The Minneapolis Star from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 9

Kidnaping victim aids in arrest Jim I Klobuchar the minneapolis star sept. 29, 1978 9A Sometime in the next few days I will silently turn in my needles and my half-stitched loon. I don't know that it will crush the hearts of my sponsors at the Needlework Guild of Minnesota, but I do dread the thinly masked hurt and betrayed trust I expect to face. They considered me a prospect. There are certain kinds of failure whose sting is quickly blunted by a man's instinctive defenses.

He searches for other, more manageable rivers to cross, smaller mort- If gages to pay. tie ClOSeS By DAVID PETERSON Minneapolis SUr Staff Writer It was 2:05 a.m., and the 13-year-old boy told Richfield police he didn't want to disturb his mom and his brother. Could they drive over and meej him outside his house? He'd tell them all about it. That call, on Monday night, began an all-night search that wound through three counties and ended with the arrest for kidnaping and criminal sexual conduct of 40-year-old Robert J. Meyer of north Minneapolis.

Meyer was once the director of a privately financed counseling program for convicted sex offenders. RICHFIELD POLICEMAN Larry 1 Lotzer showed up at the boy's home Monday night and reported later that the boy told him this story: About four hours before, the boy and a couple of friends had been taking turns riding a motorcycle in the area of 64th St. and 16th A v. S. in Richfield.

At one point while the others were riding, the boy was approached by a middle-aged man in a Ford station wagon. He can blame the weather or the officials. If pressed, he can hang it on his biorhythms. But four months, Mrs. Erickson.

the book on a dream The man asked for directions to Metropolitan Stadium, and the boy gave them. The man insisted that the boy get in the car and show him where to go, and finally coerced him in. Once they were en route, the man claimed to be going to a party near the stadium that featured nude women but said he couldn't find the address. Then, despite the boy's repeated requests to be taken back, the man drove east. They wound up at a boat marina in the St.

Paul area, walked to a 25-foot blue and white cabin cruiser and launched the boat. Once the boat was adrift, the boy said, the man served him a rum and coke, landed the boat on a sandbar, ordered him into the boat's bedroom, and forced him into oral sodomy will Somewhere in four months I should have experienced that rare mesh of powers where mentally, emotionally and physically I functioned as an irresistible wave of competence and skill. I experienced no such tidal surge, Mrs. Erickson. As a needlepointer I spent four months in the horse latitudes.

And so when one's failure brings discredit and humiliation to those MBMUHBiaBHH who had faith that is the most inconsolable failure of all. Even the ere goZ The boat was registered to Meyer, and at Meyer's residence, 1841 Irving Av. Minneapolis, police found a station wagon that fit the description the boy gave. Meyer was arrested that morning and was charged yesterday in Washington County with one count of kidnaping and four counts of criminal sexual conduct. He had resigned from the sex-offender-counseling program last year after another charge against him was dismissed.

At the time, his probation officer told the court he "couldn't see that anything would be served by sending Meyer to prison." But, Meyer told police, he's now the director of another program with a similar name at the same address, 1841 Irving Av. N. Meyer had four convictions for taking indecent liberties with children and one for burglary when he was charged last summer with violating his parole by leaving the state and having sex with a male participant in the program he then ran, called Jude House. vote the Minnesota AFL-CIO to drop, as it does now. He said setting a fixed percentage of instructional costs for tuition would ensure that all students were treated equally.

David Easterday, chairman of the Minnesota State University Student Association, told the board that rising educational costs and projected enrollment declines were causing "an immense fear of being caught in the trap of a spiral effect." C. Peter McGrath, pres'dent of the University of Minnesota, said University regents urged the higher education board to delay voting on the tuition increase recommendation until the proposal could be thoroughly discussed with the board's advisory council. and other sexual contact. WHEN THE MAN dropped him off near his house, the boy said, he suggested that the boy and his friends go out to the cabin cruiser with him in a couple of weeks, saying he'd give them all the drinks they wanted. The boy got the man's name and phone number, but both turned out to be phony.

That left Lotzer with little to go on, so he decided to try with the boy's assistance to retrace the night's journey. The boy remembered a few things going over the Mendota bridge, seeing an unusual smokestackand with the aid of officers in West St. Paul and St. Paul Park, they wound up at a St. Paul Park marina called Hidden Harbor and located the cabin cruiser.

labor David Roe, president of cent at state universities. Proposed tuition increases would range from about $130 a year at the University and community colleges to $169 at state universities. Vocational institute students, who paid tuition for the first time this year, pay 1 1.1 percent of costs. Their annual tuition would be increased by $90 to 12.5 percent by 1981, under the board's recommendation. Clyde Ingle, board executive director, told students and administrators that he questioned whether the present system, under which legislators decide how much tuition subsidy to grant various school systems, will continue to work as well in the 1980s, when student enrollments are expected 4 1 David Roe and state's unions have to decide By BETTY WILSON Minneapolis Star Staff Writer When the Minnesota AFL-CIO Short will be endorsed for the U.S.

convention opens Sunday in Du- Senate seat of the late Hubert luth, it wil be wrestling with some Humphrey. Endorsement of candi-of its biggest political difficulties in dates is scheduled for Wednesday, years. just before the convention ad-President David Roe, a tough journs. pragmatist and considered one of Even if it takes a shotgun wed-the most effective power brokers ding, some are guessing Short, in the state, will carefully orches- now the DFL nominee after his pri-trate a show designed to demon- mary defeat of Fraser, will be en-strate that labor still is strong po- dorsed. litically and economically.

Short, who has based his cam- With the DFL Party deeply di- paign on what he calls "a business- vided, Roe says it's labor's job to man's approach" to dealing with provide stable leadership and keep inflation, is calling for massive the progressive movement afloat in government spending cuts and tax the coming election campaign. rebates that look to some like the But some observers are asking type of right-wing conservatism whether the powerful union or- that Roe says calls the enemy, ganization, whose coveted political To many labor people, Short's backing has been highly valued in proposed spending cuts translate past elections, can deliver this year into the demise of programs they or whether its influence is waning, cherish and worked hard for years Already, one of labor's U.S. Senate to get, as well as a threat to their candidates, U.S. Rep. Donald Fra- future goals, ser, has suffered a bitter primary But the conservative wave said defeat.

Polls show the other union to be sweeping the country in the choice, U.S. Sen. Wendell Ander- wake of California's Proposition 13 son is trailing his millionaire Inde- tax-cut mandate, appears to have pendent-Republican opponent, made inroads even in the ranks of Rudy Boschwitz, even in union Minnesota union members. Many households. "If there's ever any- of them have moved up in life to body Dave wanted to deliver for, become the middle-income taxpay- it's Wendy," said a source who ers who are chafing over the tax knows Roe.

bite out of their pay checks and Roe, 53, head of the Short is wooing them, member union since 1966, grimly Election results indicate many of acknowledges that the existence of them "voted their pocketbook" and labor is threatened this year by supported Short in the primary, "resurgent right-wing political contrary to their leaders' direction, conservatives, aided by their ally, While Roe is uneasy over some big business." But he rejects the things Short says, the shrewd notion that labor's prestige is on union head keeps a close finger on the line in the Nov. 7 election, or the pulse of his people, and he that the AFL-CIO fortunes are tied finds Short's Independent-Republi- to those of Anderson. can opponent, David Durenberger, That points up the dilemma fac- much less acceptable, ing the 800 convention delegates Roe said he was outraged when the question of whether Robert he saw Durenberger on television, "i admission of it brings no cleansing relief. Mrs. Erickson, what can I tell you? I got as far as the loon's bill.

Would you accept a half-billed loon in Needlework at the Min-netonka Center of Arts and Education next month? I think not. I notice some of the entries. Your publicitors are touting a priest's chasuble from St. Mark's Church and a chupah for a Jewish wedding; Muriel Humphrey's invitational butterfly will be there, not far from Evelyn Say-er's creche, which insiders tell me won the Princess Grace award at the Needlepoint International in Monaco. Against a field of such international brilliance, what real chance is there for an unfeathered loon? I can't plead bad hands.

In an early outburst of encouragement, in fact, the Needlework Guild people insisted I had uncommonly good moves, and genuinely promising hands. Not great ones, certainly, the violinist's hands or the safecracker's, but acceptable hands that worked the needles with a certain pudgy aggression. In the end, Mrs. Erickson, I couldn't handle the pressure. I don't know if I should feel disgrace to make that acknowledgement, but there are times when you have to stand and face the darkest reality.

I think I might have finished the loon in four months, and certainly I would have advanced beyond the bill, if it hadn't been for the fearsome second-guessing I absorbed from the airline passengers. It was never the stewardesses. The Needlework people were absolutely correct. Stewardesses are instantly attracted to the spectacle of a man performing needlepoint at 31,000 feet. All of their latent ma-ternalism surfaces.

They are curious, supportive, casually flattering. One of them said she thought my continental weave was almost star quality. The heart vaults before that kind of critical acclaim. But the passengers were uncontrollable. Or maybe I was simply the victim of strange streak of mathematics that on four straight flights put me next to a wizard needlepointer.

They would not let me alone, Mrs. Erickson. I got through two inches of sky and 15 stitches on the loon's head somewhere over Kansas this summer when the woman in the next seat in all good heart began to lecture on the lack of precision of my basket weave. She didn't finish until we landed in Los Angeles. Four miles over Pennsylvania the next month, a woman from Tallahassee practically seized my half-stitched loon.

She said she was a part-time needlepoint instructor and was so delighted to see masculine people getting into the art that she considered it an obligation to help them. She did 15 minutes on the loon's head before I rescued it. I told her I be an amateur needlepointer but I certainly wasn't a cheat, and if I was going to lose out to Muriel Humphrey's invitational butterfly, it would be on my one stitchwork. They pestered me over Boston a few weeks later and told me over Nashville ten days later to rip up the sky and start all over again. Mrs.

Erickson, do you have anything in body painting? accept getting off the plane with prominent national Republicans coming here on a recent "tax blitz," saying that "a vote for a Republican is a vote for tax cuts." Their visit was part of a nationwide tour to make a pitch for the GOP's proposed one-third cut in federal income taxes, a plan Durenberger has endorsed. "That almost made me throw up," said Roe. He calls talk of tax cuts a "phony" cover to "hide the real issue" of inflation that is hurting working people. Roe puts banks at the top of his enemy list, along with the John Birch Society, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Chamber of Commerce and Republicans in general. He blames inflation on the tight-money policies of the Federal Reserve Bank and on the high interest rates he says it and other banks deliberately foster.

Roe said that when Durenberger appeared before an AFL-CIO screening committee last summer he "was either negative or had no position on major labor issues, and that pretty well limits his chances" of being endorsed in Duluth. In the case of Short, the AFL-CIO might be between the proverbial rock and a hard place. "I hope he (Short) is beginning to realize he's as irresponsible with his proposals (for a JlOO-billion spending cut and $50-billion tax rebate) as the 33-percent across-the-board broad axe approach the Republican Party is attempting to exploit," Roe said tartly. If Short wants labor blessing, "I think he's got to modify his position before Monday afternoon," Roe said. That's when canidates are scheduled to go before the convention's endorsing committee.

Among those positions are Short's opposition to the proposed Equal Rights Amendment which labor strongly supports, Roe said. "He hasn't fully clarified his position on national health insurance Labor Turn to Page 10A DAVID EASTERDAY 'Fears being caught in trap' LA WtiL' 25 tuition plan passes board, is sent to Perpich, Legislature By JIM ADAMS Minneapolis Star Staff Writer Despite objections by students and college officials, a recommendation to increase tuition at state universities, community colleges and vocational schools was passed yesterday by the Minnesota Higher Education Coordinating Board in St. Paul. The recommendation, which raises tuition levels to 25 percent of the instructional costs in state universities and community colleges by 1981, now goes to Gov. Rudy Perpich and the state Legislature for their consideration.

Students pay 24 percent of instructional costs at the University ot Minnesota, 21.4 percent at state community colleges and 20.8 per C. PETER McGRATH of president NBC proposes and Channel 11 expected to In 1974, Channel 11 moved from the Calhoun Beach (NBC, from Page lA) NBC one of the nation's most modern broadcast facilities and a collection of syndicated programs with strong viewer appeal, which could serve as lead-ins to NBC's prime-time schedule. Channel 11 's affiliation with the NBC network is virtually certain to entail major changes besides its broadcast of the NBC program schedule. The station is likely to begin upgrading its marginal news operation to satisfy network requirements. For years the Metromedia station has been counter programing, butting its 9:30 news program against the tail end of network shows on other channels.

"We'll be in that head-to-head thing, instead of running by ourselves," said WTCN news director Gil Amundson said. He already has a dozen interview tapes of potential reporters who believe WTCN will be anointed by NBC. The news staff would be among the, most affected departments at the station. Its staff would greatly increase. "We've got about a dozen people now," Amundson said.

KSTP and WCCO have news staffs five or six times that large, he said. Are they nervous Hotel in Minneapolis to a new, $6-million building at 441 Boone Av. Golden Valley. The WTCN call letters were first heard in the Twin Cities in August 1934, when a firm called Twin Cities Newspapers bought the WRHM-AM radio station. WTCN was bought by Metromedia bought the station in July 1971.

Construction workers broke ground for the new broadcast facility in Golden Valley two years later. Metromedia, based in New York, operates six other television stations in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Houston, Cincinnati and Kansas City. All are independent stations except KMBC-TV in Kansas City, which is affiliated with the ABC network. Metromedia also owns the Ice Capades, the Harlem Globetrotters and an outdoor advertising firm. In addition to its capacity to receive programing by satellite, WTCN participates in a cable network in which some of its programing is sent to outstate Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and Montana.

Material for this article also was supplied by staff writers Walter T. Middlebrook and Kay Miller. WTCN, and "we were caught in the middle." He said he does not foresee any cutbacks in programming or commitment to the community, nor does he anticipate that the station will lose revenues as the result of a loss of network affiliation. "We'll have more time to sell as a non-affiliate," he said. A station can count on about $1 million in revenues from the network as an affiliate.

To compensate for that loss, he said, KMSP will have to sell more commercial volume at a lower price. He said the situation is nothing new, since KMSP was an independent until 19 years ago, when it first joined ABC. Swartz and the chairman of the station's board made a presentation to NBC 10 days ago, but Swartz says he doesn't know why the NBC decision was made. KMSP now has five months to consider new format possibilities and other alternatives. It began considering alternate plans as soon as the ABC switch was announced.

Most staff members had been told of the possibilities and have said they're willing to stick it out with the station, he said, adding that that is "heart-warming." about the change? "No, it looks like a good challenge. We've got a very professional staff," Amundson said. There will be disruption, however, with people looking for programs on 5 that will be on 11, and programs once on 9 that will be on 5. "We'll be disrupting old habits and patterns and that puts us at the same starting point," Amundson said. Donald Swartz, vice-president and general manager of Channel 9, indicated today that he was expecting notification that NBC had chosen Channel 11 as its new affiliate.

Swartz said, "We will continue to be an ABC affiliate station until March 5, and will continue to be a vibrant and aggressive broadcaster. We are not going to let up on our news operation." Industry observers had noted earlier that if Channel 9 failed to attract NBC, the station would be in deep trouble because it lacks a sufficient inventory of non-network programs to attract viewers and advertisers. Swartz said he's disappointed that NBC would decide to take WTCN as an affiliate, adding that he's "caught in the politics of one network raiding another." He said NBC had a choice between his station and i.