The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 37

Local Area News Wednesday, June 8, 1977 THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER D-l i Mf4 Frank 1 A 1 A CINCINNATI businessman, who was one of those unsung heroes who helped others at the Beverly Hills fire, began having some emotional problems a few days ago and decided to call 621-CARE to get some advice and help to get his "head on straight." He dialed the number and told the person who answered his problems. The first question he was asked was: "HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU HAVE?" The question brought him back to reality and he said he hung up with his "head on straight again." INCIDENTALLY, a spokesman for 621-CARE which is funded by public money said that is NOT the normal way they help callers. There are many like the businessman who will long suffer painful memories from the fire. it -tt THE FOUR American flags flying in the new Riverfront city park are in a disgraceful condition. It would be better not to display flags than to have them flying in their current condition! All are tattered and torn.

FOLLOW-UP DEPARTMENT: Tuesday's column told of the padlock that blocked an escape route from a Main Street Building. WELL, Cincinnati fire inspectors were at the scene before 10 a.m. and gave the owner one hour to remove it or be cited to court. It has been removed! I I i i i'-' 1 'il 4 "1 fa ipi, -Enquirer (Gerry Wolter) Photos Rescuer And Rescued Charlotte Dallas with a shaken Ron Samad he's Heroine Mourner Yanks Funeral Director From Fire asking Miss Dallas to get the more than 100 mourners out of the house at 4122 Glenway Ave. "I think he'd do it for anybody else," the former nurse's aide said.

"I don't consider myself a hero for it." Samad, who spent Memorial Day weekend at the Beverly Hills morgue as a volunteer, said he was talking with Miss Dallas just as visitation began at approximately 8 p.m. Hearing a popping noise upstairs, Samad rushed up the steps to see smoke pouring out of a room reserved for the family of the deceas-ed. Rushing downtairs, Samad closed the coffin, asked Miss Dallas Drop For Chicago Revival Underway firemen administer oxygen to Samad District Two fire Marshal Dan Klotter estimated the damage at Klotter said the fire was caused by $5000. 1 an ashtray of smoldering cigarettes it was the first fire in more than left on a windowsill in contact with 100 years for the Radel family busl- some draperies. The room had been ness, said funeral home owner Skip occupied 10 minutes before the fire.

Radel. to warn the other mourners and ran back upstairs. The director, up to his waist in smoke and unable to fight the blaze, backed out into the hall. Encountering a door to a rear stairway without its doorknob, he said he passed out from the dense, black smoke. INSTEAD OF going outside, Miss Dallas ran upstairs after Samad, a husky 200-pounder, and dragged him down two short flights of stairs before calling for help from other persons who were outside the funeral home waiting for the fire department.

Samad was treated for smoke inhalation at the scene. He did not require hospitalization. In fact, when Cincinnati and Cleveland were visited in late March by representatives of Bryant Bryant, the Washington firm contracted to conduct the study, both cities already were out of the competition. The new report listed them in the appendix and referred to them as "points of interest" because it had already been determined neither Cincinnati nor Cleveland should receive further consideration. Secretary Califano said he threw out the report because the criteria used, he felt, did not form "a reasonable basis upon which to By ROD KUKRO Enquirer Reporter A woman mourner at a Price Hill funeral home Tuesday night yanked the funeral director to safety when he succumbed to smoke and passed out while attempting to extinguish a fire on the home's second floor.

"I was the only one left in the home," explained Miss Charlotte Dallas, 3192 Considine who rushed upstairs to find Radel Funeral Home director Ron Samad unconscious in a hallway outside the burning room. SAMAD HAD failed to return from the smoking upper floor after Plum Refuses To NIOSH By WARREN D. WHEAT Washington Bureau Chief WASHINGTON Yet another delay in the selection of a permanent federal job safety research center was announced Tuesday but Cincinnati-area members of Congress saw it as renewed hope that the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and its 450 employees will remain in the city. Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) Secretary Joseph A. Califano rejected a $100,000 study which otherwise would have awarded a proposed $40 million NIOSH labora Employee's Firing Site Selection Delay Welcome News THE CINCINNATI Gas and Electric Co.

is continuing to have problems with chiselers who tamper with meters to reduce the amount of usage recorded. The chiselers use a method to bypass the meter has resulted in a company crackdown. The first criminal prosecution took place last week and the judge found the man guilty. Sentence will come next week The company also has a half-dozen civil recovering actions pending against business locations. The amounts total nearly $80,000 and range from a claim against a motel of $55,000 to $123 against a tavern owner.

A STRAWBERRY patch is flourishing in a grassy area around the Hamilton County Courthouse. Mike Campbell, who heads the Courthouse maintenance department, says the patch was first observed about 14 years ago. It has spread each year and currently takes up a space on the north side of the building that measures five feet by 80 feet. No one can recall how It first got started but the birds use it as a favorite feeding grounds. Update seniors group After the February, 1976 slaying of Edward and Alma Wandstrat, an elderly brother and sister who lived in White Oak, senior citizens in the area became concerned about what they could do to help deter crimes against elderly people.

Joseph Schrantz, who was a resident in the area, took a lead role in helping to organize about 200 elderly persons belonging to the White Oak and St. James Senior Citizens' Association. The association had planned to start an "Alma Wandstrat Memorial Foundation For Crime Schrantz and his wife were victims of the Beverly Hills fire May 28. According to his son, Steven, Schrantz had made an effort to try to form some kind of group to make the elderly aware of different crime prevention tactics, but no one wanted to get involved. "The group never got off the ground," the son said.

"Dad had even tried to bring in the county sheriff's deputy, but no one wanted to get involved in that type of thing, so he gave up." However, the group has recently had a few sessions on crime prevention, according to member Herbert Ficker, but the Wandstrat fund was never actually started. Crimes against the elderly are continuing and "security is a critical problem for seniors," says Chuck Hirt of the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission. Several years ago the commission had a program in English Woods where Urban Core students were helping senior citizens there with operation identification, and providing escort services to the banks on Social Security check days. "That program was very helpful and effective," Hirt said. The commission is not pursuing it at this point because they do not have the manpower, Hirt said.

"You can try and do all these things," Ficker later commented, "but it's the law that has to be enforced." -Barbara Murphy DJ Suburban news D-3 Extra D-3 Index "The criteria gave far too little weight to cost factors, and completely failed to consider the effects of relocation of the NIOSH facility upon present employees," Califano said. He added that the contractors were required to make judgments "ln Inevitably misleading and concluded "I could find little justification for the weight assigned to each of the criteria," The top five cities, according to the consultant's report, were Chicago, New York Houston, Pittsburgh and Ann Arbor, followed by Philadelphia, Washington, D. Boston, Detroit and Los Angeles. Cleveland was 1 lth and Cincinnati last. Fire In Mohawk Ruled An Arson A fire in Mohawk Sunday which claimed three lives and left a fourth member of the family ln critical condition in the Shrlner's Burn Institute has been ruled an arson by Assistant Cincinnati Fire Edward Avey.

Joan Robinson, 35, Viva Jo Robinson, nine, and Cain Robinson, six, died when a fire swept up a stairway to their third floor apartment at 169 McMlcken Ave. Sunday morning. Raymond Robinson, 10, remains hospitalized. Cincinnati Fire Department arson squad has not yet determined exactly who started the blaze. "It is still under investigation as to who could have caused the fire," said Capt.

James Gamm, commander of the arson squad. choose a new site." THE DECISION was seen as a victory by Cincinnati Congressmen Thomas A. Luken, a Democrat, and Willis D. Gradlson a Republican, and the state's two Democratic Senators, John H. Glenn Jr.

and Howard M. Metzenbaum. All four had been trying to impress upon the secretary that the criteria did not provide adequate weight to two of the most important advantages Cincinnati had to offer-avoidance of the cost of packing up and moving the agency, its staff and equipment and the availability of free land. for the other unions in the building, who had to move to other locations or, literally, function from the streets because they would not cross the picket lines. "We want to avert a strike," Inman said Tuesday night.

"Hopefully, something will be worked out (today)." At Stegeman a person who answered the telephone and who said his name was Stegeman, said he did not wish to comment on the matter except to say, "it is a jurisdictional matter." Stegeman, Sheehan said, Is a union company. tory to Chicago and required the agency's Cincinnati-based employees to move there or look for new jobs. THE REPORT reversed two earlier studies that concluded in 1973 and 1975 that the laboratory should be built ln Cincinnati. Each time Democratic members of the House HEW Appropriatiohs Subcommittee demanded reconsideration in hopes that they would land the plum for their districts. Cincinnati finished last among 12 cities ranked numerically according to criteria strongly favoring much larger urban areas.

Spurs Dispute The Monday meeting never came about, because the company did not want Webster there and Inman would not meet without him there. So Inman checked with his international and received sanction to strike, he said. IN THE meantime, he said, he asked Sheehan to try to help. Sheehan met Tuesday with the company, and said another meeting is scheduled for today. "I am hopeful for some resolution of the problem," he said.

He could not comment further, pend Union Official May Strike Own Building ing today's meeting. Inman distributed a letter Tues-day afternoon to tenants of the building outlining the problem and saying, "If we do not settle our differences by Thursday, June 9, at 6:00 a.m., there will be a strike and pickets will be picketing this building." Inman struck the building in August, 1975, over an attempt by the company that was then maintaining the building to eliminate Webster's job. THAT ATTEMPT was unsuccessful and the strike ended-but not before it created massive problems On-Site Phase Of Fire Probe Winding Down By MARVIN BEARD Enquirer Reporter In a dispute that has reached the top echelon of Cincinnati labor, the business manager of Operating Engineers Local 20 Is threatening to strike the building which houses a number of the city's unions-including his own. He has done it before. THE BUILDING is the old Railway Clerks Building, 1015 Vine St.

The engineers' business manager is Stan Inman, and one of the tenants in the building is the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council, which represents about 100,000 union members. The 100,000 include members of Stan Inman's local. William P. Sheehan, executive secretary-treasurer of the Labor Council, and probably the most single powerful union leader in the area, has entered the picture. The dispute is over the firing of Dave Webster, who was the building's chief engineer and manager and who is a member of Inman's local.

ON JUNE 1, Stegeman Bros. Inc. (painters) bought the building from the Railway Clerks. According to Inman, they told Webster they no longer needed him-that it was a question of saving money and that the owners themselves would take over the management of the building. There was a meeting that day, and another meeting was scheduled for the following Monday "to let me know how we could negotiate and keep him (Webster)," Inman said.

the women to noticed in the a point where they would not be club's rubble and ashes. find the bodies of Judy Bohrer, Western Hills, and Mrs. Evelyn Shough, Dayton, Ohio, were fruitless. The two women are the only unaccounted for victims of the May 28 fire that claimed 161 lives. The bodies of two unidentified victims remain unclaimed at St.

Luke Hospital. ONLY A 40-by-100-foot section of the main par area remains to be searched for the bodies, Brandenburgh said. He said the concrete second floor has collapsed behind the bar. The steel and concrete ruins rising over the main bar area are unstable and will have to be cleared before the area Is searched. Stine has said he is "pretty sure" there has been no mistake ln identifying the victims released for burial.

Brandenburgh has said it is "possible" the initial demolition work damaged the bodies of By ROLF WIEGAND Enquirer Reporter Kentucky State Police Commissioner Kenneth Brandenburgh said Tuesday he hoped "the active, on-site evidence gathering phase" of his investigation of the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire will be concluded this week. If the bodies of two women still unaccounted for after the fire are not found today, Brandenburgh said he would seek a meeting with Campbell County Coroner Fred Stine "to compare notes." USING A crane and a bulldozer, Northern Kentucklans Don Bush and Vernon Ruth cleared the rubble Tuesday from all but one section of the once luxurious supper club destroyed by fire May 28. But by the end of the day their efforts to STATE POLICE used their hands and shovels again Tuesday to sift ashes of the Cabaret Room and the Viennese Rooms, collecting victims' personal belongings and looking for the two missing women. A panel van loaded with samples of material from the building was taken to the state police laboratory ln Frankfort for testing Monday afternoon, the commissioner said. In addition to state police, investigators from the National Fire Protection Association ln Boston, National Bureau of Standards, National Fire Protection and Control Administration and Consumer Protection Agency were active in the fire Investigation, Brandenburgh: said..