The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 1

THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER FINAL EDITIONPRICE 20tHOME DELIVERY: $4.50 A MONTH Luken Denies He Wanted CHRC Abolished Friday nay 12, 1070 showers) showers) 1 CHRC are being taken over by other agencies. CHRC just lost a $45,000 housing contract with the city. That should be a sign of what is happening. It is unprecedented in this city to take away money from an established agency and give it to a newer agency," she said. Crum was referring to the decl-sion of the Community Development Advisory Council (CDAC) last week giving the city's entire contract for fair housing to the Housing Opportunity Made Equal (HOME).

Crum is chairman of CDAC. don't have enough people on the board to speak out to get things done. It is just a group of nice people on the board who are not going to do anything," Crum said, She had little faith in the board's efforts to restructure CHRC. "They're not going to do anything. When they finish head -patting each other, the agencywill be Just as weak as ever," Crum said.

She said city council clearly is moving toward eliminating CHRC, but council members are afraid to say so. "MOST OF the functions of Luken said he chose Musselman himself, and the others were picked and recommended by the CHRC nominating committee. "Barbara Musselman was not put on CHRC to abolish it," he said. THE CHRC board met Thursday to draft a proposal for restructuring the agency and to review proposals submitted by Councilmen Thomas Brush and J. Kenneth Blackwell.

Pat Crum, a board member who left after attending part of the meeting, said she felt CHRC had outlived its usefulness. "It needs to be shaped up or terminated. We BY ALLEN HOWARD Enquirer Reporter A Cincinnati Human Relations Commission (CHRC) member was put on that board a year ago by then-Mayor James T. Luken to help abolish the CHRC, she said Thursday. The member, who asked not to be Identified, said she was appointed by Luken when he started a drive to create a board majority of city residents, rather than suburban.

At the time, she said, Luken described CHRC as useless and said it should be terminated. CHRC contracts with the city to monitor human rights, education, housing, employment and police community relations. "That's an absolute lie," Luken said Thursday night. He said he has always been a strong supporter of CHRC and "I have positively opposed efforts in City Council caucuses to abolish it." In February, 1977, Luken refused to reappoint two board members because they did not live in the City of Cincinnati. Among the women appointed to the board during that time were Barbara Musselman, Saundra Willingham and Pat Crum.

TODAY TOMORROW Showers and thundershowers are on the weather program today, tonight and Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. High temperature both days in the upper 70s. Tonight's low is expected in the upper 50s. There Is 60 chance of precipitation today and Saturday. Weather map, details on Page A-8.

smile NIOSH Facility Gets Nod To Stay In Queen City The most endangered species in American government is the budget surplus. lottery results Winning numbers in Thursday's drawing of the Ohio Lottery are: Fifty-Cent Game: Blue, 115; White, 48; Gold, 8 Bonus: 542822 Lucky Buck: 708; 576579 metro Judge Peter Outcalt says sentencing a teenager to a 5-15-year reformatory term in a manslaughter case "hurt" him, and wasn't an easy decision. Page C-l. River bank erosion is natural and modern high dams have not made Ohio River conditions worse, an Army Corps of Engineers official says. Page C-l.

suDuroan Hamilton County agrees to buy another segment for the Cross County Highway near Mt. Healthy and North College Hill. Page C-2. years. The expansion would cost an estimated $6.6 million.

Both the Taft Center and the Ridge Avenue buildings would be renovated at a total estimated cost of $3 million. Unoccupied space available at the Ridge Avenue building also would be leased by the federal government for NIOSH. Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees presently using space in both buildings would be relocated. TOTAL CONSTRUCTION and renovation costs incurred in Cincinnati would be an estimated $12 million. The decision to retain NIOSH operations in Cincinnati was greeted by the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce as a "most welcome victory" for city business and government leaders.

In a statement released Thursday, chamber spokesmen said, "The decision to expand the Taft Center and renovate the Ridge Road building is, we believe, the best interim step that could be now taken considering political and economic realities." Thursday, a NIOSH clerk, Betty Walpole, 1818 Wyoming said she is "delighted" to know her job is secure in the city. "We had some good people fighting for us," she said of Gradison and Luken. "It makes me feel easier. I knew I couldn't sell our house and pick up five kids and move to another city." In deciding NIOSH should remain in Cincinnati, the board also recommended continued expansion of the NIOSH occupational safety and health program commensurate with the size of the problem and to make the agency more responsive to demanding new legislative requirements. The expansion should include doubling the agency's annual budget by 1983, from $56 million in fiscal year 1977 to $155 million (in 1983 dollars), and Increasing the staff 55 to 1563.

ACCORDING TO the report, 87 of the approximately 90-million American workers are employed by businesses with 25 or fewer workers in which "many of the more severe occupational safety and health problems are likely to occur. About 12,600 workers died in 1975 due to job-related accidents, the board reported, while 8.7 million were injured. "As many as 100,000 excess deaths are occurring each year as a consequence of occupational disease." In a letter transmitting the report to House HEW Apprpropriations Subcommittee Chairman Daniel J. Flood, HEW Undersecretary Hale Champion said the board concluded even with the 55 staff Increase and doubling of the program level, "the current Morgantown and Cincinnati facilities would form the appropriate nucleus for expanded capacity. "We agree an entirely new facility will not be needed in the foreseeable future and that any intramural research program growth should be accommodated at existing sites in Morgantown and Cincinnati," Champion wrote.

Congressional opponents to retaining NIOSH In Cincinnati said last summer they would go along with whatever HEW decided. The chief spokesman of the oppostition, Rep. David Obey, D-Wisc, could not be reached Thursday. BY WARREN D. WHEAT Washington Bureau Chief WASHINGTON For the first time in at least five years, Cincinnati-based federal job safety workers can settle down with reasonable confidence they and their families are going to remain in the city.

A special board of high-ranking federal officials recommended Thursday the National Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) operations currently based in Cincinnati should stay in the city. Cincinnati will not get the $45-million new laboratory It expected, but NIOSH's nearly 500 employees and its $8-million annual payroll appeared assured for the city. THE BOARD also recommended an addition for the NIOSH metal and nonmetal mining research activities at Morgantown, W. Va. It would cost an estimated $16 million.

The news about retention of NIOSH's Cincinnati operations was welcomed by Cincinnati Reps. Willis D. Gradison R-Ohlo, and Thomas A. Luken, D-Ohio. "We would have preferred a new facility in Cincinnati," Luken said.

But he added, "Because of congressional politics, we were precariously close to losing not only the NIOSH facility, but employees as well." A spokesman for Gradison said he was "particularly pleased for the employees of NIOSH. We knew the kind of stress they were under." The past five years have been unsettling for the employees and the agency, as some members of Congress fought to prevent construction of the new laboratory in Cincinnati. Twice the city was chosen as the site for the facility, but each time, in 1973 and 1975, a congressional appropriations subcommit-teed refused to accept the recommendations. LAST SPRING, a Washington consulting firm recommended NIOSH be relocated in Chicago. But Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) Secretary Joseph A.

Califano rejected the conclusion and established the new board. Thursday, the board, made up of the assistant secretary of Health and the directors of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Center for Disease Control (CDC), concluded continuing NIOSH's Job safety research in Cincinnati would be "the most cost-effective and the least disruptive to program operations." The alternative that came nearest to the one chosen would have cost nearly $65 million more over a 20-year period. It would have involved relocating the Cincinnati operation in a single facility constructed or leased by the federal government, perhaps in another city. Loss of the research operations, according to a study by University of Cincinnati Economics Prof. Saul Pleeder, would have cost the city $28.6 million a year in total personal income and an estimated 1900 jobs.

NIOSH OPERATIONS now scattered in four different Cincinnati locations will be consolidated into two the Taft Center on Columbia Parkway and at Ridge Avenue in Pleasant Ridge. A addition to the Taft Center will be constructed to accommodate additional staff required over the next five Striking Lorain. Ohio, firemen reject city proposal that they return to work in exchange for submitting their contract dispute to federal mediator. Page A-ll. The United States and the Soviet Union agree for first time to discuss limiting conventional arms sales.

Page A-6. Enquirer photo BY TERRY ARMOR sports FOUR-MONTH-OLD Martez Hill is ready to leave Children's Hospital. He was Dorn with his heart outside his body. Tom Seaver pitches well, but Steve Carleton does better as Phillies beat Reds, 4-1. Page B-l.

City's 'Medical Wonder' Leaves For Home Today people tooay President Carter's proposal for a citizen postal rate appears destined for the dead-letter office. Page E-13. Business The stock market leaps 12 points despite a hike in the Federal Reserve Board's discount rate for banks. Page B-ll. Poor-Return Claim Rejected As Basis For 580 Tax Break in our opinion Remote Afghanistan becomes the latest pawn in the East-West struggle.

Editorial, Page A-10. beating heart are clearly visible, and Martez tends to scratch the dark surgical scars that surround the lump on his chest. Regular checkups will be necessary along with more surgery in years to come, Kaplan said. Without many comparable cases, doctors are not sure if Martez will grow his own breastbone and rib cage. If not, plastic surgery will be needed to provide that protection.

Ectopia cordis is frequently associated with abnormalities inside the heart, and Martez is no exception. Open-heart surgery will be necessary at some time to repair a hole between the two pumping chambers of his heart and an abnormality in the left valve of the heart. ANY DANGER caused by the hole, which allowed too much blood to flow from the heart to the lungs, was temporarily abated by placing a band around the artery to the lung during surgery. Kaplan emphasized the importance of doctors and nurses in the Newborn Special Care Unit during the time Martez was in the respirator. "It was Important to see that he was stimulated, that he developed Intellectually.

We think his physical and intellectual development is normal," he said. Four months after his birth, Martez is a phenomenon at Children's. "The first night he was here, every doctor in the whole hospital was here to look at him," said Kathy Sharp, a registered nurse in the newborn unit. Martez is the first patient to survive the condition at this hospital, Kaplan said. Only one other similar patient was treated, unsuccessfully, at Children's many years ago, he said.

The Martez Hill case will be "written up in the medical literature to serve as a model," the doctor added. But whatever the medical wonderment of the case, what counts for Mr. and Mrs. William Hill is that their son has survived and Is coming home. BY KAREN GARLOCH Enquirer Reporter Lois Hill viewed her newborn son, Martez, incredulously last January 3, as she realized he'd been born with his heart outside his chest.

But by Thursday, she was cuddling her unusual baby in the Newborn Special Care Unit at Children's Hospital Medical Center, where he has spent the first four months of his life. The baby will go home today with his parents and seven-year-old brother, Logan, to 2 Adnored Ct, Mt. Auburn. A wide-eyed, 11-pound baby, Martez Is one of 13 victims In the world who have survived the rare heart condition called ectopia cordis beyond four weeks of age, according to Dr. Samuel Kaplan, the hospital's director of cardiology.

SEVERAL OF the surviving patients have lived to adult life, but the condition is extremely rare and almost always fatal, according to Dr. James Helmsworth, director of the division of cardio-thoracic surgery. Because Martez has "done so well" since he underwent surgery Just hours after his birth, doctors are optimistic about his chances for long-term survival. The Hills' baby was born at General Hospital with no breastbone or ribs, said Kaplan, and his chest cavity was too small to accommodate the heart. Within hours, Children's Hospital Medical Center surgeons operated to prevent infection by covering the baby's heart, outside his chest cavity, with skin drawn from the sides of his chest wall.

He gradually was weaned from the respirator, and can take milk from a bottle instead of tubes. The baby is "through the critical phase," Kaplan said, but he has not seen the last of Children's Hospital. As he goes home, Martez will wear a special chest protector to prevent damage to the vulnerable protruding skin that thinly covers his heart. WHEN HIS shirt is off, the thumps of his expect a $3.3 million yearly return on a $37 million investment, Fletcher said. "The income does not justify" the $37 million investment, he added.

"Investors make mistakes and Western-Southern made a mistake," Fletcher said. "That is a big goof," Toben said of the $15.5 million difference between cost and appraisal for a building completed In late 1975. Toben sits on the board along with Patricia Lonneman, assistant county treasurer, and Ralph Klein, supervisor of the auditor's industrial division. "I HOPE that isn't the trend" on each of the buildings planned for downtown, Toben commented, adding that county, municipalities and school boards base their budgets on the tax duplicate and would be adversely affected if downtown projects fall to live up to their expectations. Fletcher said part of the problem Is that Cincinnati is "an active participant" in downtown renewal, buying land and selling it cheaply to developers.

This "tends to depress the price" of downtown land, Fletcher said, noting he placed land value of the 580 site at $2.4 million. Couldn't Western-Southern have increased the cost of leasing in the 580 Building, Mrs. Lonneman asked? If they could have got more, they would have, Fletcher said, adding the market deter-mines rental costs. Leases now can be escalated only if the building's operating costs Increase, Fletcher added. BY PEGGY LANE Enquirer Reporter Owners of the 580 Building in downtown Cin-cinnati tried unsuccessfully Thursday to have the tax valuation of the structure reduced by $10 million.

The Hamilton County Board of Tax Revision decided against the request by the Western-Southern Life Insurance which said actual rental experience lowers the value of the building to investors. "Because someone goofed, you're saying the taxpayers and school districts must pay for the goof," said Jim Toben, who is administrative assistant to county commissioners and sits on the tax revision board for them this year. It is probable Western-Southern will appeal the decision to the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals or to Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. If It had realized it would not generate the rental income expected, Western-Southern probably would not have invested In the 580 Building, a professional appraiser told the tax board Thursday. JERRY C.

FLETCHER was hired by Western-Southern to appraise the building in the attempt to lower the tax valuation. Although the 580 Building cost $37 million to build, Auditor Joseph L. DeCourcy Jr. put it on the books at $31.5 million. Fletcher said the value is $21.5 million.

Rents are slightly more than $2 million a year although a professional investor would ISBbIT Six Sections, 138th Year, No. 33 ACTION LINE E-14 BRAUCHER B-5 BRIDGE E-18 BRUMFIELD A-ll BUSINESS B-10-13 CALLAHAN B-l CLASSIFIED C-5-12, D-l-12 COLUMNISTS A-ll COMICS E-6 CROSSWORD E-19 DEAR ABBY E-14 DEATHS C-S EDITORIALS A-10 ENTERTAINMENT E-8-11 GARDEN E-19-20 GRAHAM E-ll HEALTH E-14 HOROSCOPE E-19 HORSE SENSE E-17 JUMBLE E-18 RACES B-8-9 SOCIETY E-15 TV-RADIO E-21 WEIKEL C-l WORD GAME E-17.