Tucson Daily Citizen from Tucson, Arizona • Page 31

Sports Classified FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 1971 PAGE 31 fNews Editorial COIMTY PURCHASE OK'D April Date Likely For Nursing Home Attorneys Accused A county nursing home for the elderly indigent should be in operation by late April with a decision by the Board of Supervisors to purchase the defunct Four Seasons Nursing Center. Negotiations for the purchase of the center, at a cost of million, should be closed Monday, Supervisor Thomas Jay said yesterday. The decision to purchase the center, located at 2250 N. Craycroft Road, came yesterday after three months of negotiations which began when the nationwide chain of Four Seasons centers went bankrupt in November. The Tucson facility had been in operation only since last March, and the last patient was moved out in November.

The second floor of the two-story center was never used. Prompting the supervisors' decision to put the county in the nursing home business was a 'proposed increase in the fee the pays on a contract basis with local nursing homes for the Scare of elderly indigents. The Arizona Association of Jlealth Care Facilities, which represents most of the nursing homes in the state, last month 'asked the county to pay $14 per day instead' of the current for the care of about .250 in- The supervisors were; reluctant to agree to the increase and instead hastened their negotia-. tions for Seasons with a Washington firm handling the accounts of the bankrupt nationwide chain. Jay said the purchase could result in a savings for the county by centralizing the care of the elderly indigent.

Food, medicine and other for the county nursing home will be bought along with Pima County Hospital supplies, Jay said. This will result in discounts because of the large size of the orders, he added. Care of the patients will be Improved also, the supervisor Elson Accepts Broadcast Post WASHINGTON (AP) Hoy Elson, former administrative assistant to.Sen. Carl Hayden, will become vice president of the. National Association of Broadcasters'-Monday.

'Elson, an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1964 and 1968, joined Kayden's staff in lie early 1950s. During his tiine-with Hayden he worked on" the: legislative strategy that cuTminated in passage of the Central Arizona Project Act in 1968. noted, because "they will all be under one roof and instead of spending time driving to homes scattered through the city, our doctor will be able to give them more attention." The Four Seasons facility will accommodate 204 patients, Jay said, with the remainder of the almost 250 patients receiving county support being cared for on a contract basis with other nursing homes. Opening date of the home depends on hiring the necessary personnel, mostly nurses, and buying equipment, Jay said, estimating that this could be done by late April Funds for operation of the home during the rest of the fiscal year will come out of the county hospital's budget, the supervisor said.

The hospital's budget includes the funds paid to nursing homes now caring for patients on a contract basis, he said. "We should be able to operate the home for less than the'S14 per day the nursing homes are now asking," Jay said. The purchase must be approved by an Oklahoma federal judge who is handling the Four Seasons reorganization proceedings, according to the who added that he expected the sale to encounter no problems. The S1.5 million will be paid over a five-year period. Asks To Erase Plea Of Guilt PHOENIX (UPI) The State Supreme Court today considered whether Charles Schmid Jr.

of Tucson should be allowed to retract his guilty plea to the slaying of a teen-age girl in 1964. Schmid, 26, appeared before the court and said his attorneys, F. Lee Bailey of Boston and William Tinney of Tucson, coerced him into entering the guilty plea. "There was no defense whatsoever, even though I demanded it," Schmid told the high court yesterday. He asked the court to set aside his guilty plea in the death of Norma Alleen Rowe, 15, for which he was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.

Schmid was found guilty and sentenced to death for the" slayings of two other Tucson girls, Gretchen and Wendy Fritz, who were killed Aug. 16,1965. He accused Bailey and Tinney of conspiring not to defend him and said he agreed to enter the guilty plea "because of the cumulative effect of- coerce- ment" Assistant Atty. Gen. Andrew W.

Bettwy argued that Schmid "voluntarily and of his free will, entered the plea of guilty." Schmid's attorney, Norval Jasper of Tucson, told the court errors were committed in the Pima County Superior Court trial Cite Need For City Economic Development et The People Jobs, Poverty Economic development for the unemployed and underemployed is Tucson's most pressing need, poverty area workers say. "The satellite problems of drug abuse, alcoholism and hunger" are caused by the basic economic problems of unemployment and underemployment, Model Cities program research analyst Ezra L. Ford told the guidelines committee of the United Community Campaign last night. Most of a group of social workers meeting with the committee last night agreed with Ford that most social problems stem from the plight of the city's poor, particularly those on the South and West Sides. More job training is needed in neighborhoods, said Janice Kendrick, a community organization aide for the South Park orkers Say Area Council, who said the only training available now for the poor are in the fields of mechanics, bookbinding and glass blowing.

"We don't all want to be mechanics," said Doyle Martin, chairman of the South Park Community Action Committee, who said his organization is interested in instituting electronics and computer training in the South Park area. Marvin S. Cohen, chairman of the UCC guidelines committee, said his group met rath Model Cities and Area Councils staffs to determine what "the people think their most important needs are" as the UCC studies projects it should supporting. The committee also hopes to determine whether governmental agencies or charitable organizations such as UCC are better equipped to handle the problems, Cohen said. But even if the UCC committee decides 'a certain project rightfully belongs to the government, the charitable agency might assume an "advocacy role" before government agencies to press for work in problem areas, the committee chairman said.

Some debate occurred after attorney Raul Castro, last year's Democratic gubernatorial nominee, said drug abuse is not a priority problem among the city's minorities. It might not be the highest priority problem citywide for minority residents, said Model Cities Director Cressworth Lander, but it has been a large problem in the present Model Cities area for many years. "I work with drug addicts who call Tucson the capital of marijuana," said Homer Phininzy, Model Cities project director for drug abuse training. "We know that drug abuse is related to criminality," he said, adding that addicts have told him that, to support a $50 a day drug habit, they steal property worth five times that amount. Federal funds are available to Model Cities for a drug treatment staff but mat money must be found elsewhere for facilities and actual treatment Mrs.

Elizabeth Brook, former member of the State Welfare Board and executive director of the Jewish Family Service, said Pima County health. facilities should be made available for use by the model cities treatment staff. Astronauts To Get Awards At Arizona Conference PHOENIX (UPI) Apollo 13 astronauts' James Lovell, Fred Haise and John Sweigert will receive the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics top awards at the Space, Shuttle Conference March 15-18. The three will be given the Aley Astronautics Award for "the exceptional manner in which-the Apollo 13 crew conducted itself and its spacecraft under extraordinary circumstances under extreme stress." The award consists of a S500 honorarium, a medal and- certificate. Previous winners in- clude astronauts Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Gus Grissom and Ed White.

William N. Magrader, director of supersonic transport development in the Transportation Department, will receive the Octave Chanute Award for "out- standing contributions by a pflot to the development of safer, more efficient air transportation." the awards will be presented at a banquet March 16. Air Force Secretary Dr. Robert Seamans Jr. will speak.

January Freeze Will Cut Ranks Of Cactus By KEITH CAREW Citizen Staff Writer Thousands of saguaros, monarchs of the Tucson cactus world, will end their reign prematurely this year. One out of every 10 of the adult giants in the Tucson valley may be a victim of the severe freeze in January, a University of Arizona authority on the saguaro predicted today. Charles H. Lowe, professor of biological sciences, said some of 'the mature saguaros already are dead of dying and dripping from damage. But the scale of death won't be totally evident until thVweatheF -warms in'April; and May.

Despite the most prolonged cold spell in two decades --the thermometer hit lows between 17 and 20 degrees for five straight days the damage to the saguaros won't approach the 1962 "scene of devastation" described by Lowe. "In that year a January freeze of three days killed up to 50 per cent of the saguaros in certain areas," he said. "In some places, the kill was as low as 10 per cent." Many of the saguaros already have frozen but it won't be until April that the alarm will go up, he said. "We'll start getting calls by people who think their saguaros dying and they'll cite all that black stuff oozing from them. They win ask what can be done to save them.

The answer is, nothing." The dripping goo isn't what's destroying the saguaro, Lowe emphasizes. "It also doesn't mean that the plant will die. It could, of course, but it might not succumb at all." The real signs -of a dying saguaro, according to Lowe: Along the cactus will start turning black and brown in the spring. The tops will be decapitated in instances where freezing occurred around large bird holes. In such cases death will although It may take weeks or months for total collapse." Short of the whole cactus dying, "there wifl be partial destruction," Lowe said.

"Evidence is leaning toward the ground, whole sides of the plant blistered and entire arms killed outright But the plant as a whole may live on indefinitely." The thing to watch out for, however, is a saguaro listing prominently to one side. Adult saguaros weigh more than 10 tons and if your house is in the path of one that rumbles, it can cause real damage. In such cases Lowe warned persons to "call your nurseryman and have him cut it down. If mere's nothing in its path, leave.it." The leaning saguaro may not fall at all. It may not even be dead or dying "but there's no sense in taking a chance where there's danger of destruction or injury," said Lowe.

In some instances, saguaros that show all the signs of imminent death will recover and live on indefinitely. "The saguaro is a very complicated mechanism and our ignorance of its biology is vast," Lowe explained. "We do know there are several factors which contribute to its demise, among them drought, insects and rodents which eat the small seedlings and decades of overgrazing by cattle." But the single most important factor is climate. "At Tucson it Is the deficient heat in winter, particularly during the month of January, Hiat is the deadly bottleneck for this subtropical species," said Lowe. The 10 per cent mortality rate Lowe predicts won't occur systematically over the entire Tucson basin.

It will be more concentrated in certain areas, less common in others. And all the deaths in the coming year won't be completely the work of Jan. 4-S. Some started to die before the freeze. Others were on the verge and January dealt the final blow.

Some deaths even may have had their start during the 1962 freeze. Generally speaking, Lowe said, if the saguaros on your property show none of the death symptoms by next winter, they probably have been spared "at least for several years." rf for scatred to Last Survivor Of 'Class Of 1964' Gone The last survivor of the "Class of 1964" passed away in January. It froze to death. It was one of several'hundred saguaro seedlings which germinated during 1963-64 in the Saguaro National Monument in the Rincon Mountain foothills. Its death was pronounced by Charles H.

Lowe, University of Arizona biologist who has followed the career of the seedlings since their birth. He and associate Warren F. Steenbergh have watched their numbers dwindle every year. "Strictly speaking," Lowe said, "some of the members of the Class of '64 are still alive. They are growing on the sides of rocky slopes.

But the ones in flat, terrain are extinct." Seedlings, which Lowe defines as saguaros less than an inch high, were much more seriously hit by the January freeze than their parents. Probably more than half of the seedlings in relatively flat areas succumbed immediately. However, seedlings which germinate on rocky slopes particularly on the south sides of hills and mountains fared much better. "The kill among them will be only one to 10 per cent," Lowe said. The reason is that babies lucky enough to sprout on hillsides usually are nestled among rocks, "which back-radiate heat at night and protect the tiny cactus from the cold," Lowe said.

"Those in flat terrain are much less likely to have such protection." There has been a large kill of seedlings in the Saguaro Monument, both in the Rincons and Tucson Mountains, Lowe said. And, although death was immediate for the babies, the extent of mortality won't be known for weeks. "It often takes that long for the damage to be declared a certainty," Lowe said. "One thing I'm certain of, however. The ones that get through with the least harm are on south- facing slopes of all the mountains." This saguaro seedling, only a few weeks old, was photographed last summer.

Thousands like it perished in the January freeze..