Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page 1

PORT Islanders A II II Recipes for new Hartford mayor wins concessions on hotel beat Whalers on Lindros' goal cookbooks CLOUDY High near 60 PAGE BIO FOOD, Gl BUSINESS, Fl PAGE CI Ft t4 Establish Established 1764 Volume CLVII, Number 67 Copyright 1995, The Hartford Courant Co. Wednesday, March 8, 1995 7 Newsstand 50 'Rowland, may veto State pension fund's value questioned May be inflated by $100 million By LARRY WILLIAMS Courant Staff Writer The state's pension fund investments are worth $100 million less than the previous administration said they were, state Treasurer Christopher B. Burnham said Tuesday. Burnham said he made this discovery as his staff plowed through records that were denied to him during the fall campaign by his predecessor, Joseph M. Suggs whom Burnham defeated in the November election.

Suggs denied the accusation Tuesday, saying no assets in the $1 1 billion pension fund were recorded at greater than their true market value. If the fund's value has been overstated, that could mean that Connecticut taxpayers would be forced to contribute more to the pension fund in the future than had been expected. casino dim Governor worried Pequots would halt slot payments i. ji If Members of the public safety committee got the word through the grapevine. They could hardly believe their ears, said Rep.

Chris De-Pino, R-New Haven. "We were just patting each other on the back, saying we got a difficult issue out of committee," DePino said. "We were a little bit stunned." Earlier in the day, committee members learned that a lawyer for the Pequots has advised his clients to shut off about 130 million a year in payments to the state if the General Assembly approves the casino study commission. Before coming up for a full vote, the compromise bill still must be approved by three other legislative committees finance, judiciary and government administration and elections. The idea for creating a study commission, instead of trying to legalize more casinos outright, was designed to safeguard the Indian money for as long as possible.

But Barry Margolin, an expert in Indian law and a top legal adviser to the Mashantucket Pequots, said the commission bill violated an agreement under which the tribe pays big money to the state in exchange for exclusive rights to operate slot ma-Please see Rowland, Page A14 By HILARY WALDMAN and CHRISTOPHER KEATING Courant Staff Writers In a dramatic and unexpected about-face, Gov. John G. Rowland threatened Tuesday to veto a compromise casino gambling bill after the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe vowed to cut off about $130 million in payments to the state if it becomes law. The veto threat was a blow to proponents of a Bridgeport casino. It came as members of the legislature's public safety committee were celebrating a first-round victory for the compromise bill, designed to keep alive the casino idea without jeopardizing the Indian money.

Less than an hour after the committee voted 19-5 to approve the bill, Rowland was asked to comment on it during a press conference on an unrelated matter. Rowland had campaigned on a promise to revitalize Bridgeport with casino gambling, and, to date, he hadn't changed his tune. So, the answer was a shocker. "No. I would not sign it if it comes I to my desk tomorrow and the money is shut off Rowland told reporters.

"If the study bill comes to my desk in the way it is now, I will not sign it." 1 The taxpayers' contribution basically is the amount necessary to fill the gap between investment earnings and the cost of pensions. The better the investments do, the less the taxpayers have to pay. What Burnham is saying, essentially, is that investment performance has been overstated. Burnham said the real estate Sortfolio was overvalued by about 50 million, of which $29 million is attributable to the Goodwin Burnham Square office tower in Hartford. Carried on the books at about $61 million, the building probably is worth $32 million, said Burnham's top real estate adviser.

The other $50 million in phantom value, Burnham said, was found in the treasury's investment in a risky form of derivative security known as "interest-only strips." Although carried at $100 million, Burnham said, the state would be lucky to sell them for half that, What's more, he said, the public was told in December that the treasury had no investments in derivatives a statement that turned out to be false. The issue arose after Orange County, went-bankrupt as the result of heavy losses in derivative securities. Suggs issued a statement saying he had no investments in "the speculative securities that got Orange County in trouble." But Taegan Goddard, an aide to Burnham, said there's no other way to define interest-only "They are only speculative securities," he said. "You're betting that interest rates are not going to go down." Wnen interest rates do fall, Burnham said, these investments "plummet in value and never come back." He called them "totally inappropriate" for a fund that is Please see Pension, Page AH Husband charged with murder, arson Police hold Plymouth man in lieu of $1 million bail i Cecilia Prestamo The Hartford Courant GLASS FROM THE PAST William Gould of Pomfret installs glass for the east loggia entrance of the Old State House in Hartford Tuesday. The east and west entrances, built during the last major restoration of the building in the 1920s, were removed in 1979.

They are being restored in this project. The entrance's mahogany-framed windows are being fitted with glass from the 1920s. Please see related story on Page Bl. House passes bill aimed at curbing lawsuits termined how Wendy Wargo was killed, but said autopsy results have shown that she was dead before the fire began. Wargo was held at the state police barracks in Litchfield in lieu of $1 million bail and was charged with murder, first-degree arson, two counts of risk of injury to a minor and tampering with physical evidence.

He was scheduled to appear in Bristol Superior Court today. Wendy Wargo's barely identifiable body was discovered Nov. 19 on the sofa in the den of the couple's home by firefighters battling the intense blaze, which started about 3 a.m. Lance Wargo told officials he es-Please see Husband, Page A14 By FRAN SILVERMAN Courant Staff Writer The day after the Nov. 19 fire, Lance Wargo said he didn't feel like a hero, even though he helped his two young children escape through a second-story window and battled the flames with a garden hose.

On Tuesday, Wargo was a hero to no one. He was charged with murdering his 29-year-old wife, Wendy, and setting the fire at the couple's home on Hillside Avenue in Plymouth to destroy any evidence. Wargo, 36, was taken into custody at the Pratt Whitney plant in Southington, where he was working Tuesday. Police said they still haven't de has never been sued and the national organization takes no position on the pending legislation. Rep.

Patricia Schroeder, said the Girl Scouts want no part of the debate. Their message is "Please please, this is not our legislation," she said. Opponents of the measure, including consumer advocates, said it would tilt the system too heavily in' favor of corporations, some of which have contributed to a huge' lobbying campaign on behalf of the three bills. Please see House, Page A14 Republicans and 16 Democrats. Voting against it were 181 Democrats and 11 Republicans, along with one independent, a political cleavage that contrasted sharply with the bipartisan support for most elements of the "Contract With America" that had cleared the House earlier.

The bill still has significant hurdles. Siding with consumer advocacy groups and lobbyists for the na-tion's lawyers, the Clinton administration this week declared it will fight the legislation. Before President Clinton would have an opportunity to exercise a veto, the Combined Wire Services WASHINGTON Republicans muscled to House passage Tuesday a business-backed measure designed to pressure combatants in lawsuits to settle their differences short of costly trials. The bill was strongly opposed by trial lawyers. The measure, approved 232-193 in a nearly party-line vote, was the first of three bills expected to clear the House this week.

The Republicans' effort aims to cut down on what they consider frivolous lawsuits clogging the nation's courts. Supporting the measure were 216 bill must pass the Senate, where the agenda on which House Republicans campaigned last fall has not fared as well. In a bid to dramatize a need for changes in the legal system, Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, said the Girl Scouts of Washington must sell 87,000 boxes of cookies each year to pay for liability insurance.

"This is not a problem that deals with corporate America alone," Goodlatte said. But Girl Scout officials said the cookie statistic is unfounded and that damage suits aren't a big problem. The Washington-area council The last of Caleb Wesleyan author Paxil Horgan dies Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, professor was 91 encounters and friendships with some of the most intriguing artists and personalities of the 20th centu- liT rtrvj 3 "vl hrf 1 ry. tracings ITI '(BH'J'' also is a partial If Li U.S. diplomats killed Two U.S.

diplomats were killed and one was wounded this morning when their van was sprayed with gunfire in Pakistan. Page A13 7 SECTIONS Ann Lander Arts i.A4 Business Fl Classified Dl Comics Connecticut A3 Connecticut Living El Crossword E3 Editorials A18 Food CI Games E3 Horoscope E4 Legal Notices D2 Local News Bl Lottery A2 Movies E2 Obituaries B8 Sports CI Television E2 Weather BIO portrait of Mr. Horgan himself. Joseph W. Reed, professor of English and American studies at Wesleyan and a friend of Mr.

Staff and wire reports Paul Horgan, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, historian, author-in-residence and professor emeritus of English at Wesleyan University, died Tuesday at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown. Mr. Horgan, who also was a poet and painter, was 91. The cause of death was unavailable. He wrote 47 books, among them two acclaimed works of history and biography that won him Pulitzer Prizes: "Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History" (1954) and "Lamy of Sante Fe: His Life and Times" (1975).

Mr. Horgan's last book was "Tracings," in which he recalls his tinguished writer and important man of letters," Reed said. Annie Dillard, also a Pulitzer Prize winner and writer-in-resi-dence at Wesleyan, said Mr. Horgan "was a great and important writer who wrote to the very end. He was always active.

One of his projects required 15 years of work. Every day for each of those 15 years he sat down at his desk and had his faith renewed in his project. He was a man of great faith, a devout Catholic, a careful writer, a loving teacher. The fact that he wrote every single day of his life had me in complete awe." Mr. Horgan was profoundly influ- Please see Pulitzer, Page A12 The story of the Hatchers, Megan Cooper and the bones of a dead hero closes today with Chapter 77 of Colin McEnroe's serialized novel "The Resurrection of Caleb Quine." Give up the ghost on Connecticut Living, Page El Horgan's for Mr.

Horgan 35 years, said it was his special interest in the reader and care for his craft that set Mr. Horgan apart from other writers. He was a "a very dis-.