The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 3

iND THE COURIER-JOURNAL SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1999 EDITOR: MARK PROVANO PHONE: 948-1315 FAX 949-4041 IANA Charlestown clerk, council races offer contrasts ELECTION One campaign is hard-edged, another friendly 1999 der of Police lodge is opposing the incumbent. At the other end of the spectrum, the two primaries for city council seats pit opponents who describe one another as friends. Clerk-treasurer: Barnes worked as deputy clerk-treasurer for 20 years before spending four years in the private sector and then winning election to the office in 1995. She cites that experience of dealing with government accounting procedures as the chief reason voters should choose her. "It's not an easy job to just come into unless you have someone you know can do the ted suicide in December.

In a letter to The Evening News of Jeffersonville this week, Rita Fischer said Barnes had done nothing but make her late husband's job "more difficult and unpleasant," and she accused Barnes of not supporting the department. Barnes and the police department have clashed over some expenses in the department. "I hope that I can bring unity within the city government," Coomer said. Barnes said the differences involved expenditures for supplies and training. She said she wanted the police department to see if city hall had any of the supplies the department needed before ordering more.

She also said the department would approve training and then submit the bill, even if the department was over budget. "If I didn't think it was necessary, or if they didn't have the money and they were over the appropriation, I wouldn't let them spend it," Barnes said. "And that's what I was elected to do." Coomer doesn't see her lack of government accounting experience as a problem. "I can learn the job just like she learned the job," Coomer said. "The job doesn't intimidate me." Council District 1: "We're good friends," said incumbent Ward Tackett of his opponent, Jerry Zollman.

"He goes to my church, too." Zollman, a machinist, said he wants to see the city spruced up and cleaner, and more done to help small businesses. However, he said he's not promising anyone anything, except that he'll take their concerns before the council. "I just want to be fair to everybody," he said. The difference is experience, said Tackett, who is seeking his fifth term. "I remind people that I have been on the council for a while See CLERK Page 7, col.

1, this section By GREGORY A. HALL The Courier-Journal The May 4 Democratic primaries for Charlestown clerk-treasurer and city council offer stark contrasts. The clerk-treasurer's race pits incumbent Sharon Mae Barnes against Donna Coomer, a bookkeeper at an auto parts store, in a hard-edged campaign in which the local Fraternal Or job for you and teach it to you," Barnes said. She said her goal is to help keep city expenses down. Her opponent, Coomer, has been endorsed by the local FOP lodge and by Rita Fischer, the widow of Police Chief Robert "Kevin" Fischer, who commit Complex will include parts, accessory store Officials report rash of threats at schools Quick responses come in wake of shootings JXf life1-SM TSellersburg ssx '-c4t; IND lA A rm-A lffiJBP LOUISVILLE i .1.

My jTi a PHOTOS BY PAM SPAULDING. THE COURIER-JOURNAL by steve ouRBiN, the G-j bq LeMastus, one of the partners In the new Podium One Motoplex in Charlestown, tried out the track. BRIEFLY Lawsuit to remove official is dismissed A judge dismissed a lawsuit yesterday that sought to have Jeffersonville City Councilwom-an Donna Frantz removed from office on a residency question. Special Judge Roger Davis of Harrison County ruled that Steve West, who filed the lawsuit, lacked standing. Frantz and West ran against each other in the May 1995 primary, with Frantz winning and West finishing fourth.

The judge ruled that, under Indiana law, West would have had standing to sue only if he were the person entitled to the council seat should Frantz be disqualified. Frantz moved out of her district at the time of a divorce, which led to the lawsuit to oust her. She has since moved back into her district. "I'm happy of course," Frantz said yesterday. "I'm glad it's over.

She said the divorce was the only reason she moved, and she always intended to move back into the district. "My intentions were clear all along," she said. West is one of two people running against Frantz in the May 4 primary. She also is opposed by her ex-husband, Dennis Frantz. Worker survives fall into river at night A tugboat deckhand who fell into the Ohio River in the dead of night battled a swift current to swim to the Kentucky side of the river.

Herbert Smith, 22, of Padu-cah, was bruised and sore when he was rescued about 6:30 a.m. CDT Wednesday on the shore across from the South-wind Maritime Centre near' Mount Vernon, Ind. He was treated and released from an Evansville hospital. Smith was walking near the edge of the barge about 1 a.m. Wednesday when he tripped and fell into the river without a life jacket.

As the tugboat from Metropolis, Midsouth Towing Co. went off, Smith began swimming in the 61-degree wa-' ter. Once ashore, he briefly passed out, then walked to an abandoned cabin, where he found shelter. Search crews scoured about 12 miles of riverbank before a crew member aboard a boat heard Smith calling for help. Seminar on starting a business May 5 The Southern Indiana Small Business Development Center is offering a May 5 workshop on starting a business at the Southern Indiana Chamber of Commerce offices, 4100 Charlestown Road in New Albany.

The workshop, from 1 to 3 p.m., will cover the basics of starting a business, including licenses and taxes, business planning, legal structure and financing. The cost is $12 to cover materials. Reservations are required, and the registration deadline is May 3. For more information or to register, call 945-0054. Riverfest II to be Thursday, Friday Riverfest II wiP be held Thursday and Friday at the New Albany Riverfront Amphitheatre.

The gates will open at 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday for the 8 p.m. performances. Lunch on the river will be available after 11 a.m. Friday.

Henry Lee Summer will perform Thursday, while "Nazareth" and the "Ozark Mountain Dare Devils" will appear Friday. New motocross track to open in Charlestown at it's MotOCrOSS finest By BEN Z. HERSHBERG and GREGORY A. HALL The Courier-Journal A 17-year-old student at New Albany High School was arrested yesterday and charged with stalking, intimidation and battery after authorities discovered a journal containing threatening language and violent pictures. Southern Indiana school officials have reported several similar incidents in the wake of an attack in which 15 people died at Columbine High School in suburban Denver on Tuesday.

A student was sent home with his parents yesterday from Floyd. Central High School for evaluation of possibly threatening comments, principal William Amerson said. And on Thursday a student was arrested at Jeffersonville High School for threatening comments and behavior. Parents also took a student home from Floyd Central Junior High School on Thursday after school authorities questioned him about a list of people who "upset" him, officials said. The Floyd and Clark schools aren't alone in dealing with possible threats by students in the wake of the Colorado shootings, said Leann Moren, director of business development for Charter Behavioral Health System in Jeffersonville.

The mental-health center has admitted five or six students this week for evaluation or treatment and is conducting outpatient evaluations of another half-dozen referred from Southern Indiana schools since Tuesday, Moren said. That's a big increase from most weeks. "I don't think the things they said at school, before Tuesday, would have been taken in this context," Moren said. Police were called to New Albany High School yesterday afternoon after complaints by a female student to a counselor and then to principal Steve Sipes about the behavior of a boy at the school during See SCHOOL Page 7, col. 1, this section Qualifying races will start about 3 p.m.

May 1, with the main event at 7. TV 41 1 MOTOCROSS i. 1 SEASON OPENER V-'-' I The track is nine-tenths of a mile long and includes rows of mounds that range from 2 to 45 feet high, LeMastus said. The track's tough, outer ring is modeled on a famous motocross course in Jerez, Spain, LeMastus said. The motocross course is approved by the American Motorcyclists' Association, he said.

LeMastus has scheduled 14 days of semiprofessional racing at Podium One this year. Admission will be $8 a person, with children 6 and under admitted free. For some people, motorcycle racing has bad connotations, LeMastus acknowledged. But racers at his track aren't leather-jacketed Hells Angels types, LeMastus said; they're well-conditioned athletes who love By BEN Z. HERSHBERG The Courier-Journal Next Saturday may be Derby Day, but for several hundred motorcyclists and perhaps thousands of spectators the focus will be on a different kind of racing.

A new dirt-bike motorcycle racing track Podium One Motoplex opens a week from today at the site of the old Charlestown Motor Speedway, on Ind. 3. Partners Bo LeMastus, Jay Baumert, Donald Graham and Bill Abel Jr. of Louisville bought the stock-car track for about $200,000 in the fall, LeMastus said. They've spent perhaps $150,000 renovating the track which closed in 1994 and the grandstand.

They also moved their Podium One motocross parts and acces- Jay Baumert, left, LeMastus and Donald Graham, along with partner Bill Abel bought the old Charlestown Motor Speedway for about $200,000. Semiprofessional riders will compete for purses totaling $1,500 to $2,000, LeMastus said. For more information, call Podium One at (812) 256-5517, or check out its Web site at: www.podiuml.com sory store from Louisville to their 30 acres in Southern Indiana. "The track is completely built," LeMastus said. Crews are still putting some finishing touches on the grandstand, but the air-conditioned restaurant and other amenities are ready to go, LeMastus said.

their sport. And the grandstand and restaurant are intended for families, he said. He expects 300 to 400 competitors on May 1, with qualifying races starting about 3 p.m. and the main event beginning at 7 well after the Kentucky Derby. Take the time to take a stand with your teen-agers the computer and want to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday, I'll sit up fast and notice.

Don't get me wrong. I am not blaming the parents of LESLIE SCANLON ior. These kids knew better than to bring home an R-rated movie. Their parents would never let them watch. I know families whose computers sit in the kitchen or the living room, where everyone can see what's on the screen and that's not by accident.

One mother said that if her sons were spending hours each day on the computer, she'd be standing over their shoulders watching what they were watching. They would not be allowed to become proficient at video games in which people blast away with guns. If one of her boys had a Web site, she'd make it her business to know what was on it. She'd rather give her children attention than things. It does take more trouble, kids and I will not allow guns in my home.

And it's not all up to parents. Every boss who's appalled by the Colorado tragedy should ask: Do I care about children? Do I make it tough for employees to spend time with their families? Do I typically expect them to work on, give more, put the job first, no matter what the family cost? These are not solutions or answers, and maybe I am naive. But as a mom, I want to do something and I can do better. I don't want to just stand back and watch our children be killed. Leslie Scanlon's column runs Saturdays on the Indiana page.

You can reach her at (502) 582-7192 or via e-mail at and more time, to be the parent who drives for the carpool and who coaches the team and who throws the slumber parties and who says yes, you do need to practice the piano and you do need to do your homework and get up, we're going to worship and I wouldn't dream of missing the parent conference. One mom I know said her daughter's middle school recently held a forum on gang violence and with 900 students in the school, only 10 parents came. This mom said parents have told her their children don't want the mom or dad at school it embarrasses the kids. She goes anyway. It is not against democracy or God or logic for a loving parent to say: I care about my loving, caring parents whose children are in jail or cemeteries or mental hospitals and who don't understand why.

Or they do understand why and tried everything they could think of to stop it, but couldn't. I do not have any magic answers. But I do think this: Parents can do more to take a stand on what's right and wrong. I'm not talking about controlling the universe. I am talking about some pretty basic things.

Let's start with the word "no." There is no law that says parents must let their children watch violent movies such as "Natural Born Killers" or "The Basketball Diaries." I remember going to the video store with my cousin's children one of them a high school sen Maybe I'm in a naive stage of parenting, my eyes blocked because my children are still little. They don't have any friends I don't know about. They don't make telephone calls without my permission. I always know where they are, because it's usually directly under my feet. Their favorite thing to do on the computer is to send e-mail to Grandma.

So maybe I am naive about what the teen-age years are like. But I hope, when they get older, that my children won't be assembling bombs in the garage without my knowledge. I hope they won't fool around with semiautomatic weapons that I didn't know were in the house. I hope that if they spend hours playing war games on the boys who hunted down their classmates and teachers in Littleton, this week. I have never met these parents and I am not judging them.

I know nothing of their values, their commitment, their efforts not even their names. I am mindful that good parents raise children who sometimes turn out terribly wrong. I have seen the pain on faces of INSIDE Evansville candidate ripped within party A fellow Republican has sharply criticized Evansville mayoral candidate David Woll for spending $1,000 on a private investigator to look into an opponent's background. B3 Magazine recognizes Indianapolis business Three brothers with a business in Indianapolis were recognized this week by Inc. magazine for operating the fastest-growing company based in the core of a U.S.

city. They had sales last year of $15 million in an area usually associated with crime, drugs and decay. B7 Worker killed on 1-265 identified A construction worker killed in a mishap on Interstate 265 has been identified as a 46-year-old Pekin woman. B8 DerbypFestival BEST BET: MINIMARATHON Along the 13.1 miles of the Derby Festival miniMarathon route from Iroquois Park to downtown the crowd of spectators takes on distinctly different characters. If you're heading out this morning for the race, which begins at 8, consider which one suits your mood: Feeling festive? There are always big crowds at Southern Parkway and Taylor Boulevard where the leaders will be coming out of Iroquois Park around 8:30 and not far downstream from there, at Southern and Woodlawn Avenue, where the Beechmont neighborhood turns the miniMarathon into an excuse to get together.

Feeling sadistic? Anywhere along Fourth Street in Old Louisville, you will see about 6,000 sufferers fighting through their personal "walls." (And if you're feel- Derby Festival KyDzFest! South Wing, Kentucky Fair Exposition Center. 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Giant interactive playground with entertainment and features for children. Admission is $7 at the door, free for children 3 or younger. Parking is $3.

EnergyDerby Festival Academic Challenge. East Hall, Kentucky Fair Exposition Center. Competition begins at 10 a.m.; finals, middle school, noon; high school, 1 p.m.; award presentation, 2 p.m. Admission is free. Parking is $3.

Derby Festival Chow Wagons. 11 a.m. -11 p.m. at the Belvedere; Garden Ridge, Blankenbaker Road at Interstate 64; Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, Floyd Street and Central Avenue. Live entertainment.

No lawn chairs, coolers, cans, bottles or pets. Admission is free with a Pegasus Pin. Derby Festival MusicFest at the Chow Wagon. 8 p.m., Belvedere. Music by The Rustics.

ing helpful, you could pitch in and cheer them on.) Or perhaps you're in the mood for a triumph? Bill Long a 71 -year-old Louisvillian who has run in all 25 miniMarathons suggests the northwest corner of Seventh and Market streets, the final turn of the race. "They're always about 10 deep there," he said fans poised to watch while some runners sprint and others limp toward the finish line one block east. TODAY Derby Festival Great Balloon Race. 7 a.m., liftoff, Kentucky Fair Exposition Center. Admission is free with a Pegasus Pin.

Parking is $3. Derby Festival miniMarathon. 8 a.m., Iroquois Park to Market and Sixth streets. Free for spectators. Derby Festival Running Wild Expo.

9 a.m.1 p.m., Commonwealth Convention Center, 221 Fourth St. 10 a.m., miniMarathon award presentation. Free. Admission is free with a Pegasus Pin. Derby Festival University of Louisville Spring Game.

Football scrimmage. Noon, Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, Floyd Street and Central Avenue. First 1,500 spectators receive a free 1999 Pegasus Pin. GTE Wireless Derby Festival Basketball Classic. 7:30 p.m., Freedom Hall, Kentucky Fair Exposition Center.

Tickets are $6 and $13, available at TicketMaster locations and the Fairgrounds ticket office. Derby Festival Take It to the Bucket. Basketball skills competition. 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Central High School, 1 1 30 W. Chestnut and Shawnee High School, 4018 W.

Market St. $10 to participate, free for spectators. See DERBY, Page 7, col. 4, this section INDEX Deaths B11 Weather B4.