Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 13

1 1 ,1 lljjftSI IMeifro itews 1 Marketplace section inside Minneapolis Star and Tribune Friday September 241982 1B City tries to halt public housing gas cutoffs By Martha S. Allen Staff Writer Rick McArthur and bis three chil-' dreo may not have to face winter without heat after all. The McArthurs are among 70 Minne-: apolls public-housing families whose heat was cut off by Minnegasco for nonpayment of utilities bills. But James Heltzer, director of the Min-; neapolls Community Development Agency, said Thursday He said the agency is recommending that Minne-, gasco and Northern States Power Co. restore service to all public-housing units that have been disconnected for payment deliquencies.

The agency, which oversees public housing in Minneapolis, would then work out a payment program with the utilities, be said. Representatives of both utilities said they hadn't seen the proposal and would not respond to it yesterday, but that they believed they would be able to work out some sort of solution. Several people at a meeting in city hall yesterday said problems like McArthur's are common among 'low-income and elderly people In Hennepin County. Minnegasco and NSP estimate that service has been cut off for nonpayment of bills in at least 3,200 homes in the Twin Cities area. The public-housing families also had been notified by Heltzer's agency that they would be evicted for not paying their utilities bills, but Heltzer said yesterday they can stay.

"Eviction would be Inhumane, irresponsible and Is totally unaccept- -t Rick McArthur Man gets 5 days, $1,000 fine in prostitution case able," he told the group of SO yesterday. "Further, we will not sit back and allow publicly owned housing to sustain the damage that it inevitably will without utility service over the winter months." No solution was reached at yesterday's meeting, although the agency and the utilities agreed to talk further. A state rule prohibits the utilities from cutting off people for nonpayment during cold weather. The McArthurs and the others were cut off after the last heating season was over. McArthur, 919 Newton Av.

ran up a fuel bill of more than $900 last winter and Minnegasco cut off bis gas service in May, notifying htm that it wouldn't be reconnected until his bill was paid. Staff Photo by Donald Black pgr 'JC i Barbara Flanagan There's no pun Intended when I tell you that Earl Bakken, board chairman of Medtronic, which makes heart pacemakers, has taken this year's great United Way campaign slogan to heart The United Way slogan Is "Love Keep It working." On Oct 21 Bakken will be married In Hawaii to Doria Marshall At Medtrooic's United Way meetings this week he Invited all employees to a reception Oct 29 at the. Hyatt Regency Hotel. He told them that invitations have been mailed to their homes and he urged that they respond "because the hotel needs to know how many people are coming." It could be a crowd because about 2,500 Medtronic employees live nere. Marsnau also is inviting about 800 pupils from her dance studio.

Bakken added that no gifts will be accepted. "The best gift you can give us is a contribution to the United Way to help Medtronic reach its $190,000 goal'! That figure will be matched by the Medtronic Foundation, he said. How's that for a pace-setting Idea? Maggie Kuhn, wearing a button that read "Nuclear War can spoil your whole day," zipped into town yesterday to talk about the future. "I'm a futurist," she said. "The Gray Panthers are all futurists.

We believe that youth can help age and vice versa." The 77-year-old feminist from Philadelphia who founded the Panthers 12 years ago worries about the "ultimate social consequences" of the computer age. She said, however, that she believes she ought to learn how to operate ah electronic word processing machine because it's more efficient than what she uses now a yellow pad and pencil. "I don't want the young to become so overly fixated with electronics that they don't read books anymore or newspapers. It infuriates me that the great newspapers are dying. I trace that to electronics.

"So I wonder what will happen In another two decades. Will young people then have any appreciation of the past? And will they be able to work with their hands?" Kuhn will speak at 7:30 p.m. today at South High School, 3131 19th Av. at a public meeting sponsored by the Twin Cities Gray Panthers, the Greater Minneapolis Council et Churches, League at Womea Voters, Cedar-Riverside PAC (Political Action Committee) and Minneapolis public schoels, (She'll also speak at 10 and 1 1:30 a.m. Sunday at St Joan of Arc Church, 44th St and 3rd Av.S.).

Her topic tonight will be one of her favorite ideas, the age-Integrated community. "We have to stop stashing old people away in places that are Inaccessible except by automobile, and let them live where there are younger people If they choose," she said. "One option something I've been doing for several years Is house sharing. Young students, young families, young people working at a first Job are all good people to share an older person's house because they need places to live. 'To do that you must have three things a place with enough space for another; a common Interest with the young person.

And then, an openness to new possibilities of cooperation." I pointed out that Minneapolis has one good example of housing that Flanagan continued on page 4B Last November, Hennepin District Judge Eugene Minenko rejected a plea agreement in which Helvig and Arrandondo would have pleaded guilty to one count of promoting prostitution, paid $2,500 in fines and served no jail time. Then in June, Judge Chester Durda ruled that two of three search warrants used by the Minneapolis vice squad to gather evidence during a four-month investigation of Arrandondo were improper, and evidence seized during those searches could not be used in bis trial. That evidence included check blanks, ledger sheets, time sheets, a telephone answering system and an index of phone numbers, according to the search warrant inventories. One coded ledger showed more than $360,000 in gross profits for 1980, according to police. iS Hennepin County Attorney Tom Johnson said yesterday's plea bargain was better than the one that had been rejected because Arrandondo will be on probation for a year and will have two felony counts on his -permanent record.

Under Minnesota's sentencing guidelines, people with previous convictions receive longer sentences. Laura Helvig He and his children spent the summer talcing cold baths and eating food bought at franchise restaurants or cooked on their outdoor barbecue grill. He found a job late last February. With winter approaching, he wanted to clear up the bill, he said. So he started paying the bill, with $100 out of each biweekly take-home paycheck.

After three payments, the service still hasn't been restored. Gene Nessly, president 'of Minnegas-co's gas operations division, said the average delinquent bill for all homes that have been cut off Is $420. Heltzer said the 70 families whose gas service has been stopped represent about percent of the families who live in Minneapolis public hous- Cutoffs continued on page 4B day so the city's school children could participate in the first act of historical preservation in the state. Fifteen-year-old Jennie Hlscock was there that day. So were 10-year-old Hattle Peterson and 7-year-old Laura Mlndrum.

They returned to the Stevens house Thursday to participate in a ceremony in Minnehaha Park at which the Junior League of Minneapolis an preparing amended returns in November 1979. But those returns we're not finished and turned in until March 1980. Leary maintained that work on the amended returns began before he learned that he was the subject of an IRS investigation. Throughout the trial Leary's attorney, Kevin Burke, has sought to blame Levlne for the under-reporting of Leary's income during 1976, 1977 and 1978. Burke offered exhibits and testimony that Leary had not sought to conceal the income and that he did not understand that all of it had to be reported.

economy That is not facetious. Reaganomlcs Is working for thousands of people in Minnesota. They are exactly the ones for whom it was Intended to work, the upper-middle and high-bracket suburban dwellers who are making money from tax breaks and the Inflation slowdown that resulted from the tax breaks, the deficits and the groaning economy. These are not people to be abhorred. I say that In part because I happen to be one of them.

They are simply people who happen to be favored. But It Isn't working for people who sren't working. sent site 86 years Grunseth, 8, The woman at ago. Lending a hand were Lucia and Philip Bickerton Winston, 12, great-great-great-grandchlldren of John Stevens. rear was not Identified.

Cutting the ribbon for the Stevens House restoration were, center, Hattle Peterson, 96, Jennie HIs-cock, 101, and Laura Mlndrum, 93. They were schoolgirls when the house was moved to Its pre H7 3 who helped move Stevens house in 1896 return for another move By Margaret Zack Staff Writer John Booker Arrandondo, who police say earned $360,000 from prostitution in 1980, was fined $1,000 and sentenced to five days in the Hennepin County workhouse Thursday after pleading guilty to promoting prostitution. Arrandondo, 40, 3221 2nd Av. asked that he not be sent to the workhouse immediately so he could keep a dental appointment Friday and take care of business affairs. But Hennepin District Judge William Posten said Arrandondo could be released this afternoon to keep the appointment and make up the time at the end of the sentence.

So Arrandondo began serving his sentence yesterday. The fine must be paid by Oct 4. He also was placed on probation for a year. ix other counts of promoting prostitution were dismissed against Arrandondo yesterday, and all seven counts were dismissed against Laura Helvig, his girl friend. Arrandondo was charged two years ago with running a large-scale out-call service that provided prostitution services in hotels along Interstate Hwy.

494. John Booker Arrandondo D.J. Leary By Dave Anderson Staff Writer The tax-evasion trial of DFL political adviser D.J. Leary was marked by a number of sharp and emotional exchanges Thursday as. Leary took the stand for more than five hours.

one point, when VS. Attorney James Rosenbaum admonished him for answering questions with long explanations instead of a simple "yes" or "no," Leary ssid "I'm fighting for my life here. I'm sorry if I violate protocoL" He was charged with understating his 1976-78 income and underpaying 1 at tax-evasion trial: 'I'm fighting nounced plans to move and restore the building. The Minneapolis park board will move the Stevens house from its present location at Minnehaha Av. and 50th St.

to a new location about 200 yards north across the street from the Minnehaha Princess Station, where it will be closer to other historical attractions in the park. House continued on page 4B for my life' At the end of his testimony, Leary told the jury. In a breaking voice, "I know that I can be faulted for my sloppy methods and I know I've caused a great deal of embarrassment for my family and friends, but I've never willfully tried to cheat the government." On cross-examination Rosenbaum asked, "You're into packaging aren't you producing radio and TV political ads, a form of making people look better than they are? You're a specialist in that area, you've done It In the past. Could you be doing that now?" Leary continued on page 4B By Charley McKenna Staff Writer The John H. Stevens house will be moved next spring for the fifth time in its 132-year history.

It then will be restored to appear as it did when it was built by the "Father of Minneapolis." The last time the five-room, house was uprooted was in 1896. A holiday was declared that Tom Kelm or others in the Anderson administration any of the commission money be received to promote tourism at Voyagucrs National Park. A few weeks later bis records were subpoenaed by IRS agents, but be first turned them over to his attorney, Brian Short (now a federal magistrate) "to make sure I was complying with the He said that it was Short who first noticed that there were errors In his returns. On Short's recommendation, Leary's long-time accountant, St Paul public accountant Marvin Levlne, began large numbers of scuba divers to migrate to North Dakota. Wbeelock's commercials in the primary, however, seemed to nominate Minnesota as the designated dust bowl of the Upper Midwest Tbey depicted so many trains leaving Minnesota with the furniture of fleeing Industry that viewers called the station to ask If Roto-Rooter was still in town.

Durenberger Is grieving about this because he plans to tell the voters this fall about the potential wonders of Reaganomlcs and bow it Is already working. the federal government $33,952. Leary, who has worked for campaign committees of dozens of prom-. inent DFLers in recent years, includ- ing the late Sen. Hubert Humphrey, former Gov.

Wendell Anderson, former U.S. Rep. Richard Nolan, State Treasurer Jim former Minneapolis Mayor Al Hofstede and Secretary of State Joan Growe, said that his current troubles began in the summer of 1979 when be was questioned by FBI and IRS agents working on the Upper Great Lakes Regional Commission scandal. He told the jury the agents wanted to know If he had "kicked back" to The most hopeful sign for the voters Is news that the master strategists for David Durenberger and Wheelock Whitney are quarreling over whether Minnesota has achieved the status of an economic dust bowL Whenever one candidate puts us on the brink of bankruptcy and his fellow candidate puts us at the gates of Utopia, there's always a chance for the electorate. You cant say they're not giving us a choice.

Making It as a dust bowl Is a distinction most states shun, for the obvious reason that It might provoke IR battle over the state of the raising a lot of dust 1 It Isn't very thrilling for the farmers, either. David Durenberger, who is a perceptive and engaging gentleman, sees all of this and thus proposes a positive Independent-Republican campaign lodged squarely on the bedrock of Solutions. He Is going to tell us in bis Senate race against Mark Dayton this fall how we can solve our problems if we allow the genius and drive of Amoco and his other corporate sponsors to lead us to salvation In the marketplace. His toughest opponent at the moment In achieving that admirable goal seems to be Wheelock Whitney, who by a kink of coincidence Is an Independent-Republican running for governor on the same ticket with David Durenberger. David laid his dilemmas before the party wizards a few days ago.

How Is senator going to put Minnesota on the rails to prosperity, be asked. If his partner insists on telling us the state Is dying? We may have to protect these two distinguished Independent-Republicans from themselves here. Klobeehar continued on page 4B Jim, Klobuchar 5".