The Anniston Star from Anniston, Alabama • Page 9

Wednesday, August 14, 1996 Page 9A Metropolitan Editor Phil Jenkins, 235-9277 4... ihr" Hi if ii i 1 George 1 Smith No news is bad news WNAL fires former WJSU hirees; news plans on hold HI -J HENS0N LwrtS RE-ELECT "ess ARSHALL LEON (5TRV as PLACE suiTHinj6j3S 3 vi' f't- By Richard Coe Star Staff Writer 3 I GADSDEN va city council mm mmm i place i mmm? i Eddia MotesTh Amnion Star Political signs numerous along Alabama 21 near Quintard Oxford votes out the Mall in Oxford as election approaches. political clutter No news can be bad news. Officials of Gadsden's WNAL-TV 44 announced Tuesday they will delay indefinitely plans to create a local news program. The announcement means the station has temporarily abandoned its plans to build a studio in Gadsden and set up a news bureau in Anniston.

Staff hired to start the newscast were fired. Charles Rountree, WNAL's general manager, said the station still will become the local CBS affiliate Sept. 1. "We are going to take things one step at a time," Rountree said. 'The development of the news was put off, delayed." Rountree said he received a phone call Monday from Fant Broadcasting, the Birmingham company that owns WNAL, informing him that the decision had been made.

He said he did not know why the decision was made. Anthony Fant, president of Fant Broadcasting, could not be reached for comment Tuesday or this morning. Rountree had said hiring a staff of 25 and building a studio would have cost WNAL between 1 million and $2 million. WNAL had begun remodeling its Gadsden studio for a temporary news center and had planned to begin the news broadcasts Sept. 1 when it becomes the CBS affiliate.

A number of employees from WJSU-TV 40 in Anniston had moved to WNAL. Officials at WJSU, which has been a CBS affiliate for more than 25 years, had announced the station would be combining with Tuscaloosa's WCFT-TV 33, sign with ABC and move to Birmingham. Rountree would not say exactly how many people lost their jobs at WNAL. By Tim Pryor Star Stalt Writer A state highway department spokeswoman said city maintenance crews regularly remove signs that are obstructing public safety and others on its right of way. The new law may keep signs off state rights of way if local candidates stop putting them back up when the state removes them, she said.

Smith said he wasn't worried about constitutional free-speech challenges to the decision because the signs are still permitted on private property. But Austin said he opposed the decision because' it would give an unfair advantage to incumbents, who already See Oxford11 A ugly. "I'm as guilty as anyone else," said Smith, who has posted his own signs around the city. "But I have never seen something so sickly that you can't even cut the grass." Other council members and candidates also have placed signs on city land next to highways and roads as well as on state land next to roads such as South Quintard. Smith said Jacksonville and Anniston already have laws prohibiting posting political signs on city land.

The state also has a law prohibiting signs on its road rights of way. Smith said the state would enforce the law on roads through Oxford once the city had its own ordinance. OXFORD Political signs should no longer clutter the sides of city streets after this year, Oxford's city council decided Tuesday. The council voted 5-1 to restrict political signs to private property beginning Jan. 1.

Council members Norma Martin, Johnny Bentley, Marshall Shaddix, Bruce Dempsey and Leon Smith voted for the idea. Councilman Johnny Austin voted against it. Smith suggested the law after he saw several signs on Friendship Road 10 days ago and decided they made the town look See WNAL11A iU: i 1115" "jr" Sort of like watching paint dry I'm missing something here. This past week the 1996 BASS Masters Classic was held on Lay Lake some 40 miles or so south of Birmingham. The fishing "rodeo" drew 41 entrants, which isn't all that surprising.

Catch the most fish and you take home $100,000 which is pretty good pay for three days of just sitting on your fanny in a $30,000 fishing boat, for crying out loud. That's something else that astounds me, the fact you can buy a Cadillac for what you'll pay for a fishing boat in which to spend hours on end just sitting on your fanny. But truth is, I really don't have any trouble with fishing for $100,000 while sitting on my fanny in a $30,000 fishing boat. To each his own, I always say. And another truth is I had my chance to do all of the above.

My father fished, my grandfather fished, my uncles fished. I even had a great-grandmother who spent her 96th and last summer on this earth sitting on a creek bank with a cane pole and a can of worms for company. With genes like that, had I applied myself, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind I would have been a championship bass fisherman spending most of my days sitting on my fanny in a $30,000 boat Somehow or another, I missed the calling, something that causes me little regret. But when I read reports that 16,000 people showed up at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Sunday afternoon just to sit on their collective fannies merely to watch a bunch of fish being weighed, I have to wonder. Another 3,000 or so who couldn't get in the main hall watched the final weigh-in on a giant TV in an adjoining room.

As a spectator sport, watching fish being weighed ranks right there with watching white paint dry. Just for the record, one George Cochran of Hot Springs, claimed the $100,000 first prize with a three-day catch of 3 1 pounds and 14 ounces. The guy who finished dead last, Richard McCarty of Alba, Texas, got $4,000. Which also is a pretty good payday for just sitting on your fanny for three days in a $30,000 fishing boat. Only in America.

'Course it's probably a pretty good thing I turned my back on family and fishing greatness, one reason being the blonde in my life says I tend to exaggerate things a bit when I get wound up with a story. Exaggeration in pursuit of 17.S inches of type for a column is no vice (any columnist will tell you that), but in a fisherman, it can be quite different. There are lies and then there are fisherman lies. I'm not about to get into that, but it wouldn't surprise me if all the lakes in heaven have "No Fishing" signs. However, I did fish enough to have a few of my on.

I'll give you just one. A number of years ago, this fisherman and another fisherman, along with two small boys, had spent most of one morning boating 35 of the nicest crappie found on Logan Martin Lake. Whilst stringing up No. 36, 1 dropped the entire string into the lake. If looks could kill, I'd be talking from the grave even now.

What saved me? Some 30 minutes later, we hit this little point at the end of a slough and in just two hours boated 1,736 crappie. See what I mean? Truth is in three hours we boated 167 crappie and my guess is you don't believe that either. But then I can't believe 16,000 people (not to mention the others in the TV room) would spend most of a beautiful day just sitting on their fannies waiting for a bunch of fish to be weighed. Do you believe that? Hey, I don't Seminar helps women learn how to get in political Held By Helen Pan-star Stan Writer JACKSONVILLE State Rep. Barbara Boyd doesn't run into too many women in the political field.

It is a reality she regrets, finds frustrating, and thinks is completely impractical. That's why Rep. Boyd, D-Anniston, is working with Alabama Women's Leadership Database to put more women into government and political offices in Alabama. Sponsored by the Legislative Women's Caucus, AWLD is a nonpartisan, volunteer organization operated out of Judson College, Alabama's only women's college. Since 1994, the awkwardly titled organization has been helping to demystify the process of obtaining public appointments for Alabama women.

Although AWLD does not specifically track the women it helps, there is no doubt that their work has borne fruit. Of some 1,200 appointments to public boards, commissions and councils throughout Alabama made ethics commission addresses ing tide of women in Alabarta politics. Tuesday's training session was the seventh in a series of such sessions that have been held across the state. Attendees learned about the variety of public appointments available, how to tell if you are qualified, the basic process of campaigning for an appointment, and the responsibilities involved in holding a pub $20.7 million city schools budget gets board's OK By Judy Johnson Star Education Editor The Anniston school board approved a $20.7 million budget for the 1997 fiscal year Tuesday, -but the budget does not yet incorporate the effects of a proposed $3.5 million bond issue to upgrade school facilities. If the City Council votes as expected to float the bond issue, which will be used to finance repairs and construction at all city schools, the budget will have to be revised to accommodate the bond repayments.

But the budget is expected to need revisions anyway. The state Department of Education this year mandated that all school systems in the state implement a completely new system of budgeting. At the same time, the state demanded that the budgets be in Montgomery by Aug. 15, at least six weeks earlier than the Oct. 1 deadline school systems often found themselves scrambling to meet in the past.

The new state requirements have turned what in previous years was a 14-page budget document into a 250-page book of detailed budget information for the Anniston schools. The budgets are built starting at the local schools, with the school budgets combined to form the system budget. In the end, according to the school system's Director of Business Services Josie Jones, the money comes in the same way and is spent on the same things, but the way it is reported is vastly changed. Statewide, the new mandates have had school system staffs working long hours to overhaul their budgeting practices and meet the deadline. In Anniston, one result of the effort was that the school board did not have an opportunity to review the budget at a work session before it was presented for approval Tuesday.

Similarly, when the Calhoun County school board meets Thursday night for a regular meeting followed by a work session to consider and approve a budget, the board will not have had much opportunity to learn about the budget beforehand. According to Superintendent Gordon Mitchell, the custodian of funds will continue to work on the budget as the board meets, and will deliver the work to the board when the work session begins. The county board has received special permission to submit the See Budget11 A Police claim call came from officer 's phone EJ. 'Mac' McArthur of state by Gov. Fob James during his tenure in office, a record 435 have gone to women.

Since last December alone, James has nearly doubled his own previous record of more than 200 female appointments. More than 30 local women gathered for an all-day conference Tuesday at Jacksonville State University to learn from AWLD how they, too, can join in on this ris Vasser of trying to pin the blame for any hoax on his partner, previously cleared of any wrongdoing. Vasser, awaiting a Sept. 25 administrative hearing on a charge of conduct unbecoming an officer, said the accusations were "absolutely ridiculous." "These charges just go to prove" to me someone in some position is prepared to go to any length to attack me from all angles, for what reason, I'm still uncertain," Vasser told The Gadsden Times in a story published Tuesday. Vasser is accused of setting up Bill WilsonThe Anniston Star women's group.

lic office. Rep. Boyd, who presided over Tuesday's session, said she is excited for the future of women in. Alabama. "It is so important for women to become more involved in the appointment process," she said.

"We need to break the good-, old- See Conference11 A Vasser, 26, has a history dating back to his teen years of being involved in incidents that allowed him to be portrayed either as a crime victim or a hero. Police said they were unaware of Vasser's past until it was revealed in media reports following the supposed rescue attempt. The complaint against Vasser said investigators determined calls were made from Vasser's cellular telephone to the city planning department around the time the anonymous report was made about See Baby11 A governors his June 1 1 attempt to rescue a baby from the Coosa River. The incident began when a woman anonymously called the city planning office and said a baby had been thrown into the water from a bridge. Vasser raced to the river with partner Janell Wissler and jumped in the water.

He was hailed as a hero after claiming he nearly saved a baby before it slipped through his hands. No body was ever found despite an intense search, and investigators determined the episode was a hoax orchestrated by Vasser. Associated Press GADSDEN Cellular telephone records could be vital evidence for police investigators trying to prove one of their colleagues staged his would-be rescue of an infant from a river. A complaint filed by the Police Department said the mysterious call that triggered a huge search for a baby in the Coosa River allegedly came from the cellular telephone of Officer Billy Vasser, charged with staging the incident. The complaint also accused James says Associated Press he must consider future ventions where platforms and policies are formed.

As for reports describing him as a millionaire, James snapped: "You're making an assumption. You've never seen my bottom line. I could owe $10 million to a New York bank. It's time people stop making assumptions." James' 1995 financial disclosure report to the state Ethics Commission said he and his wife, Bobbie, earned at least $427,000 last year. Because the reports list incomes in broad categories, it is not known how much James earned.

The governor became the focus of news reports after he said initially he would bill taxpayers for the cost of his two-week trip to the convention, including the expenses of his wife, an aide and two body guards. Lt. Gov. Don Siegelman said he would not bill taxpayers for his trip to the Democratic National Convention later this month. James eventually said he would make a decision when he returns on whether public funding of such trips is legal and ethical.

James said the trip is no different than state-paid trips of legislators to conferences or the state paying the cost of party primary elections. James, who chose not to seek a second term when he was first elected for the 1979-83 term, indicated he will seek re-election in 1998. "I expect to stay here long enough to do the job. It will probably take eight years," he said. He said he needs another term to make sure his education, judicial and cost-cutting initiatives are implemented.

HUNTSVILLE Gov. Fob James says he must take into consideration the future governors of Alabama before he decides to set any precedent on using taxpayer money for his trip to the Republican National Convention. James, in an interview published Tuesday in The Huntsville Times, said his personal wealth should not be a factor in deciding how such trips by the state's chief executive should be financed. 'That's crazy as hell," he told the paper. "What about the next governor or the next governor?" Interviewed in San Diego at the RNC, he said he has a duty not to set a precedent that might hurt a future governor's ability to perform all aspects of the job, including attending party con.