St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 1

FEB 3180 lit On Today's Editorial Page Wag-Pri Controls? Not Yot Editorial Torror In Colombia Editorial o. in Illinois news-Pages 7A, 1 Vol. 102, No. 59 UM, St. Lmtt PMt-DtafaU FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1980 20 ST.

ID POff-D SPATE COUNTY COUNCIL moves closer to cable television vote. Page IB Action By FCC Allows Subscription TV Here and without commercials. The cost to viewers is about $20 per month. "All this means is that it's now feasible for us to start planning for the service," said Tom Jackson, Channel 30's director of promotion. He said the station would be doing market research studies and surveys to determine the types of programming for which St.

Louis area residents would be willing to i pay. The station has not set a target date to begin subscription operations, but Jackson said he expected it would be in "a number of months." Actually, the station already has See TV, Page 9 TV stations operate Los Angeles, New York and Cincinnati, for example the stations broadcast their normal, unscrambled signals for most of the day. The switch to a subscription operation typically occurs at the beginning of television's so-called prime time: 7 p.m. in the central time zone. Subscription broadcasts then continue for five or six hours.

The subscription program offerings may range from recent feature films to sports contests to big-name entertainment acts similar to what one might see in a Las Vegas, night spot. The programs, including the feature films, usually are aired unedited By Eric P. Mink Of ths Pott-Dispatch Staff Feature films, sports events and big-name nightclub acts probably commercial-free and unedited may be available to all St. Louis area residents on their television sets within several months, thanks to a recent action by the Federal Communications Commission. Monday, Evans Broadcasting owner of KDNL, Channel 30, received FCC approval to conduct a subscription television operation in the St.

Louis area. The application had been pending for more than three years. The federal action clears the way UgJI Fort Kb Appropriations Committee after lawmakers turned down three amendments to restore the $3.7 million sought by Teasdale. Teasdale had asked the Appropriations Committee to reconsider the cuts last week, but without success. In a speech to mental health professionals here Wednesday, the governor accused the committee of playing politics with the budget.

"Now is no time to play politics with the welfare of so many who are important," Teasdale said. "Meeting basic human needs is more important than partisan politics, $50 million office buildings and other bureaucratic monuments." The money would have financed more community-based treatment for mentally retarded persons and would have increased payments to nursing homes where retarded persons are placed by the Department of Mental Health. But during debate on the House floor Thursday, stvaral powerful Democrats argued that the community-based See HOUSE, Page 5 I Ted DarganPost-Dispatch The city-owned MacArthur Bridge, which spans the river near Chouteau Avenue. City officials say they may have to want of money to MacArthur Guerrillas In Colombia May Free Five Women for KDNL to become the first television station in the area and among the first in the country to offer special programs to viewers on a subscription-only basis. In a subscription TV system, signals are scrambled by the broadcaster before they are transmitted from the station's tower.

Subscribers to the service receive a special device that attaches to their television sets and unscrambles the broadcast signal. In other cities where subscription By J. Pulitzer Post-Dispatch Jefferson City Bureau JEFFERSON CITY A last ditch effort to restore some $3.7 million in the Department of Mental Health budget failed Thursday in the House as the lower chamber approved the budget for fiscal 1981, the state's first $4 billion operating budget. The mental health funds had been sought by Gov. Joseph P.

Teasdale for care of the mentally retarded. The House passed and sent to the Senate eight of 10 appropriations bills, and gave tentative approval to the biggest spending measure for social services and mental health, and to its own General Assembly budget. Debate on the budget bills lasted all week. But in the end, only minor changes were made from spending proposals recommended by the House Appropriations Committee. Altogether, the proposals represent a 14.4 percent spending increase over the current budget.

The $238 million budget for the Department of Mental Health was approved without change from the County Council Bans Do-It-YourselfWork By Phil Sutin Of ths Post-Dispatch Staff The St. Louis County Council, in a rare move, has overridden vetoes of two bills by County Executive Gene McNary. The measures, which now take effect, prohibit persons building, their own houses from installing their own wiring and plumbing. McNary a Republican, has vetoed numerous bills, but the council usually sustains his vetoes because the four Democrats on the council cannot persuade one of the three Republicans to provide the necessary fifth vote to override a veto. But Thursday, party lines were shattered.

The sponsor of the bills, Councilman Harry E. Von Romer, D-Bellefontaine Neighbors, persuaded two Republicans, Councilmen H.C. Milford of Webster Groves and Carl Breihan of See DO-IT-YOURSELF. Page 12 Hostages New York said the five-member panel of international jurists spent a third day Thursday interviewing alleged victims of the deposed shah's torture, seeing about 1,200 people, many with signs of "obvious physical mutiliation." Khomeini has put the fate of the hostages in the hands of the Majlis, or parliament, which is to be elected in voting March 14 and April 3. Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, secretary of the Revolutionary Council, said Wednesday that it would be several weeks after the elections before the legislature could take up the hostage question, indicating at least 10 more weeks of captivity for the Americans.

that also would offset a tax cut. Then, there would be no additional budget deficit, and the tax incentive would spur production, thereby reducing unemployment and lowering inflation, it says. The committee's proposals represents a break with traditional economic theory. Based on its new concept, the committee suggests that a 2.7 percent increase in the investment tax credit and an acceleration in the depreciation rate of business equipment would reduce the consumer price index by 4 percentage points during the decade. Also, the committee report says, productivity would rise by 3.3 percent See ECONOMY, Page 4 (Di By Jo Mannies Of ths Post-Dispatch Staff The vehicular deck of the MacArthur Bridge, a city landmark for more than 60 years, could be closed within a year unless St.

Louis can find a way to finance about $6 million in needed repairs. That's the word from Streets Director James M. Shea, who says the condition of the deck is so poor that "it is getting beyond our maintenance capacity." Shea says he believes the deck still is safe for traffic, but notes that his department checks it daily. "We soon either have to find a solution to this problem or close the bridge," he said. Shea aired his concerns in interviews this week, and said he had issued similar warnings at this month's meeting of the city's Bridge Commission.

As a result, the commission asked Shea to report back close the vehicle traffic deck for repair it. May Close railroad deck are in good condition, Shea said, because those repairs can be financed by the city's municipal bridge fund. Money for that fund comes from fees charged railroads who use the bridge. At times, city officials have proposed using money from the fund to finance repairs to the vehicle deck, but the railroads have balked at that idea. Shea said it also may be illegal to use that fund for road repairs.

Closing the bridge's road deck would be regrettable, Shea said, but would add little traffic to the city's four other downtown bridges. Since the Poplar Street Bridge opened in November 1967, traffic on the MacArthur Bridge has plummeted to about 5,000 vehicles a day. In 1960, about 25,000 vehicles traveled over the MacArthur Bridge each Meanwhile, more than 105,000 cars See BRIDGE, Page 7 devised the U.N. panel, which the United States believes will lead to the release of the hostages, had expressed confidence the investigative group would meet with the hostages. They are now in their 118th day of capitivity.

Further confusing the reports was Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, who in a report on Tehran radio, also said today that the meeting between the 50 hostages and the panel members was on the commission's agenda. Ghotbzadeh had earlier said that he was negotiating with the militants for the meeting. Meanwhile, U.N. headquarters in Compiled From News Services BOGOTA, Colombia The leftists holding the Dominican Republic's embassy here freed 14 of their hostages Thursday and were reported ready to free five other women hostages today. However, the leftists said they were prepared to hold the remaining 41 captives, including U.S.

Ambassador Diego C. Asencio, for months. The 29 armed members of M-19, a leftist group, released 10 of their 15 women hostages, three wounded men, including Ambassador Oscar Gostiaga of Paraguay, and a youth, 16, Thursday afternoon, about 30 hours after the guerrillas had invaded and occupied the Dominican Embassy. Six of the women released were Colombians and four were the wives of foreign diplomats, and the two other features RESCUE CENTER: What goes on East of the river at Scott Air Force Base can be a matter of life or death. Personnel in a rescue unit (right) coordinate air search and rescue missions over the continental United States.

Page ID of Everyday mam Iran Militants Bar Panel's Visit To Rep. Steve Vossmeyer "Keep the program afloat' wounded men were employees of the embassy. The youth was not identified. This left 46 persons still being held hostage, including 19 ambassadors or acting ambassadors. One of them, Mexican Ambassador Ricardo Galan, told Foreign Minister Uribe Vargas that the five other women hostages probably would be freed today.

President Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala said in a communique that his government would negotiate with the guerrillas after that happened. One of the women still being held is Ambassador Elena Chassoul Monge of Costa Rica. The leader of the guerrillas, who called himself Commandante Numero Uno, said in a telephone interview that he and his group were "prepared to See COLOMBIA, Page Birr ABRIDGE Official forecast for St. Louis and vicinity: Generally clear and colder Friday night with the low around ftbove. Sonsy and cold Saturday; high In the 29s.

Continued cold Sunday with the low in the teens and the high near S3. A little warmer Monday and Tuesday. TOO FAR? Cr WoHstr Uiimmulianm Put SA Bridge Deck in 90 days with suggestions on how to finance the needed repairs. Shea said he is looking into various federal aid programs. If federal money is not available, he plans to suggest that a bond issue proposal be placed on the ballot for the November election.

"If the citizens then don't vote for the funds, we will have to close the bridge until we can get the funds," Shea said. In any event, city officials must decide what to do with the bridge by the spring, he said. The vehicle deck was last rebuilt in the late 1950s. Last year, Shea said, it was closed three months for some repairs. But Shea says the deck needs to be totally reconstructed.

"You can patch potholes, but everytime you do you have to chip away part of the road. After a while, it gets to a point where there's not much left." The bridge's steel structure and the Radio Tehran had previously reported that President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr would accompany the U.N. panel to the embassy, and that the militants had agreed to the visit. But all that was denied by a spokesman for the militants, who said, "The students don't allow the commission to come here. It's only for show.

That's what (Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini says." And the spokesman repeated that the hostages would not be freed until deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was returned to face trial. U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, who automobile in the 4100 block of Washington. He was released on a personal recognizance bond at 5:30 p.m. And then about 9 p.m., Malugen said, the man propositioned Detective Willie Mae Anderson in the 4200 block of Washington, once again from his car.

And once again he was booked on a soliciting charge. But this time he was required to post a $500 bond. Malugen said men have been picked up more than once for soliciting in the past, "but never this quickly before." "He never did get what he wanted," the detective said. "But he wasn't out any money, either." is Compiled From News Services TEHRAN, Iran Those Iranians holding the 50 American hostages today denied a Tehran radio report that the U.N. fact-finding commission on Iran had gone to the U.S.

Embassy to meet the hostages. "It is false," a spokesman for the militants said in a telephone interview today. In an earlier broadcast, Radio Tehran had quoted a member of the ruling Revolut ionary Council as saying that the U.N. panel investigating Iranian charges against the shah and the United States had arrived at the embassy to see the hostages. BACK FROM IRAN: NBC correspondent George Lewis was among the reporters ousted by the revolutionary government, and he tells what it was like to gather news in a country of turmoil and contradictory official statements.

Page 2D in Recession Not Needed To Slow Same Crime, Same Place Gets St. Louis Man Same Arrest inside 46 Pages Inflation, Committee Asserts Business 4-jB Classified Advertising 7-16B-7C Editorials 2B Everyday MOD Illinois IB News Analysis JB Obituaries 7B People IA Region 7A 'Religion 7C Reviews 4D Spectator 5D SportsWeekend MC State Capitol 8A 8D By Kenneth J. Cooper Of ths Post-Dispatch Staff Those plainclothes policewomen prowling the midtown Stroll apparently look awfully good to one man. A 39-year-old St. Louisan was arrested twice Thursday on charges of soliciting for prostitution on Washington Boulevard.

In both instances, police said, undercover vice squad detectives were the recipients of his propositions. Detective Warren Malugen said the suspect was arrested about 11 a.m. after he solicited Detective Antoinette Filla from his Compiled From News Services WASHINGTON A new congressional report challenges the administration's policy that a recession the only way to slow inflation. Not only is a recession not necessary, the Joint Economic Committee's annual report says, but the administration could cut taxes and still reduce inflation by 4 percentage points during the decade. "America does not have to fight inflation during the 1980s by periodically pulling up the drawbridge with recessions that doom millions of Americans to unemployment," the committee chairman, Sen.

Lloyd M. Bensten, D-Texas, said Thursday. The report says the solution is to cut taxes and federal spending by the same amount or institute monetary restraints.