Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 6

6 Reno Evening Gazette Thursday, October 4, 1979 ACLU: Execution Planning Commission rejects MGM appears certain TV N.X "There were too many 'ifs'," McClelland said. "We don't have planners to come up with "The RPC has capable planners, but the presentation tonight was not what it should be. The staff report did not give due emphasis to the economic impact of the project. The economic plusses were not addressed." Councilman Ed Oaks said he doesn't have enough information on water availability to make up his mind yet about the MGM hotel tower. "I would hope we'll have some numbers we can rely on" before the proposal comesto the council table, Oaks said.

Reno Councilwoman Janice Pine, who also attended the meeting, said prior to the vote that she favored staff recommendation for growth management policies. "It's a regional problem," she said. "We're talking about regional water, land use and growth plans. These will have to be addressed." Reno Mayor Barbara Bennett, who has opposed hotel-casino expansions, could not be reached for comment this morning. Councilman Bruno Menicucci, who has supported MGM proposals in the past, was out of town.

raised the prospect of attempting to stop the execution so Bishop could testify In a pending suit alleging Nevada's prison system is so bad it is cruel and unusual punishment." Prison sources said that Zeh has telegraphed Bishop an offer of assistance. The attorney would not confirm that, but did say that he would not Intervene unless Bishop requests it. As the prospects for stopping Bishop's date in the gas chamber grow dimmer, the ACLU and the Nevada Council of Churches plan peaceful vigils on the eve of the execution. "If the execution proceeds an action we deplore enormously great notice will be taken in peaceful vigils demonstrations," Schwarzschild said. Episcopal Bishop Wesley Frensdorf, president of the church council, said he will meet with American Friends Service Committee representative Eric Moon next week to plan the deathwatch services.

Frensdorf said it was too early to speculate what form the vigils might take or where they might be, other than they will be held in Carson City and Las Vegas. Bishop himself says as far as he's concerned, the state of Nevada can lynch him Oct. 22 Western style. By SUE VOLEK Gazette-Journal Carson Bureau The American Civil Liberties Union's capital punishment project isn't ruling out another last-ditch effort to save confessed killer Jesse Bishop's life, a spokesman for the organization said today. But Henry Schwarzschild said it's unlikely the Nevada State Prison inmate can be kept from the Oct.

22 death date set by a Las Vegas judge Wednesday. "I'm relatively pessimistic about legal action I assume we're marching to the Oct. 22 date," Schwarzschild said from his New York office. "We've met with public defenders (Kirk) Len-hard and (George) Franzen and the legal avenues are more restricted than usual in this case." Lenhard and Franzen unsuccessfully pursued appeals on Bishop's behalf to the U.S. Supreme Court, despite the condemned man's violent objections.

Bishop said that the appeals violated his constitutional right to accept or fight his death sentence and he said he'd kill Lenhard if he had the chance. And Washoe County Legal Services Director Charles Zeh indicated he won't attempt to intervene in Bishop's case. Zeh had McClelland questioned whether the MGM Grand proposal had been treated fairly by the planning staff. "I think they (the MGM Grand) should have waited," McClelland said. "I don't agree with what happened tonight.

The question still involves water, and that hasn't been proven one way or the other. If the MGM Grand can't use the well, then how are they going to get water for the project?" McClelland criticized planners for coming to the meeting unprepared without the answers the commissioners needed to make a decision. Reno Councilman Ed Spoon, who indicated this morning he would vote for the MGM expansion, said he has "private information" that MGM's well is "one of the largest private wells in the valley." Commissioners questioned the quality, quantity and ownership of the well on the MGM Grand's property. Other commissioners said water was only one of many problems facing the MGM Grand expansion. "One of the problems we have on the table here is that we focus on one dimension of the problem," said Commissioner Mike Tuohy.

"We're spending all the time looking at water but we can't do it. The streets are in terrible shape and in my mind that's a reason not to build it." Asked if he thought the City Council would overturn the recommendation, Brunet smiled and told reporters to "ask the council-men." If the City Council overturns the Planning Commission and approves the project, the MGM Grand hopes to have its expansion completed by the end of 1980. Reno Councilman Bill Wallace said today he would not vote for the MGM proposal. "It's the wrong time now (to approve the expansion plan)," he said. "Daily it seems another crisis occurs." Wallace remarked that the planning commission took a "responsible action" in asking the MGM to wait until there is more information on water availability-He acknowledged that it appears the MGM officials are confident they will receive approval from the Reno council, although he said, "I don't know why they'd have that impression." Interviews with five council members did not reveal a consensus on the MGM expansion.

Reno City Councilman Joe McClelland who attended the hearing Wednesday night, said he was not sure if he would support the commission's denial (Continued from Page 1) Brunet, stood and said the hotel would agree to wait only until completion of the Sierra Pacific Power Company's final report on water availability in the Truckee Meadows, scheduled to be released Wednesday. Only commissioners Bill Biel and Walt Henderson voted against the unconditional denial. After the vote, Brunet said the projects had been delayed long enough and "we've answered all the questions in a reasonable amount of time. "I'm disappointed by the action that was taken," Brunet said. "We'll continue to explore the options that are available to us.

"This project was postponed once before for six weeks (at the MGM Grand's request) and we felt the Planning Commission should be able to come up with its questions in that period of time." The question of water availability dominated the public hearing Wednesday night as commissioners questioned whether the MGM Grand could find the water for its expansion. According the staff planners, the MGM Grand expansion and its resulting "ripple effect" of drawing gaming industry employees to the community would create a need for 241,890 gallons per day of sewage capacity more than Vf times the 92,580 gallons per day requested by MGM Grand officials. Planners also determined the expansion would consume 530 acre feet of water per day. Frankovich challenged planning staff estimates that the 364 additional employees the hotel would have to hire for the expansion would result in 1,384 more people being brought into the community. MGM Grand officials told commissioners they owned the rights to an industrial well which could be incorporated into the Sierra Pacific water service system in return for water service or could be used directly by the hotel-casino to provide water for the $2.5 billion suit dismissed Cache of weapons found in Sparks house BUFFALO, N.Y.

(AP) A state Supreme Court justice has dismissed a $2.5 billion class action claim filed on behalf of 900 residents and former residents of a neighborhood built near an old chemical dump. Justice Joseph P. Kuszynski rejected the claim Wednesday but said individual lawsuits could be filed. A claim is usually the first step in seeking damages and, if not settled, can be followed by a lawsuit. The claim was filed last year against Niagara Falls, its school board and Niagara County.

The site of the Hooker Chemicals Plastics dump in the Love Canal area was taken over by the school board. A school was built on the site and homes and roads were built nearby. The state Health Department declared an emergency at the site in August 1978, after chemicals bubbled to the surface and the department began finding evidence of higher than average miscarriage and birth defect rates. The state evacuated more than 200 families from homes close to the old dump. State officials say they expect to complete construction on a multi-million dollar cleanup project later this month.

In his ruling, Kuszynski said the state's General Municipal Law precludes class actions "arising from exposure to deleterious chemical wastes." Three other expansions get go-ahead other explosive material was disposed of. We took it out and blew it up at a pit in Spanish Springs later that day." Rusk said a pipe bomb is made by using galvanized pipe with end caps filled with explosive material and a fuse. Arrested were William Clifton, 21, his wife, Donna Clifton, 18, and Robert Sonderfan, 29, all of 695 Teel St. Also arrested was Gary Frye, 23, of 241 Costa Drive in Sun Valley. Mrs.

Clifton was booked on charges of armed robbery and is being held on $10,000 bail. The three men were booked on charges of armed robbery, burglary with the use of weapons and possession of stolen property. The robbery of the Warehouse Market occurred Saturday at about 5 a.m. when three persons rushed into the store as employees began arriving for work, according to police. The robbers took the three employee they found in the store but apparently overlooked a fourth employee who hid and later telephoned the police, Rusk said.

The robbers then forced one of the employees to open the store's safe, took "a substantial amount of money" and bound the employees' feet and hands, said Rusk. Meanwhile, another supermarket employee arriving for work apparently saw the robbers inside the store and went to a nearby residence to telephone police. When the robbers went to their car, the employee, hidden in some nearby bushes, got the license number of the vehicle. After obtaining the license plate number, police located the car at 695 Teel where they made the arrests, recovered the money and discovered the arsenal. By LENITA POWERS An arsenal of semi-automatic weapons, shotguns, 164 sticks of dynamite, homemade pipe bombs and a grenade was discovered in a Sparks home just two blocks away from an elementary and a junior high school, Sparks police today confirmed.

Police found the cache when they arrested three men and a woman in connection with an armed robbery Saturday of the Warehouse Market on Pyramid Way in Sparks. Police arrested the four suspects at a house at 695 Teel located two blocks east of Lincoln Park Elementary School and Dil-worth Junior High School. Sgt. Terry Rusk today said police discovered semi-automatic weapons, shotguns, nine powder-filled pipe bombs, two dynamite-filled pipe bombs, one grenade and 164 slicks of dynamite in the bedroom of the home. Had something detonated the arsenal, Rusk estimates the houses surrounding the residence would have been destroyed and houses within a two-block area would have been damaged by debris.

Asked what persons might do with such an arsenal, Rusk said, "I have no idea. I'm afraid to think about the possibilities of that." Rusk said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is running a trace on the weapons and explosives to determine from where they came and from whom they were purchased. "I and two members of the bomb squad rendered harmless all the pipe bombs and the grenade," the sergeant said. "All the the subject of the proposed conversion, originally were approved for construction by the Reno council on the basis of a Sundowner application that described them as office space. When Sundowner owner George Karadanis came before the City Council in April in his after-the-fact bid to convert the area to 162 additional hotel rooms, the council accused Karadanis of "thumbing his nose" at the city and denied his bid.

Wednesday's favor-able commission recommendation again will have to go through the City Council. Five months before the council rejected the conversion, city building inspectors discovered that Karadanis apparently tried to convert the nine floors to hotel rooms without approval. He already had installed bathroom fixtures, which the city ordered him to tear out. In March, Sundowner records were subpoenaed as part of a federal grand jury investigation into Reno's sewer allocation showed later that there is inadequate water to serve those rooms, the community would face a dilemma, ith the addition already having been brought into existence. The Sundowner conversion is not a new proposal.

It already has been through the commission staff, the commission, the Reno City Council and a federal grand jury. The last time around, in April, the commission overrrode its staff and recommended approval, but the City Council angrily overrode the commission and vetoed the conversion. The federal grand jurors and the U.S. Attorney for Nevada still are mute on the issue. The planning staff, in recommending thumbs down on the conversion, had said the project would be too large, too noisy, too crowded and a source of additional growth-related trauma in the Truckee Meadows.

The top nine floors of the Sundowner tower addition, which are hotel rooms to the 138 which exist already. After defeating a motion to approve the Lakemill expansion, the commissioners voted unanimously to table the matter, saying they oppose the casino portion of the plan, but they could favor the hotel addition, if concerns over parking and over traffic on Mill and Lake streets can be answered. The commissioners interrupted their sequence of hearings on the additions Wednesday to explain to the audience why they were approving the smaller projects while denying the MGM. Only Commissioner Pam Wilcox voted against approval of the projects. They said the MGM wants to begin building immediately, regardless of potential water shortage problems.

They said the Sundowner's rooms already exist, although legally, as oifices, and the additions at the Comstock and Pacific 6 are not scheduled to be built until 1981 or 1982. If water is unavailable at that time, the additions simply will not be built, the commissioners said. However, they said if the MGM's plans to build immediately were approved, and studies By MARK OLIVA After flatly rejecting the MGM Grand's bid for a 982-room expansion Wednesday, Washoe Regional Planning Commissioners recommended that the Reno City Council give the green light to three other projects totaling 436 new hotel rooms. Expansion proposals from the Sundowner, the Comstock and the Pacific 6 Motor Inn all won favorable commision action, but the biggest project up for hearing after the MGM, a new, casino and 89-room addition at the Lakemill Lodge, at Mill and Lake streets, ended up in limbo. The Lakemill wants to remodel its ground floor, which now contains a coffee shop and parking and storage facilities, into a new casino along with a complex of restaurant, office and parking facilities.

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