The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 13

The Orlando Sentinel Orlando expands public housing project that once had shaky future, B-6 TUESDAY, August 28, 1 990 OH 7 anner fna uts jurors Law's aim: Late-night store safety Orange doesn't buy 2-clerk requirement By Michael Griffin to Msr ixt test MICHELLE HILLSENTINEL Police search site where bones were found, 2 miles from store where Poe worked. Body found in Seminole can't be missing clerk, friend says convinced there is reason for hope: None of the jewelry found at the site looks like Poe's. "What I've seen I did not recognize, and they told me some other things that did not fit Deb," said Lori Tillman, Poe's former roommate. Investigators on Monday took a couple of rings found at the site to Tillman, and told her the woman whose remains were found Sunday had had cosmetic surgery. Tillman, and later Poe's mother, Nancy, said Deborah Poe had not.

The question of whether the remains are Poe's could be solved today. Seminole County Medical Examiner Shashi Gore is expected to check the skull against Poe's dental records dating back to 1981. Please see BONES, B-5 By Mark Pankowski and Lauren Ritchie OF THE SENTINEL STAFF Is it Deborah Poe? The skeletal remains discovered Sunday were close to the east Orange County convenience store from which an attacker kidnapped the 26-year-old clerk last February. The remains are of a young, white woman whose hair looks like Poe's. They were discovered by a man riding an all-terrain vehicle in woods off Aloma Avenue, just more than 2 miles from the Circle where Poe worked.

But while relatives await definitive word from a medical examiner, one of Poe's longtime friends is 7T OF THE SENTINEL STAFF Convenience stores must take steps to protect night employees urjder a new Orange County law, but those measures do not include having two clerks on duty. jThe ordinance county commissioners approved Monday mirrors a state law and requires most convenience stores to install security cameras and silent alarms. All stores, including family-owned businesses, will have to limit clerk access to cash to less than $50 between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. 33ut Commissioner Tom Dor-rrian said that's not enough.

jOn a day when police were working to identify bones about 2 rriles from a Goldenrod convenience store where clerk Deborah Poe disappeared earlier this year, Dbrnian said stores should have to employ two clerks at night. Dorman pushed for a two-clerk ordinance in 1986, but backed akay when it became clear that fellow commissioners would not support the plan. "I believed it then and I believe it now that having two clerks provides better security," he said. 'J3ut the state law that commissioners emulated in passing their ordinance says local governments can't pass two-clerk ordinances between Sept. 1 and Dec.

31, 1991. The state will use that time to study the effectiveness of two-clerk ordinances that have been passed in 23 cities and two counties, including Seminole County, Ocoee and Sanford. Commissioner Vera Carter said it's best to wait for the study's results. "We're concerned and the state is concerned about the safety of these clerks, but we need to be silre of the best course to take," she said. Pearman, president of the Retail Grocers Association of Flor-.

ida, said having two clerks on the job does not increase safety. Two clerks can increase the likelihood of violence during a robbery, said Pearman, whose group represents 350 companies operating more than 7,000 stores in the state. "With two people there is a fear oh the robber's part that the clerks could provide a more positive identification," he said. "The incentive then is to harm them both. also have the idea that two cferks may feel confident enough to, challenge a lone gunman rather than just give them the money." County's ordinance will take effect Sept.

1, but inspectors will not begin enforcing it for at least 90 days. The extra time will let store operators complete a number of tasks. In addition to cameras and alarms, these items include height charts installed on the doors and ensuring that store windows are well lighted and unobstructed. Store operators could be fined up to $5,000 for failing to comply. rate By Shirish Date OF THE SENTINEL STAFF DAYTONA BEACH Chance and lawyers' questions brought them together Monday: a secretary, a school principal, a nurse, a police dispatcher, a General Electric employee and a homemaker.

This morning, in the first such trial in Volusia County in a dozen years, they will start deciding whether two X-rated movies violate the county's "community standards" regarding what is and isn't legally obscene. "This is a misdemeanor case, one of the lowest misdemeanors," Assistant State Attorney Gene White told potential jurors Monday. "But this is probably one of the most important cases Volusia County has had." For Ormond Beach video store owner Barry Freilich, the jurors' verdict will decide whether he broke Florida's obscenity law when he rented The Devil in Miss Jones and The Devil in Miss Jones, Part II to an employee in State Attorney John Tanner's office. If convicted of the charges, Freilich could face up to a year in jail. And for Tanner, the verdict could either vindicate or repudiate MAHK LOSEYSENTINEL his controversial, six-month war on adult videos in the 7th Judicial Circuit, which includes Volusia, Flagler, St.

Johns and Putnam" counties. Tanner could not be reached for comment Monday. White, his part-time assistant hired last month to prosecute obscenity cases, said he was pleased with how quickly he and defense lawyer Sylvan Wells were able to find six jurors and two alternates, despite the extensive publicity the case has received. "I was surprised. I think we got a good representative sample," White said.

Before jury selection started, Wells complained to Judge Norton Josephson that the 12-member jury pool wasn't big enough to find a cross section of Volusia residents. Josephson denied Wells' requests to start with a bigger pool and to introduce an anti-censorship petition signed by nearly 10,000 people. Josephson is a retired county judge brought in because Judge Hubert Grimes didn't have time to handle a trial that Wells said could take a month. Please see TRIAL, B-5 Schools set new tone for 1 st day Few hot spots flare up as kids return to class By Kit Lively OF THE SENTINEL STAFF The first day of school in Orange County was a major production Monday as five new schools opened their doors and about 7,000 new students showed up expecting desks and teachers. Most of Orange County's 116 public schools opened smoothly, officials said, but there were a few hot spots.

Parents of about 50 Wheatley Elementary students refused to enroll their children, saying the old Apopka school is in an unsafe neighborhood. The parents plan to boycott school unless their children are switched to Clarcona Elementary, a new school they say is closer to their homes and in a more rural setting. School officials met with parents Monday and plan to meet with them again today. At Lockhart Middle School, a few students were surprised to learn Monday morning that their bus stops had been eliminated over the summer. Angry parents wondered why they hadn't been notified earlier.

At John Young Elementary so many extra students showed up that teachers had to take over any available space from a science lab to teacher workrooms until more portable classrooms can be installed. This is the first year for the south Orange County school and it opened with 650 students instead of the 509 district officials had predicted. In Volusia County, 45,259 students 2,605 more than last year's first day were back in the classroom. Brevard County students also returned to school Monday with no problems. In Orange County, 94,550 students showed up Monday up from about 87,450 last August.

Officials expect enrollments to hit about 103,350 by the middle of the year up about 5,400 from the same time last year. Many of those new students are assigned to the district's five new schools University High in Please see SCHOOL, B-5 i if if 'j- 1 I No jail likely in case of buried waste By Mary Shanklin OF THE SENTINEL STAFF LONGWOOD A former city employee who briefly turned land near City Hall into a hazardous waste site is expected to walk away from the experience with little more than a legal footnote. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that Charles Hassler, former public works director, has become the first person convicted under a 1984 federal law that sets rules for underground disposal of hazardous wastes. His guilty plea for ordering city workers to bury 16 barrels behind the Longwood Public Works Department in October 1988 is expected to carry no fines or jail time only probation time, said Hassler's attorney Don West.

"This was just one instance of extremely poor judgment," West said. "He was aware of his role from the very beginning and is willing to pay for his responsibility." Hassler was named on the two-count indictment in U.S. District Please see HASSLER, B-5 National Public Radio had a blurb. And I have notes on my door asking me to do interviews with radio stations in Houston and Harrisburg." It all started Aug. 20, when The Orlando Sentinel reported on Gauss' one-of-a-kind job as a "video logger" who spends 26 weeks a year videotaping roads nothing but roads.

Newspapers in Miami and St. Petersburg picked up the story of the videos, shot with a camera on the dashboard of Gauss' van and used by state engineers to inspect highways without leaving their Tallahassee offices. "It's been really comical," the Tallahassee resident said. "Friends are calling that I haven't seen since college." Then there was the call from a radio station in Madison, Wis. "They wanted to know if all the roads looked alike," he said.

"I told them I wouldn't have taped them if they all looked the same." Video logger of state roads gets lot of mileage in media By Mark Vosburgh OF THE SENTINEL STAFF Warhol once predicted that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, but even the late pop artist did not prepare Doug Gauss for the past week. In just seven days, Gauss has risen from an obscure job with the state Department of Transportation to front-page news in Orlando, Miami and St. Petersburg. -After spending three years videotaping all 23,000 miles of state roads in Florida all by his lonesome the 40-year-old is now the talk of Houston, Harrisburg, even Madison, Wis. "It's been bizarre," he said.

"People have told me they saw the s'to on the Cable News Network. Kindergartner Amy Wetherell, 5, hangs onto mom Darlene Baker at Blue Lake..