Columbia Missourian Newspaper 1983-12-03

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76th Year No. 70 Good Morning! It's Saturday, December 3, 1 983 2 Sections 12 Pages 25 Cents
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Agencies,
clergy resist
county plan
for services
By Jan Maacham
Missourian stall writer
Clergy and churchgoers from
more than 20 of Columbia's churches
have joined with other agencies to
protest the consolidation of social
service fundng by the city, the
chairman of the Interfaith Council of
Columbia announced Friday.
In a letter sent to Mayor John
Westlund and City Council mem-bers,
43 members of the Interfaith
Council expressed concern mat a
1984 budget recommendation will
" critically affect the delivery of
services to those who need them
most"
The issue will go before the City
Council Monday night.
Representatives from the church-es,
as well as affected social service
agencies, are expected to attend the
council meeting in large numbers to
protest proposed consolidation of so-cial
service funding, said the Rev.
John Hayes, chairman of the Interf-aith
Council
The budget recommendation, put
together m November by the Boone
County Community Services Advi-sory
Commission, proposes to award
the bulk of social service funding to
the Job Center Inc to provide a
wide spectrum of services. Tradi-tionally,
fundng has been divided
among several agencies that special-ize
in diverse services
The Interfaith Council's letter op-poses
the consolidation and asks the
City Council to continue funding a
number of agencies. It recommends
tabling the plan for as long as a year
toenabejrurther, study. - -- r.
Included in the agencies jyrjose..
funding will be cut if the City Councfl"
approves the allocations Monday are
the Voluntary Action Center, 200
Stroliway Centre; Everyday People,
209 Price Ave.; Family and Chil-dren's
Services of Mid- Missou- n, 800
N Providence Road, Family Coun-seling
Center, 1005 Cherry St; and
the Boone County Council on Aging,
123 S Ninth St.
Hayes, pastor of Wilkes Boulevard
United Methodist Church, 702 Wilkes
Blvd., said members of the ecumeni-cal
group oppose the consolidation
plan primarily because of possible
cuts to the Voluntary Action Center's
budget The 14- year-- old agency ad-ministers
the church council's FISH
fund donations from 18 Columbia
congregations to aidthe needy.
Hayes said members of the Interf-aith
Council fear ther Voluntary Ac-tion
Center's loss of funding could
seriously affect its provision of serv-ices
to the community
The Voluntary Action Center and
Columbia churches have a symbiotic
relationship because the churches
are able to refer poor and needy peo-ple
to the social service agency for
aid. In return, the Voluntary Action
Center receives the churches' collectio-n-
plate donations that are ear-marked
to help the underprivileged,
Hayes said.
" It's not that the idea of consolida-tion
is bad," Hayes said, " but that
we feel the idea is ill- advis-ed
right
now. It's hastily put together and
hasn't been carefully considered, so
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The Parkade Baptist Church gets a new hat,
Wes Manns, left, and Steve Keith, both of
Steeple crowns Baptist church
High- ris- e addition
from Kentucky- cost- s
$ 16,000
By Alicia Wittberoer
Missourian stall writer
The Parkade Baptist Church Fri-day
morning received the crowning
touch to its new sanctuary, which is
currently under construction.
Now sittmg atop the church at 2102
N Garth Ave. is a 47- fo- ot steeple,
brought all the way from Carnp- beHsyfl- le,
Ky. The steeple cost the
congregation$ 16,000
William H. Camp, pastor of the
churchsmce 1970, says the architect
chose this particular steeple because
it complements the design of the
sanctuary. " It is proportioned to the
Jim Lemon
Campbelivilie, Ky., make final adjustments on
-- the steeple that was installed Friday
building," Camp says.
The church's first service was m
September 1966 with 81 people pre-sent
The growth of the church has
been steady. Today the church is in
the process of constructing a $ 900,000
sanctuary to accommodate more
than 500 members.
The sanctuary is a worship center
with space along both sides for Sun-day
Bible studies.
Paul Bass, associate pastor, says
the additional space the sanctuary
provides will encourage the church's
growth. " The sanctuary is designed
so that the classrooms can be pulled
out to create an even larger worship
centerif necessary."
According to Camp, the church
has been struggling for several
years because it does not have
enough classroom space. The church
also needs to hold two Sunday serv-ices
so that all members may at-tend.
It is hoped that the sanctuary
will help eliminate these problems.
Members raised about 40 percent
of the money, more than $ 380,000, by
asking each family to make individ-ual
pledges to be paid to the church
over a three- yea- r period
" It was an exciting time," says
Camp. " It had been expected that
we would raise about $ 250,000"
Camp says the remainder of the
money will be financed either by
selling bonds or through a bank loan
Ted Horton, the sanctuary's ar-chitect,
designed the sanctuary be-fore
he was formally contracted by
the church's building committee
Construction began last May, and
the tentative dedication date is April
29
Jammed wires
GTE: ' Sorry ... all lines are busy'
By Helens Feger
Missourian stall writer
Talk about an earful
With an additional 10,000 calls
per month to the customer service
division of General Telephone of
the Midwest, the company's serv-ice
representatives in Boone Coun-ty
have had trouble keeping up
with customer calls.
Not only has the number of calls
increased, but the length of the
service calls has tripled. " They
used to be eight minutes per call'
said Ron Hopwood, Division Pub-lic
Affairs manager for GTE, 625
E. Cherry St " Now they are 25 to
aOminutes on average "
The delays in service tins re-porter
waited 10 minutes for a cus-tomer
service representative to
come on the lute spurred GTE to
run an apology in Friday's Mis-sourian.
j--
t
Besides apologies, GTE has
added 42 ears and a computer sys-tem.
The company's staff has been
increased by 21 to a total of 52 em-ployees.
The company claims that cus-tomer
confusion about the impend-ing
deregulation of the phone in-dustry
has jammed the phone
lines. Questions about changes in
service, whether to purchase or
rent phone equipment and, in par-ticular,
customer confusion about
itemized billing, which the compa-ny
introduced in October, have
generated the flurry of calls and
the lengthy service delays.
" People are not complaining
about phone service. Repair serv-ice
and facilities have been un-proved,"
Hopwood said. " Now bil-ling
questions make up for these."
Under the new baling system,
service charges are itemized. In-stead
of one local service charge.
separate fees are levied for the use
of phone equipment and for a basic
dial tone. The change is necessary
because after deregulation cus-tomers
will have the option of buy-ing,
rather than renting, their tele-phones.
While Hopwood estimated that
the number of calls to GTE service
agents has multiplied tenfold, he
added that the number of com-plaint
calls has fallen off by 25,000
from last year. Whereas GTE used
to receive 10 complaints for every
100 lines in service, that number is
now down to eight
uopwooa attributes improved
service to new outside cables and
new test equipment for checking
on the condition of underground
cable. Damaged cable equipment
and earpieces are responsible for
the most frequent customer com-plaint
static on the line
according to Hopwood.
Mall, city agree
to enforce code
Display booths to be fire- saf- e
By Janet Shadden
Missourian stall writer
Biscayne Mall officials agreed Fri-day
to bring all mall display booths
into full compliance with the city s
fire codes today
Dan Simon, attorney for the Bis-cayne
Mall Merchants Association,
and City Counselor David Evans an-nounced
the agreement after a two- hou- r
meeting of the mvolved parties
at the County- Cit- y Building Partici-pants
in the meeting included Ken
Schmck, merchants association
president Fire Chief Bill Westoff
and Public Works Director Ray
Beck
Evans and Simon agreed that
compliance would come quickly
" The people at the mall are going
to be able to comply with the city s
code by tomorrow ( Saturday)," Si-mon
said
Simon said booths already had
been moved to meet the code's re-quirements
of a clear 10- foot- w- ide
path through all corridors at the
mall and 20 feet of open space be-tween
booths
" Minor electrical modifications
need to be made," Simon said He
said those modifications involved re-moving
some electrical cords that
are strung across the floor
Evans said the problems between
the mall and the city arose because
of misunderstandings Westoff re-medied
that problem by explaining
the code to the merchants at the
meeung, Evans said
" They were pretty much in com-pliance
before ( the controversy
arose)," Evans said " It wasn't so
much that they weren't in compli-ance
with our codes as a lack of com- mumcati- on
"
Final determination on whether
the booths meet city codes will come
today when officials from the Fire
Department the Public Works De-partment
and the business license
office inspect die booths, Evans
said
The seven existing mall booths
have applied for " permanent- temporary- "
business licenses, which allow
the booths to operate for a limited
fame, in these cases until after
Christmas. If the booths pass inspec-tion,
a temporary license will be is-sued
until Tuesday, when the official
permanent- temporar- y license will
be issued.
The agreement prevents further
court battles between the parties
The merchants association Thurs-day
took the city to court, where Cir-cuit
Court Judge Gene Hamilton is-sued
a temporary restraining order
against the city.
The parties soil wdl have to ap-pear
m court Tuesday for a hearing
on the order Simon said he expected
the order to be rescinded and the
case to be dismissed.
Simon said the agreement on the
short- ter- m problem did not elimi-nate
the possibility of more prob-lems
with the code enforcement in
the future
" I'm not going to say that we
won't run into this problem again,"
Simon said He said he hoped future
problems with the code could be
worked out administratively or by
asking the City Council to amend the
code.
Simon said he did not expect the
enforcement to interfere with the op-eration
of the existing booths
They ( booth operators) seem to
think they can live with it. Simon
said
The problem at the mall surfaced
when Cit Manager Dick Gray sent
a letter to mall officials Nov 25. ad-vising
them that booths were in vio-lation
of the fire codes The letter
gave the mall until Dec 1 to comply
with the codes before the city took
action to remove the booths Mall of-ficials
protested that the booths had
been allowed for 11 years, but the
city countered that the situation had
worsened in recent months
Shoppers
unfazed
by uproar
By J Harry Jones
Missourian stall writer
None of the customers felt
threatened, some didn t know
about it, and Santa was confi-dent
everything would work
out its own merry way
Although the city was still
upset about fire hazards in the
Biscayne Mall on Fnday, lei-surely
Christmas shoppers
didn't seem worried Most peo-ple
were aware of the recent
controversy between the city
and the mall concerning the
placement of temporary
booths in the aisles, but none
said they felt any danger being
in the building
If I felt that I was in dan-ger,
I wouldn't be here," said
Gene Shaw of 1800 Kathy Dr
' That s a dumb question
As he scanned the mall's
hallway booths, Edwin West- broo- k
of 1513 Richardson St ,
said, ' It looks pretty good
now Last Saturday and Sun-day
though, it was quite a
( crowded) mess "
Westbrook said he under-stood
the city's position
' When they make a law, thev
should apply it to everyone I
don't care who they are
Shaw added, I think the
city has bent over backwards
and I don't blame them a bit
for doing what they are now "
Santa Claus, whose position
at the mall could be jeopar-dized
should the city have its
way, said he was confident
that the problems would be
ironed out in negotiations
Five shoppers of 25 inter-viewed
said they hadn't heard
about the controversy Several
who did know of the problem
said they were concerned
about the propane gas used by
the glass blowing booth
One shopper, Jim Steffan of
106 Spring Valley Road said he
also was worried by the gas
But Steffan said he didn't
think the city had given the
mall adequate time to correct
the problems
" I think the booths add
something People like to
browse and look at the crafts,"
he said
Bond sale not likely to benefit county
By Katharine George
State capital bureau
JEFFERSON CITY Boone
County's overall economy has little
to gam if legislators pass a $ 350 mil-lion
bond issue during the special
session, according to a researcher at
the state Division of Employment
Security.
" With the recovery coming along,
it may have no significant impact at
all," said Jerry Dickson.
A proposal to sell $ 350 million in
bonds and use the money to repair
and construct state buddings and
stimulate the economy is now await-ing
action in the Senate.
The economy has been looking
brighter since July in Boone County
-- and throughout the state And it
would continue to do so without the
rrMtimillion- dolla- r issue, Dickson
said.
Boone County's economic recov-ery
began four months ago when un-employment
claims began to drop.
County unemployment during the
period from July through October
was lower this year than in 1981 and
1982, Dickson said.
$ 350 million proposal awaits action
0KnK) U
" When into a situation where
claims already are dropping, we
won't see a noticeable change,"
Dickson said
Under the House proposal, Colum-bia
would receive about $ 31 million
to repair and construct buildings at
the University, University Hospital,
Mid- Misso- uri Mental Health Center
and Ellis Fischel Cancer Center
Contracts for the repairs and con-struction
probably would be
awarded to firms outside Columbia,
according to Commissioner for High-er
Education Shaila Aery.
" With regard to geographic distri-bution
of projects as relates to in-creased
jobs, with very few excep-tions
contracts for major renovation
and construction projects over all
parts of the state are awarded to
Kansas City and St. Louis firms,"
Aery said last August
i
university rresiueni james uison
has said proposed construction of an
agricultural engineering building at
the Columbia campus is ready to be-gin.
The University is simply wait-ing
for the green light from legis-lators
However, spokesman Bob
Mussman said the University will
not contract services of construction
firms unbi the bond issue passes He
did not say whether Columbia firms
would get construction contracts for
Columbia projects
The bond issue would not provide
enough jobs statewide to significant-ly
lower state unemployment
churns, Dickson said.
Statewide claims began dropping
around July and have remained
steadily below levels last year. Dick-son
said he expects the recovery to
continue
Boone County is not typical of oth-er
counties in Missouri, Dickson
said. Its chief industries, health and
education, " go down slower and are
affected probably last by an econom-ic
downturn."