Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 27

a success stohy He can't read or write, and he's no stranger to adversity, but ex-migrant worker Simon SUNDAY MAY 19. 1985 ROCHESTER NEW YORK SECTION 3B METRO PEOPLE i 7B RELIGION 8B METRO BRIEFS Henderson of Williamson in Wayne County advises a college. Story on 2B. fl Democrat anft (Chronic U) I ri V' til- rain it imi mt fc wm mitmttmfM fcnmr fir-n rr ri mr nfrntfr mtntM chop) balances its bydlgeil $7.7 million gap is closed By Mary Holleran Democrat and Chronicle Superintendent Laval S. Wilson's offer to cut expenses by $438,000 and the school board's hope of receiving at least $1.7 million in federal aid clinched the balancing of the City School District's 1985-86 budget.

What started out as a projected gap of $7.7 million was closed yesterday, ending two weeks of almost daily budget review and piecemeal cutting sessions, described by several board members as frustrating and anxious. Continual deliberations were necessary since the budget process started later than usual, and the board had committed itself to giving the City Council with a balanced budget by the end of May. The city's $3 milhon contribution early last week helped the board substantially trim the projected gap in the superintendent's proposed $182.4 million budget, but it didn't solve the problem. "If we had not gotten the $3 million from City Council, there would have been a requirement to look at major programmatic cuts," Wilson said. The board has made good on its pledge to make spending cuts about $3 million worth.

And while board members opposed Wilson's original recommendations to cut the football program, phase out the School Without Walls, and cut elementary art and instrumental music, they did agree with more than $1 million in cuts on the initial $3.1 million cut list. Other cuts the board agreed to make Friday night included the elimination of six sentries, 10 secondary teachers, 13 new special education aides and $100,000 budgeted for secondary sports teams that are not fielded in every school. Board members also sliced $31,000 from travel, meals and supply budgets for themselves and the central office. The $438,000 reduction in expenses Wilson offered to make will come from cuts of $60,000 in each of the budgets for special education and the divisions of curriculum and instruction and business services. The superintendent's central office, the student support services divisions and the public information office will be forced to cut back on their spending by $50,000 each.

Wilson said it was likely those cuts could mean loss of personnel and services. He pledged to make no cuts that would Ben Brink Democrat and Chronicle Cub Pack 243 members pulling their 400-pound inflated alligator along Main Street in yesterday's Lilac Festival Parade. 50,000 see lilac parade; rain missed it Blaze destroys a vacant house Fire raged out of control for more than 30 minutes yesterday morning, destroying a vacant house at 384 Denise Road. City firefighter Kurt Brinkman of the Quint 1 company suffered a broken wrist when he slipped off the firetruck while fighting the 10:30 a.m. blaze, said Battalion 1 Chief Adrian Moffett When firefighters arrived, the 2 xh -story house was engulfed in flames.

The fire burned two trees standing next to the house and snapped off the electrical lines to the house, Moffett said. The house had been boarded up, but one of the boards over the windows had been removed and a door had been opened, Moffett said. The fire's cause still under investigation. Firefighters did not know who owned the house. Accused of cutting man A Rochester man accused of cutting a man on the back during a dice game was arraigned yesterday in City Court.

Marcus McFadden, 23, of 269 Bernard St. was arrested Friday and charged with second-degree assault He pleaded innocent to the charges. According to court records, the suspect is accused of cutting Timothy Darrison, 45 Farbridge twice on his back with a razor. Darrison was treated at Genesee Hospital, where he received 42 stitches. Police said the two men were arguing during the match and Darrison decided to throw the dice away.

Darrison started to run away but was caught and slashed on the' back. The incident occurred on Hudson Avenue. Student chemists in finals Three Rochester-area high school students are among 20 of the nation's top chemistry students named as finalists in competition for the U.S. team to the International Chemistry Olympiad. Local finalists are Leon Balents, a senior at Honeoye Falls-Lima High School, Richard Machonkin, a senior at Webster Senior High School, and Elliot Marx, a senior at Brighton High School.

The olympiad is a series of exams and other activities that covers theoretical problems and laboratory experiments in analytical, biochemical, organic, inorganic and physical chemistry to help determine the besj; high school chemistry students in the world. The finalists were selected from 488 high school students nationwide and will meet June 10-21 at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, for a 12-day study camp sponsored by the American Chemical Society. Four students will be chosen there to represent the United States at the international competition in Czechoslovakia. E.

Irondequoit luncheon East Irondequoit 55 Plus Club is holding its fifth annual spring luncheon at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow at Sweet's Party House, 767 Holt Road, Webster. The event is open to all East Irondequoit school district retirees and their guests; Tickets are $8.75 a person. For information and reservations, call Jim Sims, 265-9878. Impotence in diabetics Dr.

Robert S. Davis, associate professor of urology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and Mary Jane Stubbings, a nurse and clinician in the medical center's urology department, will discuss diagnosis and treatment of impotence in diabetics from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at the UR School of Nursing, Helen Wood Hall, 255 Crittenden Blvd. The program was planned and sponsored by the patient education committee of the American Diabetes Association's Rochester Regional Chapter.

High school art festival A thousand pieces of student artwork and five rock groups, choirs, bands, drama and dance groups will provide entertainment at the annual Pittsford Sutherland Art Festival May 31. The festival, on the lawn in front of Pittsford Sutherland High School from 2 to 7:45 p.m., features a clothesline art show with judging by local artists. Snack and dinner foods will be sold. Candidate for legislature John T. Wigg, a plant manager, at Xerox has announced he will run for County Legislature in the 9th District, which includes all of Penfield.

Wigg, of 143 Hillrise Drive, Penfield, has received the Democratic Party endorsement. He is expected to face Republican George C. Wiedemer, who was appointed to the legislature in January to fill the seat left vacant by the death of John J. Coffey. Wigg has' not previously run for elective office.

He is a member of St. Jo- seph's Church in Penfield and has been active in Little League and Cub Scouts. Watch a young blacksmith The Board of Cooperative Educational Services No. 1 will hold an open house Wednesday where students will give demonstrations in blacksmithing, horticulture, construction, mechanics and landscaping. The demonstrations will be held from 1 to 8 p.m.

at the campus, 6401 E. River Road, West Henrietta, and at 5 p.m. a sheep-shearing presentation and a horse show will be held. I Joe Cook, parade chairman. He report- ed few snafus, except logistical problems in lining up parade entrants because of contruction on East Avenue.

Groups came from as far away as" Brockville, Ontario, to march in the "parade, and highlights included the Philadelphia Mummers. "I think it's the enthusiasm of all the kids that makes the parade," said Pam Preskenic of Lima, who brought her l'2 -year-old, Bobby, to the event. Not everyone thought the parade had enough enthusiasm-generating pizzazz. "There weren't enough bands at first. It was too spaced out," said Elisa Sadoff of Park Avenue.

"It's picking up." The cool temperatures, 53 degrees at 11 a.m., made for brisk marching weather on the 2-mile-long parade route that started on East Avenue and ended on Andrews Street. affect classrooms and programs. "We may lose some support services that staff may feel are pertinent. But at the same time we have asked the schools to sacrifice in past years," said board President Nancy Padilla. Wilson said the remaining $108,000 will be trimmed from districtwide expenses beginning in July.

"It didn't seem like we were going to be able to pick up $400,000 in cuts at the table, so it seemed clear to me that the best option was for me to make gross dollar reductions in the different divisions," Wilson said. The superintendent said he would again sit down with the department or division leaders who already made cuts in their budgets to determine where to trim more. TURN TO PAGE 5B Psychiatric plan draws supporters Agencies backing i release of patients, restructuring of care By Erik Gunn Democrat and Chronicle It was supposed to provide the mentally ill a road back home. The plan sounded simple: Release as many as 500 patients from Rochester Psychiatric Center back into the community. Assign each patient to one of four community mental health centers that would become responsible for that patient's care and give each center the money it needed to do the job.

Redesign the way those mental health centers and other private agencies are paid so they can do a better job of caring for the 20,000 people they already serve in the community. Place the entire mental health system under the supervision of a single agency, Integrated Mental Health which would dole out the money and keep track of mental patients as they moved back into the community. That was the idea behind the Integrated Mental Health demonstration project for Monroe and Livingston counties. Those who drew up the plan said it would offer mental patients what they never got when New York state tried a decade ago to empty public, psychiatric hospitals: treatment, housing, training programs and access to medical care and social services. But critics said the plan was flawed, that it would dump severely disturbed men and women into community mental health centers ill-equipped to handle them.

The critics principally unions representing psychiatric center employees fought and won. Last month, just before passing the 1985 state budget, the Legislature dropped $1.2 million needed to start the program. In recent weeks, however, representatives of state and local agencies have been meeting in an attempt to revive Integrated Mental Health. At the same time, the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) has been -meeting with state Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, to outline how the proposed system would have to change to meet their approval.

Slaughter, in turn, has acted as an intermediary, bringing the union's demands to state and local officials so that the two sides could ham- mer out a compromise. TURN TO PAGE 6B Buffalo's Metro Rail transit system Six additional stations opened on the new mass transit system in Buffalo yesterday. Amher Extension Democrat and Chrontcle 1 Open in jl I September 1 Jr 1 1986 South Hef.ei Ave Yttt Saite I 1 rymhrrt ffi Opened yesterday hnMBm XyHumboldt-Hopital Oetevan Ave j9tavan-CoHeB8 W. Ferry! St. jiff Ferry SL nF Summer-Best LV I jlfj Allen-Hospital Open sSSI Huron OctobeJ 'jW'Lafayette Square $BI Church JJMby Seneca yk, Auouorium By John Hartsock Democrat and Chronicle It must have been something in the way Rochester's Little Americans boo- -gied, shimmied and shingalinged their way through yesterday's Lilac Festival Parade to a rhythmic drum beat.

Clouds that came-a-threatening got the message: rain, rain, stay away. Indeed, the rain did stay away, holding off until the parade's end. The extravaganza, Rochester's rite of spring, drew more than 50,000 cheering, clapping and balloon-waving enthusiasts who beat time to the 28 bands and oohed-and-aahed 18 floats as nearly 100 groups marched in the two-hour fest. Attendance rivaled last year's, said Capt. Gordon F.

Urlacher, the police department's special events coordinator. "The crowd was really well behaved," he said. "We had three lost kids and they all belonged to the same mother." "I thought it went very well," said RIT roofed in It started in 1 room, grew to 32 buildings By David Galante Democrat and Chronicle One hundred years ago a group of esteemed Rochester industrialists, frustrated by a lack of skilled workers in town, invited area residents to study technical trades in a small schoolroom on Fitzhugh Street. It was called Mechanics Institute, and "After last weekend when we marched in Hershey, in 96-degree heat, this is a blessing," said Richard Roberson, band director of the Kendall High School band from Kendall, Orleans County. One of the moving moments was the standing ovation the crowd gave the Vietnam Veterans of America, Geneva Valley Chapter.

"It was fantastic. I was actually kind of teary-eyed," said Vietnam veteran Rusty Kurtz of Avon at the parade's end. Ice cream vendors reported that the nippy weather put a dent in sales this year. "If it was warmer it would be a lot better," said vendor Krista Haydanek. But other vendors did a brisk business in popcorn and hot dogs.

TURN TO PAGE 5B stitution that RIT is today," said Dane R. Gordon, associate professor of the College of Liberal Arts who spent 10 years writing a book about the history of RIT. Indeed, much has changed at RIT since the first class at Mechanics Institute was held Nov. 23, 1885, on the second floor of the Academy Building, 13 S. Fitzhugh St.

What was then a single classroom downtown is today an orange-brick complex of 32 buildings on a sprawling TURN TO PAGE 5B past, committed to future it was one of the two predecessors of Rochester Institute of Technology, which yesterday held commencement exercises for the 100th graduating class. The day also was recognized as the centennial anniversary of Mechanics Insti-tute, which was founded with the notion of providing hands-on career training to individuals who would later become the backbone of local industry. "It's astonishing, really, how a little fledgling organization designed to meet a very specific need has become the very serious, highly respected educational in Future of Buffalo's downtown rides on city's new subway Festive ceremonies open six stations on ailing Main Street By Jody McPhillips Democrat and Chronicle BUFFALO Thousands of Buffalo residents are expected to spend today riding the city's brand-new $530 million subway system, for which six new stations opened yesterday. The state and Erie County paid 20 percent of the cost, and the federal government picked up the rest of the tab for the project, expected to rejuvenate Buffalo's economically ailing Main Street. While an official from Buffalo's transportation authority is conceding it's a good deal, his counterpart in Rochester, Buffalo's long-standing rival, is sighing with envy.

Why didn't Rochester get a subway when Buffalo did? The Buffalo official, Daryl Rasuli, is succinct. "We're bigger, we need one more and the (state and federal) legislators representing Buffalo worked very smoothly together," said the manager of policy development for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority. Howard Gates, director of community and customer relations for Rochester's A Buffalo light rail car entering the Humboldt-Hospital station. The ride in the newly opened underground section of the $530 million system takes about eight minutes. Jim Lsragy Democrat and Chronicle other rights-of-way," he says wistfully.

"We could have done it for $150 million, which is incredibly inexpensive, with very little dislocation. But a lot of people in the city looked at it as folly and just the fancy of the transit people. The com- TURN TO PAGE 4B Regional Transit System, says RTS tried twice to generate enthusiasm for a subway system that would have stretched from Kodak Park to The Marketplace mall, with a loop around downtown. "We already had an abandoned subway bed and the Lehigh Valley tracks and.