St. Cloud Times from Saint Cloud, Minnesota • Page 1

Weather Variable cloudiness, chance of occasional thunderstorms through Thursday. Low tonight 62. High Thursday 85. Sunset 9:08. Sunrise 5:34.

A Gannett Newspaper St. Cloud, Minnesota 56301, Wednesday, July 5, 1978 118th Year No. 19 (4 Sections) 20c Tornado kills 3 in small town CUsllUM nicty rise again five persons, said Deputy Sheriff Victims were taken by ambul- the tornado hit "without warn-Ed Retzer. He said the twister hit ance to hospitals at Ada and ing." the southeast corner of Fosston Mahnomen, and Fargo, "It picked up his car, slammed it he was informed by police radio that Gary had been hit by a twister. 4 Tt uiao A or lr an) Miininn Tf GARY (AP) Three persons were killed and 25 were hospitalized with injuries when a tornado struck this tiny northwestern Minnesota farming community about 3 a.m.

today, authorities said. The victims included an aDout v.iv a.m., destroying several aw eniorcement otiicers down some feet away, and then some trailer tm nearby towns and the State was hit by flying debris from a just hit like that," he said. "It Patrol were also called to the buildinir.r sha said. He was nnt tripd tn sunk mp nr. I fplr I was justnesses ana homes.

The injured persons were in the scene. injured. going to take off any minute. It felt trailer homes. Retzer said "I Gary is a town of about 2fi5 r.rocr Whit; a teen-age boy and an elderly man, according to Ruth Adkins, a vol- think we were awfully lucky," he Persons about 50 miles northwest ambulance operator, made three the ground." unteer at the town's emergency added.

"There was a lot of damage of Detroit Lakes. runs from Gary to Ada with BOSTON (AP) They're calling it "Taxachusetts," this state where tax revolt spawned the Boston Tea Party. Two centuries later, tempers are rising again. Three separate tax-cutting proposals have gotten serious attention in the Legislature, and when Californians voted last month to slash their property taxes, it warmed the hearts of tax rebels here. "California is a bargain compared to Massachusetts," says uaicu ifW inaooauiuactbo, oava center.

Authorities were searching through rubble for more possible victims this morning. "I would say it took probably a third of the town," said Mrs. Adkins. but we were real fortunate." lne National Weather Service injured persons. Gary was without water or pow- had issued a tornado watch for "The whole south side of town is er this morning following the lar8e sections of Minnesota sever- pretty well wiped pretty touchdown.

al hours earlier, but Gary is about rough," said Whiting. Mrs. Adkins said the tornado 35 miles north of the watch area. He said 20 to 25 homes were riDDed throueh the smith nart. nf Mrs.

Adkins said her hushanH Host "The way the damage is, I'm sure it had to be a tornado, the way it tore the buildings up," said Retzer. "One trailer house was picked up and thrown into another one." He said power was restored to Fosston about 8:45 a.m., or some A tornado struck Fosston, a the town without warning, badly fne Gary police chief, was sitting heavily damaged, community of 1,700 persons about damaging homes and trailers. Shp in his patrol car on the south Rut.pr said hp was in his nnrrnl oft 1 i i car on main street in Fosston when five hours after the tornado hit. Jack Conway, a real estate agent nuimweai, injuring saia a nursing nome was also hit. U1 lown waicning me storm when who wants property taxes cut in Egypt demands Israeli pull-out, East Jerusalem half.

A constitutional amendment to keep taxes at present levels passed one legislative test last week and may make it to a 1980 referendum. Two other plans in the legislature command attention: ordering rebates if property taxes exceed eight percent of income, and limiting property taxes to 2.5 percent of fair market value. Just how bad are taxes in Consider the O'Neills, a fictional couple who make $19,900 a year. Say they live in a home with a market value of $40,000 in Haverhill, 50 miles north of Boston. They own a new car worth $4,500 and an older one worth $3,000, have two children and file joint tax returns.

They pay $1,740 in property tax (4.35 percent of value), plus: About $2,500 in federal income tax. About $1,000 in Social Security tax. About $900 in state income tax. About $600 in state sales tax, auto excise tax and gas taxes. Total taxes: $6,740, more than a third of income.

They have $13,160 left to spend. (The figures are based on figures supplied by the Massachusetts, Taxpayers Foundation, a taxpay ers lobby supporting the rebate bill). If that doesn't impress you, consider this: In California, Proposition 13 halved the average property tax by limiting it to 1 percent of value. Massachusetts taxes are already so high that halving bills would leave an average 2.4 percent rate. The average rate is 4.7 percent of market value.

And in Boston, where property taxes are higher than in any other U.S. city, a $40,000 home is taxed at about $2,500 a year. On top of that, residents pay a 5 percent state income tax plus a .75 percent surtax, a 5 percent sales tax, and a 6 percent meals tax. The result: a recent Boston Globe poll shows three out of four taxpayers favor cutting property taxes to 2.5 percent, but the figure drops to 64 percent when they are reminded that services may be cut, and to 50 percent when reminded the cuts could produce social unrest. meet with Secretary of State Cyrus R.

Vance in London. Israeli Prime Minister Mena-chem Begin said in an ABC television interview Tuesday that his cabinet would decide at its weekly meeting Sunday whether to send Foreign Minister Moshe Day-an to London. The plan calls for a transition period "to ensure a peaceful and orderly transfer of authority." Israel's military government, which now administers the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip, would be "abolished at the outset of the transitional period," the plan says. Jordan would then supervise the administration of the West Bank and Egypt would supervise the Gaza Strip. Actual administration would be carried out by "freely elected representatives of the Palestinian people." The plan pointedly omits any reference to the Palestine Liberation Organization, with which Israel refuses to negotiate.

The plan calls for the United Nations to "supervise and facilitate" Israeli withdrawal and the restoration of Arab control over the territories lost in the 1967 Middle East war. Talks among Egypt, Jordan, Israel and representatives of the Palestinians would be conducted under the auspices of the United CAIRO, Egypt (AP) Egypt released a new six-point peace plan today calling for Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territories and insisting that East Jerusalem return to Arab control. Ahmed Maher, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said there would be no elaboration on the written text. "We have no comment on the proposals," Maher told reporters. "I think when you read them you will find them very clear." The proposals were delivered to the Israeli government earlier in the day by U.S.

Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis in preparation for a meeting of Egyptian and Israeli foreign ministers in London in two weeks. There was no immediate reaction from Israeli officials. But the conservative newspaper Maariv termed the Egyptian proposal "a non-starter." "It's hard to assume that President Sadat will find even one person in Israel who can accept the peace plan as it is," Maariv said. But it said "if the Egyptian proposal does not demand that Israel obligate itself to anything as a precondition to the London conference, then the goverment is obligated to consider any proposal or idea in any plan, even the most fanciful." It anneared certain Israel would 'Jf I I I Nations.

The talks, which appar- is reject the plan, but Vice President ently would take place before the Walter F. Mondale said after his transition period begins, would return to Washington that he was work out a timetable for Israeli "quite positive" the Israeli and withdrawal and details of the Egyptian foreign ministers would transitional government. ihey would worn out mutual security arrangements during and after the transition period and Egypt and Jordan would "guarantee that the security arrangements to be agreed upon will continue to be respected in the West Bank and Times phbto by Mike Knaak Fireworks launched from Wilson Park lit up the sky over the Mississippi River at St. Cloud Tuesday night. About 30,000 people attended Fourth of July celebrations in St.

Cloud and St. Joseph. Details page 27. Chance of showers seen through week Variable cloudiness with a chance of showers should linger in the Central Minnesota area today Federal mousetrap 'specs' exhaustive at 381 oaaes through the weekend, according to the St. Cloud office of the National Weather Service, High temperatures for today and Thursday will be in the mid to upper 80s.

Low tonight should be in the low 60s. For the weekend, it should be a littler cooler during the day, but a little warmer at night. Highs will be in the low 80s and lows in the upper 60s Friday through Sunday. Bulletin Board 14 Classified 30-33 Comics 36 Editorial 4 Solomon 1 1 Landers 13 I See by 33 Markets 34 Gannett News Service describe a "pin, safety." WASHINGTON If you ve Funny? Just imagine what it's ever hankered to know what a like if you're trying to sell the mousetrap should look like, ask government mousetraps, light Uncle Sam. He can provide you bulbs, diapers, safety pins or with a complete description.

..381 grits. pages long. Grits is a special interest of To be fair, that book-length Florida Sen. Lawton Chiles, who, description includes more than just out of more than just idle the five-page "interim federal curiosity, asked the staff of a mousetraD and Senate subcommittee he heads to and updating a detailed product it-s still sitting jn the Senate, and specification costs around $16,000 may not be passed before this a year. And the government has sessi0n ends, written specifications for about 45,000 products.

Here's where the Office of Another problem: Many are Federal Procurement Policy, a woefully outdated. branch of the White House's Office A furniture manufacturer of Management and Budget, enters brought one example to the sub- the picture. committee's attention. For more than two decades, government The office is headed by Lester A. 4 rattraD.

soring actuated." It was find out how Uncle Sam buys his. SDecs have reauired lacauered toDs Fettig, who used to work for 1 produced by collecting all the other Not a simple task, a staff member 0n two-drawer desks, a spec that Chiles' subcommittee. Fettig, an federal specifications that "form a recalls. stuck even though most aerospace engineer by training, "It took this guy six weeks and part of this specification to tne i documents, and phone calls to Philadelphia and Chicago, The upshot was that, two months manufacturers now use first encountered befuddling polyrethane or other finishes. The government specs while designing only two suppliers who met the old planes for a private manufacturer, spec requirement were doing He's been an opponent of nothing but government business, voluminous, unnecessary specs and they were selling lacquer-top ever since, desks to Uncle Sam for $500 apiece.

The same desk without such a top Fettig' staft estimates that the costs $300 retail and the government spends about $30 government, purchasing large billion a year for products that extent specified herein," to quote the mousetrap report. That means you'll also find out all you'd ever need to know about the wire (steel, high carbon, round, uncoated for mechanical springs, general purpose) that goes into mousetraps and boxes (wood, later, the staff staggered back to Chiles with a pile of documents roughly eight inches thick all the government specifications covering grits buying that they'd cleated-olvwood, tor domestic shinmentl that mousetraps are sent been able to find, although not all quantities, probably could get it don't have to be custom-made. As in and the inspections (in ac- that theoretically existed. even cheaper. part of an overall plan they have to cordance with MIL-STD-105) that Chiles, who has introduced a bill improve government buying mousetraps must undergo.

to change the way the government Sometimes the custom-made practices, they're trying to The mousetrap specification is buys more than $81 billion every government product is also inferior eliminate or simplify as many not a fluke. A commission year of well, of just about to what's available to the public off specs as possible. BtnHvine eovernment buying everything used the documents the shelf, so the government A i The Department of Defense, for example, has about 40,000 individual specs. About 8,000 to discovered 313 documents a person to make the point that there's too product ends up sitting unused on technically should look at if he much gobbledygook in government warehouse shelves while agencies wants to sell the government light purchasing that costs the govern- go out and buy commercially. The bulbs.

The basic military ment (read: taxpayers) lots of government eventually ends up UPI photo 10,000 are for items also available selling its product as obsolete commercially, and the department presjdent Carter (lew back to the White House from Camp David, specification for diapers rambled money. I hh Iiitaiio GtAV a A.y-vn Al nihat if nmH L.n I I i I on tor iu pages, mciuuuig a us mi oji.jj jmi use oi 0u.ui. u. Haiu Has Lum.eueu mere a nuneui neeu tn mppt with ce President waiter Monaaie on nis "dpscrirjtive. but not restrictive specifications, or specs, being onginauy.

lor that lU-page spec on diapers, or Uoro rartor anH Mnndalfi meet in the Oval specifications, or specs, others for custom-mac Jde dog wnuuic i-aoi iiimaiwi i. i drawing showing how to use one. ridiculously long and complex. A And it took the General Services General Accounting Office study Office before the session. underwear or white bath Chiles bill is designed to unHitP hnvin" nra'-tices.

But collars, tnwols Administration five pages tn P-stim-" tt i J..