The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 68

EDITOR: JAKES P. COANSY, 38M003 THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1986, SECTION Metro digestE-2 Ohio River improvingE-3 Supper club site soldE-3 Prom warningsE-3 ObituariesE-4 Rhodes adds to war chestE-4 Era Weed-keepers liable for $50 tickets beginning today BY DAVID WELLS The Cincinnati Enquirer Starting today, keepers of unkempt lots and curbsides overrun with underbrush are liable for $50 tickets under Cincinnati's rejuvenated noxious weed ordinance. A joint session Thursday of the Hamilton County Municipal Court approved a payout schedule for noxious weed citations. That means offenders will be able to pay their citations ($25 in fine and $25 in court costs) by mail, just like a parking ticket. Previously, weed offenders and the citing officer had to appear in court.

That provision adversely affected the number of tickets issued, said Dennis Meyer, head of the city's Sanitation Division, which enforces the ordinance. "If we had given tickets for every complaint we got, we would have spent almost all our time in court," he said. "One of the reasons we asked for this payout provision was to take some of the court burden off our officers. I think one result is definitely going to be an increase in the number of citations issued." In addition to prohibiting any weeds over 10 inches tall, the ordinance carries its own most-wanted list of Russian, Canadian or common thistle, wild lettuce, wild mustard, wild parsley, ragweed, milkweed and ironweed. No one in Cincinnati City Hall seems to know why the specific weeds are included in the ordinance.

Some may be agricultural menaces, and others may make the eyes of allergy sufferers water, but wild lettuce, parsley and mustard sound like a feast for weed-loving gourmet Euell Gibbons. "I don't know why they put all those plants on the list," said Meyer. "It's an old law and I think they might just have been trying to cover everything that might be a problem." Meyer said his six enforcement officers receive no special training in how to spot a runaway ragweed and most probably would not know a Russian thistle from an artichoke. But they do know weeds, and they do get complaints about people who don't keep them under control, he said. Last year the Sanitation Division received 1,700 complaints from people about their neighbors' weeds.

Fatal fire scene lesiirer sued WIII-TV won't be off air Norwooc over increase -lis' YV1 i i 1 Kt -f. ir 1 4 cms? Ft. Thomas cuts July 4 celebration THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER FORT THOMAS. annual Fourth of July celebration has become the latest casualty of rising costs and liability insurance problems. City officials and volunteers who co-ordinate the Independence Day celebration in Tower Park canceled the fireworks and festivities Thursday.

"We felt it would be in the best interests of everyone to forgo this year's activities," said City Administrative Officer Jeff Earlywine. The escalating cost of fireworks presented one of the biggest hurdles. "If you don't have the money to cover it, what are you going to do?" said Toni Schmitz, president and chairman of the volunteer Committee for Fort Thomas. Doubts about whether the city and the committee could get adequate insurance coverage also played a major role, both Schmitz and Earlywine said. The city is worried since it is all but certain a $5 million backup insurance policy will not be renewed when it expires June 30.

And the Committee for Fort Thomas has so far been unable to get the insurance. BY J. FRAZIER SMITH The Cincinnati Enquirer WIII-TV Channel 64 escaped having to "go dark" by Monday when a judge Thursday named general manager Stephen J. Kent as interim receiver with the authority to borrow enough money to keep the financially strapped station on the air. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Thomas C.

Nurre appointed Kent after Will general partner United Entertainment Network of Denver filed suit against Channel 64 Joint Venture and Channel 64 Limited Partnership, majority owners of Will. Network attorney Gerald Baldwin said the move was needed to keep Will on air while the partners solve their differences on how to finance the station. Will has not filed bankruptcy, he said, and naming a receiver may head off that possibility. United Entertainment Network sought a receiver because those differences among the partners have made the independent station insolvent and debt-ridden. Funds are needed now for the station in imminent danger of shutting down by Monday, according to testimony at a hearing Thursday.

Just before the hearing began, Kent resigned as president and managing general partner of Joint Venture and general partner in the limited partnership, to clear him to act as receiver. United Entertainment Network, a 10 owner of Joint Venture, which owns Will, went to court because the limited partners, who own 90 of Joint Venture, have refused to accept financing for the $300,000 needed to keep Will on the air for the next two weeks. Financing was offered by United Cable TV, a United Entertainment Network affiliate, Baldwin said. The judge agreed with defendant's attorney, Michael Brown, that the receiver should be an interim appointment so the partners can have their day in court. Kent testified that Will, valued roughly at "anywhere between $8 million and $12 million," has less than $5,000 in the bank, owes program suppliers such as Paramount and Viacom more than $175,000 and has secured debts of nearly $3 million.

"We are rapidly approaching a point where we cannot operate the station," said Kent, the only witness at the hearing. Nearly $300,000 is needed over the next two weeks so the station can continue bringing viewers its top shows "Star Trek," "Mary Tyler Moore" and "Newhart," Kent said. BY SANDY THEIS The Cincinnati Enquirer Norwood city officials, outraged over what their lawyer called a skyrocketing increase in liability insurance premiums, are taking their insurance company to court. Special legal counsel Stanley M. Chesley said the breach-of-con-tract suit hinges on a portion of Ohio law which states that insurance companies can raise their rates but the increases must be "reasonable." The suit, filed Thursday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, asks that a jury decide whether the Norwood increases were reasonable.

According to the lawsuit, city officials entered into a three-year contract with the Columbus-based Home Insurance Company Inc. The first year, the city paid about $26,000 for $500,000 in coverage beginning Dec. 13, 1983. By 1986, the insurance company wanted $203,000 for $250,000 in liability coverage. "We think this is arbitrary, unfair and capricious," Chesley said.

"We think this insurance crisis is invented." Insurance companies, however, have insisted the crisis is real. The companies have continually pointed to a series of Ohio Supreme Court decisions which have chipped away at sovereign immunity, a doctrine that protects local and state officials from lawsuits. Because municipalities can now be sued, insurance companies have had to pay high legal bills defending their clients. Company officials have said that legal bills, coupled with sympathetic juries and greater risks, lead to higher premiums. Chesley said over the life of the contract, the city of Norwood has paid more in premiums than the insurance company has paid in damages.

Home Insurance Company officials could not be reached to comment on the lawsuit. But during a previous interview, insurance agent Jack Kelly said that more than $10 million in claims against the city in the last two years undoubtedly increased the liability premiums. Kelly is employed by Kelly-Schulte Insurance Agency Inc. of Cincinnati, a Home Insurance agent. Chesley insists that the abolition of sovereign immunity isn't to blame.

He pointed out that 45 states have now done away with the doc- 4 1 The Cincinnati EnquirerJohn R. Clark Fire and police officials discuss the fire late Thursday The baby, rescued from the burning building was that killed three small children and injured a baby at identified as Julian Hunter, 3 months. Police said the 915-17 Fourth Middletown. Dead are Shane victims are the children of Jana Robbins and Jeff Napier, Matthew Napier, 3, and Chance Napier, 2. Hunter.

The fire is still under investigation. Judge drops manslaughter case trine and pointed out that municipalities such as Norwood paid for insurance, even when sovereign immunity still existed. "Why were they selling insurance all those years for people who don't need it?" he asked. "Something is wrong here." Chesley, a nationally known plaintiff's attorney who represented the victims of the 1977 Beverly Hills Supper Club fire, has been very outspoken against insurance companies. Earlier this month, he donated $2,000 to help pay the liability insurance premium so the Findlay Market's Opening (Please see NORWOOD, Page E-2) and battled Sheppard's husband, Clifton, according to testimony.

Musselman had gone there to see his estranged wife, Geraldine, who left him in October to live with her mother because of marital discord. Bettman, saying he wished the matter had been tried before a jury, cautioned that "obviously, both sides cannot be pleased it's the kind of decision one man doesn't like to make." Sheppard had asked that a judge decide her case. Family members representing both sides listened intently as Bectman spoke. "The question is whether the defendant has established, by preponderance of the evidence, self-defense," Bettman said. "It's one thing to analyze something coldly once it's over.

The law requires that we place ourselves within the body and mind of the (Please see ACQUITTED, Page E-2) BY J. FRAZIER SMITH The Cincinnati Enquirer A Cumminsville mother was acquitted of manslaughter Thursday when a judge ruled that she was in imminent danger and did not act with criminal intent when she fatally shot her son-in-law last November. In a decision from the bench, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Gilbert Bettman exonerated 44-year-old Evelyn Sheppard in the killing of Randy Musselman at her home on Mad Anthony Street last Nov, 6. Sheppard shot Musselman, 28, 3910 Elsmere Norwood, once in the chest with a revolver as he fought his way into her home in a drunken rage. Musselman came to the home at 11 p.m., climbed to a second-story window, returned to the front porch I 'WIW '4rr'-j friniiil n'J Avondale Town Center faces problems Bank branch closing; grocery store woes pose difficulties for development I iy 1 stores, Cummins said.

"What is clear to Oscar Robertson is that there will be a grocery store in that site throughout the Super Foods' lease term," Cummins said. "The demand for that space for grocery store use is considerable." Super Food Services, which is headed by Robertson's former Cincinnati Royals teammate Jack Twyman, might sub-lease the store to different people, but that probably wouldn't result in any interruption in the operation of the store, he said. Except for IGA and the bank (Please see AVONDALE, Page E-2) BY STEVE KEMME The Cincinnati Enquirer The Avondale Town Center, a development that symbolized the rebirth of a black neighborhood that had been deteriorating, is losing a bank branch and has a major tenant that is struggling financially- The 3-year-old shopping center's biggest tenant, an IGA grocery store, is having financial problems. And a branch of black-owned Hamilton County State Bank is closing next Thursday. Cincinnati Vice Mayor J.

Kenneth Blackwell called the situation a "crisis" at a Thursday press conference and said it could have severe economic repercussions for the town center, the Avondale neighborhood and the city's investment in the project. But an attorney for former basketball star Oscar Robertson, who developed the shopping center, said Blackwell was mistaken and that there is absolutely no chance that IGA will move out. "I don't know why (Blackwell) perceives it as a crisis," attorney James Cummins said. "It's a terribly unfortunate thing when any business isn't able to make it. But the impact on the neighborhood and on Avondale Town Center won't be what he predicts." Blackwell said at his press con ference that he had asked City Manager Scott Johnson to look into possible solutions for the town center's problems.

Later Thursday, Blackwell backtracked from his earlier statements about the possibility of IGA moving out of the town center. He said that after meeting with some of the principal people involved with the town center, he learned that the impact of IGA's problems on the center and on Avondale wouldn't be nearly as serious as he had believed. The town center has a 20-year lease for the grocery store with Super Food Services a Dayton-based company that owns IGA The Cincinnati EnquirerJohn Curley The IGA grocery store in the Avondale Town Center Is in financial trouble, and another center tenant, the Hamilton County State Bank, is pulling out of the mall. n..