St. Cloud Times from Saint Cloud, Minnesota • Page 3

2B Localregion St. Cloud (Minn.) Times Nov. 10, 1989 Public workers offered better benefits package ST. PAUL (API A mmnreVienoiuo in January but groups can enroll immediately, said state Employee Relations Commissioner Nina Rothchild. The package, which includes medical, dental and life insurance coverages, is being offered to employees of towns, counties, cities and public school districts.

The goal of the plan is to provide more uniform insurance coverage for public employees regardless of the size or location of their jurisdictions and more stable rates, Rothchild said. Groups electing coverage under the plan must select at least the basic package which includes employee medical, preventive dental and $10,000 minimum life insurance. Participation is decided by employers for workers who aren't represented by unions and by the exclusive representative for unionized workers. Retirees of groups that decide to participate also are eligible to enroll in health and dental coverages. "We now have an opportunity for all public employees to have a chance at essentially the same benefits, no matter where they are located throughout the state," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Wayne Simon-eau, DFL-Fridley, an author of the bill soever," Schaubach said, "and they were not alone." Employee groups of only 20 to 30 people can experience such dramatic increases when one or more members have serious health problems that require expensive medical treatment or hospitalization because insurance companies spread risk among members of the group, Schaubach said.

The plan is being administered by the Minnesota Department of Employee Relations, which has chosen Preferred One and Select Care to provide health insurance services? Delta Dental Plan of Minnesota for dental insur- that established the plan. Judy Schaubach of the Minnesota Education Association, which worked for seven years to gain passage of the legislation, said she expects availability of the plan will help curtail dramatic insurance cost increases. As an example, she cited the predicament of 24 teachers in Ellsworth, who this fall were told that family coverage which had cost individual teachers and their employer a combined $444 per month was going to increase to $1,333 per month. The teachers "had to choose between costly insurance or no insurance what insurance package intended to provide more uniform coverage for public employees now is being offered statewide, state officials said Thursday. "With the participation of large numbers of public employees, it is assumed benefits can be purchased at more stable and competitive rates than would contracts for an individual employer or group," according to a news release describing the plan.

The Minnesota Public Employees Insurance Plan, authorized by the Legislature in 1987, will be available to more than 183,000 public workers beginning Regional report Man arraigned in Ohio abduction ance services, Minnesota Mutual for life insurance services and DC A Inc. for claims processing and member services. Fred S. ames Co. of Minnesota is the plan's sales representative.

Eligible groups are guaranteed entry in the plan during 1990, Rothchild said. The plan is to be self-supporting, Rothchild said, and is being provided at no cost to taxpayers. A statewide premium structure has been established for the basic package. However, rates will vary based on age make-up of a group and any optional coverages selected, plan officials said. Gambling panel chairman raised gambling funds for hockey trip ST.

PAUL (AP) The chairman of the state House Gaming subcommittee raised about $66,000 from gambling organizations this year to take a Minnesota hockey team to the World Masters in Denmark, according to a newspaper report. Rep. Joe Quinn, DFL-Coon Rapids, told the Star Tribune Thursday that he raised about $40,000 from the Minneapolis Fire Fighters Welfare Association, about $12,000 from the St. Therese Nursing Home in New Hope Jim Adams, a lobbyist and former hockey executive. Adams and a partner have been accused by state authorities of illegally diverting nearly $60,000 from an Arden Hills bingo hall.

The $14,000 for the hockey team came from the Concordia Singing Society and Light Brigade, two organizations that have operated at the bingo hall. The Star Tribune reported last month that the Arden Hills Bingo Hall had paid $17,700 to state Rep. Richard O'Connor, DFL-St. Paul. The lawmaker said the money was a fee for his help in finding Softball fields for charitable organizations, but questions were raised about his explanation.

Quinn asked to speak with Star Tribune reporters Thursday about the World Masters trip after hearing rumors that reporters were investigating use of gambling funds to pay for the trip. The tournament is for players over 30, and charitable gambling money generally can't be spent for adult ath Metro report St. Cloud: Moving students to ease '89 transfer requests Beginning next fall, seventh- and eighth-graders wishing to attend a school other than that assigned by the school district no longer will be denied their request based on space considerations. Transfers will be easier to accommodate next year when seventh- and eighth-graders are moved out of Apollo and Technical high schools and back into North and South, now being used as elementary schools, according to district officials. School district to ask parents about names of North, South The St.

Cloud school district will survey parents at its next parentteacher conferences about whether they want the district to explore new names for North and South elementary schools, which will be converted into junior highs for next fall. Portion of Eighth Street North closed for water tower work Part of Eighth Street North will be closed next week while crews install connections to the new water tower. The westbound lane of the street in front of the Municipal Arena will be detoured through the arena parking lot from Monday through Thursday, the city engineer's office said. We want to hear from you The Regional and Metro Report is a daily summary of news from around Central Minnesota. If you have information to contribute to the report, call 255-8749 between 8 a.m.

and 5 p.m. Morrison County Little Falls: Pastor jailed 7 days for giving Ugandan man ride LITTLE FALLS Because he gave a Ugandan army man a ride back to his military base, the Rev. Roger Hesch, 32, of Southern Baptist Foreign Missions spent seven days in jail in Kampala, Uganda. The jailing occurred Nov. 1, the day after the former Little Falls man held a prayer service in Kampala.

At the end of the service, Hesch drove the Ugandan to his barracks at a nearby military base, stopped for a brief visit and returned to his home in nearby Entebbe. The next day police took the former New Hill, N.C. pastor, to a jail in Kampala where he was housed with 20 other prisoners until his release Nov. 7. Hesch talked to his parents, Joe and Trudy Hesch, Garrison, when he called Tuesday evening.

He said he was fine and treated well in jail. The event was a frightening experience for Hesch's wife, Margaret, and their children, Sarah, 7, and Joel, 6, who had no idea where he was for a day and a half. "His wife was allowed to visit and bring food while he was jailed," Trudy Hesch said. Hesch was imprisoned, he told his parents, because he drove into a military installation. His release was allowed with the stipulation that he and his family be out of Uganda in seven days.

Hesch, a missionary to Uganda and resident of Entebbe almost three years, called his parents from Southern Baptist Foreign Missions headquarters in Kenya where the family is living until reassignment. BAY VILLAGE, Ohio (AP) Police in Bossier City, won't comment on whether there is a connection between a former Geauga County resident arrested there on rape charges and a missing 10-year-old Bay Village girl. Bossier City Police spokesman John Brann would not comment Thursday on whether James Edward Vachuska, 28, told police where he was the day Amy Mihaljevic disappeared from a shopping mall here. Vachuska was arraigned Thursday on charges he abducted and assaulted a Bossier City boy and charges of raping an 1 1-year-old Shreveport, girl. He remained jailed on a $200,000 bond.

He came under scrutiny in Amy's disappearance when numerous callers told police that he resembled men depicted in composite drawings of suspects in the abduction of Jacob Wetterl-ing, St. Joseph, and other child abductions in Louisiana and Bay Village. "We can't comment on that (Vachus-ka's statements to police) because it wouldn't be right for the court case here," Brann said. "We don't want to do anything to let this bugbear walk because if he walks, we're going to put him right back on the bus to Cleveland." Vachuska was seen at a Halloween party in Shreveport, about 9 p.m. the night Amy disappeared, but Brann would not say if police know where Vachuska was the rest of that day.

Friends of Amy told police they last saw her at about 3 p.m. Oct. 27. Meanwhile, FBI spokesman Robert Hawk said police and more than 35 FBI agents returned Thursday to a wooded area in Avon Lake, just west of Bay Vil- Jacob Wetterling update1 A lage, for another search. "Morale is high because everyone can identify with this kind of case and cooperation between the police and FBI," Hawk said.

"Every agent has the belief that what he is doing will resolve this case," Hawk said. Searchers are focusing on the wooded area Amy frequently visited near a riding stable. Slacks similar to a pair she wore have been found there, Hawk said. "We have not determined 100 percent that they (the slacks) were hers," Hawk said. Vachuska was released June 21 from an Ohio prison where he served nine years in the 1979 attack on two youngsters in Geauga County.

He had reported to his parole officer in Louisiana as recently as Oct. 4, according to Frank Kyle, a Louisiana parole and probation officer. Vachuska, a graduate of West Geauga High School, attended Findlay College and Wilmington College in Ohio. Amy's disappearance has been featured on three syndicated national television shows: "Hard Copy," "Inside Edition" and "A Current Affair." Thursday night, 40 students at Bay Middle School where Amy was a fifth-grader held a candlelight vigil for Amy. Her parents, Mark and Margaret Mihaljevic, said they haven't given up hope.

"The longer it (waiting) goes, the scarier it gets for her safe return to home," Mihaljevic said. "But we aren't giving up hope." Computers, coral prove sailors' survival story From Page 1B Japanese- lab work when they have the time. Modular scheduling also gives students experience in time management. Class hours do not commence and end according to bells and students are responsible for getting to class on time, DesRochers said. The four groups focused on languages, mathematics, social sciences, and industrial arts and were particularly interested in observing the relationships of students to teachers, teachers to parents, school discipline, transportation and how classes were run, said Diana Kasper, the district's Community Services director.

The groups also were intrigued by American educators' views on textbooks, teachers' unions, afterschool activities, curriculum and ethics, Kasper said. DesRochers led his group through a variety of Apollo's classes, including several math classes, an English section, and an industrial arts class, where they received computer printouts of a student's drafting project. Computers, interestingly, are used in Japanese schools only in specialized classes and not to the extent they are used in the United States, said Takeshi Miyagawa, a school vice principal. Japanese school building also are built in multiple stories, not the sprawling, one-story structures common in the United States. The schools also are not as comfortable, with smaller cafeterias and commons areas, or teachers' lounges, Miyagawa said.

DesRochers' group was extremely curious about how classes are taught and quickly scribbled notes during the few minutes they were allowed to observe each class. Most American math classes are delineated; they deal with various levels of algebra, geometry in separate classes. "In Japan, all there courses are integrated," DesRochers said. They don't have divisions of theory." The group's whirlwind tour did not end after their attendance at an Apollo choir and orchestra concert Thursday night. The apanese contingent left for New York City this morning and is expected to tour a school in New Jersey.

They also will visit schools in Athens, Georgia, and Los Angeles. The group will visit 17 schools before returning to Japan. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) The New Zealand government has concluded that a Minneapolis man and his three companions were telling the truth when they said they spent four months on a capsized yacht in the South Pacific. Marine growth on the submerged hull of the trimaran sailboat and a com- puter analysis of wind and currents in the region supported the sailors' story, the New Zealand Transport Ministry said Thursday. Jim Nalepka, 38, who is on leave from his job as a laborer for the city of Minneapolis, was one of those aboard the sailboat when it capsized.

Nalepka and his companions spent 119 days adrift in the South Pacific east and north of New Zealand before crashing ashore on Great Barrier Island on Sept. 30. The miraculous voyage of the Rose-Noelle is testimony to the benefits of a sound vessel, ample provisions and the determination of its crew," Transport Minister William Jeffries said. "If there ever was any question that the Rose-Noelle was not overturned and drifting for 119 days, then this investigation dispels those doubts," he said in announcing the outcome of the investigation. The four sailors had been missing and feared dead when their boat crashed ashore.

But the men's relative good health, and the fact that radio transmissions Boon after the reported capsizing June 4 seemed inconsistent with where they eventually came ashore, prompted a government inquiry into their story. The report also exonerated searchers who were looking in the wrong area and abandoned their search after two days. The inquiry also found that there were no airplanes flying over the area where the capsized yacht's emergency radio beacon had operated for several days before its batteries wore out. The computer analysis said the Rose-Noelle probably drifted east, then north and finally west after it capsized. Crew members managed to cut a hole in the upturned hull to gain access to the after cabin, where they spent their days shielded from the elements.

Post-high school enrollment climbs ST. PAUL (AP) Enrollment in Minnesota public and private post-secondary institutions increased by 3.94 percent this fall, the state Higher Education Coordinating Board Btaff reported Thursday. I Fall enrollment increased by 9,576 students to 252,360, meaning one out of every 17 Minnesotans is currently attending a post-secondary institution. Private vocational schools are not included in the figures because of incomplete reports. Total head-count increased in public institutions by 4.27 percent, to 201,595 this fall from 193,338 a year earlier.

Enrollment in private colleges and professional schools was up 2.67 percent, to 50,765 from 49,446, the report said. The figures are based on the total number of full-time and part-time students enrolled on the 10th day of the fall term for collegiate institutions and technical colleges. These figures are not comparable to full-year equivalent enrollments which indicate credits taken by students throughout the academic years. Among the four public systems, enrollments increased by 8.22 percent in the community colleges, to by 7.02 percent in the state universities, to by 4.3 percent in the technical colleges, to 34,661. Enrollments declined by 2.16 percent in the University of Minnesota system, to 53,339 from 54,517.

Enrollment at the Twin Cities campus was down 3.65 percent to 41,016. These reductions are consistent with the university's Commitment to Focus plan, according to the report. Arena worker falls to death MINNEAPOLIS (AP) A construction worker died after falling several stories at the Minnesota Timberwol ves arena site downtown, authorities said. Thomas J. Riesselman, 41, of Hudson, was pronounced dead at the scene around 3 p.m.

Thursday, the Hennepin County medical examiner's office said. Riesselman apparently was attaching stone facing to the building's exterior when he fell from an opening in the wall, said city Fire Capt. Mike Donnelly- The arena is nearing competition for the NBA expansion team's next ALC Hasselmo announces benefits changes letics. "It's one of the best things I've ever done. I'm as proud of it as anything I've ever done," Quinn said of his role in raising money for the hockey trip.

He said his influence as chairman of the gaming committee didn't help him raise money. Quinn said gambling organizations were unhappy with him because of his support for a higher tax on charitable gambling. The lawmaker told the Star Tribune he had been asked by a representative of the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission to put together a team good enough to capture the Masters Games for Minnesota in 1993. The team lost 5-3 to a Soviet group in the finals. Quinn said he asked about 30 organizations for donations, and saw no problem in asking for money from organizations he might deal with as a legislator.

The Minneapolis Fire Fighters Welfare Association contributed because it wanted publicity for its charitable contributions and will field the host team in the 1993 Minnesota games, Quinn said. The nursing home contributed partly because it is interested in participating in a proposed bingo hall in Coon Rapids, Quinn said, adding that he is helping in that effort. Quinn said Adams, former president of the Minnesota Fighting Saints hockey team, arranged for the donations from the Concordia Singing Society and the Light Brigade. Because charitable gambling money generally can't be spent for adult athletics, Quinn said he asked for an opinion in April from Roger Franke, then the executive director of the Charitable Gambling Control Board. Franke approved the enterprise because it would "support, augment or supplement services which government would render to the people," Quinn said.

Quinn said the gaming division and its parent General Legislation Committee have little power. "Did people think they had to get me money? Good Lord, no," Quinn said. Montevideo man dies in accident BEND, Ore. (AP) A Minnesota man and an Oregon man died Thursday when a semi-trailer truck and car collided at an intersection, leaving wreckage strewn for hundreds of feet, authorities said. The driver of the car, Michael Steven Owen, 22, of Bend, and a passenger in the truck, Dewayne E.

Bresson, 48, of Montevideo died at the scene. The collision occurred about 2:30 a.m. at the intersection of Cooley Road and U.S. 20 about 3 miles north of Bend, according to a Deschutes County sheriffs report. The truck driver, Dwight Brellenth-in, 43, also of Montevideo, was in serious but stable condition at St Charles Medical Center.

additions to its current facility or renting additional space, perhaps downtown, as its programs grow. About 465 students are enrolled in ALC programs; capacity is 644. Taylor said he expects the program to be full by the end of the year. The ALC also needs more office space for teachers and community services such as Stearns County Social Services and Nursing Services; additional day care space is needed for children of teen-age mothers enrolled at the school. Few seem interested in capping enrollment "We've known all along that the ALC would benefit from more space and better space," Jandura said.

"The ALC program is going to grow. It has a tremendous future." A couple of ALC students contacted board members to voice opposition to renting office space in another location. Board member Wayne Brinkman agreed that the program will be more effective in a school setting. The ideal situation, Taylor said, would require the addition of 10 classrooms, eight offices, three small rooms, two bathrooms and one large storage room to Wilson. Jandura told the board the cost of a permanent addition of that size would fall between $400,000 and $600,000.

The board could consider many funding options, but costs of that size likely would require a special tax levy of district residents, he said after the meeting. Board member Pat Krueger suggested that a neighborhood meeting be held to discuss any potential additions to Wilson in hopes of addressing Another option Jandura threw out would be to move the district offices to Wilson and move the ALC to the District Administration Office building, 628 Roosevelt Road, where there is more land for expansion. Board member Steve Ringsmuth said he was intrigued by that suggestion. But, Jandura said, officials must remember that any single alternative facility should only grow so large, before officials should consider starting a second one. "The minute an alternative program gets too big, you start running into the same disadvantages (of a large school) that you created the alternative for." MINNEAPOLIS (AP) University of Minnesota president Nils Hasselmo, saying school officials are "committed to fix that which is broken," today announced proposed changes in granting administrative leaves and severance pay.

The proposed changes follow recent reports of cases in which university ad-, ministrators and faculty were given buyouts or severance packages over the past two years as incentives to leave. Last month, the state legislative auditor's office released a report criticizing regents for a series of fully paid leaves granted to four departing administrators. Hasselmo said the proposed administrative-leave policy requires that one must have been an administrator for at least three consecutive years; that administrators submit a written plan ap- roved by the president, that the leave for no longer than one year and that salaries be at the level of faculty, or other position they will hold and not their current administrative salary. At the end of the leave, the administrators must prepare a report of their activities and return for at least one year, Hasselmo said. If they don't return, they must repay the university the salary and benefits they received during the leave.

Major features of the new severance policy include limiting the amount of severance pay to the amount that would be earned during the notice period necessary to terminate the contract, Hasselmo said. The notice period would vary from one month to one year. House committee orders study on project VIRGINIA, Minn. (AP) Citing an board by the University of California. Stoecz described Davidson's study as "a well-researched, well-formulated Commissioner Joe Samargia to begin work on the study as quickly as possible.

Union construction workers at Boise Cascade $535 million paper mill expansion in International Falls have been on a wildcat strike since July over general contractor use of nonunion labor. Boise and criticized Otis and his committee staff for not allowing the companies to testify at the session. The California study was commissioned by the Contra Costa County Board of Commissioners, which was considering a prevailing wage ordinance, said Sarah Stoesz, Samargia's assistant. The study concludes the expansion cost local Californians more than $70 million in lost wages and other expenses. Boise Cascade and earlier Thursday said the study was unfair and biased toward organized labor.

Boise spokesman Andrew Drysdale said the study is based on incorrect information and can't provide a balanced look at the economic impact of the Boise paper mill expansion. "Rather than concentrate on where workers come from, a balanced look at the economic impact of the expansion would be far broader," he said. The International Falls expansion project "will create almost 900 new Minnesota jobs. How can investing a half-billion dollars in a mill expansion and creating new Minnesota jobs be bad for the stater The study was conducted by Carlos Davidson, who Boise and describe as a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley but who Stoecz scys is a consulting economist recommended to the Contra Costa economic study of a Construction project in California, a state House committee Thursday night ordered a study of the economic effects of use of non-union labor in International Falls. The House Economic Development Committee's decision came during a hearing ordered by committee Chairman Todd Otis, DFL-Minneapolis, to help determine how the Legislature should deal with the northern Minnesota labor turmoil.

Otis told state Jobs and Training "He's not saying there weren't overall benefits to the community from the reject," she said. "But the potential enefit by using local labor was significantly greater. Company officials countered with a report from Armand J. Thieblot, a Baltimore business consultant. The (Davidson) paper is worse than inaccurate" Thieblot said..