The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 7

'Nufce Them' Rep Robin Beard Blackbirds Issue Really Heats Up Offices in D.C. i sr. it hulton Aide Feels Pretrial Release Funding to Stay By KENNETH JOST A top aide to Mayor Richard Fulton said yesterday he feels "certain" the Metro General Sessions Court pretrial intervention program can be funded at its present level at least until June 30. Sam McPherson, Fulton's executive assistant, also said Fulton has no preference as to where administrative control of the program is placed in the sheriff's office or with the nine lower-court judges themselves. McPHERSON MADE the statements in an hour-long meeting yesterday afternoon with representatives of several agencies involved in the program.

Fulton announced in Octoner the program faced possible termination at the end of this month because of mismanagement of Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) funds, which were used to pay the program's counsellors. Fulton cut back funding for the program, forcing the dismissal of tour administrative employes, and shifted it from the judges' control to the sheriff's office. Mcpherson's statements yesterday were the first indication the funding crisis can be averted and the most concrete evidence to date that the impasse between the mayor and the judges over control of the program can be resolved. "I THINK we're going to find some way to continue the program at least at its present level," McPherson said. "I think the mayor believes that.

I believe it. We think the program's important. "I think we can be fairly certain that we will continue the program at its present level at least until June 30. McPherson told two Metro officials in attendance to look into the possibility of obtaining other federal funds to keep the program alive. McPHERSON ALSO told the group that Fulton "has repeatedly said he doesn't care where the program is placed." He also said Fulton had expressed "his willingness to work with the judges and allow them to maintain control over the counselors." McPherson said Fulton's decision to shift the program to the sheriff's office was designed "to save some administrative costs." He made no mention of another reason originally cited by Fulton, an interpretation of the state law authorizing pretrial intervention programs as requiring that it be puf in the sheriff's office, which also administers the pretrial release program.

The judges, led by Presiding Judge Gale Robinson, protested tulton's bC 5f con sense thot's it's ol- fa a it- most tIme for the 0,, jpj $jk" ikmJl visit once ogoin. While workmen add the finishing touches to Christmas decorations in the downtown and Hills-boro Villoge areas one By KIRK LOGGINS Tennesseaa WitblngtM Bureau WASHINGTON Faces got red and tempers got hot in the offices of the Department of the Interior yesterday as Tennessee and Kentucky officials struggled with the red tape that has entangled them for six years now. And, above the tumult and the shouting, a sensitive observer might have detected the ghostly flutter of millions of blackbird wings. EFFORTS TO BREAK through the maze of Interior Department procedure and environmentalist opposition to eliminating the birds from the Ft. Campbell and Hopkinsville areas has become a "bureaucratic nightmare" Sen.

William E. Brock III, told Interior Secretary Thomas Kleppe. Brock complained the Interior Department has to be "re-educated" every time a new secretary is sworn in over there. Kleppe was one of those who had to be re-educated yesterday. Montgomery County Judge William 0.

Beach and two Hopkinsville officials labored mightily to explain to him why folks around there object to the bird invasion, and then said they'd have to provide him with documentary proof of health and other problems so he could justify a declaration of emergency in the area "from a legal point of view." KLEPPE'S INNOCENCE of comprehension of any part of the long-fought, long-publicized battle of the birds became evident when several references were made to cases of histoplasmosis, a disease spread by bird droppings, in the area. "What is this disease?" asked Kleppe. After an explanation, he asked the Tennessee and Kentucky congressmen present if they'd sought help from the U. S. Public Health Service.

"It takes those guys 15 minutes to sneeze," retorted Rep. Wendell Ford, scornfully. "I DON'T KNOW if they'd even, answer the telephone, added Brock. Rep. Robin Beard, who joined Rep.

Carroll Hubbard, in setting up the meeting with Kleppe, commented that his own solution the annual invasion of birds would be to "nuke we can'tdo that." Beard is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. "If we didn't have so many bird-brains up here, we wouldn't have so many birds down there," snorted Sen. Walter D. Huddleston, D-Ky. "This is a classic example of the various government agencies, who are supposed to look after the inter-est of the people, being completely hogtied." ALMOST EVERYBODY at the meeting bad-mouthed the Interior Department's "solution" of the bird problem, a legal settlement that requires a declaration of emergency before the biodegradable detergent Tergitol can be used to kill the birds.

"We feel like the Department of the Interior has done, in effect, what the U. S. District Court would not do," said Tom Osborne, Hopkinsville attorney, i The Interior Department and the Department of the Army, at the recommendation of the Justice Department, agreed last month to tight is spotless, it is obvious he is proud of it by the way he drives it, carefully ana lovingly giving long blasts at every crossing (one or two) on his whistle. rn IE TENNESSEAN controls on "the use of Tergitol, in exchange for a promise by the Society for Animal Rights, a New York group seeking a total ban on its use, not to push for a summary judgment until a "final comprehensive environmental statement" can be published. RONALD LAMBERTSON, attorney for the Interior Department, told the group at yesterday's meeting that the Justice Department had told Interior there were "98 chances in 100" that an immediate hearing on the suit would have resulted in even greater limitations on the use of Tergitol.

Hubbard asked Kleppe to act soon to allow the application of Tergitol to rid the area of its estimated 77 million migratory blackbirds, and "not stand by and wait for some reaction from a bunch of bird lovers in New York City." Attempts by the Army to use Tergitol to kill birds at Fort Campbell was held up for several months last winter by legal moves by two environmental groups. "IF YOU HAVEN'T got attorneys who can find a way to do it, you ought to get some new attorneys," Huddleston told Kleppe. Both Sen. Howard H. Baker and Rep.

Ed Jones, testified to the seriousness of bird problem. "I haven't practiced law in nine years, but I have seen these birds (at Milan, and it's frightening," Baker said after a recitation by Interior Department officials of their legal woes in the situation. The two states, said Brock, want "a short-term answer" that will authorize the use of Tergitol to get rid of the birds this winter, "but we also want a long-term solution," including more Interior Department research into mass invasions by migratory birds. Nothing But Sweet Aroma in Sight MEMPHIS (UPI) The Overton Park Zoo may soon become the sweetest-smelling zoo in the country. Dr.

Joel Wallach said his hopes for the future of the Memphis zoo are based on an experimental product designed to eliminate odors from animal droppings. "SMELL IS one of the major complaints of the zoo-goer who has been to an odorless Disneyland or Opry-land," said the zoo director. "Now, we can have the next best thing to not having live animals that is to have dead manure." Wallach said his staff has been adding an enzyme product called "Minus" to the food of wolves, foxes, cheetash and wild pigs for the past week, and so far, the odor remedy has lived up to the claims of its manufacturer, Edge Enterprises Inc. of Little Rock. "ODOR FROM the droppings has dissappeared.

And next week, we are moving on to some of our stinkiest the elephants and rhinos," Wallach said. Wallach said the product, which was approved for the experiment by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is an enzyme mix which is added to the animals' food and slows their digestive process. Years The cab driver made the observation that, "It (the locomotive) would have been junked years ago if it haden't been for the love and care it gets." -Staff phnlos by Robert Hollar ill if4Srl Thursday Ex-Hamblen Deputy Convicted In Embezzlement, Larceny Case MORRISTOWN, Tenn. (UPI) A Hamblen County Criminal Court jury returned two guilty verdicts yesterday against former sheriff's beputy Michael Jarnagin in the first of a three-week series of trials involving the sheriff and 10 others involved in county law enforcement activities.

The jury deliberated nearly three hours before finding Jarnagin, the son of Hamblen County Sheriff Gale Jarnagin, guilty on four counts of embezzlement and one of grand of 'Whip Poor Will' Engineer Still Drives After 25 move as mt ringing on their authority. The Nashville Bar Association board of directors publicly urged Fulton to return the program to the judges' administrative control. ATTORNEY JOHN Tune, representing the bar at yesterday's meeting, suggested a possible ordinance to establish a probation department as an administrative agency of Metro government and to combine in the department probation, pretrial intervention, and pretrial release programs. Pretrial release is designed to allow defendants to be freed pending trial on reduced bond or without bond. Pretrial intervention allows a youthful or first offender to avoid trial and have his record cleared if he is not arrested for a subsequent offense.

Once the pretrial intervention pro-cram received federal funds, the lower court judges started using the counsellors as a regular probation department, assigning them defendants after conviction as well as before trial. With Blow By ROBERT KOLLAR Ttonesstag Staff Corrtspondtnt TULLAHOMA The mournful sound of a whip-poor-will whistle casts Malcolm Williams into the dream world of his idol, Casey Jones, but Williams has no fear his end will come as Jones' did in a firey train wreck. For 25 years, Williams has driven Arnold Center's diesel-electric locomotive shuttle back and forth from the huge Air Force testinc center to the mainline at Tullahoma a distance of only 10 miles yet far enough for Williams to imagine that he's at the throttle of Jones' No. 382 which carried the legendary railroad engineer to his death May 1, 1900, at Vaughn, Miss. "WE MADE that whistle completely from scratch and I think it is the only authentic replica being used on a locomotive today," Williams said yesterday.

Williams, who is a railroad buff in addition to being an engineer, is affectionally spoken of by at least one cab driver at AEDC as "Casey" jikI his engine as "Old "He'd kill me if lie heard me say that, though," the driver added chuckling. A GJ, WILLIAMS lias no desire for Tune. "I'm perfectly lppy said a he drove Lis December 4, 1975 JUDGE KEN Porter reserved sentencing until the younger Jarnagin stands trial on other indictments, stemming from charges that he and other law enforcement officials took money and possessions from those they arrestee! and converted them to personal use. Three weeks have been set aside for trials, with former sheriff's Deputy Danny Collins scheduled to appear today to face embezzlement and conspiracy charges. Jarnagin, 21, denied the charges against nim, contending that he had placed fines paid him by persons he arrested on a variety of charges in a marks that have become familiar to him over the years.

A small herd of white-tailed deer grazing near the track called his attention to the now barely visible concrete foundations of former maintenance buildings that serviced vehicles when the area was occupied by an Army training center, Camp Forrest, during World War II. "SOME OF those roads (leading up to the tracks) are still good and we're rolling over what once was a main road in the old Camp Forrest," he added. "Up ahead there is Fire Tower Hill. It's as high as the water tower in Tullahoma," Williams said. Sure enough, as the train, consisting of the locomotive, a boxcar and a gondola car, made its way up the hill the Tullahoma fire tower came into view.

FIRSTSTOP on the journey was to pick up the boxcar at a warehouse where former president Harry Truman came to dedicate the center. This was a moment of glory for Williams. "President Truman's party rode my locomotive from Tullnho'ma to the center and back," said the engineer, who has traveled at least 2(H), 0w miles carrying people and supplies over the 10-mile route. J'ruman came to AEDC June 2.3, to dedicate the aerospace tee Page 21 box on the sheriff's door and had no idea what happened to the money after that. JARNAGIN DENIED he had access to the box, but Dist.

Atty. Gen. Heiskel Winstead produced witnesses, including former Deputy Gary McNabb, who said they saw oung Jarnagin open the box with a key. Jarnagin's father, who faces trial next week on charges of conspiracy, embezzlement, extortion and bribery, testified in his son's behalf. ing center in honor of H.

(Hap) Arnold, commander of the Army Air Corps during World War 'I- WILLIAMS USUALLY makes one run a day hauling from two to five cars but when AEDC was being built in the 1950's, it wasn't unusual for him to make Iwo runs hauling anywhere from 30 to 40 cars per run. "The idea of the railroad was to move heavy stuff we couldn't move any other way and it worked," Williams said. Williams and Old Rattler have become a legend on the center, because spur tracks connect the "main line" with almost all areas of the center THE LITTLE shuttle train never gets on the main line of the Railroad, and most of the shuttle track is on government property. Williams, who worked 18 years for the old Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway before joining ARO contract operator for the Air Force Systems Command's Arnold Engineering Development Center, said he thought about retiring but decided to wait two years.

"I'll get a better retirement that way," he said. WILLIAMS HIMSELF oversees maintenance on the locomotive and it hmj xYWiBL. "BSWr comotive across "the barrens" between the Center and Tullahoma at 20 mph. AS Old Rattler, a 1943 product of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, Philadelphia, moved past the scrub oaks and blackjack oaks that line the track, Williams pointed out land- wS -J Whip Poor Will i Still Tooting Along TULLAHOMA Molcom Williams goes to work in the cob of "Old just os he has every day for the lost 25 years..