The Burlington Free Press from Burlington, Vermont • Page 17

-f' 'f If If I I Deaths 2B Your View 3B Chittenden Rndp 3B Court News 8B Slf? furlington Sunday, September 23, 1984 Easfon and Kunin Defend Programs To Labor Council r- 2 By DEBORAH SCHOCH ih Pratt Staff Writer Republican John Eastern took aim Saturday at his opponent's plan to aid education and ease property taxes, questioning how she would boost state aid by $20 million. That money will have to come from somewhere, Easton said, speculating whether Democratic rival Madeleine Kunin would be forced to take money from other state departments. Kunin pointed to her experience with state budget-making in her own speech to the Vermont State Labor Council's 1984 convention. She recalled her tenure as House Appropriations Committee chairman. "I apprenticed my way through the system to be a candidate for governor in 1984," she said.

The two gubernatorial candidates addressed state labor leaders in hopes of winning the council's endorsement. Members are expected to decide this morning whom to support in state races this fall. Kunin won the endorsement in her unsuccessful 1982 challenge to Gov. Richard A. Snelling.

Labor representatives greeted her with a standing ovation when she took the podium Saturday morning at the Burlington-Radisson hotel. Easton drew a more muted reception during his late afternoon speech. The gubernatorial hopefuls and other candidates focused on employment issues as they wooed the 73 delegates and 36 alternates at the three-day event. The council has 20.000 members statewide and will provide favored candidates with mailings and some 'inancial help, spokesman Tom Belville said Both Easton and Kunin discussed the plans they unveiled last week to boost funds for education in fiscal year 1986. Easton hopes to increase spending by 12 3 million, including a 10 percent rise in aid to local school districts He also supports 3 2 million in property tax relief for the poor and elderly Kunin prefers a 20 percent increase in aid to school districts Her package would total $20 million, including $6 million for a state revenue-sharing program for communities, tax deferral for the elderly and an assortment of education programs.

Both candidates have called for an 8-cent-a-pack increase in the state cigarette tax. offset by an indentical federal cigarette tax cut, to help finance their packages Discussing his opponent's plan. Easton said a governor must assemble a budget that is Turn to CANDIDATES, 4B N. 1 fr Pratt Photo by IRENE FERTIK Colorful Work Larry Ribbecke lowers a restored stained-glass frame to William Cairns who helps guide it into place at the John Dewey Lounge of the University of Vermont Old Mill building. Ribbecke Studios is repairing the panes that began buckling because of age and oxidation of the lead work.

A signature on the left window showed it to be from Tiffany's. The window on the far right might also be from Tiffany's. The center window is dated 1 884. Restoration is expected to be done Oct. 1 Years Since College Have Not Mellowed John Franco Billings Unhappy With Path Being Taken by Courts 1 V1' By TED TEDF ORD FrM Pratt Staff Writar Franklin S.

Billings Jr. never pulled punches when be was in poli-mbbbmmm tics, and It years (' 'If you look at the role of city attorney as someone who provides counsel to the Board of Aldermen and the city, John has gone far beyond that. The role of city attorney is to provide legal counsel, not to be an activist politician. If John wants to be an activist politician, he should run for the Board of Maurice Mahoney Alderman later, he still doesn't On the job only two weeks as a federal judge, the 63-year-old Billings said he is unhappy with at least one U.S. Supreme Court rul-i that he By DON MELVIN FrM Pratt Staff Writer Ten years ago, when John Franco was a senior at the University of Vermont, he challenged the powerful and the wealthy.

In an article published in the Vermont Cynic, the campus newspaper, Franco charged that some trustees and the president of the university had conflicts of interest because they were directors and stockholders of Burlington banks that did business with the university. Franco lost that battle, but never lost his appetite for a good fight against what he sees as vested interests. Now, as Burlington assistant city attorney, he is in the vanguard of the battles being waged by the administration of independent Mayor Bernard Sanders against such interests. As Sanders, largely through perseverance, has worked his will on the Board of Aldermen, the battle over initiatives such as the city's excavation fee and municipal ownership of a cable television system has moved to the courts. There, the battler is John Franco.

And as he moves more to the Profile Preside.it Johnson won the state's three electoral votes. In an interview published in the Free Press in January 1965, Billings, then a second-term House speaker, said be really wanted to be a judge, and not governor as his father had been in the mid-1920s. The younger Billings' desires were heard by Hoff, a good friend and fellow "Young Turk." Billings was appointed to one of two vacancies on the Superior Court bench in 1966. That appointment began a judicial career that led Billings to the Vermont Supreme Court in 1975 as an associate justice, to chief justice three years later, and finally to the U.S. District Court.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court found that illegally gathered material was admissible as evidence in trial proceedings if police could prove the evidence would have inevitably been discovered by lawful means. Billings said he is concerned that the court has tampered with the exclusionary rule, a legal principle that prohibits certain evidence from being admitted at a trial if it has decibels She said, as did Miller, that Franco has a keen sense of social justice and feels outrage when it is violated FRANKLIN S. BILLINGS been gathered illegally. "That's a 'good faith' exception," said Billings, "but the constitutional rights of a defendant are not necessarily being protected just because an officer believes he is acting in good faith." Billings also is looking to the future of the high court, most of whose members are aging.

"It's obvious the next president will appoint one or two new members and any president will appoint someone compatible," he said. If President Reagan wins re-election. Turn to BILLINGS, 4B believes indicates a swing to the right on the high court. He also is concerned that when his background was being checked for the federal judgeship, no one thought to talk with him. He was one of Vermont's fabled bipartisan "Young Turks" of the 1960s who drove the old conservative legislative leadership into oblivion.

In 1964, the Republican Party suffered a devasting defeat at the hands of the Democrats: Gov. Philip Hoff was elected to a second term and Student Stands Hat in Hand Ready to Defy Dress Code Franco graduated from UVM in 1974, magna cum laude. Phi Beta Kappa. The same year, he launched his political career running on the Liberty Union ticket for a state Senate seat from the Washington district. "Three men and a dog voted for me," he said.

He recalled getting fewer votes than he had relatives. He attended Vermont Law School and in 1976, while a student, made his run for lieutenant governor. That campaign was punctuated by criticism of the state's private utilities He received only 6.600 votes out of more than 170,000, yet he affected the outcome. Neither of the two major candidates. Democrat John Alden and Republican T.

Garry Buckley, drew a majority, but Alden was 1,161 votes ahead. The election was thrown to the state Legislature, which picked Buckley. Franco was admitted to the Vermont bar in 1978, and began working in the Chittenden County public defender's office, where he would form close, permanent friendships. "He came to the public defender's office as a baby lawyer," said lawyer Jane Watson, who also worked in tne office. "He's crazy, totally delightful.

He's exciting and excitable He has a very high standard, he's a man of integrity. I have always had a lot of respect for him." She recalls him. also, as he is still: loud and persuasive. "I used to Friends also describe the private Franco as humorous and whimsical something rarely seen in his public appearances He has a penchant for inventing irreverent lyrics for popular songs In 1981, in the midst of the acrimony that followed Sanders' first election as mayor. Sanders nominated Franco as city clerk.

When the nomination came before the Board of Aldermen, he was not confirmed "Thank God I wasn he said last week "I would have lasted about a month That kind of clerical work would drive me crazy A year later he was confirmed as assistant city attorney, despite concerns of City Attorney Joseph McNeil, whose law firm has handled city business. Alderman Maurice Mahoney. D-Ward 1, voted to confirm Franco as assistant city attorney, but not before voicing fears that Franco would try to "politicize" the office Mahoney said his fears persist "nioie than ever Recently, Franco has raised the hackles of officials and politicians not friendly to the administration by his energetic advocacy of city ownership of cable television "If you look at the role of city attorney as someone who provides counsel to the Board of Aldermen and the city. John has gone far beyond that," Mahoney said "The role of city attorney is to provide Turn to FRANCO, 4B fore, his style he is committed, partisan, and sometimes loud has excited debate over whether his brand of advocacy is what the city attorney's office needs, or what it should avoid. John L.

Franco 31, attended high school in Barre His mother, Helen Franco, is a former state representative, and Franco emerged as a radical activist at the University of Vermont in the early 1970s. "Who wasn't?" Franco said in a recent interview. But while the commitment of others waned or changed, his remained constant. When Sanders ran for governor on the Liberty Union ticket. Franco ran for lieutenant governor.

His first job out of law school was in the public defender's office. Now. few things will make him louder faster than talking about utilities. UVM philosophy Professor William M. Miller remembers Franco as very busy, both as a writer for the disruption of classes.

A hat high enough to block a student's view could be prohibited legitimately, for example, but school administrators would have no legal grounds for broadly outlawing chapeaus, the ACLU director said. That position is based largely on the Vermont precedent set in 1970 when a student's lawsuit overturned his school's requirement that male students have short hair. "Schools can't regulate hair length, and we would argue for the 'same reasons they should not be allowed to regulate hats," Skinner said. So far, however, he merely has counseled Taylor to "lobby school officials" for voluntary relaxation of the standard. She initially refused to remove the hat but was pressured by Lissandrello into doing so.

"I went to school saying to myself that I was not going to take my hat off, no matter what he said, but I did eventually break down," Taylor said. Turn to HAT, 4B By NEIL DAVIS FrM Pratt Staff Writer Kathleen Taylor, 17, wore a hat to Randolph High Union High School recently in deliberate defiance of the school dress code. "It was just a really pretty red hat," she said. The administration won the first battle when the senior bowed to pressure from Principal Paul Lissan-drello and bared her head. The war is far from over, however, Taylor said, shortly after she presented a petition bearing about 140 names to Uie principal Friday.

Four teachers are among those rallying in opposition to the anti-hat rule, and more than one-sixth of the student body signed the petition, she said. Lissandrello said the petition would be passed along to the School Board for a decision. Taylor has received advice and support from Scott Skinner, Vermont director of the American Civil Liberties Union. He said his group's position would be that hats cannot be regulated by a school except to prevent interference with the education process or Cynic and as a campus activist. Franco was involved, Miller said, in protesting the firing of four philosophy professors in what was viewed by some as a purge of the department for protests against the Vietnam War.

joke with John that it was like living your life in a closing argument," she said of his tirades. "He's very organized and he would work in his office with the door closed. I could tell what was going on in his life by the Murdered Jay Couple Shot 8 to 1 1 Times Each now the coroner believed the couple had been dead at least 24 hours. "It seems improbable," said Johnson of the Wednesday sightings, "but what can I say. I've talked with the (attendant) a couple of times now and she swears she saw them.

"We're just going to keep plugging away," Johnson said. Morrow said Mr. Hanel was shot in the chest, abdomen, arms, legs, back and head. Mrs. Hanel was struck in both arms, chest and abdomen, he said.

There were no powder burns on the body, Morrow said, indicating the couple was not shot at extremely close range. Mr. Hanel was found in the living room and his wife in the adjoining kitchen, according to Philip White, Orleans County state's attorney. There were no other injuries found beside the gunshot wounds. Morrow said.

The only type of weapon the autopsy ruled out was a shotgun because it makes a different type of wound. Morrow said. The exact make of gun will have to be determined from police ballistic tests, he said. Hanel, a German native, had lived off and on in Jay since 1969, and moved permanently into the chalet at the foothills of Jay Peak after he sold his part in a Montreal plastics company and married Maram, his second wife, three years ago. saw tne couple at a Troy gasoline station Wednesday evening around sunset.

An attendant at the station had told authorities and a reporter Friday the couple had purchased some diesel fuel Wednesday evening and then headed toward Jay. Vermont State Police Cpl. Peter Johnson said the second witness was a customer at the gas station. As of Saturday evening, Johnson said no arrests have been made, no weapon has been recovered, nor has any motive been determined. More interviews were held Saturday with residents, he said.

Johnson said confirmation of the Wednesday sighting was confusing because he and by a smgie Dunei. Police have found no one who beard the shots, but residents said many hunters are in the area, so gunfire would not be unusual. The coroner said there was no way to determine the exact time of the shooting, but he said it was clear from changes in the bodies following death that the couple had -been dead "certainly 24 hours or more" when found by a friend Thursday at 4 30 p.m. It will be up to police investigators to pinpoint the time of death more precisely, Morrow said. A next door neighbor told a reporter he saw Mr.

Hanel remodeling one of his chalets last Sunday morning. A second witness told police Saturday she FrM Pratt Staff WriMr A couple found murdered in their Jay chalet Thursday were shot 8 to 11 times each and had been dead at least 24 hours, the Vermont Medical Examiner's office deter-' mined Saturday. Dr. Paul L. Morrow, deputy chief medical examiner, said Saturday he found 11 gunshot wounds each in the bodies of Roland Hanel, 49, and his wife Maram, 32, during 14 hours of autopsies completed early Saturday morning.

Morrow estimated 8 to 11 shots were fired at each after taking into consideration that more than one wound could be caused.