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Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 4

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Rochester, New York
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DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE, ROCHESTER, N.Y.. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1984 ELECTIOH 'MTHE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION 5A image as entry port of new participants Democrats renew FROM PAGE 1A the original in politics in a way that no set of innovative position papers or the most imaginative use of computers to find likely voters can say. The struggle for power always gets headlines at a convention, but this past weekend's tug of war over the party chairmanship has less long-term significance than the device of giving party officials and officeholders an easier ticket to the convention, with 568 delegate seats, 14 percent of the total, reserved for them as officially unpledged "superdelegates." That was the chief change in the rules by the latest of the "reform" commissions that have rewritten the rules after every convention since 1968. That power struggle is one of three intertwined and enduring problems faced by America's senior major party. The others are its perennial money shortage and its "Ellis Island" role.

The problems run together. The constant money problems seem to offset the popular advantage of serving as the entry port for Americans seeking a political voice, and the efforts of the contingents that want power, like young people, blacks, and women, fuel the fight for power. But while the struggle will go on, this year's convention certainly records major changes in the balance of power, as just one example shows. In 1980, a year well past the zenith of reformist power, only eight of 59 Democratic senators went to the convention as delegates. Most just did not want to g6, especially if it required choosing sides between presidential candidates.

This year, 28 out of 45 Democratic senators are delegates. For House Democrats, the increase is even more imposing, from 37 to 175. A less measurable, but equally real, indication of the success of the latest rules changes is the platform; it avoids the specific endorsements of endless small interests that made the party seem like a confederation of hyphenated caucuses. But more for the establishment does not necessarily mean less for the former outsiders. Women's groups were among the few critics of the "superdelegate" scheme, fearing their influence would be diluted.

But this convention is all but certain to nominate a woman, Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York, for vice president. As for blacks, Jesse Jackson as a spokesman will give them an emotional influence they have not had on their own at any previous convention. Convention natural hotbed of gossip FROM PAGE 1A the know is a constant in politics.

Hotel lobbies and bars, trios of old friends heading out for dinner, strategy meetings all are opportunities to exchange inside tips and hot leads. Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale wanted Manatt to resign a political story Even so, there have been some changes. The party, which in the Jimmy Carter years spent more on polling than it did on direct mail, has established a list of several hundred thousand recurring contributors, and it has finally paid off the last of the $9.3 million in campaign debts run up by Robert F. Kennedy, Hubert H.

Humphrey, and Eugene J. McCarthy that the party assumed in 1968. It has, however, rolled up a new debt of more than $5 million, and only $250,000 is in the bank to put toward the $6.9 million that the parties' national committees are permitted to spend to supplement the $40.4 million in public funds each campaign will get. Change in all these areas may be slow, but it can be detected. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, while still more focused on protecting incumbents than is its Republican counterpart, is vastly more professional today than it was four years ago.

The training schools which the Democratic National Committee has run have helped. And most of all, the party's ties to labor are much deeper organizationally than they used to be. That is not an unmixed blessing, for labor is hardly among the most popular institutions in the country. But labor is providing millions of dollars directly to the national committee, and it is doing Democratic work with millions more in approaching its own members. Labor's role in the primaries was crucial to Walter F.

Mondale's success, not just because he won 45 percent of the votes cast from union households but also because he obtained money and workers when he had no other place to get them. But the gamble of endorsing a candidate has not been played out yet, and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations still has to provide votes in November to match a year of oratory. As Lane Kirkland, president of the federation, said here Thursday night, "The greater battle lies ahead, and we start from behind." Cheerfully, he said he saw the campaign ahead as "an historic challenge and a golden opportunity." In the long run, the party's hopes seem to depend on that Ellis Island image. Women have voted for 64 years, but they have been attaining real political power in recent years, power capped by the choice of Ms. Ferraro.

Blacks, many of whom saw the Reagan administration as a strong incentive to vote, have been stimulated to register by Jackson. side was "furious." If one party stalwart thought the move "a disaster," someone else escalated it to "Dien Bein Phu." It was "can you top this," played at freeway speed. And the practioners were engaging in what might be called the world's truly oldest hobby political gossip. All sides agree that a convention rumor, especially one on the floor itself, is like striking a match near 500 pounds of kindling. Gossip does not need a Manatt incident to erupt.

steam heat business deciding what to do about Lincoln Tower. Another possibility, he said, is to build a heating system jointly with Xerox Corp. and owners of other nearby buildings. There's plenty of time to decide before the 1985-86 heating season, he said. Xerox Corp.

spokesman Terry Dillman said Xerox is planning its own boiler system for Xerox Tower. Others seem to have the same doubts. In recent years, Genesee Brewing General Railway Signal Rochester Instrument Systems and Farash Construction Co. have disconnected from the steam system, Lappan said. Those in the process of converting away from steam, he said, include Gannett Rochester Newspapers, Mixing Equipment the Salvation Army and Christ Church.

STEAM DUSHJESS As Rochester Gas and Electric steam prices have increased, its sales and number of customers have declined. The number of users is as of Dec. 3 1 of each year. Cuomo sets tone, theme of campaign FROM PAGE 1A Cuomo said the policy of government used by the Reagan administraion was one of "divide and cajole," favoring the strong and the wealthy and making life more difficult for the poor. In an elaborate metaphor, Cuomo said Reagan's vision of America as a "shining city of the hill" has in reality become a "tale of two cities." "The hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city's splendor and glory.

A shining city is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch where everone seems to be doing well," Cuomo said. "But there's another part of the city, the part where some people can't pay their mortgages and most young people can't afford one, where students can't afford the education they need and middle-class par- enta watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate. "In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can't find it" Cuomo delivered the speech before an overflowing crowd under the barrel-shaped arches of Moscone Center. Although the convention had been in session for more than four hours, Cuomo's speech was scheduled for a prime-time Eastern television audience. Cuomo has made the "family of New York" the theme of his two years as governor.

Last night he expanded the theme to the "family of America." "We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most text books and any speech what a proper government should be: the idea of family," Cuomo said. "Mutuality. The sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one anohter's pain, sharing one another's blessings. Reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race or sex or geographic or political affiliation." In another allusion familiar to New Yorkers, Cuomo described his immigrant heritage for a national audience, recalling memories of his father. "I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work 15 and 16 hours a day.

I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the lan Ships idle while crews clean Houston oil spill Associated Press DEER PARK, Texas Houston's busy ship channel remained closed yesterday, idling about 30 ships while a special Coast Guard team tried to collect 33,000 gallons of fuel oil that spilled from a grounded tanker. Coast Guard spokesman Bruce Rutherford said officials had not decided when the Stun Gun on sale here for defense FROM PAGE 1A power the Nova XR-5000 gives you!" reads the brochure from the gun's manufacturer, Nova Technologies Inc. of Texas. The Stun Gun lets you immediately hit your attacker with over 40,000 volts of electricity. And that's enough power to temporarily paralyze and drop even the biggest, strongest opponent!" The Stun Gun isn't really a gun, though, said Chuck Weigland, who owns the Magnum Gun Shop with his parents, Marilyn and Charles Weigland.

It's a small plastic unit, 6 inches long, 2 'A inches wide, and 3A inches high, that discharges 40,000 volts of electricity through two tiny probes at one end. When the probes come in contact with a person and are activated, by pushing two buttons on either side of unit, the electricity interrupts the neurological impulses that control the body's voluntary muscles, he said. Because the person has no control over his muscles, he collapses and is immobilized for as long as 15 minutes, Weigland said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's the ultimate defense weapon without physically being a weapon," Weigland said. It's legal, non-lethal and anyone can use it.

Rochester police don't know enough about the Stun Gun to comment on it or its possible uses, said Sgt. Don Williams, department spokesman. Charles Siragusa, first assistant district attorney, also couldn't comment much about it because no stunning cases have been tested in court before. But, he said, police charges probably could be brought if the unit were misused. "I don't think you can buy one and then indiscriminately start zapping people Siragusa said.

Anything can be considered a weapon if it's misused. Dr. Toshio Akiyama, a cardiologist at Strong Memorial Hospital who specializes in electrophysiology, said he doubts the Stun Gun would immobilize anyone. "My guess is it may give a stunning effect because of the pain and the contractions of the muscles," he said. But it probably wouldn't stop anyone.

"For example, as long as the two electrodes came in contact with, say the arm, then the attacker would lose the use of the muscles in that particular arm for a few seconds," Akiyama said. The same would be true of the muscles in the leg or those con-troled by the spinal column. If they were applied to the face or neck, "that may cause what you people call a concussion, a knockout punch." Akiyama also said the Stun Gun probably wouldn't cause any permanent injury, not even to people with pacemakers or heart conditions. "My guess is the most it will give is a little bit of a skin burn" where the electrodes are applied." Baxter Gentry, spokesman for Nova Technologies said the Stun Gun was developed for police as an alternative to guage, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example," Cuomo said. "I learned about our kind of Democracy from my father." Cuomo outlined what he described as a Democratic "credo," touching a number of important Democratic themes.

"We believe as Democrats that a society as blessed as ours, the most affluent democracy in the world's history, that can spend trillions on instruments of destruction, ought to be able to help the middle class in its struggle, ought to be able to find work for all who can do it, room at the table, shelter for the homeless, care for the elderly and infirm, hope for the destitute," he said. "We proclaim as loudly as we can the utter insanity of nuclear proliferation and the need for a nuclear freeze, if only to' affirm the simple truth that peace is better than war bedcause life is better than death. "We believe in firm buy-fair laws and order, in the union movement, in privacy for people, openness by government, civil rights and human rights." But Cuomo also counseled using reasonableness and common sense in addressing the nations problems. "We believe in a government characterized by fairness and reasonableness, a reasonableness that goes beyond labels, that doesn't distort or promise to do what it knows it can't do," he said. "A government strong enought to use the words "love' and 'compassion' and smart enough to convert our noblest aspirations into practical realities." Cuomo also criticized the economic record of the Reagan administration, which he said has divided the nation "into those who are temporarily better off and those who are worse off that before." He criticized the $200 million budget deficit as "threatening to our future" and dismissed the recent economic recovery as one based on "illusions." Cuomo also criticized Reagan's foreign policy as confusing to both enemies and allies and said "we have no real commitment to our friends or our ideals." Cuomo said that he did not intend to attack Reagan personally, although he did describe his as "the man who threatens Social Security and Medicaid and help for the disabled." Cuomo said the election will be more than a referendum on the past four years of the Reagan administration.

He said it also "will answer the question of what kind of people we want to be." channel will be reopened. Twenty vessels stood at anchor in the Gulf, waiting to enter the channel, and 10 ships were stranded in port, blocked by the spill from returning to sea, he said. The 520-foot Venezuelan tanker Turpial ran aground Saturday night after apparently losing control of its propulsion system. The ship developed a leak and officials said about 33,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil escaped before the tanker crew could halt the spill. billy clubs.

About 100 police agencies have authorized their use since the Stun Guns hit the market in January, he said. But most sales are to individuals who want protection. Gentry has never been zapped, but he tried to describe how it feels: "Have you ever hit your funny bone? That's about the closest I can compare it to. It's not really pain you just feel a little bit dazed and out of control. Weigland ordered his first Stun Guns in March and figures he's sold at least 10 dozen so far.

They cost $80 apiece, or $100 for the package that includes a holster, two rechargeable 9-volt batteries and a battery charger. He figures he sells about 12 Stun Guns for every regular gun he sells. "Unfortunately, the way things are today, almost everybody needs some sort of protection whether it's a knife, a gun or a Stun Gun," said Weigland. "One of the most rudimentary fears that every person has is of electricity," he said, squeezing the buttons to create a blue arc of electricity between the probes. "Obviously if you use a test arc and they don't back off, then whatever happens is their own fault." Justice Dept.

seeks to overturn quotas FROM PAGE 1A Judge Myron H. Thompson after he found there were four blacks among 44 corporals, and no black sergeants, lieutenants, captains or majors. In its 11 -page brief filed Friday, the Justice Department said "the one-black-for-one-white promotion requirement imposed by the district court in this case is precisely the sort of racial quota that the court (in the Memphis case) found impermissable." The high court ruled in the Memphis case there had been no proof that the black firefighters protected from layoffs had been individual victims of discrimination. The Justice Department contended in its brief that the individual discimination standard outlined in the Memphis case applies to promotions as well as layoffs. "Rather than basing promotions on valid nondiscriminatory criteria, it gives preferential treatment to black applicants for promotion who have not been identified as actual victims of racial discrimination," the department said in the brief signed by Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds, head of the civil rights division.

After the Memphis decision, department officials said they intended to use the case to overturn other affirmative action programs involving hiring and promotion quotas. The Justice Department which had originally entered the Alabama case in 1972 on the side of black state troopers, switched sides in May when it filed a brief in support of the state's appeal What about another, overlapping group, the liberals? Half the delegates to this year's convention call themselves liberals, or 10 times as many as claim a conservative label, according to a survey by The New York Times. For good or ill, this is a measure of how the rules changes have changed the party. Peace and quiet and civility may be im- portant assets, but they just set the stage for possible do not mean the party has been making progress. One finding of The New York Times-CBS News Polls stands out In the spring of 1980, 42 percent of adult Americans called themselves Democrats and 23 percent said they were Republicans.

Today it is 38 percent and 27 percent Even with all the attention that has surrounded the growing tendency of women to favor Democratic candidates more heavily than do men, which has come to be known as the "gender gap," the tendency has not yet helped in absolute terms; four years ago 45 percent of American women said they were Democrats and today 40 percent do. Perhaps one key reason is money. Republican fund-raising outfits outdo Democrats by margins of up to 10 to 1. The money may not all be well spent, but there is so much of it, relatively, that it carries a lot of weight Republicans spend more on television, which everybody sees, but they also more on the political future, on computers and technology and issue research and advertising. When the Democrats began training candidates and aides in 1981, it was news.

But Republicans have been doing it for years, and still train more campaign press secretaries a year than the Democrats train congressional candidates. There is also a distinct lack of intellectual definition in the party. Sen. Gary Hart touched a nerve in this year's campaign when he said that the Democrats needed "new ideas." The rejection of Hart's own candidacy, largely at the hands of the party leaders and elected officials, did not make his argument go away. If this party's platform succeeds in avoiding odd ideas, it also lacks the compelling themes that characterize occasional political campaigns, notably that of the Republicans in 1980.

The problem, in simplest terms, is how to retain the allegiance of the voting blocs that the New Deal glued together while shaking off the image of the New Deal itself, and with it the implication that the party's vision is a half-century old. that would have been news any time. But here, everything was telescoped, compressed, intensified. If what Mondale and Manatt did was crucial to only 5,000 people in the entire United States, Mondale had decided to make his move when most of those 5,000 were crammed into a 40-block area. The presence of 13,000 reporters, television crews, commentators and pundits, with little to do except follow the story, was built on by every delegate's apparent desire to add information and indignation.

If one delegate was angry, the one at his steam, had the same result Price increases create their own vicious circle. Each increase drives away customers, leaving fewer to pay the fixed costs, which causes additional increases, and so on. "We've been stating quite openly the steam system would have to go by the wayside," he said. Laniak said never asked, in so many words, for permission to shut off the steam system. But in a study, he said, concluded most customers wouldn't find it worthwhile to keep on paying the rising cost of steam.

The PSC, after an investigation of the steam system, on July 11 ordered to plan its abandonment. The PSC also gave a $2.6 million rate increase that will raise most steam customers' bills 23 percent to 29 percent. Hanselman, the consultant, said Rochester has a high enough concentration of steam customers and cold enough winters to make a districtwide steam system feasible. He said such a system would have co-generate electricity and steam for heat, as now does, and would have to use coal or solid waste for fuel. The area served might be "more compact" than service areas, he said.

Some customers, who are on the end of long steam lines, might be too expensive to serve. The new system might be owned by a users cooperative, he said, or an authority created by government. Another possibility would be to sell the system to a private company that specializes in operating steam systems. James A. Sykes, spokesman for Lincoln First Banks said Lincoln would wait to see the results of Hanselman study before Democrat and (Chronicle Volume 152.

Number 170 The Democrat and Chronicle (USPS 153-100) is published Monday through Saturday. The Sunday Democrat and Chronicle (USPS 558310) is published every Sunday at 55 Exchange Rochester, New York. 14614. Subscriber Service 1. To tart home deli very or change your subscription: Call 232-5550 between 9:30 AM and 8 PM on weekdays, and 8 AM and 4:30 PM on Saturdays.

2. To solve a delivery problem: First, call your carrier. If unsuccessful, call 232-5550 between 7:30 AM and 8 PM on weekdays, 8 AM and 4:30 PM on Saturdays, and 9 AM and 1 PM on Sundays. If 232-5550 is busy Sunday mornings, call 423-0020. If you notify us by 9:30 AM weekdays.

1 1:30 AM Saturday or Noon on Sunday about a missed delivery, and live in Rochester or vicinity, a make-up copy will be radio dispatched to you. If you need additional service assistance, call our service HOTLINE at 232-7100. ext. 3607. 3619 or 3545 between 8:30 and 5 PM weekdays, or write to Director of Circulation, Gannett Rochester Newspapers, 55 Exchange Rochester, NY 14614.

3. To discuss a computer generated subscription bill: Can 232-7100, and ask for Subscription Billing Department, between 8:30 AM and 4 PM Monday through Friday. High costs force to give up the Year Price1 Sales' Users 1983 $14.28 1,128,250 143 1982 $12.74 1.803,506 208 1981 $12.28 2,146,556 234 1980 9.77 2,413,879 271 1979 7.16 2,792,170 318 1978 6.45 2,963,500 339 1977 6.44 2,950,287 360 1976 5.84 3,147,359 380 1975 5.51 3,145,453 389 1974 4.51 3,622,422 401 FROM PAGE 1A summer to figure out what they're going to do. John Hellems, vice president-environment of Genesee Hospital, estimated the hospital would have to spend $2.5 million for its own boiler system if steam service ceases. "We obviously have other uses for that capital," he said.

"We would much sooner stay with a centralized system and are not particularly interested in coming up with our own boiler plant." The city government probably would have to spend about $1.25 million to replace steam to heat the War Memorial, Public Safety Building and other downtown buildings, although presumably some of the cost of heating the Civic Center complex would be shared with the Monroe County government said Jim Malone, the city's commissioner of environmental services. steam also is used to heat Lincoln First Tower, Xerox Tower, Sibley's department store, the Delco Products plant and Rochester Community Savings Bank downtown offices. A consulting firm, Resource Development Associates of Dayton, Ohio, is studying the feasibility of a districtwide steam heating system for downtown Rochester. Its presi-' dent, William Hanselman, said a preliminary report would be ready "in a couple of months." "Over the entire civilized world, central heating districts are considered the most efficient way to heat central cities," said David Thurston, a mechanical contractor who has long advocated such a system for Rochester. He said a meeting of steam cus-.

tomers would be held on Aug. 8 at 3:30 p.m. at St Luke's Episcopal Church, 17 S. Fitz-hugh St. David K.

Laniak, vice president of corporate said current plan was simply to shut down the steam system by Oct 1, 1985. However, he said, the utility is willing to listen to any proposal. In the past he said, various groups have said 'if somebody could give us some money, we could make it Well, that is the nub of the problem. Where do you get money, except from customers?" first started selling steam, a byproduct of its electric generating plants, in 1889. Ninety-five percent of downtown businesses were heated with steam as recently as 1950.

But the price of steam has been increasing since the mid-1970s. added its last new steam customer in 1976. George Lappan, an spokesman, said steam prices have increased because: The price of fuel oil and natural gas, the fuels in steam plants, have gone up. Urban renewal drove some steam customers out of business, leaving a smaller number to pay the fixed costs of the steam system. Energy conservation, by reducing use of Average price per 1.000 lbs.

In of lbs. Source of data- Rochester Gas and Electric annus reports Classified To place classified ads, call 454-4200. Or call the nearest regional office: Brockport 637-3145; Canandaigua 924-5460. To cancel or correct your ad, call the customer service desk, 546-8150. New If you have a news tip, call 232-7100 and ask for the Democrat and Chronicle metro editor.

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$5 50 tor three months. $20 per year. Educator's rale: Newspapers tor classroom use. can 232-7100. et 366? The Publisher reserves the right to change subscription rates during the term of a subscription upon thirty days notice.

This notice may be by ma to the subscriber, by notice contained in the newspaper itself, or otherwise. Subscription rate changes may be implemented by changing the duration uf the subscription. Second-daw postage paid at Rochester. N.V. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Gannett Rochester Newspapers.

SS Eaclwnge Rochester, N.V. 14 14.

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