The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 1

City Edition A I Ml I XX to Snimwr Mm wrnxmrni Jill vvvvwxyNX W3 Tiger Woods 1 W-r I '7 1 Workers stay fit without leaving office Business, Dl Meet the man behind WIP and SportsNet Sports, CI Dog comes to boy's rescue in Levittown City Region, Bl city a Saturday, February 27, 1999 50 Cents 1 Rep. Evans shakes up staff over Web-site 'dirty trick' By Cynthia Burton, Peter Nicholas and Monica Yant INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS Philadelphia mayoral candidate Dwight Evans yesterday accepted the resignation of his campaign manager and fired the deputy manager after learning that the deputy was linked to a bogus Web site apparently intended to hurt a rival candidate. Evans, a state representative from West Oak Lane, denounced the phony Web page as an example of "dirty tricks," said he knew nothing about it until after it appeared, and said he had apologized to the target of the ruse, John White a rival for the Democratic nomination for mayor. "I do not want this race to be about race," Evans said during a news conference in City Hall courtyard. The Web page, which purported to be the official site of White's campaign, highlighted a remark made by White in an interview with Al Dia, a Spanish-language weekly in Philadelphia.

The quote reads: "The black and the brown, if we unite, we're going to control this city." White has said that the quote, drawn from a lengthy interview published Feb. 3, was substantially accurate but did not convey his meaning, which was that blacks and Latinos could wield more political clout if they worked together. The fake site made the statement appear to be the See EVANS on A5 Economy surprises with 6.1 growth The rise in 1998's fourth quarter was the biggest in 15 years. What has gone wrong with forecasting? By Robert A. Rankin INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON Month after month, for years now, top forecasters have predicted that economic growth is about to slow, only to be surprised when the reports come in showing that the U.S.

boom keeps booming. The latest chapter in this long-running saga of surprisingly good economic news came yesterday when the government reported that the economy grew at a sizzling 6.1 percent annual rate in the final quarter of 1998. That's the fastest pace in almost 15 years and far stronger than experts initially predicted. The boom goes on: New orders for expensive factory goods surged by 3.9 percent in January, the biggest rise in 14 months, the government reported Thursday. That, too, shocked economists, whose consensus forecast had called for a slight decline.

Meanwhile, inflation remains surprisingly tame, given the hot pace of growth and employment. None of this makes much sense to student- of economic trends. Why can't forecasters get it right, or at least come close? Does the experts' failure to foresee the economy's true strength suggest that today's good times can roll on longer and stronger than we've been led to believe? There is growing reason to think that the answer is a big One big reason why forecasters Keep underestimating the economy's power, many analysts believe, is that they must rely on aging federal statistical yardsticks that fail to capture the dynamic energy of the modern computer-era economy. "Al lot of economic activity is probably slipping through the in- See THE ECONOMY on Al 1 IVIIULlVeU UUL Sports, CI with us." Clinton said in particular that the United States must be prepared to send troops to participate in a NATO-led peacekeeping force in the Serbian province of Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians have mounted a guerrilla war in an attempt to break away from Yugoslavia's control. Ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the province's popula- Inside Nobel Prize-winning chemist Glenn Seaborg dies.

D7. Sections National Int'l City Region Triclassifieds Features Auctions All Comics D14 B3 Editorials A8 no Sports aporis Movies wo Business Newsmakers. D12 UDiiuanes u.uu Television D12 Weather Sunny, mild today. High 54, low 40. Windy with rain tomorrow.

High 56, low 36. Full report, B13. Philadelphia Online To get today's Inquirer electronically, browse: http:www.phillynews.com I70lh Year, No 212 1999. Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. 1 9X 523-9068 lor home delivery Ill I INIHUI Dwight aimed at r.

Doctors charged in abuse cases The six physicians worked at a state home for the mentally disabled near Erie. Three of the patients died. By Glen Justice and Ken Dilanian INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU Six doctors who had worked at the state's largest facility for the mentally disabled were arrested in Western Pennsylvania yesterday and charged with abuses ranging from stitching wounds without using anesthesia to poor medical care that led to three deaths. Of the six physicians, formerly with the Polk Center near Erie, two were charged with criminal neglect that contributed to the deaths of three patients in separate cases in 1996 and 1997, according to criminal complaints and probable cause records supplied by Attorney General Mike Fisher's office. Five of the six doctors were charged with mistreating 21 patients who had cuts on their chins, eyebrows, scalps and other areas of the body that were sewn shut with sutures or "surgical staples" without the use of an anesthetic, according to court records.

One female resident suffered that procedure twice, records show. "There's just no excuse for this kind of care," Fisher said in an interview. The neglect we found was just unacceptable." The arrests capped a two-year investigation by the Attorney General's Office that was sparked by a state Health Department inspection in the fall of 1996. The Polk Center, run by the state Public Welfare Department, narrowly avoided losing S30 million a year in federal Medicaid funds by implementing a host of changes in 1997. The center, whose ornate buildings sit on an 850-acre campus about 40 miles southeast of Erie, is Pennsylvania's oldest state-owned facility for the mentally retarded.

It opened in 1897 as the "State Institution for the Feeble-Minded." Now one of eight such facilities statewide, the center houses about 569 residents and is run by 1,196 employees, state officials said. It includes medical facilities but is not an acute-care hospital. Arrested in the fatalities were Cesar P. Miranda, 68, of Butler, who was charged with felony neglect See DOCTORS on AtO here 14 years ago as a rookie. "It was not uncommon for an officer to pick up 20 to 30 drunk drivers a month, more than one a day.

It used to be, when you drove through Gallup and you didn't run over somebody, you were doing well." Nearly always, that somebody was an Indian. Gallup is the cen ter of southwest Indian Country, and American Indians are 65 percent of McKinley County's residents. With 40 percent of its households in poverty, it is New Mexico's worst-off county. See GALLUP on A5 WILLIAM F. STEINMETZ Inquirer Slat) Photographer No longer on the staff of the Evans mayoral campaign are John T.

"Jack" Fugett (left), who was manager, and David Sirota, deputy manager. REBECCA BARGER Inquirer Start Photographer Evans speaks In City Mall courtyard about a bogus Web page John White one of Evans' rivals in the mayoral race. Clinton urges against isolation, states 5 global tion, are weighing a peace plan devised by the United States and its allies that calls for a cease-fire, disarming and extensive autonomy, to be enforced by a NATO contingent composed mostly of Europeans but also of U.S. soldiers. Clinton again warned that if Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic did not agree to the terms, "NATO is prepared to act" with air By Charles Babinjfton WASHINGTON POST SAN FRANCISCO President Clinton laid down markers yesterday for what he intends to do abroad during the final two years of his mandate, appealing to Americans to remain engaged in international affairs even if it means such controversial steps as sending U.S.

troops to warring Kosovo. challenges strikes against Serbia, the dominant republic of what is left of Yugoslavia. He did not say what would happen if the secessionist Kosovo Liberation Army did not agree to the terms. "We have a clear national interest in assuring that Kosovo is where the fighting ends," said the President, carefully reading a somber, 50-See CLINTON on A5 But Gallup is cleaning up its act. The rate of substance-abuse deaths in Gallup still exceeds the rest of New Mexico, but by only 17 percent, compared with two decades ago.

Then, according to the state health department, the figure was 225 percent higher. Those numbers represent steady progress in sobering up a com "It used when through and you run over somebody, were well." Lt. G.R. N.M. State Step by step, Gallup, N.M., is mending its reputation.

A town's showdown with problem drinking Parents of bullies' victims fight back by suing schools "For our nation to be strong, we must maintain a consensus that seemingly distant problems can come home if they are not addressed," Clinton told several hundred people gathered at the Grand Hyatt Hotel for what aides described as an outline of his foreign-policy aspirations. "We cannot lift ourselves to the heights to which we aspire if the world is not rising form of discrimination," said Charol Shakeshaft, an education professor at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., and an expert on bullying and sexual harassment in schools. "That has opened the door to people who have been harassed by peers to say: 'This is a form of discrimination. It is against the A federal appeals court last year upheld a ruling that a Georgia school district was liable in the case of a 15-year-old girl who was sexually harassed by another student. The basis of the suit was a 1972 federal law banning discrimination based on gender by schools accepting federal funds.

That case has been appealed and is before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Illinois case was filed earlier See BULLIES on A11 to be, you drove Gallup didn't you doing Cook Police By Gwen Florio INQUIRER STAFF WRITER GALLUP, N.M. Not long ago, people drove carefully through this desert Southwest town for fear of running over the drunks lying in the road. So many drinkers passed out and froze to death that the locals had a name for them: Popsicles.

There was a nickname for Gallup, too: "Drunk City." Back in the 1980s, that name was featured in everything from national news stories to scholarly reports on alcoholism. These days, fans of opposing Little League teams still taunt Gallup kids with cries of "Strike out, you drunk!" And some guidebooks warn tourists to take care on the neon-lit strip of Old Route 66 that runs through town. An 111. case is one in a rising number as families hold districts responsible for children's safety. By Raad Cawthon INQUIRER STAFF WRITER CHICAGO A mother has sued a Chicago-area school district, alleging that, by not preventing a bully from beating her son, the school showed "reckless disregard" for his safety.

The suit appears to be the latest in a growing number filed by parents to protect their children while they are at school. "The reason we are getting lawsuits is because the courts have ruled that sexual harassment is a munity whose drinking problems were so severe that in 1985 the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse ranked it the worst in the country. "It was a mess," said New Mexico Slate Police Lt. G.R. Cook, who came 1.