Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 4

(Pic Arizona Bmtn Star Tucson, Friday, October 23, 1987 TATE Page One Hekman i 'llQJ 1 as mediator in zoning battle DiTIOM quits A rTt" iTTH 1987 Star file photo Sharon Hekman I i rg. Husband's role called a potential conflict By Joe Burchell The Arizona Daily Star Democratic City Councilwoman Sharon Hekman withdrew yesterday from her role in mediation over development near Saguaro National Monument East after City Attorney Fred Dean told her she has a possible conflict of interest. Hekman's husband, Louis, works for Cella Barr Associates which has a $750,000 engineering contract with Cienega, Ltd. to help develop a 413-acre property east of Houghton Road, between East Speedway Boulevard and East 22nd Street. Dean said he advised Hekman yesterday not to take any further role in the mediation because of the possible conflict.

"It's not altogether clear that this is a violation. But the language is broad enough that, had I been asked or had I known about it, I would have told her to stay out of it," Dean said. Restrained from voting In a prepared statement yesterday, Hekman said she never thought her attempt to resolve a major community dispute would be seen as a conflict of interest. Hekman has declared a conflict of interest, and refrained from voting on any zoning cases involving the Cienega project. But she has taken the leading role in organizing mediation sessions to resolve disputes between the Houghton East Neighborhood and the developer over the zoning case.

State law says officials who have a conflict must "refrain from participating in any manner as an officer or employee in such decision." Richard Edison, president of the Houghton East Neighborhood Association, said on Wednesday that unless the mediation results in some significant changes in Cienega's development plan, the neighborhood will use referendum petitions to block a proposed rezoning. Interviewed mediator The neighborhood already has used referendum petitions successfully, once to block rezoning of a portion of the property. Dean said he did not advise Hekman about her possible conflict until yesterday because no one asked him about it, and because he did not know how involved she was in the mediation. It was Hekman who urged the City Council to bring in an outside mediator. She interviewed Marshall Kaplan of Denver before he was given the job.

The city is paying Kaplan $500 per session, plus expenses, to oversee the mediation sessions. David Sanders, The Arizona Daily Star Cover-up San Xavier Preschool children see the and school cook Edmound Garcia found the siren, which fire-sights and sounds of a Drexei Heights Fire Station. The children fighter Dan Crouse turned on yesterday, too loud. Diocese looking to sell TV station Stretched to credit limit, church halts new projects, Mediation efforts between Cienega Ltd. and Houghton East neighbors resume tomorrow.

Page 6B. City Manager Joel Valdez said he doesn't know how much the two assistants who are coming to Tucson with Kaplan will be paid because he hasn't gotten a bill yet from the University of Colorado, where they work. Wanted involvement Valdez said expenses include round-trip air fare for the three, at $218 each, and two night's lodging for each of them at the Tanque Verde Guest Ranch. Rooms at the resort are $119 to $135 each. Hekman, in the first meeting with the mediation group in September, told the participants that the reason she was able to join them in an unofficial capacity was because she had legally declared a conflict of interest and would not be voting on the matter as a member of the council.

In her prepared statement, Hekman said she wanted to get involved in the mediation because Tucson is "being torn apart by conflicts between developers and neighborhoods." "The Houghton East Neighborhood conflict with developers, including Cienega, is the most glaring example of this," she said. Logical choice Hekman said she took a leading role in organizing the mediation because she has a lot of experience in that field and understands the process. "It never occurred to me that this would be a conflict of interest because I wasn't looking for a particular outcome. "I was hoping that by bringing the See HEKMAN, Page 7B The diocese is negotiating with a buyer for the station, Allison said, but he declined to name the company or the asking price. A source said the diocese wants from $10 million to $15 million for the station and its facilities at 1855 N.

Six We. The diocese confirmed that the station is for sale last night after The Arizona Daily Star began making inquiries about the letter. A statement was distributed after a reporter called the diocese. In the July 24 letter, Moreno wrote: "From the beginning I have said that the TV station was not going to draw on diocesan funds, yet, during the past 8-10 months, while we have been trying to divest ourselves of the TV property, this decision could not be sustained. "As our credit limits with outside banks began to be reached, it became necessary to begin to use diocesan funds to keep the station on the air while we go through the sale process, thus producing the pressure which has resulted in my decision to place a moratorium on new construction." He asked the parish priests to keep the information in "strictest confidence." Moreno was on retreat yesterday and could not be reached.

Sister St. Joan Willert, president of Caronde-let Health Services yesterday said Caronde-let's operations are not affected by the moratorium. St. Joseph's Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital are owned by the Sisters of St.

Joseph of Caronde-let, not the diocese, she said. No funds from church collections or the annual Bishop's Appeal, which last year raised nearly $2 million, have supported the television station, said Allison, the diocese spokesman. The money has come from loans and returns on investments, he said. KDTU, which went on the air Dec. 31, 1984, shows family-oriented reruns of television programs and movies.

The diocese considered the station a community service and an investment, Allison said. Allison said 7 percent of Tucson's television viewers watched KDTU in July according to the Arbitron and Nielsen rating services. The station's operating expenses were estimated at $1.5 million a year, according to previous reports, and revenues were to come from advertising, contributions and production of advertisements. Frank Kalil, a local media broker, yesterday confirmed he has been trying to sell the station for the church. By Melissa Rigg The Arizona Daily Star Keeping KDTU-TV afloat has stretched the Catholic Diocese of Tucson to its credit limit and forced the church to put all new building projects on hold, the bishop of the diocese has told parish priests.

In a July 24 confidential letter to priests, the Most Rev. Manuel D. Moreno said the church "has quietly been trying to sell" Channel 18 since January 1986. As recently as March of this year, a station official denied that KDTU-TV was for sale. The station laid off 22 of its 56 employees at that time.

There reportedly have been no further layoffs since then. Spokesman Fred Allison said yesterday he did not know how much money was involved or what the diocese's credit limit is. That information is private anyway, he said. Allison also said he did not know what building projects were affected, but said construction already in progress would continue. There are 70 parishes and missions in the diocese.

Unassuming Realtor turns athletic crime-buster By C.T. Revere The Arizona Daily Star A normally sedentary Realtor hurdled desks, vaulted brick walls and jumped into the bed of a moving pickup truck earlier this week in pursuit of a suspected would-be thief. And, at the end of the 30-minute chase, Dale Hulvey helped police capture the man suspected of trying to take a purse from his receptionist. Hulvey, the president of Christopher Robert Realty and Management, said he was called out of his office about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday to deal with a man who reportedly had picked up a receptionist's purse.

"When I went up front and saw what was going on, he attempted to take off," Hulvey, 32, said yesterday. "So I chased him." Hulvey said the man dropped the purse, ran down a flight of stairs and out of the build "There were guys working in the manholes, pointing to where he was," Hulvey said. After following the man over several backyard fences, Hulvey grabbed an impromptu ride in the bed of the pickup. "He was pulling out of his driveway and he was going in the same direction I was going, so I just jumped in," he said. After leaving the truck and getting directions from a man atop a 10-foot ladder, Hulvey pursued the man into a desert lot on East 15th Street and South Plumer Avenue.

Police arrived on the scene and arrested a man huddling in a patch of desert brush. Police identified the man as Daniel Joseph Urban, 27. Urban, who lives in the 400 block of East Ninth Street, was charged with attempted theft. Hulvey said the chase was "exciting," but added that he felt the effects yesterday. "I'm not used to running around like that," he said.

ing onto East Broadway, and then went into the law offices of Bury, Moeller and Humphrey on East 10th Street. When Hulvey spotted him inside the office, the man was calmly asking an employee for a glass of water. "He was cool, slick as a fish," Hulvey said. But when the man saw Hulvey, he took off again. "I attempted to tackle him twice inside the law offices and I missed him twice," Hulvey said.

He said he hurled his 220-pound frame across a secretary's desk in one of the futile attempts to grab the man. The office workers "weren't too happy with me, but they understood later," he recalled. When the chase led down the middle of Tucson Boulevard, Hulvey got some help in his pursuit of the smaller, faster man. 4 I iiii The Anzona Daily Star Dale Hulvey New poll shows Babbitt losing Arizona support By Steve Meissner The Arizona Daily Star Bruce Babbitt's presidential bid is supported by only one of every three Democrats in his home state, according to a new poll. Babbitt's nearest rival is a man who says he isn't interested in running for the White House Gov.

Mario Cuomo of New York. The Phoenix-based Behavior Research Center said Babbitt was backed by 32 percent of 230 Democrats in a statewide poll conducted Sept. 25 to Oct. 7. He was supported by 43 percent in a poll last May.

Cuomo was the choice of 16 percent. He was not included in the May survey. "Obviously, people haven't heard me (speak)," said Cuomo, who was in Phoenix for a Democratic fundraiser. Nearly a third of those polled 31 percent said they were undecided or favored someone other than those mentioned in the poll. Twelve percent said none of the people named in the poll would get their support, and 19 percent were undecided.

The other presidential hopefuls received only marginal support, however, and all of them showed less support than they evoked in the May poll. Babbitt's closest rival among the announced candidates is Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. Dukakis was the pick of 8 percent of the re- Official reassures lawmakers on ground-water pumping urban areas, while at the same time targeting for goals that will lock up the resource" under the cities, Farrar said in the speech. Sen.

Greg Lunn, R-Tucson, asked Kleinman whether he was "advocating or anticipating any change" in the law's goal. "I'm certainly not," Kleinman answered. He said after the meeting that his assistant's remarks had been misinterpreted, prompting "rampant rumors" that the department won't enforce the law. Part of the concern among water interests is that if the state backs off from stopping the overpumping. the federal government might withhold money to complete the CAP leg to Tucson, here water is to arrive in 1991.

Sen. John Hays, R-Yarnell. the committee chairman, said later that he was reassured by Kleinman's statement that he srports "safe- for a series of management plans to end the heavy overdraft in the Tucson, Phoenix and Prescott areas by the year 2025. Some legislators and water experts were confused and others alarmed by remarks made Wednesday by Kleinman's assistant. Bob Farrar.

In a printed copy of a speech to the Arizona Rural Water Users Association, Farrar suggested "planned and regulated depletions" of ground water in the areas where the 1980 law call for the end to overpumping. The association is concerned that Mesa, Phoenix and Scottsdale have bought up rural farmland for the water rights, threatening rural development "It simply does not make good management sense to plan to deliberately deplete smaller 4utlying basins, through water transfer- to yield" or balancing the amount of ground ater pumped with the amount restored to the aquifer. "If there was any relaxation of safe-yield, we might as well repeal the ground-water code," Hays said. "That's the whole point of it." But Lunn said Kleinman's remarks "answer one set of questions and open another set of questions." For one thing, Lunn said, Kleinman noted that for some areas to be developed, new subdivisions will have to rely on limited ground water, at least until the aquifer can be replenished or "recharged." Lunn wondered where the new water would come from. "It seems to be a very strong signal about how he's going to interpret assured water supplies in te future," Lunn said.

By Enric Volante The Arizona Daily Star PHOENIX Saying an aide's remark was misinterpreted, Arizona's top water official yesterday reassured legislators that his office intends to enforce the law to stop the over-pumping of ground water. Alan P. Kleinman, director of the Department of Water Resources, told legislators that his department is merely trying to decide where and to what level ground water will be allowed to dwindle before the over-pumping stops. Kleinman. who took office this year, told a joint legislative committee studying water transfers that his office is trying to strike a balance between depleting ground water and not using it.

Arizona'v 1980 ground-water law provides SePOLL, Page 38.