Longview News-Journal from Longview, Texas • Page 4

4-a Opinions FRIDAY, September 14, 1984, New TV station Although its debut was more than 18 months later than originally planned, Longview's first commercial television station in 28 years is finally on the air. And already, KLMG is making Star Trek fans happy in nv. m.i nnllnn As the sole CBS affiliate in East Texas, KLMG also has rights to all Dallas Cowboys games aired by the network. That means Tyler's KLTV, an ABC-NBC affiliate, can no longer can carry the Cowboys. THE FOLKS DOWN in Angelina County are a little upset, too.

Lufkin's KTRE, which is owned by the same people who own KLTV, also have been carrying the Cowboys games for years. But CBS has informed the Lufkinites they can no longer air the Dallas games, even though the new Longview sta-. tion doesn't reach into Lufkin. "They've had a 'Save the Cowboys' campaign, going on down there," Ferns says, with residents being urged to send letters to the network asking to let KTRE continue to show the Cowboys' games. "But CBS has assured us that they will not allow them to carry any CBS programming, in particular the Dallas Cowboys, on the stations in Tyler or Lufkin," says Ferns.

i Van Craddock Tyler" station, it isn't yet on Tyler's cable system. "We expect to be on the cable system there sometime next week," says Ferns. "We've had commitments from 33 of the 35 cable companies in the 11-. county area that we serve, and the other two are small systems that are just trying to figure out "where to put us." LONGVIEWS FIRST COMMERCIAL TV station was KTVE, Channel 24, a UHF operation that went on the air back in 1951. At the time, few EastTexans could pick up a UHF signal and KTVE became history in 1956.

Ferns says most comments about the station "have been good. Most people understand it's going to take a little while to get everything ironed out. The reaction has been very supportive." Channel 51 's syndicated programming has been well received, Ferns notes. "We are getting a lot of calls from Trekkies (KLMG airs "Star Trek" hearsal, but the final performance will be excellent." He says KLMG will "fine-tune" its system within the next week so the station will be "picture perfect." THE STATION, WHICH represents a $4.5 million investment, was originally scheduled to go on the air in early 1983. But funding problems and other problems delayed Channel 51's on-air date until Sunday.

Ferns points out KLMG is only the.second station to be awarded a CBS Inc. affiliation in 12 years. "CBS just doesn't hand out affiliations very easily. They are a very conservative said Ferns, who was general manager at a Grand Junction, station before coming to East Texas. "But they saw what we saw in terms of growth and the need for CBS service in East Texas." Although Channel 51 bills itself as a "Longview- Cowboys fans mad in Lufkin.

The new CBS affiliate, a UHF station, came on the air Sunday morning and General Manager Wes Ferns says despite a number of technical problems, "it feels great" to have Channel 51 operating. "It takes a while to get all of the high-tech equipment synchronized and working. But this is normal. It's like a symphony orchestra," Ferns said. "You wouldn't want to hear the Boston Symphony in re- CimgwjCM ntorning Ikrurnal Columnists do not necessarily reflect newspaper's position MARY WINTER Editor JOE CALVIT Executive Editor TOM MEREDITH Publisher KEITH A.

TAYLOR News Editor SYBLE OSBORN Treasurer DOUGLAS E. FRANKLIN Business Manager Editorials City administrators doing job It is a rarity these days when a city can maintain its level of services to the public without raising taxes. But Longview has done it. The tax rate will remain at 35 cents per $100 valuation though a $30.8 million budget adopted by the City Council for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 is 7 percent larger than the expiring budget.

Largely through annexation of Spring Hill, the city's assessed valuation grew by approximately to $2.6 billion. But the primary reason the city is able to operate within present revenues is good management. Credit goes to a responsible City Council and an outstanding administrative staff. 1 City Manager Ray Jackson says the current tax rate will enable the city to "provide at least current-levelservices, and in some cases improved services" for residents. There will be no change -in water, sewer and sanitation rates.

While holding the line on taxes, the City Council will push ahead in several areas needing improvements. A half-million dollars will be spent in the Spring Hill area to begin upgrading water and sewer systems and streets to city standards. Five paramedics will join the ambulance service around March 1 in a venture that will save lives. Traffic signal installations costing $150,000 will be undertaken. Street improvements will continue.

City employees will be given a much-needed 5 percent increase. The bottom line is the good news. In addition to providing normal day-to-day services, the city will be able to fund these extra projects through, general revenues without raising taxes. City Hall has done its job well. Gromyko erases campaign issue 1984 N.Y.

Times News Service SAN FRANCISCO You just can't trust those Russians. At Bogsat headquarters in the Mondale campaign, the Bunch of Guys Sit Initiative. That long-range plan, denigrated by doves as "the militarization Of space," would erase the offensive advantage it has taken the Russians a decade to achieve. Gromyko knows that the United States is willing to discuss cooperation in spade defenses if the Soviet side will cone back to the Start and INF negotiations. But in the Politburo, such a return would be deemed a humiliation ah Crime's downturn welcomed 4 ting Around a Table had worked out a plan: The thrust of the Democratic campaign was to be that President Reagan's failure to negotiate with the Russians might lead us into nuclear war.

The catch admission that the attempt to dominate Europe with SS-20 missiles was a flop. 3 There was nothing dull about the statistics released this week by 2 the FBI and the Longview Police I Department. Crime is down, and that is welcomed news. In Longview and across the na-J tion, 15 percent fewer crimes were committed over the first eight months of this year compared to. the same period in 1983.

William Satire the "crime-committing age," the late teens and early 20s. Locally, however, police point to the steadily increasing effectiveness of the Crime Stoppers program. More people are volunteering information essential to law enforcement. Informers remain anonymous, and they are rewarded when their information leads to a grand jury indictment. Despite inroads made within the last year, crime remains a serious problem everywhere.

Authorities desperately need the public's cooperation in bringing lawbreakers to justice, and it must be given if hidden criminals are to be There were nearly 400 fewer weeks of Election Day. Not since Nikita Khrushchev spent every effort to help Kennedy defeat Nixon in 1960 have we seen such a blatant attempt to intervene in a U.S. presidential campaign. The Reagan arms-control approach has worked. By sending Gromyko on his pre-election visit, the Soviet Central Committee has dropped a MIR V'd missile into the Democrats' central theme.

How come? What's the deal? One part of the answer is that the Russians recognize that the Big Sulk has failed, that Reagan is likely to win decisively, and that a switch in time could bring them a specific advantage, A more obscure part of the answer lies in the present Politburo turmoil. Marshal Ogarkov seeded the Soviet negotiating teams with military men who were aware of the potential of U.S. spaee-de-fehse technology; he has been stopped in his bold bid to thrust aside Mikhail Gorbachev as the successor to Chairman Chernenko, who is dying of emphysema. The anti-bureaucratic faction of the KGB and the Red Army, formed by the dead Andropov, is thus split, and the Gromyko-Ustinov party stalwarts re-maiiiin charge. THAT BRINGS GROMYKO to the White House.

This old horse-trader would hardly have agreed to help the Reagan campaign without some understanding that he could use in his maneuvering back in Moscow. Reagan has already announced that the meeting would be "confidential." The question for Americans is, What price are we paying for the timing of this visit? What Gromyko wants indeed, what he needs to justify the sacking of the ambitious Ogarkov is Reagan's agreement to delay our Strategic Defense criminal acts committed in the city; and the clearance rate con-J tinued to show an increase. Authorities cannot definately pinpoint why overall crime has phrase had been chosen: Reagan was "the first U.S. president since Hoover to fail to sit down and talk with his Soviet counterpart." The campaign was to blast 'the Reagan Strategic Arms Reduction Talks as a non-starter. Mondale's Bogsat had chosen its villain: The fall guy was Gen.

Edward Rowny. The patient, unflappable U.S. Start negotiator, who learned his Russian at Yale and who has been representing our side resolutely since 1973, was set to be denounced in books, book reviews and television shows throughout October. Leaks by negotiation-firsters in our own delegation, combined with the lively reporting of Strobe Talbott of Time magazine, targeted Rowny for decreased. One reason suggested THEREFORE, THE GREAT Stone FabV seeks a face-saver.

He needs an assurance from candidate Reagan, before broad-scale negotiations resume, that the United States will not proceed with space-defense technology. This is known as a precondition, which the president has wisely refused till now. I suspect, however, that Reagan has recently hinted that pre-election picture-posing would be accompanied by the kind of disguised precondition that Gromyko could triumphantly 'brandish before Politburo friends and foes. "i Watch for weasel phrases like "in the context of" or "in the expectation They will mean that we are halting our defense initiative in return for the pleasure of Soviet company at the table, something we said we would not do. But it saves the Gromyko face and pays for the Gromyko vote, and who can tell? might even set the superpowers on the path toward genuine arms reduction.

All of which leaves Walter Mandate out in left field, along with Ogarkov. Both are probably muttering, with som justification, that you just can't trust those Russians. i is a shrinking of the population of today tory III IH'J The Associated Press Today is Friday, Sept. 14, the 258th day of 1984. There are 108 days left in the yfcar.

Today's highlight in history: Thursday, Sept. 14, 1752, was the first dy observed by the American af well as the rest of the British Empire, under the New Style Gregorian calendar. The previous day was Sept. 2 under the Old Style Julian calendar. Eleven days were "lost" in the transition.

On this date: In 1812, the Russians set fire to Moscow after an invasion by Napoleon Bona parte 's troops. In 1847, U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott took control of Mexico City. 'in 1901, President William McKinley died in Buffalo, N.Y., of gunshot wounds inflicted by an assassin.

Nitze-picking and for obstinacy in blocking bucolic breakthroughs. THEN CAME ANDREI Gromyko's double cross. To the Democrats' dismay, the first deputy premier of the Soviet Union agreed to meet and pose for pictures in the White House with Reagan within six eagan resists temptation to attack Mondale on tax issue! briefly acknowledged by Reagan. 1984 News America Syndicate cuts. He was supported by Sen.

Richard Lugaf, chairman of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, who is clearly interested in buildinga broad-based Republican victory Nov. 6. BUFFALO, N.Y. When President Reagan visited this Democratic stronghold Wednesday, his political managers were not diverted by Walter F. Mondale deficit taunts IN BUFFALO AND Binghamton the next day, Reagan followed neither the Stockman nor the Kemfc-Lugar route.

Instead, tucked into the presidents regular, non-combative speech were a few gentfe pokes at Mondale and a vague promise for lower tax rates some day. In deference to Kemp's presence, the president made a pitch for the Buffalo from what one Reagan operative calls "a diet of pure mush." That diet was unchanged even though Mondale two days earlier had challenged Reagan to come up with his own deficit-reduction scheme. The president's first campaigning since then reflected hard White House decisions neither to offer specific pro ably ahead in New York state even in the overwhelmingly Democratic Buffalo area. Polls are scarcely believed here, particularly in light of the continued soggy economy: a 10 percentage point lead by Reagan in Erie County (Buffalo), which he lost by 10 points to Jimmy Carter in 1980. There is hardly a visible Democratic campaign in the region.

Polish-Americans here are ardently pro-Reagan, and Geraldine Ferraro has not helped much with Italo-Americans. BESIDES, THE REAGAN administration has been generous with federal funds for Buffalo including Urban Development Action Grants (UDAG) that the Reagan revolution originally earmarked for elimination. Mayor James Griffin, a conservative Democrat, introduced Reagan to a luncheon here by citing the UDAGs and telling the president: "You've done an awful lottor our city." Jimmy Griffin, described by a national Reagan operative as "the ultimate blue-collar guy," was at the president's side throughout his Buffalo visit. In contrast, the presence of Jill Emery, Republican challenger against targeted Democratic Rep. Stan Lundine in the neighboring congressional district, was but Attentiveness to friendly Democrats and short shrift for Republican challengers evokes memories of 1972, when Richard M.

Nixon's landslide re-election had no coattails. Like Nixon a dozen years ago, Reagan also sticks to prepared speeches, encounters few hostile questions and is shielded from voters. BEHIND THE SCENES, two decisions have been stamped out that reflect the innate caution of James A. Baker in, Reagan's chief of staff. First, all efforts to launch a negative campaign against Mondale have been resisted; second, attempts to preview ideas for the Reagan second term such as a flat tax have been quashed.

Mondale's tax gambit might have changed that, and the issue came up at the White House just before the upstate New York trip. At the weekly meeting with Republican congressional leaders, budget director David Stockman argued that Reagan could make a much better case than Mondale for budget-cutting and deficit-reduction. But Rep. Jack Kemp responded that Republicans should argue for economic growth by means of tax i wt i Rctend Evens Keagan-Busn campaign press secretary James Lake, meanwhile, was putting out a tough message to reporters about how Mondale's taxes would coSt every American family $1,000 a year. Why didn't the president himself join that issue "There is a time and place for everything," one Reagan insider told us, hinting the mush might take on a firmer consistency as the autumn leaves turn red.

But so long Mondale stumbles and the polls look comfortable, the president's maa-agers will be tempted to play it safe, oblivious of party realignment or second-term mandate. grams nor cut up Mondale. So mushy a Reagan perceptibly diminished the enthusiasm of both the candidate and his big crowds in Buffalo and Binghamton. But the negative impact goes unnoticed in a campaign where the president's lead is so massive that he is comfort-.