Iowa City Press-Citizen from Iowa City, Iowa • Page 1

IOWA GITY PRESS-CITIZEN Tuesday, February 1, 1977 20' A Speidel Newspaper Iowa City, Iowa The killer bridge' worries roadside resident According to a highway division official, the bridge is 200 feet long and 20 feet wide. "This is just going to funnel that traffic into the bridge and it's going to be worse than ever," Kron contends. A check with the Johnson County Sheriff's Office was unable to turn up a fatality history for accidents at the bridge. But Kron, who has lived in the area for 22 years, estimates about 20 people have been killed in that vicinity. "We don't keep records of that type," Sheriff Gary Hughes says.

"There have been so many sideswipes and other accidents I wouldn't begin to try to make a count." Mrs. Kron comments, "I've seen enough to make your hair gray. They always come to our door. We're the ones that call the Highway Patrol and the ambulances. "People from out of state or other parts of Iowa are the ones that always get it.

Most of the people around here know about it, and I won't even go under the bridge if there's another car coming." The DOT admits the bridge is a hazard, but one of its engineers says there just are not funds to rebuild such bridges. "There's a lot of them like that in the state," he adds. Kron says if he can not force the DOT to change its plan he wants it to make By CLAREN F.DALE Of the Press-Citizen As he puts it, Bill Kron has helped "sack up" too many people on Highway 218 near his home. He's afraid a highway improvement project slated to begin this month is going to make it worse. Kron lives on the west side of the highway about half a mile south of a bridge that crosses Old Man's Creek.

The bridge is a mile south of the tumoff to Hills and well known to motorists from the area. Kron comments, "Around here we call it 'the killer and I think what the high way people have in mind is going to make it worse." The Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) Highway Division plans this spring and summer to resurface the highway, widen it two feet and place guardrails on the approaches to bridges, including the one near the Kron residence. In two related projects, the DOT plans to grind off curbs on the 18-foot roadway, lay a three-inch asphaltic surface and make the traveled portion of the highway 20 feet wide. In addition, 100-foot guardrails will be intalled on both sides of the approaches to the bridge at Old Man's Creek. the bridge one way, cause traffic to stop before crossing or at least install flashing lights.

The DOT says it would be possible to put up warning lights, but this is not in present plans. Mrs. Kron says she and her husband are particularly concerned for farmers moving machinery. "With the guardrails, they will Just have to gauge 100 more feet," she comments. The widening and resurfacing will begin near the Johnson County Fairgrounds and run to Iowa Highway 22, east of Riverside.

Highway 218 was widened to four lanes south of Iowa City to the fairgrounds several years ago. Plans from the fairgrounds south also call for an improved three-foot granular shoulder. Completion is expected this fall. Mrs. Kron says, "Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the public is aware of the hazard they're (the DOT) creating." Kron says he first became aware of the widening when a DOT representative called to discuss moving an entrance road that will be blocked by the guardrails.

He added, however that has no bearing on his concern. "They can move the entrance road if they want. But over the years I've helped sack up a lot of people off that bridge all the crying and screaming. I don't want to see more of it." Trash fee down to 39 cents i amount another way, through property tax. But it has more significance for the city budget: It means the city can hold the property tax increase for fiscal 1978 to 7 per cent.

Without the 39-cent landfill fee, the tax increase would have gone above 7 per cent, bringing the city under a state law requiring a second public hearing on the budget. It means no property tax will be used to support residential trash collection service, thus eliminating what was seen as an Inequity by business and apartment owners, who pay property taxes but receive no refuse collection service from the city. And it means everyone who generates waste that ends up in the city landfill will be paying a share of the cost of running the landfill. Homeowners who receive sanitation service from the city will pay 39 cents a month to support the landfill. Business Either way, whether property tax or revenue from the landfill fee is used in the sanitation fund, most of the cost of refuse collection will be paid out of revenue sharing money.

The Council is thus going against Berlin's advice that revenue sharing not be used to pay recurring operating expenses, because it is uncertain how long revenue sharing will continue to be available. But the use of revenue sharing in the sanitation fund was one of only a few methods available to the Council for avoiding the $2.68 refuse collection fee. The Council looked to the revenue sharing money only after trying another method cutting expenditures by some $300,000 and giving it up as hopeless. The 39-cent-a-month landfill charge will make little difference to Iowa Citians' pocketbooks, because the alternative was to collect a comparable By MARK F. ROHNER Of the Press-Citizen City Council members may have shut the door on a proposed trash collection fee, but they let a foot slip back through Monday afternoon.

The foot in the door is a 39-cent-a-month charge, labelled a landfill fee, that will be added to the water and sewer bill of every Iowa Citian receiving residential trash collection service. Last week, the Council told City Manager Neal G. Berlin to balance the fiscal 1978 city budget without revenue from a proposed fee for refuse collection. Berlin was Instructed to do that with a bigger property tax increase and with a transfer of federal revenue sharing money into the sanitation fee. But Monday, the Council decided to substitute the landfill fee for a bigger increase in property taxes.

Prm Cltuw photo Operators of trucks on this Highway 218 bridge south of Hills habitually travel the center of the roadway. A resident of the area says plans to widen and improve the highway but not the bridge will make the hazard worse. '4- good afternoon 4 '1', ft. 1 'What? A and apartment owners who pay private, haulers for refuse collection will support the landfill in another way. The city will charge private haulers $4.62 a ton for dumping at the landfill, and haulers will inevitably pass that cost on to their customers.

Originally, the fee for dumping at the landfill was proposed to be $5.15 a ton, enough to raise $40,000 during fiscal 1978 for improvements to the landfill road. However, Berlin said, the proposed fee was decreased because the city no longer plans to fix the road during the coming fiscal year. With the Council's decisions Monday, Berlin and his staff now can put the fiscal 1978 budget in final form, in time for a March 1 public hearing. The Council will vote next week on scheduling the hearing. Once the hearing is scheduled, the Council can decrease the budget, but it can no longer be increased.

$5 billion extra fuel costs seen WASHINGTON (AP) The national cold wave may cost Americans up to $5 billion in additional heating bills and that could make it necessary for President Carter to increase his proposal of a $50-per-person tax rebate, says the top White House economic adviser. Charles L. Schultze, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, told Carter and his cabinet on Monday that the weather is hitting the public in the pocketbook like "a federal excise tax." Consumers will pay at least $2 billion extra in fuel costs to stave off the winter's extreme cold, and possibly as much as $5 billion if the abnormally frigid weather is prolonged, he said. Schultze held open the possibility of increasing tax rebates if the winter worsens. But he told reporters, "at this stage the package still looks right, but obviously we will have to keep flexible." Carter sent his two-year, economic stimulus program to Congress on Monday, saying it would "set the stage for substantial growth in the years ahead." The bulk of this year's program would go to allot the $50 rebates to virtually all Americans this year at a cost of $11.4 billion.

Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal was called before the House Appropriations Committee today to answer questions about Carter's plan. f't downtown businesses be sent a letter asking them to urge their employes not to park in spaces the city is providing for shoppers. Council members agreed. They also asked City Manager Neal G.

Berlin to consider a bigger fine for motorists who overstay their welcome in meters with a one or two-hour limit. They suggested the current $2 fine for overtime parking might be reduced to $1 if the violation is merely parking at an expired meter. But they said the city might maintain or increase the $2 fine for violators who park all day at a meter with a one or two-hour limit. Parking Supt. Donald Akin said it would take an army of officers chalking tires to catch violators.

A parking ticket when you have plenty of tune left on the meter? It could happen if the City Council decides to enforce time limits on metered parking spaces downtown. City Councilwoman Carol W. deProsse complained Monday that employes of downtown businesses are defeating the purpose of parking meters. She said the meters are there to ensure a turnover of parking spaces, so they will be available to shoppers. But people who work downtown park in the spaces all day, returning hour after hour to feed the meters, deProsse said.

As a result, they are crowding out their own customers, she said. DeProsse proposed that 'IV -i i i I rn I I -y 4 Kindergarten registration kP laMrptiote school officials a better start on planning for next fall. Last year's registration was in April. To be eligible to start next fall, a child must be five years old on or before next Sept. 15.

Birth or baptism certificates may be used for proof. The March 3 date was set at a Monday night meeting of school officials and representatives of parent-teacher groups. Orientation activities for individual schools will be announced later, Weingarten said. You'd better start looking for that birth or baptism certificate now if your child is one of the 732 area youngsters to start kindergarten next fall. March 3 will be the day for registering next year's kindergarten classes at the Iowa City school district's 16 elementary schools.

Registration will be from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at each school. Mary Jo Weingarten, assistant superintendent (or instruction, said kindergarten registration is being held earlier this year to give A lone pedestrian bends before the wind as he makes his way through drifting snow covering streets of Buffalo, N. Y.

Storm causes 75 deaths in U.S. on the Insido Steve Walte returned but West High lost In the last seconds of Dubuque Senior, 52-50. Page IB. Classified 6B, 7B Comics, TV SB Comment 4A Dear Abby SB Emphasis 5A Entertainment 4B Markets 7A Peanuts 6B Sports heated by fuel oil, coal or electricity were permitted to open again today, ending a three-day cold weather vacation for some of the state's more than 2 million students. But a few districts said they might stay closed at least another day.

About 2,541 of the state's public schools and about half of the 1,000 parochial schools burn fuels other than natural gas. Schools that heat with natural gas will be reviewed districtby-distrlct by the state and the utilities, Gov. Milton Shapp said Monday. However, businesses employing 90,000 workers remained closed. Even as the bitter winter loosened its grip Monday on Ohio to let temperatures hover in the teens throughout most of the state, the gas cutbacks were expected to keep an estimated 500,000 factory workers and 150,000 teachers out of work.

About two-thirds of Ohio's school systems will close for varying periods of time because of the gas shortages. Special programs In newspapers and over broadcast facilities were being prepared so students can continue their Heart sound che'ek planned Area school children will be checked for abnormal heart sounds this month, in a program sponsored by the Iowa Heart Association. The "heart sound screening program" Is to be conducted in Johnson County elementary schools Feb. 10-28. Sharlene Hartman, local program coordinator, said a portable machine, called a PhonoCardioScan, will be used to detect cardiac murmurs and other abnormal heart sounds.

The machine can be operated by trained lay volunteers. Parental consent forms will be required for children to participate, she said. "The PhonoCardioScan Is a sensitive Instrument, and many children with functional, or murmurs will be detected," Hartman said. expected to drop to 10 to 20 m.p.h. by tonight.

Makowski said only vehicles carrying necessary medicine, food, or fuel will be allowed to travel. Violators will be arrested and prosecuted and will be subject to fines and imprisonment, he said. At least 11 states including New York had already ordered emergency measures to deal with the weather and energy crisis. The federal energy legislation would give President Carter authority to divert natural gas to areas where it's most needed and would free some natural gas from federal price controls through Aug. 1.

Industry has been hit the hardest by the gas shortage, and officials In Ohio and Indiana expressed fears of more workers being laid off amid a deepening shortage. Indiana Employment Security Division Director John F. Coppes said a new cutback announced Monday by the Northrn Indiana Public Service Co. could mean layoffs for 100,000. Gov.

Otis R. Bowen estimates 50,00040,000 state residents are out of work and 3,100 firms have been affected by curtailments. Northern Indiana announced cutbacks to 2,500 more firms. By The Associated Press Winter kept its frigid grasp on the Northeast and Midwest today, and a state of emergecy was declared in Buffalo, N.Y., where 12 persons have died in the worst storm in the city's history. An estimated 75 deaths have been blamed on the bitter weather in states hit by the big freeze.

An Army engineering battalion of 300 men was ordered to Buffalo today to help the city clear Its streets of abandoned autos and snow drifts. Federal disaster officials said the unit was ordered to fly with its equipment from Ft. Bragg, N.C., "as soon as they can get here." The natural gas shortage caused by freezing weather kept many schools, factories and businesses closed, leaving up to l.S million workers off. the job. Buffalo Mayor Stanley Makowskt issued the emergency declaration for his city at 5:30 a.m.

CST, banning all but essential vehicular traffic in the city to enable federal and state crews to clear the streets, still clogged by abandoned autos and drifting snow. The forecast included the possibility of several more Inches of snow for Buffalo today and wind gusts as high as 40 miles per hour. But the winds were On Monday, Bowen asked President Carter to declare the state a disaster area, saying at least $7 million would be needed to clear snow-clogged highways. Bowen has asked retail stores to cut hours to 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and most major ones seemed to be cooperating.

In Ohio one million workers have been laid off. And an unemployment claims office spokesman In Columbus said he was bracing for a 500 per cent increase in applications. The federal government said Monday that the unusual demand for unemployment compensation due to weather-' layoffs will put added pressure on state unemployment funds that are $3.6 billion in debt. In Florida, meanwhile, Agriculture Secretary Robert Bergland said Monday that $30 million in federal funds will be made available to growers and displaced workers In 35 Florida counties. Extreme northern Florida and parts of the South were hit Monday with a mixture of rain, sleet and snow, causing accidents and closing some roads.

The states most affected by weather-related unemployment and school closings were Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York. Schools in Pennsylvania kthat are 2 sections 16 pages ocal weather High Wednesday 35 Forecast on page 7A. Turn to page 2A. COLD.