The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 175

Sentinel Star- State Region Local -Orlando, Florida Friday, March 5, 1982- Cbarley Reea Eau Gain L93 spruce- raws fire Snuff out tourism crime the start of construction in downtown Eau Gallie. The city has set aside $60,000 for a landscaping program that would install planters in place of parking spaces and re-stripe parking areas. A $30,000 reconstruction of Campbell Park in downtown Mel-, bourne has been completed. Both projects were designed by the city as good-will efforts to convince businesses that the city is serious about upgrading the areas. "The businesses there have all worked to fix up.

We thought looked pretty good until ya'll came in and said 'You look Buckner said. Lack of information about the redevelopment plans was also a concern. "We don't want to drive to work one day and find a bulldozer in the street," Buckner said. "That's already happened once." "We've been hearing about this plan, sure," said one businessman, "but for the past 15 years we've been hearing about a high-rise down by the river and that's never come about either." The Downtown Redevelopment Committee has been working on plans to rejuvenate the downtowns for three years. Its efforts are all subject to city council approval.

"After what I've heard here this morning," said Mayor Harry Plan, page S-C By PEGGY McLAUGHUN Sentinel Star MELBOURNE Angry Eau Gallie businessmen said Thursday they don't think much of a beauti-fication plan for downtown, especially if they have to pay for it. Their anger came during a meeting of the Downtown Redevelopment Committee. Most of the wrath was directed at a financing proposal showing how much each business would be assessed if the project were financed through property assessments. The $1.4 million plan covers both the Eau Gallie and Melbourne downtown districts, which were part of separate cities until they merged in 1969. Although committee members kept reminding residents and businessmen that the assessment schedule was only one possible funding method, the people screamed a loud "no." "I don't know how to make it any clearer to you," said Charles Buckner, a spokesman for downtown Eau Gallie businesses.

"We'd really like to be left alone. We want no further action resulting in an assessment." Business people have protested since the plan was first discussed Feb. 25. They said that they believe the city is trying to force the proposal on them. That meeting coincided with 1 1 i 1 ,4 United Press International Hat in hand against the sun The brim's almost as wide as the horizon, at from the hot sun in South Florida on Wednes-least for this little guy tugging down his over- day, when he was helping his father collect sized hat.

Ryan McConnell, 3, shields his face aluminum cans in West Palm Beach. No consensus on sewage proposal By ROBERT LINN and CHARLIE JEAN Sentinel Star Legislators, environmentalists and wastewater officials, Thursday had mixed reactions to a state proposal that would relax treatment standards for sewage dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. The Florida Department of Environmental Regulation proposed the move in an attempt to bring relatively stringent state rules into line with more lenient federal Environmental Protection Agency standards. But DER officials note that the higher sewage concentrations could not be deposited into the ocean unless elaborate studies indicate that the pollutants will not cause environmental damage. James Harold Thompson, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, called the plan "a reasonable proposal, if they do the scientific studies beforehand" to make sure the extra pollutants do not harm the environment.

"It sounds feasible to me. The ocean is such a large reservoir that it would take a tremendous amount of sewage (for it) to be affected," said John Bateman, pollution control director for Orange County. But Peter Mott, president of the Florida Audubon Society, said his reaction "is one of great sadness" because of the potential harm such a proposal would do to the environment. "They're just shifting the waste from one sensitive area to another," he said. If the proposal is approved by the state Environmental Regulatory Commission, sewage now polluting lakes and rivers would be dumped into the ocean and "pollute the Gulf Stream," Mott said.

Charles Lee, the Florida Audubon Society's vice president for conservation, said "there is a great deal of debate on both sides of that question. It is a very mixed bag." The most Important thing, he said, is that effluent be dumped into offshore ocean currents, not dead bodies of waters such as estuaries. On the level of treatment, he said, one body of knowledge contends that thoroughly treated sewage contains enough chlorine to damage aquatic life. Other scientists say less-treated sewage contains bacteria that would damage aquatic life. Dump, page S-C We have all heard of the military-industrial complex.

Well, we are part of it. The Orlando area's economy is based on tourism, a sizable military base, a defense-oriented industry and, to a declining degree, agriculture. Tourism, which we tend to take for granted, has a huge potential for providing a steady base for the economy no matter what happens to the other legs. The Congress, which ultimately decides on the location of military bases, can take as well as give as many a bitter fight on Capitol Hill has demonstrated. Defense spending, sad to say, is also a hostage to some degree to politics.

Whether you want to buy defense industry stock depends to some degree on whether you think the White House will be occupied by a Ronald Reagan or a Teddy Kennedy. But tourism, thanks to the anchor provided by Walt Disney, is firmly rooted in our area and it would behoove us who have to make a living here to take what care we can to see that it stays healthy. That's why I have a suggestion for the state attorney, the sheriff, the Orlando police chief, the mayor, the chairman of the county commission and the representatives of the hotel industry. You guys need to get together over lunch and kick around the idea of a special law enforcement detachment to work the tourist areas. Miami has the same ocean, the same beach, the same accommodations and the same savagely aggressive promoters it has always had.

It also has the nation's highest crime rate and that is helping to suffocate its tourist industry. But it doesn't have a monopoly on crime. What we have in Orlando is an opportunity to head off a problem before it reaches the critical stage. The focus of our tourist accommodations is International Drive, which is half in the city and half in the county. This is where the focus will remain in terms of accommodations, conventions, and auxiliary services to the main attractions.

Criminals may be criminal but they aren't necessarily stupid. They know tourists are likely to be carrying more money than a resident out for a evening at the movies. They know, too, that tourists who become witnesses go home long before cases get to trial. We simply cannot afford to let crime muggings, robberies and the inevitable maimings and killings that come with them take root on International Drive. The only way law enforcement can really prevent crime is by being visibly present in an area.

The other aspect of law enforcement work is all after the fact. Why not form a. special squad or detachment jointly made up of Orlando Police Department officers and deputy sheriffs, give them a little special training in how to be nice to tourists and assign them permanently to the International Drive area? There is already a precedent. There is a special OPD detachment at Orlando International Airport. There is the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, a multi-agency task force that works on vice and narcotics.

Why not a tourist protection force? Law enforcement already has the responsibility to patrol and work the areas so what we are talking about is special emphasis, not purely additional duties. Furthermore, the businesses along International Drive more than pay their share of city, county and state taxes. In fact, they probably subsidize the residents in that they pay more in taxes than they require of services. A little leadership will keep the sheen on our golden egg at a minimum of cost. Cruise attendance sinking i it ,1.111 spring-break business, and the increasing reservations at Disney World should help, he said.

The cruises are experiencing a lot of walk-in business on sunny days, and if good weather continues that, too, will help, he said. "We're looking for a big improvement. We're not disappointed." The $70-per-person cruises leave at 11 a.m. every weekday at the north side of the port. Port officials are counting on their success to help build the port's fledgling cruise trade.

The ship owner, Scandinavian World Cruises, was forced to cancel three daily cruises this week to fill in for another of its ships on trips from Miami, a company spokesman said Thursday. By JAMES FISHER Sentinel Star PORT CANAVERAL Attendance on the "Cruises to Nowhere," which began from the port Feb. 12, has dropped almost two-thirds since the first two weeks, according to- Richard Johnson, terminal manager. After an initial rush of about 700 daily passengers, crowds on the MS Scandinavian Sea have dwindled to about 250 a day. The company could accept up to 900 passengers.

Attendance "is not quite as much as we had thought, but we see some signs of it picking up considerably," Johnson said. "February has never been a good travel month in Florida." The next several weeks should bring Easter and mmm tri Scandinavian Sea will return by Saturday morning. 4 1 sqgM. NASA launches Intelsat for phone, TV hookups 4 ill rj iri jrTvv 1 "ff) "5 gg- OTA a "geosynchronous orbit" placing it 22,300 miles above the Indian Ocean. It will enter service May 1, said Intelsat spokesman Allan McCaskill.

The consortium will pay NASA $40 million for launching the satellite, which it bought for $35 million from Ford Aerospace Corp. of Palo Alto, Calif. While NASA has launched previous Intelsats, McCaskill said the European Space Agency will handle one satellite later this year and at least four more in the future. NASA will launch at least six more Intelsats through 1984. The eventual 15-satellite network will cover From Sentinel Star Services CAPE CANAVERAL The fourth of 15 Intelsat 5 communications satellites blasted into space Thursday night on a mission to beam television and telephone signals overseas.

Intelsat 5-D at 4,289 pounds one of the world's largest communications satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas Centaur rocket at 7:23 p.m. Launch was delayed nearly an hour as technicians worked on problems with a gaseous nitrogen cooling system designed to keep the satellite from heating up while on the ground. Initial reports following the launch, however, indicated that all systems were working well. Owned by 106 nations, the worldwide Intelsat system handles two-thirds of all overseas telecommunications. The new satellite will serve Europe, the Middle East, and the FarTEast from Tragic end to vacation Jim Smith, 26, looks at the wreckage of his friend's motorcycle beside North U.S.

Highway 1 in Titusville. Jack Walter, 32, was injured Thursday when he crashed into a telephone pole. He was in critical condition at Wuesthoff Hospital in Rockledge. The Indiana men were in Daytona Beach for race week and came to Brevard to touryXennedy Space Center. the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, providing telephone, high-speed data and television signals to more than 280 Earth stations owned and operated by Intelsat member countries..