Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 11

Reno Evening Gazette Wednesday, February 24, 1982 Celebrities people like to hate most QUESTION LADY 3B UK IB O) 9) Ah! UPDATE Riveir Inn contractors sue for money By SUSAN VOYLES Gazette staff writer filed a mechanic's lien for $850,343 in November for its services in designing the resort. Lawyers for both companies filed lawsuits in January to foreclose on the River Inn, which is being renamed George Benny's River Palace. Stephen Peek, a Reno lawyer representing George Benny, said that Benny challenges the work done by Winzler Kelley, claiming numerous design defects have caused damage during construction. He also disputes the amount and quality of the lumber that Home Lumber says it supplied. Unless an out-of-court settlement is reached, Benny intends to fight his case in court, Peek said.

"Mr. Benny has invested well over $20 million in the construction and reconstruction of the River Palace," Peek said. "Of that, all has been paid except those two amounts. Winzler Kelley already have been paid $1.25 million and they're still working on the project." He added that Home Lumber has been paid over $2 million. Benny is the developer of the Double Diamond Ranch, a proposed community south of Reno eventually planned for a population of 17,000.

Benny, who refuses to talk to the press, is known to have amassed Two companies involved in the construction of George Benny's River Inn near Verdi'have filed lawsuits to foreclose on the property to recover more than $1 million in debts they claim is owed. Home Lumber and Supply Co. of Reno, a division of Wickes filed in October a mechanic's lien for $190,414 to recover the cost of lumber and other materials it says it provided the resort casino. Winzler Kelley Consulting Engineers, of Eureka, through mediation in 1981. Only two failed to work out their differences and ended up going to trial.

The average mediation case takes about five hours and costs $200, much less than attorney fees for a trial, Sims said. "Mediation is less expensive to the courts, the parties and the taxpayers." Reno mediation will cost $40 per hour. A $200 limit has been set. In California, officials say, most cases are settled in three to five sessions. Thirteen mediators were chosen for the Reno program.

All are either psychologists or marriage and family counselors. They will work on a rotating basis. Attorneys initially are. skeptical, Sims said, but become converts. "It takes out of the lawyer's job what is least pleasant.

Lawyers love it. They no longer get phone calls at 10 p.m. and on Saturday morning. If he doesn't bring the child home on time you know who we instruct the clients to call? The mediator!" A judge considered the grandfather of California mediation, Donald B. King of San Francisco, told a Reno audience at the Judicial College last summer that he thinks agreements reached through mediation are more durable than court-ordered ones.

After the judges and lawyers are gone, parents may find an agreement they worked out together more palatable than one made by a stranger in a black robe who may never have laid eyes on the child whose fate he decided. "People can make better decisions than we can about what is best for their children," King said. Attorney and state Assemblyman Bob Sader, who drafted the proposal for the county's pilot program, said mediation will not be forced on couples who don't want it, but they must "offer reasonable reasons for not participating." Sader emphasized that mediation is not an attempt to deny anyone access to the courtroom, only to add a conciliatory step that might help people iron out differences. "Nothing is being shoved down their throats. If parents do not agree to mediation, they go through with the court hearing just as if they never mediated." By PAMELA GALLOWAY FAY Gazette staff writer When David and Joanna decided to divorce more than a year ago, he was determined not to become the "visiting fairy godfather." He wanted a strong role in raising their two pre-school sons.

The couple worked out an arrangement: the boys, who live with their mother at Lake Tahoe on the Calif or-nia side, spent every other weekend with their father in Reno. But then David decided that wasn't good enough. "She assumed I would be the ex-husband who said, 'Okay, you have the kids and I'll make the monthly But the situation is that I want equal responsibility for rearing two small boys," he says. A stalemate resulted. David and Joanna had two choices.

One was a big court battle the traditional adversary approach to solving child custody contests in which each partner points out the other's flaws in glaring detail to the judge, in the hopes the court will recognize who is obviously the superior parent. The danger of that option, experts say, is that the judge's decision may please neither parent. More important, it might not be the best decision for the child, The alternative is mediation, a process by which an impartial, professionally trained person helps parents decide where the child will live and how visitation will be handled. The mediator doesn't make the final decision; the parents do. David and Joanna chose mediation.

In three or four sessions, they worked out this arrangement: the boys live with their mother for a year, then their father for a year. They alternate holidays. Both parents participate in transportation for visits. One picks them up, the other takes them back. The parent without custody gets the children for one week during the summer and every other weekend throughout the year.

David agreed to attend a class in "parenting" skills. "Legal custody without physical custody is a whitewash. Nobody knows what that means. I want to be a real estate fortune in less than five years after quitting his job designing sewers. Benny, of Hillsborough, recently was accused by a Chicago title company of fraud in the loss of $18 million in an alleged check-kiting scheme.

A federal judge in San Francisco has issued an order tying up $15 million of Benny's assets in California until the case is heard. A state gaming official said this week that the outcome of the case could affect Benny's ability to get a Please see RIVER, P. 2B Horses to be fed to rare cats in zoo By PATRICK O'DRISCOLL Gazette staff writer About two dozen of the Bureau of Land Management's "unadoptable" wild horses are in a southern Nevada zoo waiting to fed to lions and tigers But the rest of the scrawny, unadopted horses facing death this week at the bureau's Palomino Valley adoption center got a reprieve today. The International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros put up $450 to feed those wild horses that were scheduled to be destroyed this week because the bureau hadn't adopted them out within its 45-day holding period. The bureau confirmed that 26 Nevada mustangs were trucked to Tiger Haven II, a private zoo in Pahrump, to be killed and fed rare cats.

The bureau's legal counsel said the horses could be given to the zoo rather than killed and buried or sent to a rendering plant, BLM spokeswoman Maxine Shane said today. "This way, they could be used for good purposes," she added, saying the zoo animals are "threatened or endangered cats." She said the horses would be shot rather than injected with lethal doses of sodium pentobarbital because the carcasses could not be used for animal food if they were chemically poisoned. She said, however, that the shooting deaths would be "quick and humane" and would be supervised by the BLM. Shane added that national BLM Director Bob Bur-ford has put an indefinite "hold" on any bureau killings of mustangs. Meanwhile, Helen Reilly of the international society delivered a check for $450 to the bureau's state office in Reno today to pay for food and other fees for the remaining "unadoptable" mustangs at the Palomino Valley center north of Sparks.

The bureau has been planning to kill the horses because they were not adopted by private individuals within 45 days of capture its guideline for getting rid of mustangs under its Adopt-a-Horse The bureau agreed to forestall the killings if someone would put up $1.25 per animal each day to cover food and other expenses. Ms. Reilly said the horses look unadoptable because of their shaggy winter coats. "We're hoping they'll be adopted in the spring when they look a lot better." Until then the society will be giving the BLM $450 every 15 days for the animals' upkeep, she said. 'Poppycock Gojack responds to ex-wife Congressional candidate John T.

Gojack today denied estranged wife Mary Gojack's charge that he's seeking "vengeance" against her in their Democratic primary race. Ms. Gojack levelled the accusation at a news conference held in Reno Tuesday to formally launch her campaign for Nevada's northern congressional district. Her charge is "sheer poppycock," Gojack said. "First and foremost, this is the United States of America, where any qualified citizen has the right to run for political office.

"The real Gojack, John T. Gojack, will not be swayed by personal attacks, and plans to run his campaign on the issues facing Nevadans, and as clean as a hound's tooth. Nevadans are not interested in the differences of divorced couples, however juicy I could make them." Gojack's reference to a "hound's tooth" was an apparent reference to an earlier statement that he would appoint his dog as his campaign manager. Gojack reiterated his earlier position that he entered the race out of "honorable motives. I honestly believe I am the best qualified candidate.

I think I have an excellent record politically." Among other things, he said he worked on Wendell Willkie's presidential campaign in 1940, was a legislative lobbyist for the third largest labor union in the nation for 17 years and worked for many politicians in Indiana and Michigan. The Gojacks were married for 10 years until their divorce in 1979. A fight over their settlement went all the way to the state Supreme Court. a 100-percent parent 50 percent of the time rather than being the fairy godfather who doesn't feel right disciplining for minor infractions because you only have them for one day. I want them for a period of time so I can be a full-fledged father in a relatively normal setting," he said.

Alternating years, David said, "changes the mental image of who owns the children. Nobody owns them." Mediation involves only custody and visitation. Alimony, child support and division of property are treated as separate issues and are decided by the judge. In fact, a fight over property was the reason David cited for not wanting his last name used. Mediation is now mandatory in California divorce proceedings.

Some courts contract private mediators; others are on the court's regular staff. A pilot mediation program is being established in Washoe County in all but one district court. (Judge Peter Breen does not want to participate in the pilot.) Mediators will be available beginning in early April. Placer County Superior Court Judge Richard Sims, of Auburn, described mediation to Reno lawyers last week. Mediation is not counseling, he said.

It is not an attempt to save a marriage. Rather, it brings two (possibly hostile) parents together in a setting where emotions are played down and the interests of the children are played up. Mediation encourages parents to work together "for the emotional health of the child," Sims said. The traditional adversary system of divorce, he said, "focuses on past faults rather than future responsibilities." In Placer County, 160 couples went Protests fail to stop Demangate's promotion By HELEN MANNING Gazette staff writer graded when it was given to Demangate. If the job is retained after all, "I would hope it was a person who was degreed," Wynn said.

Tenant leaders, who don't see it that way, presented a letter plus a petition with more than 200 signatures of people who say they want Demangate to stay on his present job. Charles Clarity, a resident of Mineral Manor, said afterward that tenants will fight the decision. The controversy over Demangate is only one indicator of tensions between housing authority tenants and staff, as indicated early Tuesday in a statement by Don Mason, a senior city representative. Directors authorized a series of tenant meetings and a discussion next month on Mason's complaint that some housing staff treat tenants with disrespect and ignore maintenance requests. The tenant services supervisor for the Reno Housing Authority is being moved out of the job he's held for 5 years despite protests from tenants.

Instead, Larry Demangate will be reassigned to the 68-unit Stead Housing Project when it opens this summer. It's a nominal promotion, but one Demangate doesn't want. Demangate won the loyalty of tenants by the way he's transformed an 8-to-5 job into an around-the-clock commitment to help with anything from family problems to searching for jobs and furniture to moving garbage cans for the elderly and defusing neighborhood fights. The job he now does will be shared among all housing managers, as part of a cost-cutting staff reorganization approved Tuesday by the housing authority's board of directors. In response to the grass-roots tenant protest, directors agreed that the reorganization will be on six months' trial.

But if the board decides that a tenant services supervisor is needed, Demangate will have to compete for his old job. Indications Tuesday were that he would be low man in the race. "We might want to go back and hire a tenant services person," said The Rev. W. J.

Wynn. But professional qualifications for the job were down TODAY'S NEWSLINE INDEX ALMANAC 3B EDITORIALS 5B ENTERTAINMENT 4B.6B OBITUARIES 2B QUESTION LADY 3B TELEVISION 4B VITALS 3B WEATHER 3B Arrest made in arson case Police apprehended a Sparks man Tuesday on an arrest warrant charging him with arson in connection with a September 1981 fire at a Reno apartment. Reno Fire Marshal Marty Richard said the arrest was made at about 2:30 p.m. in the home of suspect James Mellott, 31, of 1052 Baywood Drive. Officials said Mellott was in Reno's City Jail Tuesday night in lieu of $7,500 bail.

Jailers said Mellott listed his occupation as a truck driver. Richard said Mellott also is charged with burglary in connection with a theft from the apartment at 303 Hill St. "It looks as if the fire was a means of concealing a crime," Richard said. The marshal declined to say how police tracked Mellott or what was taken. Ford trial end in sight After nearly five months, there is a "light at the end of the tunnel" of the Priscilla Ford trial, with indications in Washoe District Court Tuesday that the defense has concluded or is near concluding its case.

Before recessing the jury until Thursday morning, Washoe District Judge John Barrett said, "Ladies and gentleman, we've been winding down in this thing. That's a good expression; it doesn't mean anything as far as when the end will be. But I think I can say there is a light at the end of tunnel." He added to the panel of five men and seven women, some of whom have been in court since jury selection began Oct. 12, "This is the first note of optimism I've been able to give you." Even when the defense rests its case, how- PSC staff: pare rate hike CARSON CITY (AP) State Public Service Commission staffers reviewing request from Sierra Pacific Power Co. for a $17.8 million rate increase have suggested an increase of no more than $2.2 million.

The staff proposal is part of written testimony submitted in advance of a March 9 hearing in Reno on the utility's request. Also submitted was testimony from state Consumer Advocate Jon Wellinghoff calling for an increase of about $150,000. The commission staff proposal outlines a range of between $18,000 and $2.2 million in increases. After the upcoming hearing, the commission will review all testimony and then issue a decision at a later commission meeting. ever, District Attorney Cal Dunlap is expected to put on a rebuttal case.

Mrs. Ford has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to killing six people and injuring 23 by driving her car down a crowded Reno sidewalk on Thanksgiving Day 1980. The trial was recessed about an hour early Tuesday when defense attorney Lew Carnahan elected not to question Dr. Donald Lunde..