Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • Page 3

FRIDAY June 26, 1981 3A Williams gets per day during 11 day period By CUFF TREYENS Clariea-Ledger Staff Writer A flood of cash has continued to fill the campaign coffers of Republican Liles Williams at a rate of $6,100 a day for an 11-day period ending June 17. Williams, who captured 45 percent of the vote in Tuesday's special primary election for 4th District congressman and faces a July 7 runoff for the post, reported contributions of $67,339 from June 4 through June 17, campaign finance reports filed Thursday show. His opponent in the July 7 runoff, Democrat Wayne Dowdy of McComb, had not filed his report with the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives or the Mississippi secretary of state's office by the close of business Thursday. However, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission in Washington said Dowdy still could meet the deadline if the report is postmarked by Thursday midnight Dowdy campaign manager Sonny Weir said he expected the campaign finance report to be finished and in the mail in time to meet the deadline.

Year-to-date totals show that Williams has collected $276,514 and spent $208,767. About one-third of Williams' contributions, $22,651, came from political action committees representing a variety of special-interest groups. Also, he received more than $20,000 In individual donations of $200 or more. Most notable among Williams' $52,318 in expenses during the 11-day reporting period was $30,609 in advertising, according to the report required by the Federal Election Commission. Telephone banks required another $3,000 in campaign money and $2,151 of in-kind services provided by the Chicago-based Realtors Political Action Committee.

Other expenses reported by Williams include salaries, postage and travel expenses. So far, Williams has collected more than for mer Rep. Jon Hinson did for all of calendar last 1980, with $276,514 to Hinson's $230,144. Through June 17, however, Williams lagged slightly behind Hinson's spending for calendar year 1980 at $208,767 to Hinson's $226,966. Hinson was re-elected to a second term in Congress in November 1980 but resigned April 13 following his February arrest on morals charges in Washington.

Two of Dowdy's Democratic opponents in Tuesday's election lawyer Britt Singletary and state Sen. Ed Ellington, both of Jackson were critical of the large amounts of outside money accepted by Williams. They questioned whether Williams could be fully accountable to citizens of the 4th District with such outside influences. The McComb mayor, however, has refrained from direct criticism of the Republican candidate. "We'll not at anytime say anything derogatory about any candidate," Dowdy said hours after his victory Tuesday.

However, he did note at a Thursday news conference that "I will have nowhere near the money" the Williams campaign has at its disposal. Special-interest contributions Williams reported receiving Include: Mississippi Power Light Jackson, Morrison's PAC (political action committee), Mobile, $300; Realtors PAC, Chicago, Scherling Plough Corp. Better Government Fund, Kenilworth, N.J., $250; SUN PAC, Radnor, $500; Texaco Political Involvement Jackson, $500; Vought Corp.Kentron International, Dallas, $300. Fund for a Conservative Majority, Arlington, Getty Oil Co. PAC, Los Angeles, $500; Halliburton PAC, Dunca, ICG Good Government Fund, Chicago, $500; Litton Employees PAC, Beverly Hills, $500; Mid-Continent Oil Gas Association, Tulsa, $500; Mississippi Dental PAC, Tupelo, American Meat Institute, Arlington, Va $150; L.M.

Berry Dayton, Ohio, $250. CITPAC, Tulsa, $500; Crown Zellerbach Employees Political Fund, San Fransicsdy $500; DELPAC, Mobile, $250; EXPAC, Houston, $250; Forest PAC, Denver, $250; Gun Owners of America, Sacramento, Dallas. En-' ergy PAC, Dallas, Dixie Oil Producers, Jackson, and Realtors PAC, Chicago, (in-kind services for the telephone In the first campaign finance filing, covering the period ending June 3, Dowdy reported contributions of $105,633 to Williams' $206,175. Dowdy contributed $78,000 in his own money to the campaign during that first reporting period. The campaign spending and contribution "reports of the six candidates in Tuesday's election who didn't make the July 7 runoff aren't due until late July.

Dowdy challenges foe to series of debates mt v-: (. 'J. I- if By JUDY PUTNAM Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer Democrat Wayne Dowdy threw down the gauntlet Thursday. The candidate for the July 7 runoff for the 4th District congressional seat challenged his opponent, Republican Liles Williams, to a series of "Lincoln-Douglas-style debates" during the next 11 days. IT Xv y.A it" N- MKrfs i WY-Ww s-.

'AW, -S -X" t'-nww 47" mer President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Mike Retzer, chairman of the state Republican Party, Thursday announced the formation of "Mississippians for the President" and said the group's first job would be to elect Williams to Congress. "Wayne Dowdy is the most liberal candidate to run for Congress in recent history. Mississippians for the President will concentrate on demonstrating this philosophical difference between Liles Williams and Wayne Dowdy over the next two weeks," Retzer said in a prepared news release. Dowdy said during his news conference that he isn't running against the president "President Reagan is not a candidate in this race.

This time we're electing a congressman," he said. Dowdy on Thursday also was trying to stress differences between himself and the Republican candidate by contrasting the monetary resources between the Democrats and Republicans. "Certainly, I will be taking my message to the people, too," Dowdy said, calling for the debates. "However, it is apparent that I will have nowhere near the money that my opponent has to spend for paid television and radio commercials and newspaper advertisements." Dowdy said his success in making it to the runoff was the result of face-to-face campaigning by him and his wife, Suzan. il Stttf photo by Chrw Todd A cooling tower rises above the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station.

On preparedness and squired the media through the station on one of the Thursday officials answered questions about safety and emergency last tours before nuclear fuel is loaded into the reactor later this year. Grand Gulf has elaborate emergency plan Dowdy charged that voters "are being subjected to a massive media campaign by the Republican National Committee" and proposed 12 public debates, one in each of the district's counties. The debates would allow voters to make their judgments "on a true, honest-to-goodness candidate-to-candidate basis," Dowdy said. The word from the Williams' camp Thursday was that the Republican candidate is willing to negotiate but would like to hold the debates in six cities Brookhaven, Clinton, Jackson, McComb, Natchez and Vicksburg. "I have an idea he's grandstanding," said Norm Turnette, Williams' campaign manager, of Dowdy's challenge.

Askedabout the logistical problems of squeezing 12 debates in before the July 7 election, Dowdy replied: "If Mr. Williams is up to it, I'm willing to go 18 hours a day." Dowdy told reporters at an 11 a.m. Thursday press conference that "a courier" had been sent to Republican headquarters with a letter conveying the challenge. But Jean Coppenbarger, press secretary for Williams, said the letter "just appeared" late Thursday afternoon. "We've taken it under advisement," she said.

Dowdy is asking for a reply by today. Meanwhile, both campaigns went on the offensive Thursday with the Mississippi Republican Party continuing its use of the popularity of President Reagan who carried the 4th Congressional District by a small margin over for plant, which may begin operation in 1982. A nuclear station generates electricity when a nuclear reactor heats water to turn it to steam. The steam turns a turbine, which in turn drives a generator. The generator produces electricity, which is carried into homes and businesses.

Mississippi Power Light Co. is building the plant, with financing from other Middle South Utilities Inc. subsidiaries and the South Mississippi Electric Power Association. will operate the plant for Middle South Energy owner of 90 percent of the facility. and Middle South Energy Inc.

are subsidiaries of Middle South Utilities Inc. The project has a price tag of about $3.2 billion. Officials dwelled on safety and emergency planning during Thursday's daylong tour, said to be the last through the plant's nuclear reactor and turbinegen By LORETTA PENDERGRAST Clarioa-Ledger Suff Writer PORT GIBSON When the world's largest nuclear reactor goes into operation here, the 13,000 people near the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Plant will entrust their personal safety1 to an elaborate emergency preparedness plan. The developers of the plan a bevy of local, state and federal officials, as well as representatives of the plant's operations hope the complex safety system will never be used. But a catastrophic mistake in the energy industry the Three Mile Island meltdown in Harrisburg, in 1979 has changed the picture of safety and preparedness in communities which lend their lands to nuclear power stations.

Grand Gulf's officials, engineers, planners and construction workers Thursday hosted a press tour of the erator before nuclear fuel arrives at the site. Workers expect to unload nuclear fuel here later this year. Being safety-conscious is second nature now as the plant goes into its sixth year of construction, officials say. Because of information revealed in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's investigation and report of the Three. Mile Island accident, Mississippi's nuclear station has been updated.

"J-. "We didn't form a crash plan since Three Mile Island," said J.E. Maher, director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. "We have 13 Mississippi agencies and 11 counties ready to respond to an emergency." The agencies include the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agen- cy, the State Board of Health's Division of Radiological Health, the chemistry and radiation control division of Grand Gulf, the U.S. departments of Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, and Health and Human Services and local and state law enforcers, as well as others.

Some Louisiana agencies also are involved in planning, since parts of that state could be affected by an emergency at Grand Gulf. The utility companies which co-own Grand Gulf have classified fourtiiffer-ent types of emergencies in preparedness plans. i The first type of emergency is called an "unusual event," when a fire or other development triggers an alarm to plant workers. This type of emergency isn't a significant threat to people outside-the plant. An "alert" occurs in the event of actual or potential problems, such as failure of a safety system.

Officials declare a "site emergency" when a failure occurs with the potential release of radiation to the public. See Grand Gulf, page 16A "People in Mississippi still like to be asked for their votes," Dowdy said. The Democratic candidate also was making it clear he believes he has the support of other Democrats. He said he has received calls of support from Mississippi's Democrats including Reps. David Bowen, Jamie Whitten and Sonny Montgomery, as well as Sen.

John C. Stennis. "I've been very, very, very encouraged at the enthusiastic support Mississippi democrats have shown in the last 48 hours," he said. Courts should handle Voting Rights Act, lawyer says ern states plus Alaska and Arizona and parts of 22 other states to get "preclearance" by the Justice Department's of all election law changes apply nationwide. It also urges Congress to change the administrative process of preclearance.

Instead of sending all proposed local election law changes to the Justice Department in Washington, Keady and Cochran recommend that they be published in local newspapers. If the Justice Department objects to any changes as a dilution of black voting strength, it would challenge the changes in a lawsuit in the federal District Court with jurisdiction in that locality. And if the Justice Department failed to object local citizens could bring the suit. Colom said he didn't know why so many of his friends and colleagues in the civil rights movement favored preclearance. "It doesn't work and it's subject to political manipulation," said the Republican attorney.

"I don't trust my voting rights to the Justice Department even if they are Republicans." Hyde described the Keady-Cochran proposal as "too costly and cumbersome," but he agreed that it would take voting rights "out of the murky waters of politics." During an exchange with Dr. Howard Ball, head of the Political Science Department at Mississippi State University, Hyde had earlier stated that "politics raises its sometimes ugly head" in enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Ball, who has just completed a study of the Justice Department's record in enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, testified that thousands of election law changes are never submitted to the Justice Department for preclearance as required by the law, and that those that are submitted are often reviewed by paraprofessionals who have no legal training. Citing the case of Indianola, which has failed to submit annexations of majority-white areas, Ball testified that some local Mississippi officials told him, with 'a gleam in their eje," that with Republicans now in control in Washington, they "hoped to do it the Indianola way." Rep. Harold Washington, a Democrat from Illinois, called Ball's testimony "shocking," and said it showed evidence of "massive failure of compliance." Hyde said he thought the litany of non-compliance by local officials spelled out in Ball's testimony could be attributed to politics.

"The Justice Department has utterly failed to enforce the law," said Hyde, who wondered why civil rights groups haven't screamed louder in urging the Justice Department to use the See Voting, page 11A the first black witness from Mississippi to call for changes in the law's administration. He tried to assure Hyde that the phone calls from Mississippi's civil rights establishment were not intimidating, that they had only hardened his resolve to testify. "It was more calls of disbelief than anything," said Colom, who added that state Democratic Party executive Ed Cole was reportedly one of the initiators of the phone campaign. Then Colom told Hyde, a conservative known for his anti-abortion campaign, "It would be like if a John Bircher called you and said, 'I heard you're a Communist Hyde didn't respond to Colom's comparison, but did ask the subcommittee staff to refer Colom's testimony to the Justice Department to determine if any federal law outlawing intimidation of federal witnesses had been violated. In discussing his views on the Voting Rights Act, enacted in 1965 to ban the poll taxes and literacy tests that had long kept blacks in the South from voting, Colom endorsed a proposal by U.S.

District Judge William Keady of Greenville and University of Mississippi law professor George Cochran. The Keady-Cochran proposal, outlined in a forthcoming Kentucky Law Journal article, urges Congress to make Section 5 the enforcement provision that requires seven south By JOHANNA NEUMAN Clarion-Ledger Washington Bureau WASHINGTON Wilbur Colom, a black Republican attorney from Columbus who said some Mississippi blacks had tried to embarrass him into not testifying, told a House subcommittee Thursday that administration of the Voting Rights Act should be taken away from the U.S. Justice Department and given to the federal courts. "I only trust God with my voting rights," Colom told the subcommittee, "but if I've got to trust man, I'd rather have a three-judge federal panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals than a paraprofessional at the Justice Department." Colom, who served on the Reagan administration's transition team, told the subcommittee under questioning from Republican Henry Hyde of Illinois that Mississippi blacks and civil rights advocates had tried to embarrass him to keep him from testifying before the subcommittee. "It wasn't really pressure, just slight intimidation," Colom told Hyde, explaining that even his father, Milton Colom, co-chairman of the Democratic Party in Tippah County, had called to ask if it was true his son was about to testify against extension of the Voting Rights Act.

Colom testified that the law should be extended, but he was Brocato quits as veterans board chief Testimony ends in Medicaid challenge By DON HOFFMAN said. "I'm sorry, I can't go into it in whether an acting director had been ap- whether an acting director had been appointed, whether a search would begin depth." ed by the hospitals at the end of each fiscal year. Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer By GENE MONTEITH Under the new policy, the commission will project hospital costs at the beginning of each fiscal year with an 11 percent inflation factor included. The formula for making the rfiim-bursements puts hospitals into five categories based on the number of beds. The new formula sets as the maximum reimbursement for hospital operating costs in each class an amount equal to the average daily cost at 80 percent of the hospitals in that class during the previous year.

Reimbursements for capital expenses such as new equipment or construction are based on average occupancy rates in each class. The hospital association alleges that the Medicaid Commission's plan does not meet the reimbursement of "reasonable costs" as required by federal law. The association charges that the new policy doesn't take into consideration the various types of patient care available or the types of cases typical at individual hospitals, or provide an adequate system for reimbursement of unf orseen costs. The association also says the plan will result in a reduction of Medicaid reimbursements to many hospitals, forcing those hospitals to pass on unreimbursed Medicaid costs to non-Med-See Hospitals, page HA Clarion-Ledger Starkville Bureau ABERDEEN A ruling is expected today in a federal court hearing to determine whether the state Medicaid Commission will be allowed to implement a new Medicaid reimbursement plan for state hospitals on July 1. Both the Medicaid Commisssion and the Mississippi Hospital Association, which is challenging the reimbursement plan in federal court here, rested their cases Thursday after two days of testimony.

The hospital association and 11 individual hospitals, including Hinds General in Jackson, filed suit in federal court in Oxford on June 17 asking that the court permanently block implementation of the plan. The hospitals say they will lose money if the plan is implemented and may have to cut services. The new procedures, which set new limits on the amount of Medicaid reimbursements paid to state hospitals now providing services to Medicaid patients, was approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on May 20 and by the state Medicaid Commission on May 21. Under the policy now used, hospitals are reimbursed for those costs the commission determines neccessary for care of Medicaid patients.

Reimbursements are based on costs report for a new director, or when another meeting of the board would be held. The state Department of Audit currently is conducting its annual audit of the veterans board, but Assistant State Auditor Mason Shelby said the audit was not far enough along to have any connection with Brocato's leaving the agency. Brocato said his resignation from the agency was not connected with the audit. Brocato said he plans no legal action to regain his job and added that under the state Personnel Board, he has no right to appeal the board's decision. Officials hired by state boards do not fall under the jurisdiction of the personnel board.

Brocato said his resignation had no connection with a critical evaluation of the board's performance released last Septmeber by the Legislature's Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Committee. See Brocato, page HA Board Chairman Charles Dean of Meridian declined to discuss Brocato's resignation Thursday, saying he would make an announcement "at the proper time." Dean declined to say when such an announcement might be made. "It's true that Mr. Brocato will not be with the Veterans' Farm and Home Board any more after today," Dean said. "At the proper time, we will have an announcement.

I can't comment further on it." Board clerk Edna Jones said minutes of the board's meeting probably would not be available to the public until Tuesday or Wednesday. Board members Harold Jones of Gau-tier and Rufus Sweatt of Kosciusko declined comment Thursday. Board members Preston Holmes of Mound Bayou, John Mitchell of Stark-ville and Herman Shows of Waynesboro could not be reached for comment. Dean also declined to comment on James V. Brocato, director of the state Veterans' Farm and Home Board since June 1973, resigned from his job effective Thursday, apparently under pressure from the six-member board.

Brocato, 43, said late Thursday that the veterans lending board apparently wanted a change in management of the agency. Brocato said the board unanimously accepted his resignation after a closed-door meeting Thursday. "I met with the board at approximately 2 p.m. That's when I informed them I would resign effective immediately," Brocato said. He said he plans to put his resignation in writing today.

Because of accrued leave time, however, the resignation won't officially take effect until mid-July. "Because of that feeling by the board, I turned in my resignation," Brocato.