Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page 16

6 THE HARTF08D COURANT: Friday, October 4, 1996 HARTFORD State officials being investigated Perot lawyers turn to new legal strategy to continue. By THOMAS SCHULTZ Courant Stiff Writer WASHINGTON Appealing a decision made earlier this week that federal courts have no power to force Ross Perot into Sunday's presidential debate in Hartford, Reform Party attorneys changed strategies Thursday and said they no longer want the debate stopped or Perot thrust in, but want the decision overturned nevertheless. A panel of three U.S. appellate court judges delayed any ruling until at least today. "What we have tried to do is construct a legal strategy that will nullify the Commission on Presidential Debate's control over debates," said Clay Mulford, a senior adviser to Perot, at a post-hearing press conference.

"The structure is a dinosaur. It's going to come down, we just don't know when." Perot filed a lawsuit Sept. 23 after the nonprofit debate com Continued from Page 1 land and oversees the four agencies where the memo was distributed. His memo, sent Wednesday, says tickets to the invitation-only rally at the State Armory should be picked up through his personal assistant andUirges everyone in the four agencies to "join in on the fun prior to this historic event." Democrats immediately criticized Diedrick for using his office for political purposes and said his actions were particularly egregious since he was at the center of another ethical storm last year. Diedrick, publisher of Connecticut Magazine, was widely criticized after the economic development department awarded the magazine a state tourism contract worth nearly Rowland later reversed the award, and state legislators adopted a law prohibiting the head of a state agency from entering into a business contract with that agency.

Diedrick "evidently learned nothing from this experience," Democratic State Chairman Edward L. Marcus said in a letter to Rowland urging him to demand Diedrick's resignation. "This man's conduct is outrageous and he has got to go," Marcus wrote. Sen. Thomas Gaffey, D-Meriden, called Diedrick's conduct "totally unacceptable" and said Diedrick had demonstrated "a pattern of behavior that is not related to the task at hand that he has been appointed to dot." The memo from Hicks Gavin's executive secretary is similar to memo and says that the governor's office has invited all state employees to "a pre-debate rajh" at the armory.

The memo says, that people interested in going should submit requests through their division director. either Diedrick nor Hicks was available for comment. Democratic state Auditor Kevin P. Johnston, who with Republican Auditor Robert G. Jaekle is investigating the memos, said Thursday that at first glance, they appear to violate state law.

'It's clearly inappropiate for state employees to use the resources of the state for clearly partisan purposes," Johnston said. He and Jaekle have been "consistently critical of individuals who use telephones, fax machines or their time to do partisan work while working for the state of Connecticut," Johnston added. "When you're at work you're supposed to be doing strictly the business of the state." Johnston and Jaekle will review the two memos and recommend what, if any, disciplinary action should be taken against the employees involved. Attorney General Richard Blu-menthal also is investigating the memos. He said Thursday he could not characterize them until he learns more details but added that as a general principle, "there clearly are reasons why misuse of state equipment or stationery or positions of authority are subject to sanctions." Ellen Schneider, a spokeswoman for the tax department, said the incident has been "blown all out of proportion.

We thought it was a routine get-th'e-people out in Hartford thing," she said. "Nobody thought of this as political," she said of the Dole rally. Nuala Forde, a spokeswoman for Rowland, called the memos a mistake and said Rowland's chief of staff has reminded all administration employees to separate their partisan activities from their official duties. "This falls into the category of honest mistake in our estimation and underscores the need to be extra careful" during an election cam paign, Fordesaid. "The governor feels it is very important to distinguish what is partisan and what is nonpartisan," Forde added.

Forde said the Rowland ame who made the calls about the rally is Regina Gianni, a longtime Rowland supporter who works as a clerical assistant in the governor's constituent services office. Gianni, 52, of Wolcott, volunteers for the Dole-Kemp campaign on her own time and made the calls from Republican state headquarters in that capacity, Forde said. Gianni will not be disciplined, Forde said. "She was not working for the governor when she made those calls," Forde said. Chris DePino, the Republican state chairman, said Gianni was one of about 15 people who have been calling state commissioners, town chairmen and other influential Republicans urging them to attend Sunday's rally.

The calls are being made from his office at GOP headquarters specifically to avoid the appearance of conflict between partisan and official duties, DePino said. "We did not want in any way, shape or form to use taxpayer dollars to do this," DePino said. DePino characterized the memos sent by Diedrick and Hicks as the type of "honest, innocuous mistake that happens in the flurry of a campaign." DePino called Marcus' criticism of Diedrick "very, very disingenuous" and said Marcus was "conspicuously silent" this week when a member of Blumenthal's staff used a state fax machine to send out press releases on a Democratic event in Ellington. Ronald Blanchette, an assistant attorney general and Democratic town chairman in Ellington, faces disciplinary action from Blumen-thal if it is determined that he improperly used state equipment. Sheraton workers push back mission, which organized the 1996 debates, recommended he be excluded because he had no realistic chance of winning the election.

Perot says he is a major candidate. Attorneys for Natural Law Party candidate John Hagelin, whose similar case was coupled with Perot's, said that if the debate commission is found to be illegal, Clinton and Dole would feel morally obligated to invite the two third-party candidates. Judge Lawrence Silberman told Thomas jGorman, an attorney for Perot, that he was "somewhat taken aback" by the change in strategy- "I agreed to expedite this hearing because it was an appeal of a denial of a preliminary injunction to stop the debates," Silberman said sharply after Gorman told him Perot now wants the debates If they have a good response for us, we'll take it. 99 Gaia DiLoreto Hotel and Restaurant Employees union seeking guarantees that their jobs and wages will be secure when ITT Sheraton sells the city's largest hotel in early November to Global Acquisitions, a private investment group. The workers voted earlier this week to strike, but decided to postpone a walkout until this morning in the hopes of reaching a settlement.

Their contract expired Monday. After a series of talks Thursday, the union agreed to push back the By ANDREW JUJJEN Courant Staff Writer Workers at the Sheraton-Hartford Hotel have pushed back their plans to strike to 4 p.m. today at the earliest in the hopes of settling a dispute with hotel management over job security. The union members are threatening to walk off their jobs just as thousands of visitors begin pouring into the city for Sunday's presidential debate. The hotel plans to remain open, strike or not.

"We decided to give them a chance," said Gaia DiLoreto, an organizer for Hotel and Restaurant Employees union Local 2 1 7. "If they have a good response for us, we'll take it." About 170 union workers are Ir 'V One day, students may not have to fear fingernails on a blackboard Silberman grilled attorneys'fof A the debate commission ana trie Federal Election Commission on whether their selection criteria are! fair and their own appeal process adequate. The election commission tributes tax money providednto candidates and regulates funding of debates. Richard B. Bader, an attdpYey for the election commission! 'ac--knowledged that the commis-'1 sion's strict appeals pro'Ce'sS makes timely reparation to candidates impossible, even if they are excluded from a debate for a reSJI son such as religion.

Perot attorney Jamin Raskin said Perot still might prevail. Eyeji if Perot doesn't participate in Hartford debate, Raskin adtieaV; his attorneys hope to changtfte' debate selection process for future elections. i strike plans 13 strike plans at least several hours, possibly even until Saturday, resume talks this morning. Mayor Michael P. PeterSyis-uVf volved in the talks as a mediator ti "It's still not our screw up the debate as long as we have full job security," DiLoreto said.

"We don't have that yetJ- Union officials have been falMng throughout the week with 'representatives of ITT Sheraton, as well as Ocean Hospitalities, the maftagfrl ment company that is to run 'the1 hotel for Global Dolores Sanchez, a spokeswoman for ITT Sheraton, declinedo characterize the talks, saying, "We'll just have to wait and see' hew it turns out." Officials at Ocean Hospitalities could not be reached late Thursday. t. "1 thorities a memorandum informing (hem that elevated radon levels had been detected in five private dwells" The memo says that an atfaqhed1 sheet of proposed guidelines. 'Was; sent to the private well ownersi'Ac-cording to the guidelines, horoei owners with radon levels between! 40,000 and 200,000 picocuries'peh liter should have reduced themiXhei time frame for taking actionrwas! within four to 12 months. woi Dave Boone, Glastonbury's health director, said the memd'on" private wells was the only docu1-1' ment from the state he could n'ridSn1' his files concerning radon in water.

He said his office was not informed of the results of the tests aMhe'! Kimberly Lane and ChestnttFUilli water systems. iud Maybe there was a moral oblfgan. tion to notify the users of the radon-tainted wells, Boone said, butthe state health department was under" no legal obligation because was no standard for radon in water a The health department saysit informed local health diresfprs school officials and owners of about the test results, and left it lo their discretion whether to ers such as parents, people relying on public watersys terns. Schur said the health departfcnt this week has received about 100 calls from people with questions about radon, most of them selekng information about how to get their well water tested. The health" de-, partment has a list of contractors who can test for radon in water or in' Continued from Page 1 white-boards.

It's easy to see why. Gross uses different-colored markers switching between blue, red, green and black depending the lesson. On the white surface, te colors are bold, easy to see even rom the back of the class. Teachers say students like to use the markers on the boards, too. In Gross' class, sixth-graders eagerly use a red pen to mark punctuation mistakes in a sentence printed on the board; later, they use a green pen for corrections.

At Hartford Public High School, a building more than 30 years old, most classrooms have chalkboards. But teacher John Wilmington uses whiteboards donated by a local corporation. Teaching his Advanced Placement biology class, he keeps three or four markers in his hand, changing colors as he diagrams a protein or illustrates a formula. can use intense colors. It reflects better.

It's very visual. And when I want to clean up, you just wipe it. With a chalkboard, you are always scrubbing," said Wilmington, whose room is also lined with chalk dust-hating computer Still, whiteboards don't seem to inspire the kind of memories black school equipment suppliers in New England, are whiteboards, said Paul Holt, company president. "The white is just cleaner. A lot of people use projectors on them, too," Holt said.

Modern or not, the old-fashioned slate blackboards stand for tradition. They remain popular at schools such as Trinity College and Yale University, where they are used in classrooms and lecture halls, said Dave Allen, owner of the Connecticut Blackboard Co. of West Haven. Allen's company is one of the only manufacturers of slate boards around. The 60-year-old business also refurbishes old blackboards, grinding and polishing the slate.

A slate blackboard costs about a third more than a whiteboard or a more conventional blackboard, which run around $300. Slate blackboards "are simple. They are easy to maintain. It's a smoother writing surface," Allen said. Because his customers want them, Allen's company sells whiteboards.

But he says he is still partial to slate. For one thing, he. said, chalk costs only pennies while markers are expensive. "I think," he said, "that the markers are just a fad." These two community'water systems were tested Sept 4, 1 985, but stats officials did not tell residents the results. Federal' scientists have proposed a health Standard for radnn in water nl Wl "picocuries per liter.

The lowest reading for these two systems was 1,563 and the highest was 80,900 picocuries about 270 times higher man the limit that was Marc Yves Regis The Hartford C6urantC Using his trademark markers of many colors and a whiteboard, John Wilmington teaches an Advanced? JT Placement biology data at Hartford Public High School on Thursday. Residents not told of tests showing high levels of radon in drinking waters board and chalk do. "When I was a kid I used to tap the erasers. And I remember the nuns with dust on their habits," said Richard Szczypek, an architect with Tai Soo Kim Partners, whose Hartford firm designs schools without blackboards. In Antoinette Tomasino's class at Dwight School, it is still the same old board with carefully printed, white chalk letters on a dark-green board.

Most Hartford and Connecticut classrooms are like this, but increasingly they have both whiteboards and blackboards. A teacher for more than 20 years, Tomasino uses the board in the same way her teachers did when she was a student at Dwight. She does English lessons on the board and scribbles word problems. She hands the chalk to students, who take their turns at the board. Every few moments, the familiar squeak of chalk on board punctuates her lessons.

In her desk drawer, she keeps colored chalk, but the white chalk works fine. "The markers, they smell," she said of the special markers used to write on the whiteboards. These days, seven of every 10 boards sold by the Holt Co. of Wal-tham, one of the largest system. "You have to be a chemist to understand." The Courant reported Sunday that thousands of people in homes and schools are drinking well water that contains high levels of radon, and that the state Department of Public Health has known of the hazard for years.

After filing a request with the health department under the state Freedom of Information Act, the newspaper obtained the names of towns, utilities and schools where radon was found in wells. Glastonbury residents were interviewed by the newspaper and informed of the test results after the health department identified community well systems. Test results compiled by the health department show that nearly all wells tested in the state had radon at levels above a standard proposed by federal scientists in 1991 300 picocuries per liter. Of nearly 970 wells mostly private but some public nearly half had radon above 3,000 picocuries per liter a standard that was supported by the U.S. Senate.

And more than a fifth had radon above 10,000 picocuries per liter. A total of 10 schools in Newtown, Redding, Ridgefield, Voluntown and Ledyard relied on private wells containing radon above 3,000 picocuries per liter in some cases far higher state surveys since 1991 have shown. Blumenthal said he is intervening in a Department of Public Utility Control investigation into radon issues involving the Bridgeport Hydraulic Litchfield well-water system, which supplies several thousand people. "The radon problem is a state- GLAST0K3URY Continued from Page 1 regulators to require such testing. Officials at the health department, which conducted the 1985 tests jointly with federal authorities, said they did not think to inform the people drinking the water from the two community systems in Glastonbury.

Paul Schur, director of the department's environmental health division, said the tests were conducted, with samples taken by both state and federal scientists, to ensure that their separate laboratories would come up with the same results which they did. In the case of the Chestnut Hill Heights Water Association in Glastonbury, the amount of the radioactive gas found in the drinking water in .1985 ranged from about 78,000 picocuries of radon per liter of water to nearly 81,000 picocuries per liter, 270 times higher than a limit that was proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Bush administration. Even back in the mid-1980s, before scientists knew much about the dangers of radon in water, proposed state guidelines called for installing equipment to reduce such levels of radon, within a year if Robert C. Dykins, who has lived oh Sunset Drive for 35 years, believes officials just point fingers at one anqlher.

He blames state health officials for not keeping the public informed. ''They're nice people on the phone and they say they'll help, and then they send another letter you don't understand," said Dykins, who has served as a president and secretary of the Chestnut Hill water don that has been detected in the well water. Glastonbury residents such as Overman said they wish they had been informed about the radon in their well water when the test results became available, instead of 1 1 years later. Sandy Warzika, the secretary of the seven-home Chestnut Hill water system, said she and her husband have lived on Sunset Drive and have relied on the well water for 19years. They have three school-age children.

Warzika said she was not aware of the health threat, and blames state health officials for not keeping the well-water users informed. "It's like the blind leading the blind," Warzika said. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that results from the decay of radium in soil andTock. It enters wells underground and is carried in water pipes to faucets and shower heads. The gas and its radioactive decay particles can be inhaled, for example, during a shower, or ingested in water, increasing a person's risk for developing lung cancer.

Federal scientists consider radon the No. 1 cancer threat among contaminants in drinking water. The health department says ingesting radon in water is not a significant health threat. The tests of the two small water systems in Glastonbury in 1985 were part of a larger well survey by the state Department of Public Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A year later, the health department sent Glastonbury's health au- i Wrfw Association Samples: 12 Minimum readina: 77.830 vA JMaximum reading: 80,900 NfflbeityLaM Watwtaocfertioa Samples: 6 Minimum reading: 1,563 Maximum reading: 3,200 The Hartford Courant risdiction to set health standards." She said the DPUC regulates privately owned water utilities with at least 50 customers. Under a 1990 state law, the health department was required to set a health limit for radon in drinking water. But the department chose not to adopt a limit, saying it did not have enough scientific information about radon's health dangers and that it would wait for federal guidance. In an earlier DPUC proceeding involving radon in Litchfield's well water, utility regulators decided not to require Bridgeport Hydraulic to reduce the radon, level in its well water, because there was no health standard. In the DPUC's current Litchfield cajse, the regulators have asked Bridgeport Hydraulic answer a number of questions about the ra P- wide concern and clearly is not limited to either the Bridgeport Hydraulic Co.

or the water supplied to Litchfield County residents," he said. Radon testing, Blumenthal said, "certainly seems necessary and the public at least has the right to know what the levels are, whether in their schools or in their taps at home." A Litchfield residents' group, Citizens for Quality Drinking Water, welcomed Blumenthal's intervention. "I think it's great. It's about time someone in state government showed concern for public health on this issue," saidLaurie Boynton, a spokeswoman for the group. Beryl Lyons, a spokeswoman for the DPUC, said the agency is reviewing Blumenthal's request to require radon testing, "in light of the fact that we have absolutely no ju-.