The Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas • Page 3

The Salina Journal Saturday, September 29,1990 Hayden appoints group to review property taxes TOPEKA (AP) In an attempt to resolve one of the thorniest issues of the campaign Gov. Mike Hayden announced Friday the creation of a commission to review property tax laws. Former Gov. Robert F. Bennett was appointed chairman of the Governor's Property Tax Review Commission.

The group is to make recommendations to the Legislature. Hayden called the property tax issue the most difficult issue facing the state and the one he hears most about from voters. "As I meet with voters throughout Kansas, the property tax issue remains their top concern," Hayden said. "I understand and appreciate the problem that many of our small business owners, people living on fixed incomes and fraternal organizations in particular, are facing with increases in property taxes." Hayden also made announcements in 01- athe, Independence, Wichita and Garden City. Jack Parry, campaign manager for State Treasurer Joan Finney, the Democratic governor candidate, said the commission is "another Band Aid on an elephant." "It is a day late, and many dollars short, of the tax relief that Kansas property taxpayers have been expecting since last year," Parry said.

"If Governor Mike Hayden believes that yet another blue ribbon commission will solve the current property tax mess, he's insulting those same taxpayers. "We have had commissions, committees and legislation that have all failed to provide any relief to the downtrodden taxpayer." The governor said he is not abandoning his property tax relief plan, which includes a 1 percent increase in the sales tax to raise money for property tax relief. But the commission will provide an independent assessment of the various tax relief proposals, including those offered in the Legislature earlier this year, he said. None of those measures passed. "As governor I have heard the message," Hayden said.

"The people of Kansas want property tax relief. I promise to make property tax relief my number one priority, and this commission will help me and the people of Kansas accomplish this much-needed The 13-member commission includes local officials, appraisers and business and agricultural leaders. "I will give very serious consideration to whatever they recommend," he said. Hayden said he asked Nestor Weigand, a prominent Wichita Realtor, to be part of the commission, but Weigand indicated that he wanted to join another commission that would examine waste in state government instead. Hayden defeated Weigand for the GOP nomination by about 8,000 votes.

Weigand campaigned heavily on the property tax issue, but he also proposed formation of a state commission that would make recommendations to cut government waste. "We are hopefully going to proceed in that way," Hayden said. Bennett said the first meeting of the commission will be Friday, He said the commission will examine the effect of a statewide reappraisal of property for tax purposes finished in 1989 and of changes in the constitutional system for assessing property for tax purposes made through a 1986 amendment approved by voters. "Finally, we'll be looking at the issue of burden, and whether or not the burden on the property taxpayer is so great it needs to be modified or reduced," Bennett said. The commission will submit its first report by Dec.

15 and its final report on June 30,1991. Bennett said no recommendation will be offered by the Nov. 6 general election. "When I accepted this assignment I was assured by Governor Hayden that there was no agenda," Bennett said. "I was not expected to endorse something he wanted." The only member of the commission from north-central and northwest Kansas is Doyle Rahjes, Agra, president of the Kansas Farm Bureau.

BOX O' BOOKS Audrey Peterson, Salina, totes a box of 32 books from the annual Salina Symphony Guild Book Mart Friday in Scott Williams Memorial Hall. The sale continues today from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. Thompson claims best experience for state treasurer Feleciano campaigns hard in 1st District ByALANSTOLFUS Staff Writer Sen.

Paul Feleciano, a Wichita Democrat, is running hard. The candidate for Kansas insurance commissioner is spending seven days a week on the campaign trail and much of that time in the 1st Congressional District courting Republicans. Without the help of Republicans and independents disgruntled with rising insurance costs, Feleciano knows he won't be able to defeat his Republican opponent, assistant insurance commissioner Ron Todd. And every chance he gets, Feleciano swings hard at Todd and his mentor, retiring insurance commissioner Fletcher Bell. "Two men have controlled the office for the last 44 years," Feleciano Feleciano said Friday during a campaign stop in Salina.

"My opponent has been there for 34 of those 44 years. "They've gotten so close to the industry one has to ask, 'Who's regulating Bell endorsed Todd because the commissioner wants Todd "to continue covering up the fraud, collusion the fact that the office is not protecting the people of this state," Feleciano said. Neither Todd nor his campaign coordinator could not be reached Friday for comment. The senator attacked Todd's campaign fund-raising efforts, saying he had raised more than $28,000 from out-of-state insurance executives and about $7,000 from out-of-state lawyers all who have benefited from lax insurance regulations in Kansas. Seventy-seven percent of the $166,000 Todd raised by August for his campaign had come from insurance companies, which is wrong for someone charged with regulating the industry, Feleciano said.

"The industry is buying itself an insurance commissioner," he said. In comparison, Feleciano said, he has raised less than $600 from insurance companies. The insurance office does a poor job of regulating companies because the office is not computerized, he said. If elected, Feleciano would computerize the office. With a computer system, the office could more easily audit insurance companies.

Also, the office could keep track of drivers who have allowed their insurance coverage to lapse and notify them they should renew their coverage or face losing their license, he said. State law requires drivers to have insurance, but 27 percent don't, he said. When those drivers are involved in accidents, the insurance companies of the injured wrongly pay for damages and injuries. When that happens, insurance premiums wrongly go up for the insured parties. Computerizing the office would cut that 27 percent by about half over two years, he said.

Kansas also needs a formal process through which insurance companies would seek rate increases, causing the companies to justify the increases. If elected, Feleciano said, he would create such a process. Feleciano said he would'create consumer standards for insurance companies to follow and also open Kansas to more companies. The state is dominated by Blue Cross and Blue Shield, several health maintenance organizations and a few other insurance companies. Many other companies have tried to offer new insurance plans in Kansas, but the insurance office has frustrated their efforts with slow action, Feleciano said.

"Why? Because Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Todd have an incestuous affair," he said. By SHARON MONTAGUE Staff Writer Her experience as a certified public accountant and financial manager make her the best candidate for Kansas state treasurer, Sally Thompson said Friday during a Salina campaign stop. Thompson is running as a Democrat against Eric Rucker, Republican, in the November general election. Thompson graduated from the University of Colorado in 1975. She has worked as a CPA and audit manager for Touche Ross Co.

and as vice president of the United Bank of Denver. In 1985, she was hired to head recovery efforts for Shawnee Federal Savings and Loan in Topeka. She resigned in February. Thompson said she is the first certified public accountant to run for the state treasurer's office and noted that credentials would be the primary issue in her campaign. "The complexity of the financial world and the state financial situation make it imperative that the treasurer have a solid financial background," Thompson said.

After bonds were issued for the state highway plan, Kansas shot to the top three states in the nation in bond debt per capita, she said. One of her first tasks as treasurer would be to make financial projec- tions on future resources that the state has mortgaged so legislators will have an idea of the state's long- term financial condition, she said. "It will be important to give guidelines to the legislators, state government and local officials to see what new projects we can take on in the future," Thompson said. As treasurer, Thompson said, she would serve as a financial adviser not only for city and county officials, but for the state legislators. She said she would become more involved with revenue estimation, which hasn't been the treasurer's responsibility in the past.

"In the past, we've been off $20 million to $30 million in revenue estimation," Thompson said. "That has a significant effect not only on the state, but on businesses that use those revenue estimates as guidelines." She said she has a lot of ideas she wants to implement in the treasurer's office. "I see the treasurer as becoming the chief financial executive of the state," she said. Thompson said a treasurer shouldn't be involved with party politics, and she could work with either a Democratic or Republican governor. "Of all state offices, the treasurer should be the most non-partisan and independent," she said.

"The treasurer needs to give objective information on the true financial situation." Mother gets delayed call from son in Saudi Arabia SHARON SPRINGS When her telephone rang the first time just after 1 a.m. Friday, Sharon Springs resident Kathy Garcia picked it up and heard only the clinking of coins. She knew right away it wasn't a crank call. Her son, Richard, was trying to call home from Saudi Arabia. "They're using a pay phone, and the coins get so jammed up they have to shake them to get the money to fall in further," she said.

Twenty-year-old Richard continued to try to phone home throughout the night and finally got a good connection at 11 a.m., she said. Conan the advocate Schwarzenegger brings fitness message to Kansas TOPEKA (AP) Only 17 percent of the state's elementary schools have physical education classes every day, and Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks that is deplorable. Is anyone going to argue with him? Gov. Mike Hayden apparently didn't Friday. During breakfast at Cedar Crest, the governor's mansion, Hayden and the actor discussed how Kansas can improve physical education programs in its schools.

Schwarzenegger said the governor told him he would support requiring daily physical education classes. Schwarzenegger also met with state education leaders, had a news conference and spoke to a physical education class and school assembly at a northwest Topeka elementary school. The muscular actor, best known for movies such as "The Terminator," "Predator," "Total Recall" and "Conan the Barbarian," also is chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. "You can see that while we're declin- "What we have to do in this country is make physical education a daily requirement." Arnold Schwarzenegger ing in youth fitness, our schools are cutting out fitness programs," Schwar- zenegger said. "That to me is alarming, and that is why I am on the road, to stop this total madness." Kansas was the llth stop on a 12-state tour that has taken Schwarzenegger across the South and Midwest.

After visiting Topeka, he flew to Nebraska to meet with Gov. Kay Orr. He said he thought Hayden was receptive because the governor is the father of two daughters. "It was a little easier to talk to your governor than to other governors," Schwarzenegger said. "What we have to do in this country is make physical education a daily requirement." The actor also urged parents to get involved in making their children more fit and recalled his own childhood in Austria.

When his father, a police officer, came home from work in the evening, the first thing he did was don a T-shirt and shorts and play soccer with his children for an hour. Weekend hikes were mandatory, Schwarzenegger said. "My brother and we hated it," he acknowledged. "Today, I am so thankful to my parents." Schwarzenegger said he thinks government officials don't think about physical education when they discuss educational reform. Schwarzenegger said healthy children are more likely to do better in the classroom.

"I want you to be smart, but I don't care if you die what we're saying," he said. "You can't start a person at the age of 20 with reading skills. You have to start early, at age 5 or 6. It's the same way with physical education." Arnold Schwarzenegger leads students in a physical education class at a Topeka elementary school. It was the second time he 'had phoned her since he was deployed Aug.

18 with a Marine battalion. To get to a telephone isn't easy, she said. Richard told her long lines form at the only pay phone near his camp. A call home costs Richard $25 for four minutes. The mail service is better, and Kathy Garcia said she sends her son a letter every day.

Still, the phone calls are precious. "Every mother that hasn't heard would just give their eyeteeth to hear," she said. "What you feel when you hear that voice say, 'Hi is indescribable." 3 kids injured when pickup hits school bus CHAPMAN Three rural Chapman children were treated at area hospitals Friday after a pickup truck collided with a school bus carrying 13 students just outside of Chapman. At 3:40 p.m., the bus stopped to make a turn off K-206 about a half mile north of Chapman when the pickup hit its rear, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol. Laura Stratton, 16, was treated at Geary Community Hospital in Junction City.

Jennifer Taylor, 14, was treated at Irwin Army Hospital, Fort Riley. Amy Stevens, 17, was treated at Abilene Memorial Hospital. Jackie and Robin Harrick, ages 15 and 11, received possible injuries but were not treated. Jennifer Russo, 9, was taken by private vehicle to seek medical treatment. Seven other students and the bus driver, Janet L.

Gefeller, 36, were not injured. The pickup driver Nancy J. Kickhaefer, 15, rural Woodbine and a passenger, Laurie Meyer, 15, Carlton, received possible injuries, but refused treatment, according to the report. A second passenger was not injured..