Green Bay Press-Gazette from Green Bay, Wisconsin • Page 1

1 Phoenix women gain NCAA tournament berth UWGB won its 15th straight game Saturday, capturing its second straight conference tournament title and an automatic NCAA berth. C-l 0 Badgers fall in Big Ten Tournament. C-l 1 .75 ($2 MICHIGAN ONLY) SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 1999 INSIDE Plans for new Lambeau come down to cash Lewis to speak at symposium By Pete Dougherty Press-Gazette Cash-flow problems prompted the Green Bay Packers' Executive Committee to scrap plans to reno 7 I L3 i if I Ml Inr Harlan projected that Lambeau will become an economic liability for the Packers in 10 to 12 years, perhaps sooner. So last week, he began the long and potentially difficult campaign to obtain public funding to help pay for a new Lambeau Field, estimated to cost $350 million in today's dollars. Amenities included in renovation plans, such as a new food court and stadium club, would have increased the Packers' revenue by about $5 million a year, to $25 million.

But the Packers are convinced that's not enough to compete in today's NFL. Harlan said 21 NFL teams either have plans to renovate or build stadiums or have already done so, and those facilities make an average of $36 million a year. That cash makes a difference. Since April, the Packers have spent a little more than $29 million on signing and other bonuses for the 10 most expensive players they signed in the last fiscal year. All NFL teams share their national broadcast revenue equally.

But most revenue from new stadiums isn't shared, and the Packers don't want to be stadium have-nots much longer. "There's nothing wrong with that stadium (in Green Bay)," said Rodney Fort, author of a new book on pro-sports financing. "But it isn't going to generate the other kinds of revenues that these new stadiums do." Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Sherman Lewis will be the keynote speaker for the annual Outlook Symposium scheduled for Wednesday, March 24. The full-day event will consist of Symposium sessions in the morning and workshops in the afternoon. For more information, turn to the Money section, page E-1.

I OPINION: New stadium a necessity, A-14 I Two inducted into Hall of Fame, B-2 I Bonuses strain future flexibility, C-1 I Havel: Lofton, fan formed bond, C-1 vate Lambeau Field. But even more startling was team President Bob Harlan's announcement last week that the Packers need to replace one of the most storied and venerable stadiums in all of American sports. More inside: Special Report: First of Three Parts East will close for mercury cleanup Bowling center opens on time for tournament Barbie turns 40 this week The popular doll has come a long way, from the original, left, to 1999's Working Woman Barbie. D-l Woman's death blamed on U.S. policy Associated Pkess The family of a Wisconsin woman who was executed with two other humanitarians in Venezuela is blaming the U.S.

Justice and State departments for the slayings, a Menominee Nation spokesman said Saturday The U.S. Si.E J.i 1 Mli rr 'v j. I 5 1 'Wr.) If fl 1 I--X Low" i 4 -I--- 1 ft government's recent financial support of the Colombian government's war against a rebel faction resulted in the executions, said Menominee tribal chairman. "I think all America Washinawatok Helped with education Victims were in dangerous region, A-2 4 Green Bay Police Department A police evidence photo shows the severity of the gang-related beating Nick Beyer suffered at the hands of two teen-age girls and their boyfriends. Beyer spent nine hours in the emergency room the night after the beating and another eight hours the next day.

Steve LevinPress-Gazette Nick Beyer, 16, sits in his living room with his parents to discuss the gang-related beating he suffered in November. The attack left him with neurological and eye problems. Five teens face By Elaine Kauh Press-Gazette Green Bay East High School will close Monday and Tuesday as the cleanup of a mercury spill continues. School officials are still investigating how the poisonous liquid metal got into students' hands Friday, spreading it to a bowling alley and a nearby house. Students spilled mercury on the lanes of Riviera Lanes and poured it into balls during a class trip there.

Hazardous-materials teams were able to clean up the bowling center so that it opened for a state tournament Saturday. Hazardous-materials teams were called to the school Friday afternoon after students were found playing with elemental mercury. Eighty-eight people, mostly students, were treated for contamination. Superintendent Tom Joynt said the two-day closing should be enough time for Superior, an environmental cleanup firm, to remove all the mercury and test the air. Cleanup began Friday.

Joynt said police and fire departments took the necessary actions Friday. "This is very serious business. No one overreacted," he said. The district has one snow day left this year. Those days are built into the school calendar in case harsh weather closes school.

Whether the high school must make up the second day of closing is uncertain, Joynt said. Green Bay police on Friday said a 14-year-old girl took the mercury from a classroom and shared it with friends. Whether the mercury came from a school laboratory "has not been established by us," said Assistant Superintendent Daniel Nerad. He said the investigation will determine whether the student faces disciplinary action. The school district will also look at whether mercury should be removed from science classes, Nerad said.

Anyone who was at the school who now has nausea, Please see Mercury, A-2 charges from the case. Police, others disagree on scope of problem By Andy Nelesen Press-Gazette should be aware of what the State Department does for policy," Apesanahkwat said. The body of Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, was found Thursday, a week after she had been kidnapped. In Washington, the State Department blamed the killing on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest rebel band. Washinawatok was born on the northern Wisconsin Menominee reservation and went to New York City when she was 17 on an internship with the International Treaty Council, Apesanahkwat said.

That's where she married and had a son who is now 14. Washinawatok traveled throughout Central America, helping tribes develop their own education models, Apesanahkwat said. About this series This is the first of a three-part series exploring gang crime in Green Bay. Coming Monday. Green Bay police are taking a neighborhood approach to policing gangs.

Coming Tuesday: Gang intervention experts struggle to reach kids at risk of turning to gangs. Inside Gangs 101: The basic characteristics of gangs explained. A-4 Portrait: Grandfather of Green Bay gangs trying to keep life on track. A-4 The look: Baggy pants, certain colors don't make a gang member. A-4 Hunter column: Police need community support to fight problem.

A-1S community and whether enough is being done to prevent it. Some officers and community activists talk openly about the city's gang problem. Green Bay Police Chief Jim Lewis refuses to use that term, saying gangs don't control any areas of the city But at least one national expert thinks Green Bay is at a turning point with gangs. The increase in violent crime and decrease in other crimes show the honeymoon is over and things might be getting worse, said Ronald Huff, an author and gang researcher from Ohio State University. "It doesn't mean it is out of control, but it would be a mistake to deny it or downplay it," he said.

Beyer, now 16, was beaten Nov. 8 at an east side apartment, then taken to Baird Park, where the attackers finished Please see Gangs, A-5 came in property-related crimes such as graffiti. What remains are violent and serious crimes such as shootings, stabbings, beatings, sexual assaults and other weapons offenses including drive-by shootings and carrying concealed weapons. Green Bay police have filed 904 reports of gang-related crimes in the past four years. The most 303 cases came in 1996.

Gang-related crime has dropped 44 percent since then. But violent gang crimes continue to edge up, and they make up a bigger portion of gang crime as a whole, the computer analysis found. In 1995, there were 26 serious gang crimes. In 1998, there were 34, a 30 percent increase. Police estimate the number of gang members ranging from hard-core to hangers-on at several hundred.

Beyond the numbers, perceptions vary about how much gang crime is affecting the Teen-age attackers beat Nick Beyer so badly that his back bore footprint-shaped bruises and his face was so swollen that his mother barely recognized him. The viciousness of the beating, by girls and boys as young as 13, triggered outrage and soul-searching in Green Bay about the scope of gang problems here. Beyer's beating matches a trend that city gang crime is becoming more violent, a Press-Gazette computer analysis of gang crimes found. It also matches a perception by police and others that more offenders are younger. Gang-related crime in Green Bay has dwindled to about half of what it was at its peak in 1996.

But the bulk of the drop WEATHER CP Mostly sunny and cold More on B-13 INDEX Lotteries B-1 PCB studies deal little with impact on Green Bay Movies D-8 Nation A-3 Obituaries B-11 Opinion A-14 Real Estate F-1 Sports C-1 Tom Perry B-1 TV Week Insert Careers G-1 Classified H-1 Crossword H-2 Ann Landers D-2 Legals A-10 Lifestyle D-1 LocalState B-1 Money E-1 Inside As a public service, the Press-Gazette is publishing the state's summary of draft studies outlining options and costs for cleaning PCBs from the Fox River. See pages B-9 and B-10. to be dredged or anything like that, but we think Green Bay needs to be at least considered," he said. "If we're going to rule it out, we need to say why we're ruling it out. If It's not going to be considered for particular remedies because it's too big, or just not doable or whatever, that should be looked at." The EPA last summer identified 21.5 miles of the bay and 39 miles of the Fox River from Lake Winnebago to Green Bay as a proposed Superfund priority cleanup site.

The agency is concerned about PCBs' health risks to people and wildlife, and says Wisconsin and seven paper mills held responsible for the contamination have been too slow to correct the problem. Please see PCBs, A-2 tection Agency, say that even if a cleanup project on the bay were rejected, the public should be given a chance to review costs and cleanup options for PCB contamination there. "The document really doesn't do much with Green Bay at all," said Jim nenberg, who is overseeing the cleanup for the EPA's Region in Chicago. "We're not saying it needs eries, and deformities and reproductive problems in the bay's fish and wildlife. The state Department of Natural Resources says it didn't include cleanup options for Green Bay along with the Fox River options released Feb.

26 because removing PCBs from the bay what relatively few there are is not feasible. But others, among them the U.S. Environmental Pro By Susan Campbell Press-Gazette The state has offered a range of scenarios and costs for ridding the Fox River of PCBs but isn't addressing contamination in the bay of Green Bay the area's most popular fishing and recreational waters. Yet the presence of poly-chlorinated biphenyls in bay sediment is responsible for Copyright 1999 Green Bay A Gannett newspaper recreational fish consumption advisories, the shutdown of commercial fish 3.