The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 6

A6 Sunday December 7,1997 FEEDBACK: Cdl City Editor Spencer Skdley at 1-800-561-3611, Ext. 312 send'email to What do you give a millionaire? The 17 off-duty Gaiveston cops who worked security for the inaugural Seawall holiday lighting celebration Nov. 28 donated their time. The gesture was to thank Tilman Fertitta, whose San Luis Hotel and Landry's restaurants sponsored the event, said Officer Joe Giusti, a Gaiveston policeman and security director for the San Luis and Landry's. "He's been real good to the city and the department as a whole," Giusti said.

"We decided to get together and give him a little Christmas present." Among other things, Giusti said, Fertitta has given the police department five new squad cars and 200 lockers for the substation at 53rd Street and Avenue S. At the Seawall lighting, the officers gave Fertitta a card and returned his uncashed check for $740 what he would have paid 17 officers for four hours at $20 an hour. Fertitta said he was surprised, but not shocked. "These are extremely good guys who wanted to contribute to the community, too," he said. Could the officers' gesture have had any relationship to the police union's contract problems with the city? "None whatsoever." Giusti said.

"We were sitting in here in my office one day, talking about it, kicking ideas around as to how many people we were going to need for the event. "One person said, 'As much as he's done for us, I'll do it for That gave us the idea: 'Let's see how many people will do ft for What are they doing? If you've been wondering why southbound Interstate 45 at FM 518 in League City is shut down to two lanes one of them the right shoulder you'll have two years to ponder it But here's the short answer. The state is raising the overpass so it can raise the roadbed to alleviate flash flooding during downpours. Three lanes will remain open on the northbound side throughout the two-year project to provide emergency evacuation routes. Right now, workers are hooking up new overhead lights so they can remove the existing ones in the median, said Bil! Babbington, acting engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation in the Gaiveston area.

Work on the overpass bridge is scheduled to start next month. Half of it will be finished by October, when the traffic flow will be shifted to the lanes that were previously closed. Dickens was a dickens of a husband Charles Dickens, whose legacy is being celebrated today on The Strand, divorced his wife in his middle age and made her move out of their family home. Meanwhile he kept custody of their passel of children and carried on a clandestine relationship with an actress, Elien Ternan. John Zophy, a local Dickens buff visiting the festival today, is a history professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake who teaches a class covering Dickens' little-known dalliance.

"There's no doubt they had a relationship," Zophy said, citing "Parallel Lives" by Phyllis Rose, a text he uses in his class. "The question is whether it was sexual. It can't be proven." Dickens went to great lengths to disguise himself when he visited Ternan, but was not always successful, Zophy said. He noted that the two were caught together in a major train wreck in the late 1860s, See A7 Shunned isle residents want more responsive association TIKI ISLAND Some Tiki Islanders have formed a committee for better leadership. By CAROL CHRISTIAN The Daily News TtKI ISLAND Residents who were not allowed to speak Wednesday evening at a meeting of the TiM Island Civic Association Board of Directors have formed a committee.

"The main purpose is to re-establish some responsible government on TiM, to re-establish some integrity within the politics," said John Freeman, a former mayor pro tern and the committee's interim spokesman. The committee formed after the civic association's board voted to suspend without pay the association's secretary, Brenda Raven, wife of Mayor Pro Tern Frank Raven. She is the focus of an in- vestigation by Tiki Island police and the Texas Rangers into an undisclosed amount of missing civic association funds. Police Chief Sue Dietrich said Friday the case would be referred to the grand jury when police and an independent See A7 That's how it was 1 Catharin Lewis, director and curator of the West Bay Common School and Children's Museum in League City, discusses the history of the one-room schoolhouse Saturday during fourth annual Century Walk Christmas Tour. (Photo by David Doemiand) Hundreds attend Christmas walking tour LEAGUE OTY The tour included a builiding that is being restored as well an old ice house and a fig factory.

More than 200 people participated in the tour this year. By GINA V. COMEZ The Daily News LEAGUE CITY Hundreds of people visited nine wreath-and-ribbon- decked sites Saturday during the fourth an-nnfll Century Walk Christmas Tour. The tour, sponsored by the League City Historical Society, benefits the West Bay Common School and Children's Museum. The event focused on the city's cottages as a change of pace this year, society representatives Fay Dudney and Carol Duffin said.

''We're doing all the smaller homes this year so we wouldn't repeat," Duffin said. The tour, for the first time, also included one of the society's works-in- progress The Butler Building. "We included it just to show one thafs being restored," Dudney said. It once housed the Walter Hall Bank and was the site of a 1922 shootout in which three League City ranchers shot a Dickinson rancher to death in a land dispute. Other sites on Saturday's tour ineluded: The League City Ice House and Barber Shop at 210 N.

Kansas, which was built in the 1920s and opened in 1936. The Old Fig Factory at 495 Coryell, which employed more than 100 people during the area's big economic booms. It was the world's largest fig-packing factory in 1900. The West Bay Common School Children's Museum at 210 N. Kansas, a one-room schoolhouse established in 1898.

Ibur goers were treated Saturday to a re-enactment of a day in schoolhouse. i See AS Fed housing ttee to brief city By WES SWIFT The Daily News GALVESTON The newly appointed Mayor's Committee on Fort Crockett Surplus Property will brief the city council on Wednesday on possible paths of action concerning an old U.S. Coast Guard housing complex. "Probably the only thing we're going to do is to give them an idea of what the alternatives are," said Marshall Stein, the committee's chairman. "They're the ones who have to make the decisions.

We're literally going to point out the things that they can do." Mayor Henry Freudenburg is working on scheduling a public meeting Tuesday to discuss the issue, Stein said. The committee assembled a briefing book that includes a chronology, general information concerning the disposal of federal property and several citations'of federal regulations. The federal government notified the city Nov. 25 that the Coast Guard had certified two pieces of its housing complex as surplus property. One site, on 53rd Street between Seawall Boulevard and Avenue has five duplexes.

The second site, on 45th Street between Seawall Boulevard and Avenue has eight duplexes. Federal officials confirmed Dec. 3 that WOMAN a battered women's advocacy group, received approval from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to create a transitional women's center for battered women and their children at the site on 53rd Street. The women's group is about to open a new, 30-unit complex in Pasadena similar to the one planned for Gaiveston.

GALVESTON The mayor's committee on an old Coast Guard complex plans to address the city council this week on possible options for the property. What: City Council. When: 9 I Where: 823 I I Ave. See AS Mother, bikers join hands to honor daughter's last wish GALVESTON Area bikers made their annual trek to UTMB's pediatric unit to deliver toys. By GINA V.

GOMEZ The Daily News "Scooter folks" from across the county took to the road Saturday to deliver toys to sick tykes. About 200 area motorcyclists traveled from La Marque to Gaiveston on Saturday as part of the fifth annual Toy Run to the University of Texas Medical Branch Children's Hospital. The event, sponsored by Custom Specialists of La Marque and the Robin Foundation, will help provide toys to all the hospital's sick children for Christmas, said Robin Foundation President Dee Evans and Children's Hospital spokesperson Janis Matthews. At any time, there are 45 to 70 children in the hospital. Some of the children would not receive presents if not for the donations, Matthews said.

"I think most of our patients get more here than they would at home," she said. While it is the first time the folks from Custom Specialists and the Robin Foundation have joined forces for the cause, bringing toys to sick children is nothing new for either group. The bikers have made the toy run for the past five years, while the Robin Foundation has been delivering toys to sick children since 1994. The Robin Foundation was founded in 1995 by Dee Evan after her daughter Robin Ann Evan died of cancer. For three years before her death, Robin delivered toys to the other patients at the hospital and at her death requested that the deliveries continue, Dee Evans said.

"I made a promise to her a few hours before her death, and I'm just trying to keep my See A7 Kitchen trash fire drives grandmother and children from house COUNTY The kitchen at 5422 Ave. was destroyed. The occupant evacuated herself, her kids and a baby girt. By GINA V. GOMEZ Tire Daily News GALVESTON The kitchen of a house was gutted and the rest of the home heavily damaged by smoke Saturday afternoon.

A woman, three of her children and her 8- month-old granddaughter were forced to flee the home. They called for help from a neighbor's home. The fire erupted about 11:30 aum. at 5422 Ave. M.

Maria Rodrigues said she was cooking when the wooden handle of a frying pan caught fire and fell into the trash can, setting the trash on fire. Rodrigues said she grabbed the children and ran from the house. The fire did extensive damage to the kitchen, and smoke heavily damaged the entire home, Acting Battalion Chief Don Kempt said. "(The house) was wood and natural combustibles, which burn very smoky and very quick," he said. No injuries were reported.

A damage estimate was not available. Woman slashes boyfriend who tried to break up women's fight TEXAS CITY Kimberly Shinette, 21, of Gaiveston was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon early Saturday after a scuffle with her former boyfriend and another woman. The incident was reported about 2:45 a.m. Saturday in the 6600 block of Memorial Drive in Texas City. Witnesses reported the man was cut on his wrist by a kitchen knife when he tried to break up a struggle between the two women..