Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 146

WC Chicago Tribune, Saturday. January 20. 1996 Section 1 :5 METRO STATE New pieces of bus-crash puzzle emerge at hearings But during the three long days of National Transportation Safety Board hearings that ended Friday, new details, both large and small, emerged that helped investigators complete the picture of what led to the Oct 25 accident. Those details, it seems, make it painfully clear that much more was at work on that morning when the school bus moved slowly through the railroad crossing at Algonquin Road and into a confluence of long-standing, but unsolved, problems. "We received many answers that we did not know, and some that we were not even expecting," John A.

Hammerschmidt, the NTSB hearing chairman, said on Friday after the last session ended. 'This has been a very good hearing." From a stereo speaker playing a song by Janet Jackson in bus driver Patricia Catencamp's left ear to the communication lapses that had technicians working diligently, yet separately, to identify problems at the crossing, NTSB investigators came away from these hearings with considerable new information. Now, according to Hammerschmidt, they will take all the new information back to Washington for analysis to determine how big a role each played. The NTSB is expected to release a report on the accident in late February. Sometime late in the summer, it will release its conclusions, including a cause of the accident, as well as its recommendations for improvements in crossing safety, said Hammerschmidt "We have all kinds of pieces," he said.

"Now we-put them together." Already, some two dozen states have adopted NTSB safety recommendations made immediately after the crash. That suggests the crash will lead to substantive change extending beyond one small McHenry County village. What emerged during the hearings were the problems with the electrical systems that controlled the railroad and highway traffic signals. They were flawed. Technical specialists knew they were flawed, but were unable to correct them.

Part of the reason, according to testimony, may have been myriad communications failures between the Union Pacific Railroad, the Illinois Department of Transportation and Contracting Materials an IDOT electrical contractor. On Friday, the railroad acknowledged that it did not apply to the Illinois Commerce Commission, as required, before installing critical interconnect equipment, which tells the highway traffic signals when a train is approaching. Railroad officials said the failure was an administrative oversight. Bernard L. Morris, the ICCs railroad administrator, said the railroad could be fined a day or more than $1 million for its failure to advise on the 1990 installation.

The agency, however, has no plans to take action against the railroad. By Steve Mills Tribune Staff Writer i In those first days after a commuter train struck a school bus in I Fox River Grove, federal investi-J gators put together a sketch of i sorts of the factors that led to the accident in which seven Cary-l Grove High School students were killed. A substitute school bus driver's terrors. A poorly designed inter-I section. A faulty railroad-highway signal system.

The failure of tech-tnicians to detect, understand and correct long-standing troubles. All, it appeared, figured prominently. Clock strikes 12, and: suddenly it's now 847 Area codes changes In 1996, three new area codes will be implemented in the Chicago area. Date to be Implemented: jOf: Jan. 20 HQ Aug.

3 --j 1 1 4 tJssf -C- Tribune photo by Kevin Moloney jump tournament Sunday. Club members were scrambling to make snow for the event after the balmy temperatures earlier this week. Leap of faith: High above Fox River Grove on Friday is Charlie Sedivec, one of the Norge Ski Club members preparing for a ski- iWorld War I diary reaches happy ending Historical Society presents book to German consulate By Susan Kuczka Tribune Staff Writer i At the stroke of midnight Friday, Ameritech's multimillion-dollar campaign to implement the new 847 area code for Chicago's north and northwest suburbs became a reality. But confusion was just beginning to set in for some suburbanites. "It's a mess, but it's technology," said Rita Athas, executive director of the Des Plaines-based Northwest Municipal Conference, which represents officials in 35 north and northwest suburbs.

"I think Ameritech has done all it can to get the information out, but people are always surprised by this kind of change," Athas said. "I think by Monday there'll be some question of what's happening." What has happened is this. As of midnight Friday, phone lines for 127 communities in northwest suburban Cook County and north suburban Cook and Lake Counties were switched to the new 847 area code from the 708 area code. Parts of eastern McHenry and northern Kane Counties also were hooked into the 847 area code, which spells out VIP on the telephone buttons. In order to help customers make the transition to the new 847 area code, Ameritech said anyone calling the north and northwest suburbs from outside the new area code can use the 708 area code until April 20, when a new recording will advise callers to use 847.

Ameritech will institute a similar procedure in the summer when customers in DuPage County and other far west suburbs switch to a 630 area code on Metropolitan report Chicago Ex-mail carrier to do work-release A former U.S. Postal Service letter carrier who worked in Skokie was sentenced Friday to 6 months in a Salvation Army work-release center for stashing thousands of pieces of undelivered mail in his home and car. Chicago police officers discovered 1,660 pieces of mail in Lowell M. Plost's car in November 1994, when he was stopped for a traffic violation, according to Assistant U.S. Atty.

Brian Blanchard. The next day, postal inspectors found an additional 6,450 letters in Plost's bedroom during a search of his Des Plaines home, Plost admitted in pleading guilty to a federal charge last October. U.S. District Judge George Marovich also placed Plost, 46, who was fired by the Postal Service, on two years of supervised release. Morgue rules baby died of starvation The death of a 3-month-old boy last month remained under investigation by the Cook County state's attorney's office Friday after the county medical examiner 1 ruled that the boy had died of starvation.

The victim's parents, a 33-year-old woman and 40-year-old man, who live on the West Side, said they found the baby unresponsive Dec. 11 and summoned help. Detectives said the baby appeared emaciated when brought to Mt. Sinai Medical Center and died shortly thereafter. The medical examiner's office determined this week that the child was a homicide victim.

The mother told police that because she had run out of money and formula, she had been feeding the child canned milk and water, Vfiibte JS jut ier' am I October 1996 MCHENRY, I i Chicago Tribune Aug. 3. And Chicago customers who live outside the city's central business district will switch to new 773 area code from 312 in October. Ameritech said it needed to institute new area codes because it was running out of 312 and 708 numbers due to demand from cellular phones, pagers, second lines, modems and fax lines. As a result of the new plan, many Ameritech customers like Athas will have an office number with an 847 area code, a residential phone number with a 630 area code and a car phone with a 312 area code.

I "It's inconvenient but all want more telecommunications, so it's just going to get more complicated," she said. police said. Four of her other five children, ranging in age from 2 years to 12, have been placed in the temporary custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. A 17-year-old daughter Is living with her father. DCFS previously had investigated living conditions in the mother's home in June 1993, according to agency spokeswoman Martha Allen.

She said a report of "environmental neglect," such as a dirty house, was received on DCFS phone hot line but did not result in a case file being opened. But in 1994, after the mother gave birth to a son who showed evidence of exposure to drugs and alcohol, Allen said DCFS did open a case file and assigned a private caseworker to monitor the home. Glenview r- Aviation museum seeks local support Village officials have approved a resolution that will give a local group that wants to redevelop a hangar at the old Glenview Naval Air Station six months to come up with the money or a plan to ensure the project's viability. 7 Glenview Hangar One Foundation intends to transform the hangar into an aviation and science museum, said Elizabeth Dinsmore, foundation president She said the foundation plans to buy antique aircrafts to house In the 50-year-old, structure. Officials said about $6 million is needed to maintain the structure, which will include installing a heating system and weather-proofing.

The Naval Air Station closed last year. -V The foundation is preparing a campaign to raise money and increase membership for the project After six months, village officials will assess the effort and decide whether to allow the project to continue or solicit other proposals for the property. f-----''UI I COOK 815 WILL 6 Jill By Janita Poe Tribune Staff Writer The diary of Leonard Morgen-roth is a simple brown book containing only a few dozen entries about a brief period of one man's life during the second half of World War I. Yet the 78-year-old daybook, or tagebuch in German, is at the center of a story about good international relations, a historical soci-ety's discovery and the preservation of one's family history for years to come. On Friday, the Chicago Historical Society presented the diary to the heads of the German Consulate here in Chicago.

The fragile book, which was found by a curator two years ago, had been in the archives of the society for nearly 40 years. Historical Society officials said the German-language diary really had no value to them because it did not "in any way pertain to Chicago or its collar counties." But it did to others, and German Consulate officials say returning the diary to Morgen-roth's survivors is an act of international kindness. "We appreciate all of your help in returning it to its rightful owner," said Renate Friedemann, consul of Germany, during brief Tribune photo by Ovie Carter The Chicago Historical Society presents the 1 9 1 7-1 8 diary of a German soldier to the German consulate Friday. In turn, the consulate will send it to the soldier's 98-year-old widow in Erlangen, Germany. Oct.

6, 1918. The first page of the book reads: "Motto: The life of uninterrupted joy was not given to anyone living on earth." It begins by chronicling Morgenroth's life as a 19-year-old student at the University of Erlangen. Many of the entries are about women whom Morgenroth fancies. In early 1918, Morgenroth mentions that he has been drafted into the Germany Army. In the spring of that year, Mor- genroth begins making entries ceremonies at the Historical Society.

"We are grateful that these things have been preserved." The diary was discovered in the spring of 1994, as associate curator Ralph Pugh began a tedious cataloging project that involved reviewing all of the documents about German-Americans in Chicago. When he came upon the diary and noticed the datelines for the entries were Erlangen, Germany, and Verdun, France, he suspected the diary was misfiled. Pugh, who has some knowledge of German, worked to translate the document and eventually contacted the German Consulate. Over the next two years, consulate officials searched for relatives of Morgenroth who might want the diary. Late last year, they found one Morgenroth's 98-year-old widow living in a nursing home in Erlangen, the soldier's hometown.

Very little is known about Morgenroth or his family except that he was born on May 2, 1899, in Bamberg, Germany, and resided in Erlangen and Stuttgart after 1904. He and his wife, whose name was not disclosed to protect the privacy of the family, had children in Germany. He died in Erlangen on July 17, 1968. The diary was begun on June 18, 1917, and his final entry was James Durkin (R-Westchester) would prevent intervenors from presenting clemency petitions to the Prisoner Review Board when the inmate wants to drop all appeals. Before Edgar took her off Death Row, Garcia had pleaded with intervenors to stay out of her case so her execution could be carried out "I guess I don't agree with the thing that if you have a defendant that says, 'I don't want an appeal' that means nobody can look at that case," Edgar said.

"I don't think the state has the responsibility to carry out the wishes of the defendant" In 1994, Edgar campaigned heavily against Democratic chal 'jr from Verdun, which was part of the Western Front during the war. These final entries are briefer and only record general developments during his day. The diary was presented to the Historical Society in July 1957 by Ernest Borchardt, a U.S. Army lieutenant who served in the army of occupation in Germany following World War IL but records do not show how it came into his possession. Garcia's gender had nothing to do with his decision to commute her sentence.

Still, Edgar said he told aides when he made his decision to "batten down the hatch." 'There's going to be a lot of criticism of this. This is not going to be politically popular. But it's the right thing to Edgar said he told top staffers. Edgar said much of the criticism directed at him involves Garcia's previous conviction for the murder of her infant daughter. But he said she served a prison term for that conviction, and the murder of her husband was the issue before him.

Despite criticism on Garcia, Edgar says he was right lenger Dawn Clark Netsch's personal opposition to the death penalty. But he said Friday that he never tried to give voters the impression that he would carry out all executions. "I said the death penalty was for those most severe crimes. It didn't apply to all crimes," he said. In sparing Garcia, Edgar said he had doubt about whether she had intended to kill her ex-husband.

Edgar said Garcia's decision to stop appeals forced him to look closer at the case. Though Edgar has allowed the executions of six men to proceed while in office, he reiterated that By Rick Pearson Tribune Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD Gov. Jim Edgar Isaid Friday that he knew he would face "a lot of criticism" for commuting Guinevere Garcia's death sentence to life in prison. But he said his strong support for capital punishment during his 1994 re-election campaign never meant that all executions would be carried out. The Republican governor also said he believes that people should continue to have the right to intervene in death-penalty cases when the condemned inmate wants to die.

A bill proposed by state Rep. i i i.