
opens its public hearing this morning
on the 1983 budget, it will hear com-ments
on a budget that has doubled
since Presiding Judge Bill Freeh
took office six years ago.
The hearing begins at 10 a. m. in
the County Court chambers on the
fifth floor in the County- Cit- y Build-ing.
Freeh will consider testimony as
he draws up a budget that will be
presented to the court on Dec. 20. Af-ter
Freeh steps down at the end of
the year, the new court will hold an-other
public hearing Jan. 20, and by
Jan. 31 will finalize a general fund
budget that will contain approxi-mately
$ 4.2 million of new revenue.
Freeh found himself in the same
position in 1977 when, as new presid-ing
judge, he helped to approve a
budget of $ 2.1 million.
Much of the difference between the
two budgets can be attributed to in-flation.
But the doubling of the coun-ty's
budget also reflects the tremen-dous
growth Boone County has seen
in the past decade.
Although Boone County's popula-tion
grew more in the 1960s than in
the ' 70s, in the last 10 years most of
the growth took place outside of Co-lumbia.
Frpm 1970 to 1980 the city's
population grew only 6 percent, from
58,557 to 62,061, while the county's
shot from 22,354 to 38,315 people a
leap of 71 percent.
In some areas of the county,
0K0Da?
growth has been even more dramat-ic.
The Missouri Township area,
west of Columbia, had a population
of 1,000 in 1970. The 1980 census
pegged it at 2,172.
Building permits also reveal the
rapid pace of growth in the county.
In 1975 there were 187 permit re-quests
for single family dwellings.
The demand more than doubled to
383 in 1977, and remained about the
same in ' 78, before dropping to 2S9 in
' 79.
Judge Freeh sat back Wednesday
in the corner of his office and spun a
tale about the chain of events those
permits wrought.
Many of those building permits
went to people who were used to ur-ban
living, Freeh suggested.
" They moved out there on a sunny
day when the birds were singing," he
continued. " Then along came the
snows, the roads got bad along
with 101 other things. So they all got
on the phone to the presiding judge
and demanded these urban services
that the county had not been used to
providing."
One of those services was law en-forcement
In Columbia, the crime index in-creased
30 percent from 1975 to 1980,
but in the rest of the county it
climbed 74.3 percent. The budget for
the county jail reflects the skyrock-eting
crime rate. In 1977 it was
$ 107,080. By 1982 it had reached
$ 540,000.
Sheriff Charlie Foster explained
that when he took office with Freeh
in 1977 the jail population was in the
30s. This week it was up to 85, and
has been as high as 100, forcing the
county to purchase jail space in
neighboring counties.
The inflation bug also has eaten
away at Foster's domain. Six years
ago he bought nine new patrol cars
for $ 35,000. Today, he said, that sum
would buy only four cars.
In Freeh's time, the county found
itself saddled with added responsibil-ity
from the state. Beginning in 1978,
Missouri counties were asked to ad-minister
five elections each year, up
from two. Because of that change,
the budget for elections and registra-tions
has gone from $ 40,000 in 1977 to
$ 246,000' in 1982. In Freeh's initial
years, the county struggled to make
ends meet. The situation was so
bleak that in the 1977 budget report
Freeh wrote that to stay solvent ei-ther
property taxes would have to be
raised, the state would have to allow
a sales tax or it would be necessary
that " virtually all county services
added in the past 10 years are elimi-nated."
It took a couple of years, but the
court's fairy godmother finally ap-peared
in January 1980 the form of a
sales tax. Freeh is blunt about what
would have happened to the county
without it.
" We would have been bankrupt.
It's that simple," he said. " It came
Bill Freeh
Says sales tax saved the county
just in the nick of time as far as
Boone County is concerned."
Now that tax will bring the county
$ 2.6 million this year and has en-abled
the court to cut its property
tax assessment for the general fund
to just 2 cents per $ 100 assessed val-ue.
The court also has gotten a more
recent visit from another wizard,
County Treasurer Kay Murry, whose
investment program will net the
county more than $ 800,000 in interest
in 1982. Just one of Murry's tricks
has been to invest the remaining
See GROWTH, Page 8A
JrlFSiMCillj D1116S
Ellis Fischel's new director
told to prepare for budget cut
By Michael Kodas
Misgourian staff writer
Dr. Ronald Vincent skipped the
frying pan and jumped straight into
the fire during his first day as direc-tor
of the Ellis Fischel Cancer Cen-ter
Wednesday when the Missouri
State Cancer Commission told him
to figure out how to cut the center's
budget by up to $ 1 million.
Walt Kenney, assistant adminis-trator
at Ellis Fischel, told the com-mission
at its monthly meeting the
center will fall almost $ 1 million be-low
its projected income for fiscal
1983, which ends in July, if its patient
load does not increase drastically.
Along with the budget cut, the can-cer
commission will ask the state for
$ 1.5 million emergency authoriza-tion
to spend its profits kept in the
cancer center support fund as
soon as it acquires the money in-stead
of waiting for a later author-ization.
The fund is derived from pa-tient
fees charged by the center, so
the center can only spend the funds
after it earns them.
But with only 33 patients in the 115--
bed hospital Tuesday, it seems
doubtful the center will be able to
generate enough money.
" I don't know now whether we will
be able to make more than a half
million dollars in the rest of the
year," Kenney said.
But State Rep. Joe Holt, chairman
of the commission, wants to be pre-pared
to spend the funds in case they
are earned. " We'll make the request
( for the $ 1.5 million) whether we can
generate the funds or not." Holt
said.
" But the real question is where do
we make the cuts," he said. " That
decision falls in Dr. Vincent's lap."
Vincent said he would need some
time to decide where to make the
cuts. He said be will not cut medical
staff because he fears that could
lower the number of patients at the
center even more.
Of the $ 1.5 million requested in the
emergency appropriation, about
$ 425,000 of it will pay for services
from physicians and equipment out-side
the hospital, some of which '
Sea DIRECTOR, Page 8A
Noon " Women and Anger, a
discussion at 1 Gentry Hall on
the University camous
7 p. m. Industrial Devel
opment Bonding Authority
meets County Courtroom
County- Cit- y Building
8 p. m. Ying Ruocheng, the
Chinese actor who played Kub- la- i
Khan on NBC's " Marco
Polo" series, to lecture at M- mor-ial
Union Auditorium on the
University campus
inside
Business ................ ........ 7A
Classified 3- 4- B
Comics .................................... .6A
Hallsville 2B
Opinion. 4A
Record ..................................... 7A
Sports ............... .......... 1- 3- B
, ,
Interest rates revive
county construction
By Jim Hirsch
Missourian staff writer
Boone County's once- wound- ed con-struction
industry has been revived
by lowered interest rates an in-dustry
resurgence that appears to be
nationwide.
City records show a 19 percent in-crease
in construction permits is-sued
in October over those granted
in October 1981. According to the Co-lumbia
Department of Public Works,
61 permits were issued this October,
10 more than issued for the same
month in 1981.
County records show an even
greater increase 175 percent
from the eight permits issued in Oc-tober
1981 to the 22 issued in October
1982.
" The housing industry is coming
back because interest rates are back
where people can afford them," said
Bob Basset, owner of Basset Con-struction
Company and. chairman of
the Boons County Building Code
Commission.
" Interest rates are at 12 percent
and there's talk of them going low-er,"
Basset said. " Last October they
were 17 or 18 percent and there was
talk of them going higher."
Another reason for the October up- -
swing. Basset said, is that man con-struction
foundations are put in be-fore
the winter months
" The rebound has been a pretty
good one," Basset said, " but it
might bounce back for aw hile "
By 1984, Basset projected, We
may be at what we could call a nor-mal
level i of construction i but it
all depends on those interest rates "
Nationally construction spending
increased by a 1 1 percent annual
rate in October, the federal Com-merce
Department reported
Wednesday
Private construction increased 0 5
percent to a projected annual rate of
$ 182 9 billion, while public construc-tion
jumped 3 4 percent to a rate of
$ 52 billion
Due to falling interest rates, the
Reagan administration predicted
gains in residential construction
In the public sector, the largest in-crease
in construction went to high-ways
and streets, which was up 5 1
percent to an annual rate of $ 14 2 bil-lion
The department surveys most of
the nation's large construction pro-jects
and samples manv of the
smaller ones each month to record
the pace of spending in the industry
EPA says dioxin levels
don't warrant evacuation
ST. LOUIS ( UPI) Preliminary
test results show the level of dioxm
in soil samples collected from two
suburban neighborhoods is not
enough to warrant emergency action
by the Environmental Protection
Agency.
Rita Lavelle, the senior EPA offi-cial
monitoring the case, said Tues-day
that the test results support her
earlier decision that it is unnecces- sar- y
to immediately evacuate the
neighborhoods in Imperial in north-ern
Jefferson County.
" It is not a situation to require
emergency action," Mrs. Lavelle
said.
Mrs. Lavelle received reports of
soil samples taken this fall from 312
locations in two Imperial areas She
refused to reveal the levels of dioxin
contamination found by the tests,
saying she wanted to complete addi-tional
tests before a Dec. 8 meeting
with Gov. Christopher S. Bond.
" He will decide whether to make
the results public now or wait for fi-nal
results," she said.
The additional tests are being
made on soil samples from the
shoulders of streets in Times Beach
Authorities believe that waste oil
sprayed on the streets 10 years ago
may have contained dioxin
Five EPA technicians wearing in-sulated
suits, boots and masks
started taking soil samples Tuesday
from the small St Louis suburb
They plan to take nearly 2.400 sam-ples
two every 100 feet from
nearly every street in Tunes Beach
In addition to the EPA tests, some
residents of Tunes Beach are plan-ning
a fund- raisin- g drive to hire a
private company to test for dioxm
Lane Jumper, a spokesman for the
residents, said the group decided to
collect $ 1,500 to hire Envirodyne En-gineers
Inc. to test the soil " We do
appreciate what the EPA is doing,
but they're just not fast enough for
us," he said
Dioxin, one of the most poisonous
substances known, was produced as
a byproduct in the manufacture of a
large family of chemicals, including
the disinfectant hexachlorphene. It
is believed to cause cancer, birth de-fects,
and disorders of the skin, liver
and bladder.
Track takes tour without driver
By Richard Myhre
Missourian staff writer
An Iowa construction worker
parked his dump truck outside his
Columbia motel room Wednesday
and went inside to fix a sandwich. It
turned out to be a lunch hour with a
dose of indigestion.
Fred Franks, who is staying at the
Arrow- Hea- d Motel, 1411 Business
Loop 70 E., had his sandwich- makin- g
interrupted by a phone call.
" The ( motel) office called us and
said, ' Hey, I think your truck's going
down the road with no one in it,' "
said Franks, who is in Columbia
with his son, Dan Franks, to haul as-phalt.
Dan took off after it, but the two- to- n
truck had rolled out of the park-ing
lot and across four traffic lanes
before he got out the door Then the
asphalt earner curved back across
the street and wheeled toward the
parking lot of Lee Tire Co , about 100
yards from the motel
Dan watched the runaway glance
off a telephone nnle and crash into
two pickup trucks Police arrived on
the scene. No one was injured
The dump truck crunched the side
panels of both vehicles, but had only
a few dents to show for its runaway
ramble Franks said he had been
having trouble with the truck's
transmission and speculated that it
may have jumped out of gear.
Engineering programs ranked average
By Diane Fedak
Missourian staff writer
The University's doctoral pro-grams
in chemical, civil, electrical
and mechanical engineering are
keeping pace with about two- thir- ds
of the programs in the nation,
according to a report released by a
committee of the Conference Board
of Associated Research Councils.
But keeping up with the pack may
not be something to brag about. Few
did exceptionally well.
Of the 326 engineering doctoral
programs examined in a study of
such programs, about 218 of them,
including the University's, received
scores between 40 and 60. Fifty rep-resents
the average score for all of
the programs the committee studied
in its five- pa- rt report, of which the
engineering study is the third. None
of the University's engineering pro-grams
rated a 50 or higher.
Two earlier studies released by
the commission evaluated math-ematics
and sciences programs, and
the humanities. Reports on biologi-cal
sciences and behavioral sciences
are still to come.
The highest score a University
program has received so far is a 66,
which the physics graduate program
scored in the area of improvement.
The engineering study used the re--
Ranking of Graduate Programs I
in Engineering 1
Scholarly Research Increase Faculty 1
Program Faculty Scholars Last 5 Years Familiarity 1
Chemical 43 43 49 43 i Civil 45 47 48 43 I
Electrical 44 44 40 42 1
Mechanical 37 37 41 41 1
Filly represents average score ol all programs evaluated 8
SOURCE Conference Board ol Associated Research Councils 1
suits of questionnaires from 579 fac-ulty
members to rank the programs.
Those polled scored the programs on
faculty quality, effectiveness in edu-cating
research scholars and scien-tists,
improvement in last five years
and faculty's familiarity with the
program.
The University's programs scored
consistently in the 40s, with the ex-ceptions
on the low side going to the
mechanical engineering program,
which received 37s in both faculty
quality and effectiveness in educa-tion
of researchers.
Graduate Dean Don Blount de-clined
to talk about the study, saying
that he was reserving his comments
until all the reports had been re-leased.
In an article of the Mizzou
Weekly, however, Blount said that
after the entire report was out, an
examination of the results would in-clude
decisions about the Universi-ty's
direction in terms of its areas of
excellence. He added that it was evi-dent
that the school could not be the
nation's best in every discipline
University President James Ol-son,
who served on the committee
that managed the assessment effort,
echoed those thoughts, as did Chan-cellor
Barbara Uehling Earlier this
fall, the chancellor predicted a dark-er
future for graduate program-ming,
advocating tradeoffs to bol-ster
some of the University's
stronger programs.
" We would be making a serious
misuse of funds if we tried to main-tain
every grad program we have,"
she said at that time.