Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 25

1 i I i- Friday, January 11, 196025 Reno Evening Gazette jLoc3.1 Tougher sewer rules proposed Rollan IVfehon Dale McKenzie, president of the Associated General Contractors, said this morning his group would react to the sewer procedures proposal at the council meeting Monday. He said he preferred not to comment on it until he has seen a draft of the guidelines. Councilman Ed Spoon said this morning he is disturbed that the building department would propose such sweeping changes in the sewer allocation rules without having first been asked to do so by the City Council. Herrington acknowledged the proposed sewer procedures would delay large hotel-casino projects. While the new sewer allocation rules would not affect the 982-room MGM Grand Hotel expansion or the 802-room Circus Circus hotel addition, they apparently would delay future hotel-casino developments of that magnitude.

'Projects requiring 90,000 to 100,000 gallons of daily sewer capacity would not be able to get all their sewer capacity in one quarter, and might have to wait several quarters to obtain the capacity they received 20 percent of the commercial capacity in the past, that 20 percent would be spread over future sewer allocation quarters. If there were 10 quarters, he said, then 2 percent of the total commercial sewer capacity would be available for large hotel-casino projects in any given quarter. However, the MGM expansion, the Circus Circus tower and Harrah's 15-story hotel addition won't be affected, since they obtained sewer capacity under the city's present 14-quarter allocation sys- tern. Reno's current sewer allocation program runs through the end of this year. Completion of the Early Start expansion of the Reno-Sparks Joint Sewage Treatment Plant is expected by September.

Herrington said he anticipates new sewer procedures taking effect in January 1981. The Comstock, Sundowner and Pacific 6 Motor Inn hotel-room additions, all recently approved by the Reno City Council, are waiting for sewer capacity under Early Start and new sewer procedures. But Herrington said he doubts they would be delayed by the recommended procedures because they are not huge projects requiring more sewer capacity than would be available for hotel-casino development in one or two quarters. The proposed procedure could affect the Gold Dust's planned 549-room expansion, which has yet to be reviewed by the City Council. Under Herrington's proposal, the allocation of sewer capacity for residential building would remain the same as it has over the last two years.

But Reno officials are not yet sure how much sewer capacity the city will receive from the Early Start expansion of the sewer plant. The expansion will add 6 million gallons of daily capacity to the plant. But Reno and Sparks are involved in complicated negotiations over how to accommodate a demand by Washoe County for 1.1 million gallons of sewer capacity for Sun Valley and 400,000 for the county itself. In addition, the cities are negotiating a continued lease of excess Sparks' sewer capacity to Reno. Reno city officials said Thursday the negotiations have been "pretty well resolved." But Sparks Public Works Director Bob Churn said the "crux" of the negotiations who will get how much is still unsettled.

By DICK COOPER Future development of large hotel-casinos could be slowed by tougher guidelines proposed for distributing new sewer capacity in Reno, a top city official said Thursday. The proposed procedures would govern how allocation of sewer capacity from an expansion of the regional treatment plant would occur, for both commercial and residential developments. If adopted by the Reno City Council, the new sewer rules would become effective the first of next year. The procedures, which will be submitted to the Reno council Monday for review, are similar to Reno's current method of allocating sewer capacity on a quarterly basis with key exceptions: Large hotel-casino developments could not "gobble up" all the commercial sewer capacity set aside for a particular quarter. Hotel-casino expansions would have to abide by a formula allowing them only a portion of the sewer capacity available in the three-month period.

Sewer "collateral" arrangements, which permitted hotel-casino projects to start construction before sewer capacity was available, would be banned under, the new procedures. Developers could no longer routinely transfer sewer capacity "across town" from one site to another. Sewer "fixture unit" transfers have been used by developers to avoid the months-long wait for a sewer allocation in Reno. The proposed guidelines would permit transfers only in "hardship" cases. Reno Building and Safety Director Phil Herrington, who has managed the city's sewer allocation system, said Thursday the City Council would not be asked to approve the new procedures Monday.

"We just want to ask them if we're proceeding in the right direction," he said. When the city adopted methods for allocating its limited sewer capacity in 1977, there was strong opposition to some of the provisions from the Associated General Contractors and development interests. Herrington said he expects the contractors' association and developers "to have an awful lot to say about this proposal." Reno City Attorney Louis Test, who also had a hand in drawing up the proposed procedures, said Thursday he anticipates "a lot of controversy." Projects requiring 90,000 to 100,000 gallons of daily sewer capacity, Herrington said, would not be able to get all their sewer capacity in one quarter, and might have to wait several quarters to obtain the capacity they need. "What I'm trying to eliminate is a big project gobbling up all the allocation for a particular quarter," Herrington said. "It's hurt us immensely that we've sometimes had only one project using up the sewer capacity in a quarter." Under the building department recommendations, the city's commercial sewer allocations would be divided into four categories large hotel-casinos, large office buildings, large motel projects and all smaller commercial developments.

Based on how much sewer capacity those four different types of developments received in the past, a percentage of the total commercial sewer allocation would be set aside for each category. Herrington said, for instance, if hotel-casinos have Church behavior Once a month, teachers Nancy Fitzgerald and Linda Smith take their 12 Sunday School students to mass at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Sparks. One Sunday, recalls Mrs. Fitzgerald, "Our little dumplings were terribly rowdy.

So we asked yiese 6 and 7-yearolds to make a list of church manners." Back came the student-compiled checklist: Be quiet. Don't talk or scream. Don't talk to your neighbors while they are talking to God. Don 'I stomp your feet. Don't fool around during the service.

Sit still. Take care of our church books. Don't talk while we listen to the sermon or story. Don't stand on the kneelers. Don't talk at the altar rail.

Don't run in church. Don't chew gum. Wrote Tommy Robinson and Jason Houston: "Don't kick, hit, sock or pinch." Stephanie Gainey: "Don't make airplanes out of the church bulletins." It was Donald Arkell who suggested, "Don't yell, And finally, this appropriate edict from little Amy Yuill: "Sing only when the organ is playing." In the meantime in Reno at the Church of St. Albert the Great, the Catholics were you guessed it holding another fund-raising drawing. The grand prize was a 1980 Pontiac.

The winner? Father Anton Stopar of St. Albert's Church. PLAYING A GOOD GUY: In his second i appearance on film, Reno advertising salesman Edd Lockwood, 33, portrays an honorable guy, Mark Twain by name. He was among local players in a segment of a documentary on the I Pony Express, but it won't be seen in Nevada because it was filmed for the French Television Network. i In the meantime, you'll be able to continue seeing Lockwood in his first film the one in which be plays the bad guy.

It's the local I 30-secohd television public service spot about a bank scam, in which the mustachioed Lockwood rips off an unsuspecting elder lady of her life savings. "Beware. This happens all the time and it could happen to you! THE WINNER! A new honor, the monthly "Classified Recognition Award," will go to top classified staffers in the Washoe County School District. The first winner is Echo Loder Elementary School's secretary Phyllis Neiderberger who has held the position 19 years. Commented a thrilled Mrs.

Neiderberger: "This citation comes for work I've so much enjoyed. You don't get bored on this job. I think I've had just one day this year when I said, 'Why my desk is Principal Buddy Garfinkle said of her: "She is a tremendous secretary. But more than that, she is a warm, caring, compassionate person. The teachers and children love her." PEDICURE? Boomtown's Ed Allison is home after another visit to La Costa's "fat farm" north of San Diego.

He shed 5'2 pounds and suffered withdrawal pains on any day he wasn't given a facial. Allison says he made an appointment for a pedicure, handed the lady his hands and she asked, "Where you from?" and he answered "Verdi," and she replied, "It figures." REUNION: Late in January, Dick Hughes, I retired manager of Reno's Zellerbach Paper Co. office, will take a golfing vacation in Southern California. Nothing unusual about that, except that Hughes and his seven golf buddies will be seeing each other for the first time in 50 years. In the late 1920s, they were collegians on the Washington State campus at Pullman and the eight founded the Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity chapter there.

This, by Tom Ferrell of the New York Times: "An estimated 466 million people died during I the 1970s, but only Howard Hughes had to do it to I prove he was alive. Hughes's death in 1976 of kidney failure, drugs and self-neglect was persuasive, as was his failure to leave a will." I 1 IP! M.S. Dixie partially submerged By WAYNE MELTON Owners of the M.S. Dixie, a former Mississippi riverboat paddlewheeler, were attempting today to repair the Lake Tahoe boat-restaurant after it became partially submerged during an early Thursday morning storm. The boat, whipped by winds of up to 50 mph, received about $25,000 damage when a 20-foot stretch of the vessel was submerged in up to 6 feet of water at Zephyr Cove, according to a spokesman for the Douglas County Sheriff's Department.

He said no one was on board when the mishap occurred. The $1 million vessel can hold 350 passengers on its 114-foot-long, three-deck structure. The boat's operators were unavailable for comment today. The sherifff's spokesman said workers attempted Thursday to pump water out of the boat, which received additional damage when high winds knocked out the vessel's back windows. The boat was moored at its Zephyr Cove dock when the storm came, according to the spokesman.

He said the 50 mph winds were accompanied by stronger gusts. "She's still down," the spokesman said Thursday night. "They tried to pump it out today, but it (water) was coming in as fast as they were taking it out." He said workers will attempt to pump water again today. AP photo Wind-caused whitecaps pounded the M.S. Dixie at its Zephyr Cove Pier mooring.

"They gotta get it back out before another storm hits," he said. The Dixie was built in 1927 for use on the Mississippi River. Four years later it was moved to the Red River in Texas, the first step in a lengthy journey to the Sierra. In 1947, Reno resident Jim Moss, a retired Mississippi riverboat captain, Ken Amundson later bought the Dixie after he was hired to refurbish the craft. In later years he began renting the boat and allowed several motion pictures to be shot aboard.

Amundson formed a corporation in 1971 while he and his son continued to work on the ship. The ship's excursions include tours to Emerald Bay. bought the craft, had it cut into lour pieces and shipped the vessel by rail to Reno. From there, the dismantled ship was trucked up winding roads to the lake where it was reassembled. Moss named the ship for his daughter.

He planned to use it as a gambling ship, but the gaming commission rejected the plan. Airport Authority considers expansion project cutbacks By RODNEY FOO Municipal workers to listen to unions By DICK COOPER A "joint council" of the Teamsters Union and the International Union of Operating Engineers could be representing Reno municipal employees when the city administration and City Hall employees resume negotiations next month. The Reno Municipal Employees Association voted 78-8 Wednesday night to allow Teamsters' and Operating Engineers' representatives to approach its members about joining the unions. If 51 percent of the municipal employees accept the proposal, a Teamsters and Operating Engineers joint council would represent the city employees in bargaining scheduled to begin in mid-February. Those negotiations will resume about the same time Reno police and fire employees' associations start contract talks.

The city and its employees have been stalemated since mid-1979 in contract negotiations primarily over the issue of health insurance coverage for employees' dependents. According to employees' association president Marlen Schultz, the Teamsters and the Operating Engineers must recruit a majority of the city employees before the Jan. 28 meeting of the Reno City Council if the unions are to become the employees' bargaining unit. She said a bargaining unit must be recognized by the council before Feb. 1, the date employee groups file a notice of their intent to open negotiations.

Ms. Schultz said, however, she would call another meeting of the employees' association within the next week to give more of the city workers a chance to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of joining the Teamsters and the Operating Engineers. Less than a third of the Reno Municipal Employees Association members were present when the vote was taken Wednesday night, she said, "and I think they were mostly of one faction." the Federal Aviation Administration in funds. Mandeville said Cannon International is "number one" on the administration's priority list, but cautioned, "We think we'll get them (money), but we can't count on them." The remaining $1.2 million deficit could be made up by scaling down a taxi runway project by $572,000 and eliminating $295,000 worth of work to runway lighting. Also, about $356,000 could be eliminated from a project to relocate the airport's two fixed base operators.

If the airport does not receive the FAA funds, the second plan calls for omitting the fixed base operator relocation project and runway lighting improvements entirely. Another $1.7 million would be subtracted from the runway taxi expansion project and $1 million would be taken from the airport's land acquisition fund. The airport authority, in an effort to lessen noise complaints from neighboring residents, has instituted a program to purchase the affected homes. Authority Chairman Don Carano said he was not surprised the deficit had grown to $4.7 million, considering numerous change orders had been approved after the budget was adopted. Mandeville said he thought the airport's deficit budget wasn't too bad considering original expansion plans were targeted at $20 million, but had now grown to $60 million.

At the night meeting, a financial report conducted by the Reno accounting firm of Elmer Fox, Westh-eimer and Company revealed the airport finished $1.3 million in the black for fiscal year 1979. The figure is mainly due to the interest accumulated from the unused portion of the $44.5 million construction bond. Accountant Dennis Thompson said approximately $33 million still remains from the bond. The airlines had financed the bond through the airport's bonding capability for expansion Plans to defray an estimated $4.7 million budget deficit for Cannon International Airport expansion were presented to Airport Authority of Washoe County trustees Thursday. The two contingency plans which would delete some portions of the airport's projects were proposed by Airport Director Robert Mandeville during an afternoon workshop before the authority's regularly scheduled night meeting.

Financial reports supplied to the trustees outlined the airport's spending on terminal expansion. Mandeville said airport officials will meet with airline representatives to reach an agreement on which projects may be omitted. Of the overall deficit, more than $3.3 million is due to cost increases to the airport terminal's expansion, according to the reports. The terminal construction budget was originally estimated at $18 million, but according to airport figures it has grown to $21.3 million. The increase in terminal construction spending is mainly due to more than $2.6 million in change orders.

The figure also includes change orders for the baggage claim section. Change orders stem from modifications in the architect's original plans for airport expansion, Mandeville explained. Another $800,000 deficit is due to construction to outfit building shells for additional airlines in the terminal, Mandeville said. Because of the growing number of airlines servicing Reno, the original airport expansion plan has had to be modified several times to add more loading gates, ticket areas and offices. Mandeville said the $4.7 million deficit could be pared down by about $1 million because of underestimated revenue from bond interest.

He added the airport is expecting $2.5 million from Murder trial in 5th day The murder trial of Fernando Gloria entered its fifth day this morning with no indication of when the case will be turned over to the Jury. Gloria, a Mexican alien who speaks no English the court proceedings are translated into Spanish is accused of the murder of Juan Mena, whose body was found in Gloria's room at the Grand Hotel in downtown Reno last July. Mena was stabbed once. Deputy Public Defender Lew Carnahan said In his opening statement earlier this week that Gloria killed Mena but that it was a matter of self-defense. tin 4 i.