Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 10

B2 ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL Friday, September 8, 1989 County OKs Improvements at Detention Center By Anthony DellaFlora JOURNAL STAFF WRITER The commission also approved an exten-. sion of Dunlap's consulting contract at a cost of $17,800 for followup on his earlier report. In other action, the commission, meeting as the Board of Canvassing, voted to authorize a lawsuit against Assistant County Attorney Ira Robinson. Robinson owes the county $3,745 for the cost of a recount he requested after narrowly losing the Bernalillo County probate judge race to Republican Tom Mescall last fall. along with commissioners Eugene and Henry Gabaldon.

Commissioners Jackie Schaefer and Al Valdez opposed the appropriation. Schaefer suggested adding fewer positions and phasing in the remainder. She also said the commission should consider privatization of juvenile detention services. Valdez said he wanted more time to discuss long-term policy issues at the center before authorizing more money. Director Mike Hartman and the county's special projects coordinator Arsenio Brito requested the additional positions.

Consultant Earl Dunlap recommended the staff increase last month after compiling a report criticizing the operation of the detention home. Dunlap, director of detention services in Jefferson County, said the facility was understaffed and that staff members lacked guidance and training. He said some staff members also physically and emotionally abused inmates. Before the new appropriations, the detention center had about 55 employees and a budget of about $1.5 million. The new funding would pay salaries and benefits for 13 unit supervisors, six intake officers, a security coordinator, a therapist, a recreation leader and an arts and crafts leader.

It will cost the county about $240,000 to fund the new positions this year. The estimated figure for a full year is $420,000. The remaining money will be used to provide training for staff, bring the center up to fire code requirements and add cameras, metal detectors, and hand-held radios to beef up security. The Bernalillo County Commission voted Thursday to add 23 staff positions and upgrade the county's Juvenile Detention Center at a cost of $352,000. The move will increase the staff at the troubled center by about 50 percent and boost this year's budget by about 20 percent.

"We need to give the facility a chance to succeed," said Commissioner Patricia Cas-sidy, who voted to approve the added funds Cargo Irked By Telecast Of Schultz General Electric To Start Cleanup Of Groundwater Loiuerence By Jim Martin JOURNAL STAFF WRITER By Rene Kimball JOURNAL STAFF WRITER "The water will never be the way it was, but the fact that GE is coming around now and is saying they will go ahead and will clean it is a step in itself." Teresa Juarez San Jose Awareness Council Former Gov. David Largo inurs-day complained about the airing on "government access" television of a news conference in which Mayor Ken Schultz accused Cargo of slander and "sleazy politics." The 17-minute tape of the news conference aired Wednesday on City Hall's Channel 30 cable station during a break in the live telecast of the City Council meeting. Cargo threatened to take the matter to the city Ethics Board. "Televising this is really raw," said Cargo, who accused Schultz of illegally campaigning at City Hall after the mayor held the news conference Tuesday. "I was planning to let the thing slide, but I've decided to file a complaint with the city's Ethics Board after what appeared on Channel 30," Cargo said.

ill mmm After more than eight years of study and negotiation on how to reduce San Jose-area water pollution, General Electric Corp. has told federal environmental officials it will undertake a big chunk of the cleanup. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had ordered General Electric to agree by Sept. 5 to foot the bill and start the cleanup.

GE had faced possible fines of up to $25,000 a day. GE estimates the cleanup could cost $14 million to $16 million over the next 15 to 20 years, said Julie Einerson, environmental coordinator for the plant on Woodward SW. General Electric said it will take action on its own property and at the city's shutdown San Jose No. 6 well nearby, said Paul Karas of the state Environmental Improvement Division. The well closed in 1980 after it was found to contain organic solvents, some of which can cause cancer.

Environmental investigations have revealed solvents in soil and groundwater at the General Electric site. Karas, a geologist in EID's Hazardous Waste Bureau, said the cleanup would start next spring at the earliest. The company, which operates an aircraft engine plant, will have to remove contaminated sediments from the city well, plus determine how deep the toxic solvents are in the groundwater, Karas said. GE also will clean the groundwater on its own property and remove solvents from the soil using a vacuum extraction method that Eager said Schultz had nothing to do with the news conference being telecast. "When the council takes a break, we usually pop in a tape of the most recent news conference," Eager said.

Channel 30 has been airing unedited news conferences held by elected city officials for eight years, Eager said. "I will not take the time to i i siiiiw- mmmmBf J- leaves the soil in place, he added. Under the agreement, General Electric did not admit liability or responsibility for water and soil pollution, Karas said. "The water will never be the way it was, but the fact that GE is coming around now and is saying they will go ahead and will clean it is a step in itself," said Teresa Juarez, co-director of the San Jose Awareness Council. Einerson said General Electric has been trying to get the federal Energy and Defense departments to share the cleanup cost and expects an agreement on dividing the cost soon.

As a part of the agreement with EPA, General Electric will drill wells north of General Electric's property to see if the water pollution has spread to surrounding properties, Karas said. icsyunu iu an luc iiuiluiuus uiuu-. slinging and accusations being made by other candidates," Schultz said Thursday when told of Cargo's Petite Pony Cargo claims Schultz violated city and state laws that prohibit campaigning on city-owned property by holding the news conference in his City Hall conference room. He said the airing compounds the alleged violation, because Channel 30's employees are city workers. Cargo maintains Schultz's comments were "purely political" with her horse-breeding partner, Sandy Seth.

The State fair will feature a miniature horse show Sept. 18. Valerie Graves, a breeder of miniature horses, holds a 1 -month-old colt born at the Paintbrush Ranch in Taos, which she shares Voters May Get Opportunity To Kill Arts Center Councilors Plan Bill To Put Option on Oct. 31 Ballot By Jim Martin JOURNAL STAFF WRITER Schultz called the news confer-, ence to refute Cargo's published comments that the mayor's wife, Diane, pressured a bank to get a $10,000 unsecured loan for a nonprofit agency that is under investigation. Mrs.

Schultz said she never called the bank, and the mayor termed Cargo's comments "slanderous and sleazy at best." Gordon Sanders, the city's media resources director, said he expected squabbling among candidates after the City Council passed a resolution last month overriding his decision not to telecast political debates or news conferences on Channel 30 until after the municipal election. $47 million. The savings would be split with $14 million going to increased police protection and $3 million to establishing an endowment to run the arts center without draining the city's general fund. The third option for voters would be approving the arts center as currently designed. If councilors reject the bill, Hughes and Yntema said they plan to amend and resurrect it after the new council is sworn in Dec.

1. The amended bill would probably call for a special election, Hughes said. chances of the council passing our bill wasn't very good," said Hughes, who is running for mayor. "But, I think there has been some rethinking by councilors." The center, as currently designed with three theaters, would cost around $64 million. It is funded by the "quality-of-life" quarter-cent sales tax the City Council passed in 1987.

If voters kill the arts center, Hughes and Yntema propose using $47 million of the savings to reduce property taxes over the remaining eight years the quality-of-life tax will be collected. The tax reduction would be about $35 a year for a home valued at $80,000, Hughes said. The remaining $17 million in savings would be used for police crackdowns on drugs, gangs and burglaries, the two councilors said. The proposed bill also would give voters the option of cutting the arts center's cost by having two of the three theaters located in existing buildings the city owns or could purchase. Under that scenario, Hughes and Yntema estimate the arts center could be built for Albuquerque voters would get a chance to lower their property taxes by killing the proposed New Mexico Performing Arts Center under a plan Councilors Herb Hughes and Hess Yntema announced Thursday.

The councilors plan to introduce a bill this month that would put three options for the arts center on the Oct. 31 ballot if there is a runoff in the mayoral election. Voters would have the choice of killing the center, reducing its size or maintaining the plans as they are. "Three months ago, I would have said the Policeman Fired Upon DlGEST JOURNAL STAFF REPORTS During 100 MPH Chase Protesters Block Buses With Their Wheelchairs By Steve Reynolds JOURNAL STAFF WRITER she also holds degrees in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania and in history from the State University of New York at Binghamton-Harper College. Kathleen De Lozier Carter, 42, an attorney for nine years with the 2nd Judicial District District Attorney's Office.

Admitted to the New Mexico Bar in 1978, she holds a law degree from Florida State University, a master's degree from the University of Michigan and a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas. Herman Fierro, 42, an attorney in private practice in Albuquerque. Admitted to the New Mexico Bar in 1983, he holds a law degree and a bachelor's degree from the University of New Mexico. J. Michael Kavanaugh, 36, an attorney in private practice in Albuquerque.

Admitted to the Mew Mexico Bar in 1984, he received a law degree from the University of New Mexico and a bachelor's degree in accounting from New Mexico Highlands University. they say logging on steep slopes would hurt wildlife and contribute to erosion, lowering water quality. Police Identify Bodies Discovered in Valencia LOS LUNAS Police have identified the remains of two bodies found in Valencia County in the past three weeks, including those of a 71-year-old man who wandered from the Belen Health Care Center almost two years ago. The skeletal remains of a man found last Friday in the Rio Puerco west of Belen were identified as Manuel Perea, Valencia County Sheriff Lawrence Romero said Thursday. Meanwhile, the remains of a badly decomposed body found Aug.

15 in a Los Chavez irrigation ditch have been identified as Bobby Joe Orona, 33, of Albuquerque, Romero said. At least 15 people in wheelchairs blocked six Sun Tran buses near Fifth and Gold SW Thursday to protest the lack of wheelchair access on the city's bus fleet. The protesters, none of whom was cited by Albuquerque police, caused the Downtown intersection to be closed for at least an hour. Organizer Gene Rodgers, director of New Vistas Center for Independent Living, charged the city is not doing enough to provide wheelchair users with access to public transportation. The protesters agreed to move only after Chief Administrative Officer Clarence Lithgow offered to set up a meeting with city officials next week.

for speeding. Knutson said he caught up with the car, a bronze 1982 Chevrolet Celebrity, as it careened through traffic on Corrales Road and sped south on Coors Boulevard. A second village officer, Jorge Trujillo, was delayed by traffic and never caught up. Knutson said the passenger in the car fired a revolver at him four times during the chase. The first shot was fired at 7-Bar Loop and Coors near Alameda West shopping center where Knutson said he thinks the suspects tossed something out of the car.

The car then headed west in the eastbound lane of Irving Boulevard, turned on Eagle Ranch Road and then west on Paradise Boulevard. At the end of Paradise Boulevard the car sped off on a dirt road, where the passenger fired two more shots, he said. "The passenger (who had climbed in the back seat) leaned over to the driver's window and capped another round, and I backed off," he said. Jones asked that anyone with information about the suspects call the Police Department at 898-7585. i Two men in a stolen car led a Corrales police officer oiva at speeds exceeding 100 mpljnd fired four times at the patrol Mr Thursday morning.

After eluding pursuit in Paradise Hills, the men crashed the car through a padlocked gate at the rear of Sierra Vista Elementary School, abandoned it and ran off, said Corrales Police Chief Dean Jones. Officers from the Albuquerque Public Schools, Corrales and Bernalillo County cruised Paradise Hills after the incident but the men were still at large late Thursday. Jones said it's possible they live in Paradise Hills. "That would be the natural assumption," he said. "Why else would they go there? They could have taken another road and gotten away." Jones said no one was hurt as a result of the chase or the gunshots.

The chase started around 6:40 a.m. in front of the village fire station when Officer Gene Knutson clocked the car headed south on Corrales Road at 87 mph in a 35 mph zone and tried to stop the occupants SF Forest Officials OK SF Police Will Book Logging in Jemez Area Candidates Nominated Fiegta R(wdifeg a att a Conto 7 Iff 1 SANTA FE Santa Fe National Forest For Metro Court Bench officials said this week they will go ahead with a plan to cut trees on nearly 900 acres in the Jemez Mountains. However, environmental groups promise to oppose the timber cutting in court if necessary. Forest supervisor Maynard Rost Monday approved the sale on the Bonito Diversity Unit, just west of the Valle Grande. Environmentalists oppose the sale because SANTA FE Want to be almost as famous as Zozobra tonight? Get in trouble with the law on Santa Fe's Plaza and you'll have your picture taken while in handcuffs and be carted off to jail in front of thousands of people.

Santa Fe police for the third year will make; use of a van manned by jail employees at the northeast corner of the Plaza to process and haul away prisoners arrested during Fiesta revelry. The Judicial Nominating Commission for Bernalillo County's Metropolitan Court has recommended four people for a vacancy on the Metro Court bench. The four nominees are: Margot Ballon, 38, an attorney for three years with the 2nd Judicial District Attorney's Office. Admitted to the New Mexico Bar in 1986, i.