Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • Page 13

ate- Meto DEATHS 3 2 TP STOCKS BUSINESS CI)c (Cldrion-rcrt9cr February 7, 1984 TUESDAY State Trio linked to rash of house burglaries By HENRIETTA BUCK a house in the area was burglarized. Officials were aided in the initial investigation by a confidential source, and made the arrests while conducting surveillance operations, Stevens said. The trio has been linked with at least 10 house burglaries in the southwest Hinds County area, Stevens said, and each has prior house burglary arrest records. Four of the 10 homes burglarized were in Jackson, Jackson Police Sgt. Chip Pip-pen said, while the other six were outside the city and were handled by county The earliest house burglary is believed to have occurred Nov.

30 at a Cedarwood Drive residence, Sheriff's Department officials said. Two others occurred Dec. 12 one on Sharon Hills Drive and the other on Bristol Boulevard. The most recent Jackson house burglary in which the trio was charged took place Jan. 20 at a Lake Road residence.

Pippen said the four Jackson burglaries are believed to have taken place during daylight hours when residents were at work. Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer Two men and a woman have been linked to a rash of house burglaries in southwest Hinds County in which more than $20,000 in valuables were taken, Hinds County Sheriff's Department officials said Monday. Undersheriff J.W. Stevens said Austin V. Shaddix ffl, 37, of 327 Mount Vernon and Jamie Lynn Metz, 27, and Michael Couglin, 23, both of whom were residing at the Tarrymore Motel, 1651 Terry Road, were arrested Jan.

27 at a convenience store near Siwell Road shortly after From Staff and Wire Reports Elderly Meridian man turns off heat; dies in cold MERIDIAN An elderly Meridian man died Sunday night after he apparently forgot to turn on a heater before going to bed.and a cold front sent sub-freezing temperatures into the area, Lauderdale County authorities said Monday, County Coroner Marl Cobler said Charlie Horton, 80, was brought to Riley Hospital at 6 a.m. Monday after his sister discovered him in distress. When he arrived at the emergency room, hospital officials could register no body temperature on an electronic thermometer and detected only a faint heartbeat, Cobler said. Hospital personnel were unable to raise his body temperature and Horton was declared dead of hypothermia at 7 a.m., the coroner said. According to reports, Horton had complained of being too hot Sunday afternoon and turned off the heat in his house.

But a cold front moved through Meridian, lowering temperatures almost 40 degrees during the night. Horton evidently forgot to turn the heat back on when he went to bed Sunday night, Cobler said. Starkville men back Vickers STARKVILLE Two prominent local businessmen will appear before the Starkville School Board tonight to present a petition in support of Superintendent Nolan Vickers, whose contract was not renewed by the board i last month. Others have requested the time to speak in support of the board's action, trustee Ann Andrews said. John Robert Arnold of Arnold Industries and Sonny Mullins of Mullins Department Store have asked to present their petition in support of Vickers, who became superintendent eight years ago after working for the school district since 1965.

Trustees of the school district voted 3-2 on Jan. 9 not to renew Vickers' one-year contract, which expires June 30. Man dies in crash after chase GREENVILLE A Glen Allan man died Monday after being thrown from his car during a high speed chase, Items linked with the burglaries were recovered in both Hinds and Lincoln coun- ties and include televisions, stereo sys-terns, jewelry, handguns and rifles, Ste-venssaid. Pippen said all items taken during the Jackson burglaries have been recovered and identified by the owners except for the contents about 30 unwrapped Christmas presents that were taken from the Bristol Boulevard residence. No bond has been set pending further investigation and court action, Stevens said.

Supervisors promise help on flood control By LEE FREELAND Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer Hinds Supervisors Monday promised a group of south Jackson homeowners that the county will join with the city in a flood con- trol project aimed at easing spring flooding in neighborhoods bordering Cany Creek. Faye Case, a spokeswoman for Sentry As-' sociation, told the Hinds board that almost 5,000 homeowners in south Jackson suffer from the effects of the swollen creek each spring. Erosion caused by the creek takes from three to six feet of property from landowners in the area, and heavy spring rains usually send as much as eight inches of water into many area homes, she said. "People on Woodall, Woodview and Long-wood roads are looking forward to this spring with fear. In our neighborhood, we lost a fence yesterday," she said.

"We know it didn't happen overnight. Cany Creek didn't happen overnight, but it is becoming a river. It's not a creek anymore." Supervisors told Case and other homeowners that the county plans to join with the city of Jackson in a flood control project which is designed to stabilize and widen a section of the creek and lessen erosion of property along the creek bed. 4th District Supervisor Roger Stewart said the county will provide equipment and labor, and city officials will purchase crushed rock or riprap, dirt and other necessary supplies for the flood control project. City officials have already committed about $345,000 to widening and stabilizing the creek bed, and Jackson Mayor Dale Danks said city officials were waiting for the county to commit necessary equipment to begin work.

"I'm really excited about this. We have waited for a long time while the city and the county couldn't get together on this. Since then they have joined efforts," Case said. "The city couldn't tackle this alone and the county couldn't tackle this alone. I'm hoping now that by April or May they'll be out on Cany Creek," she said.

The city plans to clean out the creek chan-, nel and purchase up to 10,000 tons of riprap to place along the banks of the creek and its tributaries in the Crestview Manor area. The project includes an area stretching about a quarter-mile along Cany Creek near McDowell Road Extended in south Jackson. Case said her association also has asked the Mississippi congressional delegation to seek federal funding for repairs to the entire creek from State 1 8 to Stokes-Robinson Road near 1-55 South. The city-county project "will be temporary, but anything they can do for us, however temporary it might be, will maybe give us time to work with federal authorities on legislation for restoring Cany Creek," she said. "It's going to save our fences.

We're tying them up right now to keep them from going into that creek," she said. County seeks funds to help on water lines By LEE FREELAND Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer The Hinds County Board of Supervisors will again consider finding the money needed for a $1.5 million water project for parts of the county south of Jackson, following a special Monday afternoon session with city officials and landowners from the area. An extension of the city of Jackson's water system for the area just below the city limits along Henderson, Siwell and Terry roads was discussed by city and county officials last year, but plans for the project hit a snag when federal officials said low-interest federal financing would not be available. But Monday, Mayor Dale Danks told the board that the county must help the city pay for laying larger water pipes in the area to encourage new development in Hinds County. Danks also told supervisors that the city would be willing to discuss allowing the county to pay for its share of the project in installments.

"I think it's obvious that the growth of the city is in that direction," he said. "It would seem to me that for us two local governmental entities to fail to pursue this would be tan-tamount to telling everybody that we don't care about development in Jackson and Hinds County and to go elsewhere." County engineer Murray Stewart said the lack of adequate water supplies has forced the county to deny building permits in the area because of state Health Department regulations. Landowners at the meeting complained that the moratorium on building in the area has brought development to a virtual standstill. "We've got folks in the audience today that would like to start building houses tomorrow if they had the water," said Marshall Wat-kins, a subdivision developer. "We had a lot of people who wanted to take advantage of low-interest bond money but they couldn't couldn't because we didn't have water.

It's a bad situation when people want to build new houses and don't have the water to do such," he said. Danks and several landowners also told the board that installment of a new water system could bring increased tax revenues to the county. "A typical 50-acre lot now gives the county between $80 and $140 a year in taxes," Stewart said. "Put 30 to 35 homes on it, and those would bring $18,000 to $20,000 a year in property taxes." Board President George Smith said he plans to ask Chancery Clerk Pete McGee to Washington County authorities said. Sheriff Harvey Tackett said Melvin E.

Reed, 24, was being pursued by Greenville police when his car hit a bridge, ran into a utility pole and overturned. The accident occurred at 2:40 a.m. on Old Leland Road, three miles east of Greenville. The chase, which was begun after several traffic violations by the victim, began inside the city limits, the sheriff said. 111 1 A.

'till Mubbs to decide on challenge State Rep. Terrell Stubbs of Mendenhall says he will make a decision this week on whether to change his party affiliation to Republican and challenge Democratic 4th District Rep. Wayne Dowdy. Stubbs confirmed that state GOP leaders have contacted him about running against Dowdy in June Stubbs, 34, who recently began his legislative term as a Democrat, said in an interview that he would decide this week whether to switch to the GOP and make the race. Dowdy, 41, has been in Congress since mid-1981 and has been expected to draw Republican opposition.

Banks raise interest for Hinds Hinds County's idle funds will bring in higher interest rates next month, following a board inquiry into investment policies used by the Hinds Chancery Clerk's office. Deputy Chancery Clerk Andrew Mattiace told the board Monday the 11 Hinds County banks that now purchase county investments agreed to raise interest paid to the county more than percent. "All 1 1 banks agreed to pay 9 percent collectively as opposed to the 8.65 percent that they're paying now. When I told them it as going to be competitive, they said they'd pay 9 percent," he said. Mattiace said the county has received 8.65 percent interest on all investments for about eight months, and "the banks had planned to negotiate a raise for the first of March." The action was taken after supervisors asked Mattiace last month to determine whether the county could make more interest by putting investments out for bid instead of accepting market interest rates from Hinds banks.

Black supervisors take office 1 find surplus funds that might be used to finance the water system, and he said the board will discuss the project on Monday. "The only thing that we at this point can say we've been conferring with our legal office to see if we could enter into any way of helping with the water," he said. Residents of the affected area now use city water, but lines connecting the county to the city's water supply are too small to handle future development, according to City and Staff pholo by Orua Campbell INVIGORATIVE Elizabeth Hughes, 25, of Vicksburg runs with her dog Lady along Old Canton Road in Jackson Monday morning. Hughes, who was visiting friends, says she runs three to four miles a day. county officials.

State loses on Grand Gulf ruling, officials sav electricity generated by nuclear and coal i i I. i A new chapter in Madison County's history was written Monday morning when the county's first two black supervisors since Reconstruction took the oath of office. Karl Banks and J.L. McCullough were sworn in during a ceremony at a packed Madison County Chancery Court Building. David Richardson of the 3rd District and incumbents Pat H.

Luckett of the 1st Discrict and J.S. "Brother" Harris of the 2nd District also were sworn in Monday. Banks defeated five-term incumbant A.E. "Preacher" Crawford by 18 votes in the 4th District However, the election has been challenged in Madison County Circuit Court. Banks said he was letting his "lawyers handle that I am going on and be supervisor." McCullough, who defeated William J.

Mosby by 62 votes in the 5th District race, said his work has been cut out for him. "I've ran into a district that's in pretty bad condition," McCollough said. Allain says he's keeping pledge Gov. Bill Allain believes he is "on target" in fulfilling his campaign pledge to balance gender, race and geography in making the raft of appointments facing him. "The only way people have any respect for their government is if they know they're being represented by people sensitive to their views," Allain said in an interview.

During his campaign for governor last year, Allain said he would try to appoint women and blacks to state positions, including seats on the more than 200 boards and commissions, in proportion to their numbers in Mississippi's general population. In the fourth week of his administration, about 46 percent of his appointees have been women and about 32 percent black, said JoAnn Klein, press secretary. Blacks make up about 34 percent of the population in the state nearly 30 percent of the plant's 1,250 megawatt capacity. Under the original proposal, would have been responsible for 28.4 percent. That's a difference of about $37.8 million, based on the $3 billion cost of Grand Gulf Unit 1.

"It is not a good ruling for Mississippi in that it would assign to Mississippi a higher percentage (of Grand Gulf) than we have thought Mississippi should have, and a higher percentage than Middle South would have assigned to Mississippi," Pittman said. And while he said forcing Arkansas to help pay for the plant could be "advantageous" to customers in the long run, Pittman said the state "without question" will contest the judge's ruling before the full federal panel. State officials argue that Mississippi ratepayers should be responsible for no more than 19 percent of the plant's capacity, a figure taken from 10-year-old hearings that led to the construction of the plant. A second case involving and the Middle South companies is pending before FERC. That case, dealing with a controversial operating agreement among the four electric utilities, could supersede the Liebman order, Havens said.

planus Decause oi uie uncertainly oi uu ana gas supplies. But the PSC has countered that stabilized oil and gas prices make nuclear power unnecessary for the time being. "They keep saying we might have an (oil) embargo, but they don't know whether we will or not," said Havens, referring to the Arab oil cutoff of 1973 and 1974. "Frankly, even if we do have an embargo, knows there's an emergency operating plan, and generating facilities would have a first priority claim on domestic oil." "Even if oil prices skyrocketed, they would have to go much farther than they did before to reach what nuclear power would cost at the present," he said. Liebman's ruling also provides a precedent for treating the four-state Middle South service area as a single system, rather than as separate companies.

It lends support to arguments by the Louisiana PSC that all plants in the Middle South system should be placed in one pool and be equally shared by the various companies. The Mississippi PSC opposes that proposal, saying a cost-sharing plan would cost Mississippi ratepayers $40.8 million a year more than the plan it supports. Under the PSCs By ROBERT OURLIAN Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer Utility watchdogs in Mississippi said Monday a federal order that customers of Arkansas Power Light Co. must help pay for the $3 billion Grand Gulf Nuclear Station would also boost Mississippi's obligation in the plant by nearly $38 million. The ruling by a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission law judge last week mainly will benefit ratepayers in Louisiana not in Mississippi, state officials said Monday.

The ruling left Mississippi worse off, because it increased the amount of Grand Gulf ratepayers in the state must finance, from about $853 million to more than $890 million, they said. Attorney General Ed Pittman said Monday that the 108-page order handed down by the judge last week acknowledged that customers would be hit with "dramatic" rate increases, but does nothing to help ratepayers. Pubbc Service Commissioner Lynn Havens of Gulfport said Mississippi Power Light Co. ratepayers shouldn't have to pay for any of the costly Grand Gulf plant when existing generating plants already provide enough electricity. Switching to nuclear power before it is needed, said Havens, will cost customers $408.3 million more over the next 10 years, even under the most favorable of various plans proposed.

Administrative Law Judge Ernst Lieb-man of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission handed down the order last Thursday. To become effective, it must be upheld by the full commission. and the state of Arkansas have vowed to appeal the ruling, and Pittman indicated Mississippi will dispute it as well. Liebman said a plan to make Louisiana Power Light Co. and New Orleans Public Service Inc.

pay for all of Grand Gulf showed "favoritism" toward The plan had been proposed by Middle South Utilities Inc. of New Orleans, parent firm to the electric utilities. The federal official also said in his order that the $3 billion Grand Gulf plant would be "a net detriment to the operating companies" for 10 years before ratepayers gain any benefits from the plant. The order set new percentage shares of Grand Gulf for each state, dropping Louisiana from about 70 percent of the plant to about 28 percent and increasing Arkansas from nothing to about 32 percent. But Misissippi under Liebman's order ended up with 1.6 percent more of Grand Gulf than MiddleSouth had proposed.

Under Liebman's ruling, will have to accept plan, would take no nuclear power until customer demand requires it in the 1990r argues thaj it must have access to.