Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • Page 15

iwitointeffi)a Weather 2C Records 2C.4-5C Mining rules cut red tape 10C Great Falls Tribune Wednesday, May 24, 1989 Guard, Glasgow officials to meet on base use By PETER JOHNSON Tribune Staff Writer Montana National Guard officials will meet with Valley County commissioners May 31 in Glasgow to negotiate terms under which 80 to 100 Montana Guard members will train on the former Air Force base 20 miles north of town this summer. The six weekends of training by tank crews, confined to the former Air Force Base now under the control of Valley County, could be a forerunner to extensive, year-round training by reserve and active-duty Army and Air Force units from around the country. Eventually 150 to 200 people could be employed to maintain a full blown training facility. Such far-reaching goals of the Montana National Guard would require multiple use of up to 1 million acres of federal, state and some private land north and southwest of Glasgow. Guard officials have stressed the need to gain support from area ranchers and other residents, and an environmental impact statement.

It could take four years for major training to begin. Montana Adjutant Gen. Gary Blair thinks crowding in urban training areas will the uncrowded eastern Montana land and air space, as well as the runway and facilities of the ex-Glasgow Air Force Base, increasingly attractive. This summer's limited training which would start July 28 is viewed as a test by both Guard and Valley County officials to see how well the base works for training. County Commissioner Eleanor Pratt said the commissioners suggested "a bare-bones" charge to Guard officials that reflects only the county's expenses in getting electricity, plumbing and telephones hooked up and the requested buildings cleaned.

Commissioners declined to release the figure, pending completion of negotiations. "We want to cooperate, so they can come in, get their feet on the ground and see whether they like training out of the base facilities," Pratt said. Valley County will not charge rent for the facilities, but Glasgow residents will benefit from this summer's training by meeting the Guard's supply needs, which will include six meals a weekend per Guard member, 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel a weekend, and a maid and linen service. Eight Guard members will remain during training to help ready and maintain the site and deal with Glasgow residents. Guard members will fly to Glasgow from Great Falls, in a C-130 aircraft, on Friday afternoons and train until midnight.

They will Club. Questions about the military proposal, plus discussions of education financing and the upcoming legislative session are expected. Earlier this week, a contingent from Eglin Air Force Base, visited the former Glasgow base, expressing interest in using either the runway or taxiway for experimental testing of how runways could be repaired during wartime. The testing apparently called for placing craters in the runway and then repairing them, according to Glasgow Courier editor Doris Val-lard, who said both Montana Guard and local officials had concerns that such testing could permanently damage the facilities. train all day Saturday and leave Sunday afternoon, Guard officers told Glasgow officials at a meeting last week.

The Guard requested use of: The nursing quarters for the eight Guard officials who will remain on site. Office space and sleeping quarters for the 80-100 Guard members who will be rotated in for training. One hangar, both for storage and as a dining hall. Gov. Stan Stephens, who has backed Blair's tentative plans to use the area for expanded military training, has scheduled a June 7 public meeting at the Glasgow Elks Stephens will ask for 3 sales tax 3 Nordtvedt said the administration is likely to propose a 3 percent sales tax.

as a separate measure that would raise about $206 million a year. He emphasized the sales tax would pass or fail on its own merits and would not be tied directly to school equalization or to an admin- i istration proposal to reduce personal property tax rates for business and industry to 4 percent. "It's very lean," Nordtvedt said of the sales-tax proposal. Most of the revenue $180 million would be used to replace dollars lost to the state through proposed reductions in local property and income taxes, he added. The proposal would exempt services from taxation "We're keeping it almost entirely replacement," Nordtvedt said.

Of the $180 million, $120 million, would be used to offset reductions in local property taxes to accomplish school equalization; $25 million would be provided for property-tax relief to homeowners through homestead-tax exemption; about $35 million would go toward income-tax relief. HELENA (AP) Gov. Stan Stephens will probably push for a "lean" 3 percent sales tax during the special legislative session convening June 19, but it won't be linked to school equalization, state Revenue Director Ken Nordtvedt says. The sales tax would be among Stephens' revenue and school-equalization proposals, Nordtvedt said Monday after he and the governor met privately with about 40 business and industry officials to outline the administration's plans to help equalize state financing of public schools. A key proposal calls for rech-anneling some local taxes now collected on oil, gas and coal companies, airlines, railroads and utilities into the state tax base to help equalize school-district spending, as ordered by the state Supreme Court.

Administration officials have said the plan involves no new tax measures except possibly an 85-mill statewide property-tax levy for equalization and essentially shifts tax revenue to better equalize spending among school districts. Trunin IHwn Gerald C. Hanson, president of the Malmstrom Historical Foundation, inspects the King Cobra's fuselage section in which the engine was installed behind the cockpit. The engine is on top of the box of parts at left. The box at right also contains parts.

Vintage plane rolls in for refurbishing A World War Il-vtataae Kins Cobra fonter School accountability fits administration says them. From here they were flown to Alaska where Russian pilots took over and flew them across the Bering Sea and into the Soviet Union as part of the Lend Lease Program. "The P-63s were among the favorite aircraft with the Soviets because of the 37-mm cannon which fired out of the nose of the plane with the propellor shaft being the barrel. They (the -Soviets) used this aircraft against tanks, that's why they wanted as many of them as they could get." In addition to having the 37-mm gun in the nose, the aircraft also carried a combination of 50-caliber and Sfrcaliber machine guns with the numbers and placement depending on the model of the aircraft, he said. Hanson said the museum has been negotiating for several years to acquire the P-63, as it.

is generally called. While it looks like a pile of scrap metal now, he noted that, included in the two loads which arrived Monday night, are two good wings -one left and one right a good fuselage and a good rudder structure. It will be necessary to fabricate the entire nose of the aircraft, Hanson said. The aircraft was, as far as he has been able to determine, the only allied fighter plane which had its engine installed in the middle of the aircraft oyer the wing. The engine was right behind the pilot and the propeller shaft, through which the 37-mm shells were fired, ran under the pilot seat through the lower portion of the cockpit to the nose of the aircraft.

"This will be the biggest restoration project we ever have attempted," Hanson said, "and it will require a great many volunteer hours by the people who have the types of skills we will need for this work. "We probably will draw heavily on the skills of volunteers from the 301st Air Refueling Wing and from Detachment 3, 37th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron the folks who are highly skilled in working with aircraft metal -but we will welcome any civilian volunteers we can get if they have the skills we need." plane, which eventually will be displayed in Malmstrom Park near the base museum, has arrived at Malmstrom Air Force Base -In chunks and on two trailers. Three to four years of volunteer effort will be required to put the aircraft Into condition so it can be displayed, according to Gerald C. Hanson, president of the Malmstrom Historical Foundation anil curator of the museum. "What we have here is actually the wreckage of two RP-63 King Cobras," Hanson said Tuesday, "which have been transferred to the Malmstrom Museum by the New England.

Air Museum at Windsor Locks, Conn. "Although it consists of the parts of two aircraft, it is considered as one of the nine known models in the United States out of the 3,303 which were built during World War II near Buffalo, N.Y. "Of the number manufactured, 2,421 of them were flown to Great Falls Air Base now Malmstrom where they were winterized and had red stars of the Soviet Union painted on plan for teacher pay" and non-certified persons teach in Although they do not yet know what will be in the bills, education officials say they are alarmed by what the titles suggest. Eric Feaver of the Montana Education Association on Tuesday called the proposals "absurd" and "regrettable." He noted that one title suggests a merit pay plan for teachers a system he said other states have dropped due to high costs or other problems. Feaver also panned the idea of allowing non-certified people to teach in schools.

Feaver said accountability reforms are not needed because Montana schools are doing a good job. "I don't know why folks want to mess around with it," he said. Other education officials have said the proposals will be so controversial they could not be resolved in a two-week-long special session and they could divert attention from school financing. Phillips said he will not respond to criticism until the administration is ready to give details on its plans. By STEVE SHIRLEY Tribune Capitol Bureau HELENA Gov.

Stan Stephens' proposals to make public schools more accountable clearly can be brought into the June legislative session, gubernatorial aide Wayne Phillips says. Critics have questioned whether the proposals fit the "call" for the special session, which will focus on setting up a new state school-financing system. Phillips said the governor's call for the session contains language that specifically opens it to matters related to academic and fiscal accountability in education. "That was deliberately put in there for a reason," he said. The administration has declined to explain its accountability proposals, saying details will be made public by early next week.

An outline of the proposals surfaced after the administration provided a list of bill-drafting requests to the Legislative Council. The list contains bill titles but does not explain what the bills would do. Among the titles are: "incentive Pishkun dispute Indian group quits chamber over lack of role in planning chamber rolls "until such time as Parks, and then-Gov. Ted that had agreed to spearhead initial By LINDA CARICABURU Tribune Regional Editor Charging that the Great Falls Chamber of Commerce has ignored Indian interests in developing the Ulm Pishkun as a tourist site, a local non-profit Indian education agency has pulled its chamber membership. Harold Gray, a director of the Montana United Scholarship Service, which helps Indian students find educational opportunities, informed the chamber in a letter dated Monday that he was terminating the agency's membership.

In the letter, Gray said MUSS wanted its name removed from the Schwinden expressing interest in the project and asking that Indians be included. "This is very important for Indians," Gray said of the pishkun. "For us, it was not just a matter of running animals over a cliff, there was a whole ceremony and way of life involved with this. "Indians know the history and the traditions involved," he added, "But it's all fallen on deaf ears. They don't care, they're just ignoring us." Gray said he was particularly upset about remarks made by chamber board leader Stan Meyer to members of an Optimist Club the Chamber of Commerce can begin to deal truthfully with the Indian people of Montana, instead of its overwhelming concern with the 'God Almighty Chamber executives denied there has been any attempt to exclude Indians in developing the buffalo-jump- site and said that as planning progresses, Indians may play a substantial role in the project.

In 1987, a chamber tourism committee began examining possibilities for developing the pishkun as a tourist attraction. At that time, Gray wrote letters to the chamber, the Department of Fish Wildlife and clean-up and marketing of the According to minutes from the meeting, Meyer noted that the chamber had been "seeking someone to take such a tangible interest in the pishkun for some time and was delighted that the Optimist Club was filling that role." "I made it very, very clear we wanted to be involved," Gray said. "But nobody ever called me or told me about meetings or anything. It's all very high-handed how they did it." Gray said the project could employ Indian youths for clean-up work See PISHKUN, 3C County Commission approves development of pet cemetery BIO? A Tribunt Phot kv Warn Arntt Forester says fighting fires not always best BOZEMAN (AP) The Forest Service has to convince the public that intensive fire suppression is not always the best answer, Regional Forester John Mumma said here Tuesday. Mumma, head of the Forest Service's Northern Region in Missoula, gave the opening speech of a four-day conference on fires in wilderness areas and parks.

His region oversees national forests in Montana, northern Idaho and part of the Dakotas. Mumma said the Forest Service and the public must understand the risks involved in allowing fires to bum for management reasons, and also in suppressing fires. "There are long-term as well as short-term ramifications involved in both programs," he said. The conference is being held to discuss fires such as those that burned in wilderness areas and Yellowstone National Park last summer. The federal fire-management policy, which was criticized following those fires, still is being reviewed, and changes are expected, Mumma said.

"I think all can agree that 1988 was a benchmark year in the testing of those policies and strategies," he said. "Our objective is to make the resultant evolution, that we are now in, a progressive rather than a regressive experience in terms of management." By DAVID FENNER Tribune Staff Writer i A Great Falls man planning to start a pet cemetery east of town says people' shouldn't have to take their dead pets to the county "There's people that think a lot more of their pets than that," Louie Hoffarth said after successfully selling his plan to Cascade County' commissioners, Monday morning. The commission unanimously approved Hoffarth; application for. a commercial-development permit for the planned five-acre cemetery, which will be on the north side of S. Highway 87-89, five miles feast of Great Falls.

County Planner Roger Sanders told commissioners the proposal has been thoroughly reviewed, and is not expected tp pose any health or traffic problems or be visible from a nearby supper club. Louie Hoffarth and his son, Ron, estimate the cemetery will contain about 6,000 graves once full. The Hoffarths said they could begin burying pets in early June, though developing the land to give it the look of a cemetery will take some time. Before the vote on the proposal. Commissioner Harry Mitchell, a Great Falls-area farmer, asked if the cemetery will take pets other than dogs and cats.

"I've got a pet horse," said Mitchell. "We've got room," Louie Hoffarth replied, adding later mat the cemetery also will take pets as small as tropical fish, -canaries and gerbils. Plot charges, which will vary based on size and location within the cemetery, haven't been set yet. PET, IC Smiling again Blessed Trinity instructor Cathy Geoghegan comforts Martin No Runner, 5, after he stepped into the pond during a Tuesday field trip to Gibson Park..