The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 77

THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER Section Tomorrow: Crime rates Crime continues to drop in Cincinnati and the Tristate, according to the latest FBI statistics. 4 -f Your Town 3 Obituaries 4 Business 6 Editor: Jim Smith, 768-8600 Saturday December 3,1994 Insurers differ on marrow transplants for breast cancer. Doctors disagree over the effectiveness of the treatment. Without clear consensus, many insurance companies are reluctant to cover the procedure, which can cost $60,000 to $200,000 per patient. Patient advocates say the evidence in favor of bone marrow transplants is at least as strong as treatments for other kinds of cancer that insurers routinely cover.

"The difference is that thousands of women have breast cancer," said Sue Stewart, editor of the nationally distributed BMT (Bone Marrow Transplant) (Please see TRANSPLANTS, Page B4) transplant to survive the treatment. The city administration has refused to pay for the treatment. Cincinnati is self-insured, but follows the policies of its health insurance administrator, Community Mutual. Community Mutual approves bone marrow transplants only when breast cancer reaches Stage IV, its most advanced stage. The insurer considers the transplant unproven for treating Stage II breast cancer.

Two of three cancer specialists in an independent panel sided with Community Mutual, according to her lawyer, John Burlew. Duncan's case illustrates a continuing dispute about bone marrow transplants (nfi)(l Firefighter might have been covered elsewhere BY TIM BONFIELD The Cincinnati Enquirer If the city of Cincinnati worked with a different health insurance company, Paula Duncan might not be asking fellow firefighters and friends to help pay for a bone marrow transplant to treat her breast cancer. Most large health insurers operating in Greater Cincinnati review proposed bone marrow transplants on a case-by-case basis. Some, including Prudential and CIGNA, say they have paid for bone tt. A in: 'f s.

tin. 1 i i1 re a III marrow transplants in cases similar to Paula Duncan's. Duncan, a city firefighter for the past 10 years, has Stage II breast cancer, which means the cancer has spread to her lymph nodes. Her doctors have treated her with Duncan surgery and several rounds of standard chemotherapy. So far, she is tumor-free.

To prevent the cancer from returning, Duncan's doctors recommend that she take even more chemotherapy, a dose so high that she will need a bone marrow JlJiifllfl till w1 I'M 1 VE City's extra $3.6 million would help fund arts, health and police programs -tew ALLEN HOWARD NEIGHBORHOODS School traffic, police tickets irk parents Vicki Davis pulled onto Hawthorne Avenue about 3:15 p.m. one day two weeks ago. She thought she'd weave her way through traffic in front of Whittier Elementary School in the 900 block, pick up her 7-year-old daughter, Kayla, and two other children and head home. Problem was, about 100 other parents had the same idea. "Actually it wasn't very bad the one day I ended up getting a $34 parking ticket," she said.

"I didn't have to park two blocks away that day and walk to get the children. I was able to pick them up in front of the school. But when I headed home, I had to go back because my child forgot her homework." The second time around, things didn't go so well. Davis parked, went inside to help her child get her homework, and returned to see tucked underneath a window wiper the little piece of paper that causes instant frustration a parking ticket. In the last year, a dozen parents have been slapped with tickets while picking up their children at the school.

"They are upset," said Greg Bland, a parent who started a petition drive to get parking meters installed in the pickup area. "I have never been ticketed, but I know a lot of other parents who have. I tried to get something worked out through the city's traffic division, but I was put off." Bland gathered 120 signatures and sent them to Councilman Thomas Luken. Luken's office said this week the problem is being looked into. The city's traffic division, the police and school officials have recognized the seriousness of the problem.

The children's safety has become a major concern, with 100 or more cars rushing in to pick up children within 30 minutes. A traffic jam is usually created about 3:15 and lasts until 4 p.m. There is no parking in the pickup area between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. Dominick Ciolino, principal of Whittier, has noticed that children have almost been involved in accidents because of the traffic jams.

For about 30 minutes each day after school lets out, he said, he has observed bedlam parents rushing to get their children and buses weaving through to their pickup areas. "Sometimes, parents double park and call for their children. Many times, they dart toward the car and almost get hit," Ciolino said. Police were called in to keep traffic moving. Some parents were threatened with tickets and some were given tickets when they ignored warnings and parked.

Of the 717 pupils at Whittier, 250 are bused in. The others are picked up by parents or walk to and from school. Steve Bailey, city traffic engineer, is studying the problem. "The parents want parking meters, but we don't put them at schools. I don't know if that's the solution.

I am not sure if there is enough space to put in meters to handle that much traffic in 30 minutes," Bailey said. Maybe the snarl is not as bad as it appears. Bailey thinks that if cooler heads prevail, a solution can be reached. "We can work it out. We just have to get with the parents, school officials and police to see what's the best plan." TTT AVONDALE: The Crime and Safety Collaborative, a group sponsored by the Cincinnati Zoo and community organizations, will meet at 11 a.m.

Tuesday at the Marketing and Business Building at the zoo to discuss the year-round "back-on-the-block" proposal to give kids positive things to do. Mona Morrow, public affairs coordinator at the zoo, said the group will also discuss the decrease in crime and the cess of Community Oriented Policing. DOWNTOWN: Representatives of Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Ohio, an African-American group, will meet at 10 a.m. Sunday with Ohio Masonic Grand Lodge, a white group, at the Cincinnatian Hotel. Steve Reece, state grand master of Prince Hall, said the meeting has been called to see what the separate masonic groups can do together.

"As far as I know, this will be the first time the white and black masons have met together in Ohio," Reece said. Allen Howard writes a neighborhood column every Saturday. Call him at 768-8362 or write him at The Enquirer, 312 Elm Cincinnati 45202. The Cincinnati EnquirerMichael Snyder Children's Expo: Tova Jacobs, left, and Molly Donoft, sixth-graders at Hillel Academy, view one of the automated displays in the Great Jewish Children's Expo at the Cincinnati Gardens annex. The expo is open to the public today and Sunday.

BY HOWARD WILKINSON The Cincinnati Enquirer The proposed budget cuts in health and arts spending that drew angry crowds to Cincinnati budget hearings last month may be restored. City Manager John Shirey has sent a revised 1995-1996 budget proposal to Cincinnati City Council that reinstates Shirey about $1 million in proposed Health Department budget cuts, restores nearly $100,000 in funding for the arts, and sets aside about $675,000 for "civilianizing" 25 police division positions. Shirey said the spending is possible because the city has found an additional $3.6 million in revenue. "This is going to go a long way towards solving a lot of the problems," said Councilman Dwight Tillery, the chairman of council's finance committee, which is expected to approve a two-year city budget later this month. The unexpected $3.6 million is available, Shirey said, because the city will get more money than expected from the estate tax, a tax it shares with the state of Ohio, a larger-than-expected carryover from the present budget and better interest earnings from city investments than expected.

Theodore Jackson, head of Cincinnati's FBI office, said agents originally traced her to Metairie, where she abandoned her 1977 Oldsmobile months after fleeing, "and that's where we lost her." By then, Strub had crisscrossed the country, leaving a train of credit card charges that were her family's only clue she W33 fllive. In 1981, Earl Strub, her trucker husband, still hoped for her return. He said he'd often come home "and prayed her car would be in the driveway. But it never was. There were just credit card bills in the mail." Strub brought home none of the money, her husband said.

In the year following her flight, he had paid some of her bills and, for financial reasons, obtained a divorce. Even so, he hoped she would 72 times. accused embezzler in By Friday afternoon, most council members had not seen Shirey's budget memo, but one councilman Republican Phil Heimlich said he intends to oppose Shirey's plan to restore the proposed budget cuts. Heimlich said the additional $3.6 million in revenue will allow the city to accept a $2 million federal grant to hire 30 police officers. Some council members had balked at taking the federal 1994 crime-bill money because they said the city could not handle its share of funding the 30 positions for the next five years.

But, in his memo, Shirey recommended council not accept the grant. Instead, he proposed using about $675,000 from the $3.6 million to "civil-ianize" 25 jobs now being performed by uniformed officers. Police officials have said they need to switch 45 positions to civilian jobs, and Shirey said the other 20 could be funded by applying for a federal grant that will be available next year. Heimlich said changing 45 positions should not preclude taking the crime-bill money and hiring more police officers, even if it means cutting the budget next year for the Health Department, the arts and other agencies. "The groups that came to those pub- (Please see BUDGET, Page B4) La.

shack return so they could patch things up. Steve Barnett, the Cincinnati FBI supervisor working the case, said new leads followed a dramatization on the NBC television program, Unsolved Mys-' teries, about two months ago. That show included a computer-enhanced image of what Strub might look like today in her late 50s. None of the look-alike leads panned out, Barnett said, but agents investigating one call found new information that led them to Strub. Strub is in custody in New Orleans, awaiting her preliminary hearing.

If Strub pleads guilty, the entire affair could be resolved in New Orleans. However, she will be returned to Cincinnati for trial if she pleads not guilty. INSIDE XAVIER HOMECOMING: Xavier University begins a new tradition today a homecoming parade centered on the Musketeers' basketball game. Story, B2 After several days getting reac-quainted with the nation's cap- ital, Ohio Senator-elect Mike -DeWine says his own priorities are the balanced budget amendment, a presidential line-item veto, and forcing Congress to live under the laws It enacts. Story, B5 NO TELLING THE TIME: The $375 million Delta Air Lines airport expansion includes an underground train and moving sidewalks.

But, In a place where being on time is essential, there are few clocks. Story, BS FBI finds Local woman arrested after 14 years on run BY BEN L. KAUFMAN The Cincinnati Enquirer Fourteen years after she vanished from Cincinnati, fugitive credit union treasurer Phyllis Jean Strub was arrested Friday by FBI agents in Louisiana. Strub disappeared during an unannounced audit of the Netherland Terrace Federal Credit Union. Strub told the auditor she had to run to the bank.

Instead, she simply ran. Auditors said $247,826.54 everything in credit union coffers was missing. In 1982, a grand jury charged her with false statements and embezzling. Authorities said she took the money from 1975 to 1980. "As far as I'm concerned, she's dead," a daughter, Julia Brown, responded when told nf hpr mother's arrest.

Strub wish thev'd never found her." Brown said that she and her three siblings haven't talked to their mother since Strub left town on July 17, 1980. FBI agents found her living in a shack in New Sarpy, about 12 miles east of New Orleans, where she was using the name Phyllis Johnson, the bureau said. There was no evidence of the wealth she is accused of taking. Preacher struggling to repay travelers '1 County investigating canceled Holy Land trips 1 BY TANYA BRICKING The Cincinnati Enquirer SOUTH LEBANON Kash Amburgy is strapped for cash. The former celebrity merchant, known for slogans such as "Save Cash With Kash" in his 1970s TV ads for Kash's Big Bargain Barn, says he's banking on the Lord to help him out of a slump.

The Warren County prosecutor's office is investigating whether criminal charges should be filed, Prosecutor Tim Oliver said, following complaints from would-be travelers that Amburgy failed to refund money for trips that he later canceled. Amburgy, 72, a preacher who calls himself "the ol' country boy from South Lebanon, Ohio," has been promoting tours to the Holy Land since 1963. He and his wife, Mary Lou, have been there But around the time of the Gulf War, Amburgy said, people started canceling trips to the Middle East, and since then, he has lost more than $100,000. He maintains that he spent too much on promoting the trips; when people canceled, he didn't have the money to repay them. Some people whose trips didn't work out want their money back, and Amburgy said he intends to comply.

"I still owe some," he said. "But I plan to pay it. I trust they don't feel it's lost." Amburgy, who has a Southern preacher's voice and often refers to himself in the third person, is good-natured about his struggle. "Kash admits he overspent," he said. (Please see TRAVELERS, Page B4) Th Cincinnati EnquirerFred Straub Kash and Mary Lou Amburgy have been Holy Land 72 times since 1963.

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