St. Cloud Times from Saint Cloud, Minnesota • Page 10

ioa From Pago 1 A St. Cloud (Minn.) Times Dec. 15, 1988 HRA- PLO TV KXLFs 1.505-foot tower near Bi? Lake, the tallest structure in Minneso-i ta, needs to be moved to the Sauk Centre area and reconstructed. That move is necessary because of a FCC rule I about overlapping "city grade" broadcasting signals, O'Connor said. KXLI will then be changed from Channel 41 to Channel 19, with the changeover expected to be completed by next May or Births ST.

CLOUD HOSPITAL Iverson, Mr. and Mrs. Duane, Oak Manor Apartment 7, Clearwater, girl, Wednesday; Kinzer, Dr. Charles and Gayle, 660 Ptarmigan Drive, Box 92, Rockville, girl, Wednesday; Pflueger, Ken and Lisa, 18501 Upper Spunk Lake Road, Apt. 2, Avon, girl, Wednesday; Rhoda, Tom and Julie, 214 Ninth Ave.

Cold Spring, boy, Wednesday; Stommes, Mike and Delores, Box 405, 160 Rails Eden Valley, boy, Wednesday. ST. GABRIEL'S HOSPITAL, LITTLE FALLS Doucette, Robert and Colleen, Route 2, Little Falls, boy, Wednesday; Medek, Larry and Nancy, Route 3, Pierz, boy, Tuesday. Maternity ward hours: Visiting hours for maternity wards at area hospitals are: Albany Area Hospital, Albany 1 1 a.m to 8:30 p.m.; Fairview Milaca Area Hospital, 150-1 0th St. NW, Milaca 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.; St.

Cloud Hospital, 1406 Sixth Ave. 1 1 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. (check with nurses' station for other visiting hours); St. Gabriel's Hospital, 81 5 Second St.

SE, Little Falls 2 to 8:30 p.m.; St. Michael's Hospital, 425 North Elm, Sauk Centre 1 to 8:45 p.m. abused it. Conservative St. Cloud doesn't go for it," he said.

McDowall credits the growth of the HRA to its executive directors, beginning with Jim Dlugosch. Dave Hegg, along with help from Jerry Eilers, was extremely creative, and Mike Po-dawiltz proved himself to be very sharp, McDowall said. Otterson, the current executive director, has been known to create a few sparks, but he accomplishes much, McDowall said. "If we as a group of five commissioners have done anything right, it's really been the fact that we've picked really good executive directors," McDowall said. McDowall, originally from Illinois, and his wife, Betty, raised their eight children in St.

Cloud. In addition to his HRA duties, he began his involvement with the St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce and St. Cloud Opportunities in the early 1960s. "George is a sensitive individual with a strong committment to the community," said Jack Happe, president of St.

Cloud Opportunities. Happe said McDowall's pleasant manner lends itself to long-term involve-nent. "He wears well," he said. McDowall downplays his efforts. "St.

Cloud has been pretty damn good to me. I owe something back to this community," he said. vatives say maybe the liberals aren't all wrong," he said. McDowall, a Republican, said he has gotten along with the city's past three mayors, all Democrats. HRA commissioners have tried to stay away from political pressures, but some are inevitable, he said.

"We always had to work closely with the mayor and council," he said. Mayor Sam Huston will name a replacement for McDowall, subject to approval from the St. Cloud City Council. Members ot the city council did not attend many meetings in the early days, but began paying more attention as the authority got more involved in development, McDowall said. Al Loehr, mayor from 1970 to 1980, worked closely with McDowall to get a referendum passed for the Mall Germain and ring road project.

As a team of two, they appeared before community groups trying to gain support for the project. "George was very aggressive, very knowledgeable and very gutsy," Loehr said. He was willing to take a leadership role in the face of heavy opposition. "I was always quite pleased with his tenacity," he said. The referendum passed by barely 100 votes, Loehr said.

"It was a real difficult issue for al! of us," he said. Despite the empty stores that now line the mall, McDowall said convert ing the street to a mall was not a mistake. "We had to do something," he said. The downtown area has gone through tough times because of the shift toward business rather than retail sales, but it has not suffered as much as many other downtown areas, he said. Although McDowall has been involved in countless development projects, he said, "I don't feel directly responsible for any project.

I kind of visualize the HRA like a board of directors of a corporation. Its role is to keep things on track," he said. McDowall, as owner of McDowall a St. Cloud-based sheet metal, roofing, air conditioning and ventilation business, also gave more than time to the community. Because of a possible conflict of interest, "his civic service locked him out of bidding," Otterson said.

In the past 10 years, the agency has provided new homes to 536 first-time homebuyers, and has worked on $188 million of public and private development, Otterson said. The authority, in recent years, has increased its use of tax increment financing as a way of encouraging development. "We've been willing to sacrifice the school district, county and city to do self-help urban renewal," McDowall said. Although greedy companies can give tax increment financing a bad name, "I don't think we've Indeed, the envoy authorized with initiating contact with the PLO made a brief phone call today to PLO headquarters in Tunisia. A spokesman for the ambassador, Robert H.

Pelletreau had no further details. No date has been set for the talks, but a State Department official in Washington, said: "We're sure the PLO will try to have them take place as soon as possible." Arafat was in East Berlin today for what the state-run ADN news agency said was a working visit, and met with East German Communist leader Erich Honecker. ADN quoted Arafat as telling Honecker "the PLO is striving for a comprehensive settlement of the (Middle East) conflict that would guarantee to all those involved a life in dignity, freedom and peace." U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar welcomed the U.S. move as "excellent news" and said it created "much more favorable" conditions for the United Nations to call an international peace conference including the PLO.

The U.N. chiefs spokesman, Francois Giuliani, said he would return to New York on Friday to begin consultations aimed at speeding up the peace process. Rahman said the U.S. decision means peace is near in the Middle East. 1 massw CATALOG CHRISTMAS SHOPPERS CHANCE TO 'ORDER LAS CHRISTMAS DEUvbb" FOR liSffJlilS ELiWEHY Subject to existing inventory on orders placed from any current Sears if -tr j.

if I r-v "affHSiW 1 nit June, ne said. The network also will include long-term lease arrangements with translators in Alexandria and Donnelly-Herman as well as low-power TV stations to be built in Park Rapids and Austin. New call letters will be applied for to replace KTMA as the flagship designation. The new network will be implemented in three stages. First, the Red River stations and KXLT will join the network by March 1, 1989.

Second, KXLI's tower and transmitter would be moved and rebuilt near Sauk Centre. KXLI's channel number will be changed with construction completed in the spring of 1989. Finally, the Austin and Park Rapids stations will sign on by fall 1989. KXLI first went on the air Nov. 24, 1982, under the guidance of N.

Walter Goins, a college dropout who, at 33, was one of the youngest owner-managers of a broadcasting property in the nation. It was a $5 million project. The station became known for unorthodox programming old Rocky Bullwinkle cartoons late on week-nights and uncut showings of "Taxi Driver" in prime time. Syndicated programs included "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Have Gun Will Travel" and "WKRP in Cincinnati." Tom Lijewski, the on-air promotional personality, was recognizable for his bat-wing sunglasses and Hawaiian shirts. Although it was a UHF station, it was accessible to St.

Cloud-area viewers through the local cable television system, which broadcast it on Channel 12. A half-hearted attempt at a nightly news program was made in 1984, with anchor Karen Voyles a regular late night presence. But the commitment to news was unsteady, and the news department was abolished altogether on Nov. 11, according to Julie Ronning, former news director. KXLI always was colorful.

Jerry Mathers, the former child star of "Leave it to Beaver," was. brought in for a personal appearance in October 1983 to host a 24-hour marathon of the show. The station scored a coup in April 1987 when they reached a three-year contract with the North Stars, at an estimated cost of $650,000. Ronning said the station got "a ton of calls" when Tuesday night's hockey game was not broadcast. Throughout the years, rumors of financial problems dogged the station, and Jensen confirmed that financial problems were the main reason that Halcomm decided to throw in its lot with KTMA.

Last year, LEO Broadcasting headed by Goins, became part of the New York-based Halcomm. Industry observers deduced that KXLI was not faring well in the competition with KTMA and KITN, broadcast on Channel 29. "I would think it's reasonable to assume they are not making any money," said a television consultant in February 1987. Goins, characteristically, refused to comment then on the financial health of the station. With the sale to Halcomm, he dropped into the background as a minor stockholder.

According to viewership ratings for October 1987 and for this February and May, KXLI attracted fewer than 1 percent of households that received its signal from sign-on to sign-off. KTMA had a 2percent rating in February. The "TV Heaven" format debuted on KXLI this April, emphasizing classic baby boomer shows like "Combat," "Dark Shadows," "Superman," 'The Invaders," "The Outer Limits" and "Get Smart." Each weekday night had a theme, such as science fiction or detective programs and movies. The in-house promotional spots and even the station identification spots were unusually zany. But apparently there still weren't enough viewers.

Jensen said he does not know if KXLI will come back on the air during the transition to the new network. No announcement will be made before January, he said. The station could not avoid going dark, according to Ron Eikens, vice president of LEO Broadcasting. "You've got to have something to put on the air," he said. "All of the programming agreements were with an entity that's no longer existing." It takes three or four months to line up syndicated programs, he said.

And the tentative go-ahead from the FCC didn't come until last week, Jensen said. The new network probably will have similar programming, O'Connor said. It will not feature a news program, at least not at first, he said. "You gotta crawl and walk and then run," he said. In the meantime, former KXLI employees can apply to the new independent network.

"We're interviewing and looking at the of all the people right now," Jensen said. When the new network was announced Wednesday morning, employees were "surprised, obviously not happy about it, especially with the holiday season upon us," said Eikens, who also is losing his job. But Ronning, although she is out of a job, said that the move was a good one for the station. "Everyone's going to be given an opportunity, if they so choose, to come talk to the new venture, the new company, about signing on," O'Connor said. "There are no guarantees but there are openings.

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