St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 28

ThursdayJ i UUIUHf.K 2003 SECTION K3 Illinois SYLVESTER BROWN JR. ends fail with oners nisi ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH St R( He had been lobbying U.S. for clean-burning coal plant "While it is clear that the contract between UMWA District 12 and myself to secure the Future-Gen project represented no conflict, some do not see it that way," Reitz wrote in the Sept. 17 letter to UMWA District 12 president Joseph Angleton.

"Rather than risk the chance that these negative comments might jeopardize our goal, I wish to terminate our contract and return all funds paid to me." See Contract, C4 By Kevin McDermott Post-Dispatch Springfield Bureau SPRINGFIELD, 111. An IUinois state legislator has canceled a $10,000 service contract he had received to lobby the federal government on behalf of a labor union, saying the arrangement looked bad. State Rep. Dan Reitz, D-Steeleville, said in a letter to the United Mine Workers of America District 12 that he is terminating the contract he'd had with the union. The contract had called for Reitz to help persuade the federal government to choose Illinois as the site of the "FutureGen" ex perimental zero-emissions coal-burning power plant proposed by President George W.

Bush. Reitz's cancellation follows an article Aug. 31 by the Post-Dispatch disclosing the existence of the contract and quoting critics who suggested it could represent a conflict of interest with Reitz's legislative duties. Reitz Steeleville Democrat gtf $10,000 contract Vie East St. Louis sdiool district formally names its new early-cliildhood center in lionor of Vivian Adams, who taught the districts first preschool classes in 1969.

Amiel Cueto argues that his federal obstruction of justice conviction should not be grounds for disbarring him from the practice of law. 1 "hw laJjy School reform saga pushes any of us to bizarre behavior MARK TWAIN must have had a premonition about St. Louis when he wrote: "In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards." Let's review some recent examples.

Board member Vince Schoemehl went into a tirade when describing citizens opposed to the board's reform efforts. He labeled them Brown Shirts and Nazis. Ron Jackson, another member of the board, nearly got into a fistfight after being called a derogatory name at a public meeting. Most bizarre was board member Rochell Moore's curse on Mayor Slay. Before that, she accused a fellow member of putting co- caine in her coffee.

Now we have board member Bill Haas sending a scathing e-mail to interim superintendent William Roberti, the managing director of Alvarez Marsal, the turnaround firm the board hired. It was titled "You can kiss my ass." Haas used a variety of bar room epithets and sexual innuendo in the correspondence. He repeatedly called Roberti stupid. Haas has apologized, although he still maintains the firm is abusive to employees and cavalier with some of its cost-cutting methods. He accuses Roberti of sending him disrespectful e-mails.

It was one of those, Haas said, that triggered his biting e-mail. "I stand by the substance of what I said. I stand by the anger over what they've done, how they've done it and how they've treated people," Haas told me Wednesday. "Perhaps I should have found a better way to express that anger." Is there some mind-altering substance in the coffee at school board headquarters? If so, members of the board aren't the only ones sipping the cursed brew. Since the school reform effort began, there has been a lot of idiotic behavior in St.

Louis. Accountants can't account for missing money. Newly air-conditioned schools have been closed. Overcrowded classrooms are now acceptable. And will someone please explain how a real live child wound up in an open casket on Officials won't let Cueto travel to Chicago Hearing is set there before panel in his effort to save his law license 1 ODELL MITCHELL JR.

POST-DISPATCH Youngsters carry their chairs back to class after attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday at the East St. Louis school district's new preschool. The $7 million facility will serve about 500 pupils. PRESCHOOL HONORS VETERAN EDUCATOR By Kevin McDermott Post-Dispatch SPRINGFIELD, 111. Paroled prisoner and former Metro East lawyer Amiel Cueto will not be allowed to travel to Chicago on Friday for a hearing in his attempt to get his law license back, the federal Bureau of Prisons has told state officials.

It's the latest twist in Cueto's long fight with Illinois regulatory officials, to whom he is arguing that his federal obstruction of justice conviction should not be grounds for disbarring him from the practice of law. Cueto was' scheduled to make that argument in person Friday morning in Chicago, before a panel of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. In a letter to the commission this week, the Bureau of Prisons said Cueto wouldn't be allowed to leave the St. Louis area, where he is serving the final few months of his prison term in a halfway house. By Alexa Aguilar Of the Post-Dispatch tvian Adams ran East St.

Louis School District's first pre school classes in "Now we can offer them the educational start they need." Superintendent Nate Anderson 1969 in a handful of bright new school. When the finishing touches are completed, the facility will be able to house up to 500 the largest public preschool in the area. "Before, we had to turn kids away. We were losing kids," said district Superintendent Nate Anderson. "Now we can offer them the educational start they need." State grants became available in 2000, Anderson said, and the district decided to build the new center.

More needs to be done to teach low-income students early, he said. "I've read research that shows that when an impoverished child starts first grade, they are already vocabulary words behind," Anderson said. "That's not counting the trips to the art museum, the zoo, and the "Lion King" that the child hasn't had. Here we can catch those children up." Catching up is important because students begin taking standardized state tests in third grade. And there are other benefits.

See Preschool, C4 classrooms at a local church. Thirty-four years later, Adams was on hand Wednesday for the official opening of a $7 million early-childhood center named in her honor. About 210 children, ages 3 to 5, already are enrolled at the "Although he is allowed controlled movement in the community, he is a high-profile case in the local area, and we are not prepared to allow him to travel to Chicago," Carl R. An-d community corrections manager for the federal Bureau of "Our main preference is not to aSow traveL We just don't understand why (the hearing) has to take place immediately." Carl R. Anderson, of the federal Bureau of Prisons UMUt'U! TO3MLiiUs (H.rW $1 land sale spurs mayor to seek probe Selph wants prosecutor to review 2 recent deals -f.

"i i(t iMr3iPiPiTiji(fyo the first day of school? Clearly it was an idiotic decision for the board to hire a firm with no cap on its spending. Should we be surprised that in just a few months they've plowed through more than what was originally estimated? An open-ended contract is like handing a credit card to a mechanic saying, "Fix what needs fixing." Maybe the taxpayers are the idiots. Perhaps the folks at Alvarez Marsal assumed we wouldn't notice the plum jobs and juicy contracts given to politically connected individuals and their supporters. Perhaps this school reform issue is making us all a little nutty. At Tuesday's School Board meeting, Moore and Haas made a motion to "terminate" the management firm's contract.

4 This came after Roberti requested an additional $426,000 for a subcontractor that initially requested less than $500,000. "I'm tired of this, you can't keep spending our money!" shouted Greg Tumlin, a former school employee. Tumlin jumped on a table and pounded his fist Roberti and other board members scurried from the room. Tumlin and four others were arrested. After the mayhem, returning board members skipped about a half-dozen agenda items.

They did manage to defeat the motion to terminate the firm. They also OK'd the additional spending request. I don't know where all this idiotic behavior is leading. I do know the nation is watching what happens in St. Louis.

Having a turnaround firm manage public schools is a first. I just hope it doesn't inspire a new ending for Twain's quotation: Then God made school boards who made fools of us all. ft )pll lllM! TEAK PHILLIPS POST-DISPATCH Elonka Dunin of St. Charles, an amateur cryptographer, cracked this code, part of the Cyrillic Projector sculpture at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. Woman sets sights on code on CIA sculpture Prisons in St.

Louis, wrote in the letter Tuesday. The letter goes on to suggest that the hearing either be postponed until after Cueto's prison term ends Jan. 29, or be conducted by phone. Anderson said Wednesday that the letter wasn't meant to imply that Cueto was considered a flight risk. "Not at all," Anderson said.

"(But) our main preference is not to allow travel. We just don't understand why (the hearing) has to take place immediately." Cueto filed a motion Wednesday asking the commission to postpone his hearing until Jan. 30, citing the Bureau of Prisons policy. The commission's administrator, Mary Robinson, filed an objection to that motion Wednesday and suggested that the hearing could be conducted by phone Friday. A commission review board was expected to make a decision on the date of the hearing by this morning.

See Cueto, C3 By Norm Parish Of the Post-Dispatch Granite City Mayor Ron Selph says he wiU ask the Madison County state's attorney's office to review two land sales involving the city, including a warehouse near downtown that was sold three years ago for $1 to a group that includes Madison County Board member Ed Hagnauer. The value of the metal warehouse is unclear. In 1997, for example, the city had sold the warehouse for $27,000, only to get the property back when the buyer went out of business. Then, in September 2000, the city sold the warehouse to a group of eight men, including Hagnauer, who was a city firefighter at the See Warehouse, CS mained unbroken for more than a decade. As Dunin tells the story, after the speech, a stranger approached to congratulate her.

"I'm from Langley," the stranger said in hushed tones, according to Dunin. "I think I can get you in." See Codes, C4 By Eli Kintisch Of the Post-Dispatch Elonka Dunin was beaming. A standing-room-only audience of computer hackers a notoriously tough crowd had given her speech on al-Qaida codes a standing ovation. Speaking at the 2002 DefCon conference of computer enthusiasts, Dunin had mentioned Kryptos, a sculpture in a courtyard at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Dunin, a St.

Charles software developer who dabbles in codebreaking as a hobby, had recently begun studying Kryptos. Letters inscribed on the sculpture form a code that has re t-mak Phone: 314-340-8374.