The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 128

The Palm Beach Post MSL SECTION OCAL1 MARTINST. LUCIE Ex-New York police officer charged with murder of wife FRIDAY, MAY 1, 1992 said. Mark P. Stahl 42, is charged in the 1985 death of his wife, Dianne, who was reported missing after a domestic dispute, police said. Her body hasn't been found, but investigators believe it was dumped in the Toms River in New Jersey.

"We've known where he is for the past seven years," said Michael Mohel, an investigator with the Ocean County, N.J., prosecutor's office. Mohel would not discuss what Woman missing for seven years By JIM REEDER Palm Beach Post Staff Writer PORT ST. LUCIE A former New York City police officer suspected of killing his wife seven years ago was arrested on a murder charge Thursday as he left a local pharmacy, police ed in a 1987 article. On Thursday morning, Mohel and Port St. Lucie Detective Rick Wilson followed Stahl from his house at 814 Cavern Ave.

to Floresta Centre, a small shopping center on Floresta Drive. He was arrested without incident when he walked out of a drugstore around 11:20 a.m., police said. Stahl, charged with first-degree murder, is being held without bail in breakthrough allowed prosecutors to get a warrant for Stahl's arrest. Dianne Stahl, 30, was reported missing in June 1985 after she supposedly left her Toms River, N.J., house after arguing with husband, Mohel said. Mark Stahl retired from the New York City Police Department in 1984 after questions arose about his associations with reputed organized crime figures in the 106th Precinct in Queens, The New York Times report the St.

Lucie County Corrections Center pending extradition to New Jersey. Neighbors contacted Thursday said they don't know Stahl and could provide no information on how long he had lived in their neighborhood. Police could not say how long he had lived in Port St. Lucie nor whether he is employed. The front door of Stahl's house was open, and people who rang the doorbell were met by a large German shepherd.

Stahl Delay in crack trial is denied A i Golf course may lead state in toxin control 9: Defense unable to find witness against agent Research site decision is postponed By CAROLYN FRETZ Palm Beach Post Staff Writer STUART Are they wetlands or just a bunch of old mosquito control ditches? That was the issue before Martin County's Development Review Committee on Thursday as an environmental education center that has been on the drawing board for several years hit another snag. Officials with the Florida Oceanographic Society submitted a site plan for their Coastal Science Facility to Martin County's Develop-'. ment Review Committee. The committee refused to take any action on the plan until the society gets a clear determination from both the state and Martin County on whether the 40-acre site, which is itself environmentally sensitive, can be developed. The Oceanographic Society wants to build the center, including an aquarium, a native plant nursery, a research laboratory and several nature trails, on the southern end of Hutchinson Island where State Road A1A turns north.

The site includes shoreline along the Indian River, native hardwood hammocks, uplands and wetlands. The wetlands were the issue at Thursday's meeting. Please see OCEANOGRAPHIC3B By CAROLYN FRETZ Palm Beach Post Staff Writer STUART A Palm City golf course may become the first in Florida to ensure that accidental spills of greens chemicals do not end up in ground water. The developers of the Martin Downs community met with Martin County's Development Review Committee on Thursday to ask for approval to construct a small chemical containment building on the development's golf club grounds. The committee did not make a ruling on the proposal because a final blueprint for the building has not been submitted.

Outside of agriculture, golf courses are generally the biggest users of herbicides and pesticides, said Jim Freeman of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Soil and Conservation Service. The greatest damage to the environment from those toxic chemicals occurs when they are spilled in their concentrated form. That type of accident frequently occurs when the chemicals are being loaded and unloaded from spraying equipment. "Water is used to dilute the chemicals before spraying," Freeman said.

"So, more often than not the mixing and loading is going on near a well or a lake or some other body of water." So when a spill happens, it goes straight into the water supply, he said. Seeing those sorts of accidents first hand gave David Oliver, the superintendent of the Martin Downs golf course, the brainstorm that has put his course on the environmental vanguard. "I saw there could be a better way of handling our chemicals," he said. "I had an idea for a building, and I drew up some rough sketches." Please see G0LF3B By PAT MOORE Palm Beach Post Staff Writer STUART A judge rejected a defense attorney's plea Thursday for more time to find and question East Stuart residents who claim they smoked crack cocaine with an undercover Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent. Circuit Judge Marc Cianca ordered Calvin Jackson's trial to begin today regardless of whether defense attorneys can find a "key witness" who signed a court affidavit Tuesday stating he smoked crack with FDLE Agent John D.

Jones Jr. "on several occasions within the past six months." Jones, 33, a special agent trainee who has a probationary status with FDLE, made 50 cocaine buys that led to the arrests of 18 defendants in a four-month drug sweep in East Stuart dubbed "Operation Custer." Jackson, 35, is the first of the 18 defendants to stand trial on charges of possessing and selling cocaine to Jones. On Thursday, Assistant State Attorney Louis Stern questioned two of the witnesses who also filed affidavits in court stating they smoked crack with Jones or traded him sex for drugs. i But those witnesses, Coletta Lee and Nita Davis, "were not real strong on times and identification" when questioned by the prosecutor, Assistant Public Defender Rory Little told the judge. Little said the strongest witness against Jones, Levi Starks, didn't show up for questioning and could not be located Thursday.

"I think it's all a sham an attack of a very good officer by people with long criminal histories," Assistant State Attorney Rich-. ard Barlow told the judge. Cianca told Little he would make time during Jackson's trial for Little and the prosecutors to question Starks, if they find him. Three other attorneys who represent defendants charged in Operation Custer also said they have found witnesses who make similar claims against Jones. Stuart attorney Michael Rubin was the first to ask Cianca to order Jones to submit to blood and urine tests to determine Whether drugs were present.

He filed a new affidavit in court Thursday, in which East Stuart resident Sylvia Pearson states that Jones gave a friend of hers $50 to buy crack cocaine for him. After the friend bought the crack, Pearson said she and Jones met the friend at an Econo-Lodge, Please see CRACK3B PAUL J. MILETTEStaff Photographer Lights Set For Prima Vista And Bayshore PORT ST. LUCIE Jack Wilson of Fort Pierce and Bayshore boulevards. Wilson said the assembles traffic lights Thursday that Signal lights will flash yellow for a few days before Construction Co.

is installing at Prima Vista being set to a green-yellow-red sequence. Martin gets $2 million for 2 endangered-habitat sites Neither parcel will be developed, but the county is planning to allow public access to the land, said Kathy Leahy, Martin County executive assistant. Martin County will kick in $500,000 for each parcel. Hurchalla said the county has already raised $20 million through a bond. issue for the Lands For You project.

The county has already matched more than $17 million of that with money from state agencies. and kind of proud," Martin County Commissioner Maggy Hurchalla said. The 50-acre Seacrest Scrub site in Boyn-ton Beach received $800,000 apd the 39-acre Knob Hill parcel received $1.9 million. The Kiplinger Parcel is 116 acres west of State Road 76 and south of Indian Street. Part of the land is on an island on the St.

Lucie River's south fork. The Gomez parcel is 51 acres south of Seabranch on the Intracoastal Waterway near Peck Lake Park. By SCOTT SHIFREL and ELIOT KLEINBERG Palm Beach Post Staff Writers Two environmentally threatened parcels in Martin County and two in southern Palm Beach County will receive a total of $4.74 million from a state account set up to help buy and preserve such sites. The four parcels were among 21 selected from applicants to the Florida Community Trust Funds, an agency of the Florida Department of Community Affairs. In Martin County, the Kiplinger site re ceived $1 million and the Gomez Avenue site $1.04 million.

The sites were ranked fifth and 10th respectively on the list of 21. The respective local governments will match the state money to buy the sites. Martin County was among the top 10 counties in terms of the amount of money it was awarded. Both Martin County projects are part of the county's Lands for You project. Both parcels are in areas that will be heavily urbanized.

"It makes a person feel kind of humble Stuart trims candidates for city manager to 6 Lender buys Seminole Inn for 8130,000 i By SCOTT SHIFREL Palm Beach Post Staff Writer STUART City commissioners on Thursday trimmed a list of candidates for city manager to six. "It's a good list," Mayor James Christie said. The top-ranked applicant was Michael Copp, city manager of Glenwood Springs, Colo. Port St. Lucie City Manager Don Cooper and Stuart's acting city manager, Terry O'Neil, also made the list.

Commissioners will interview the finalists May 9 and hope to hire a city manager to replace Jack Noble by June. Noble quit April 17 to become Southwest regional director of Operations Management International, the firm that operates the city's sewer plant. Commissioners said they favored candidates from Florida or those with experience in similar-size cities. Please see STUART3B a i -i i-X By PAT MOORE Palm Beach Post Staff Writer STUART A company that-loaned a couple $441,000 to buy -Indiantown's historic Seminole Country Inn four years ago was the highest bidder for the 27-room hotel Thursday in a public foreclosure auction. Miami attorney Ruth Fried-lander bid $130,000 for ITT Small Business Finance Corp.

of St. Louis, the firm now owed $563,768 in principal and interest on the 1988 loan to Charles and Jane Miner. The only other bidder was In-diantown businessman Homer Wall, who has owned the two-story country inn twice before. He bid several times before stopping at $127,000. After the bidding was over, Thomas Passarelli, a retired New York restaurateur, said he hopes to buy the inn from ITT, refurbish the wood-floor structure and once again open the hotel and restaurant Please see RETIREE3B vt Post's St.

Lucie bureau moving The St. Lucie County news office of The Palm Beach Post is moving Monday from the St. Lucie Square shopping center to the St. Lucie Business Park, about two miles south on U.S. 1.

The new address is 8290 Business Park Drive, Port St. Lucie, Fla. 34952. The phone number will remain 878-9988, but the fax machine number will change to 878-4586. The business park is about one mile south of Prima Vista Boulevard, behind Cater's Furniture.

The office is next to The Post's circulation warehouse in the building near the end of Business Park Drive, on the left side of the road. PAUL J. MILETTEStaff Photographer Fire Destroys Stanley Steemer Van FORT PIERCE St. Lucie County firefighters van and most of its contents were destroyed put out a blaze in a Stanley Steemer Carpet in the 4 p.m. fire, but no one was hurt.

The Cleaner van Thursday on Peterson Road. The fire's cause is under investigation..