South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 11

Sun-Sentinel, Friday, February 17, 1989 3B METRO EXTRA Tri-Rail executive director quits enough employees. But Travasos, Boca Raton's deputy mayor, said he exerted no other pressure on the executive director. Both Tri-Rail Chairman Ed Kennedy and board member Carol Roberts said Howard should have responded more quickly to delays caused by CSX Railroad dispatchers giving priority to Am-trak trains operating along the same track Tri-Rail does. Jim Stoetzel, a consultant who formerly ran the old Railroad in Boston, will step in immediately to handle a portion of Howard's workload. He will take over the system on April 1 and guide a search for Howard's successor.

Stoetzel, 41, announced that he would not be a candidate for Howard's job. He said he hoped to have a new Tri-Rail executive director by June 1. station was closed after it was deemed unsafe, but it is expected to reopen next week. "I have never given up on anything in my life," Howard said. But he said the job has become more frustrating, the workload heavier and the tasks more onerous.

"After 43 years in transportation, it's time to get out and turn it over to somebody younger," said Howard, whose job paid $65,000 a year. Meanwhile, at a meeting of Tri-Rail and state Department of Transportation officials and House Speaker Tom Gustafson, D-Fort Lauderdale, on Thursday morning, an informal agreement was reached that Tri-Rail would not be given taxing power for at least three years, and maybe not even then. Instead of property taxes, Gustafson said the agency could make money by condemning property along the rail line, then assessing special fees. Tri-Rail also is expected to ask legislators to revamp its membership and make it an independent authority, leaving it less reliant on the state Department of Transportation and the county commissions in Broward, Dade and Palm Beach counties. Gustafson also said that Tri-Rail might eventually consider taking over Dade County's Metrorail.

Howard is expected to leave at the end of March, but he said he would continue working part time until his successor is chosen. Tri-Rail member Al Travasos has criticized Howard for not telling him of the train's problems, for having an inadequate phone system and for not having By RICK PIERCE Staff Writer The man who oversaw the opening of South Florida's commuter train system announced his resignation on Thursday, citing a heart problem. Executive Director Bill Howard, 64, said he was not pressured into quitting, although members of the Tri-County Commuter Rail Organization have been seeking to change everything from the phone system to the train schedule recently. The system, which began operation on Jan. 9 along a 67-mile stretch between West Palm Beach and Miami, has been plagued by low ridership, delays and an ill-fated decision to build a station near a runway at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

The ti 5 i 1 I I IB Of i i ill? hs-. 4 1 I 1 lit Staff photoROBERT AZMITIA DIGEST Staff reports TV station can air in April POMPANO BEACH Broward County's only television station will be able to go on the air in late April because it received permission on Thursday to put its antenna on top of the city's tallest building. The Pompano Beach Zoning Board of Appeals approved a plan by WFUN-TV to place a 43-foot antenna on top of the 30-story Pompano Beach Club building on Briny Avenue. Because the antenna will be more than 265 feet off the ground, the station needed an exemption from the city's 105-foot height restriction. Station President Rodger Skinner said the city permission for the antenna was the last hurdle that he had to clear in his eight-year quest to open his television station, channel 27.

The station will be one of only 300 low-power television stations in the country and will only be able to seen in Broward County, said Skinner's attorney, Donald Hall. Skinner said the station will run sports shows, a weekly Wall Street wrapup and a computer show, as well as network reruns and movies. Holiday closings set On Monday, Presidents' Day, all Broward County public schools, banks, the Broward County Courthouse and the Federal Courthouse will be closed. Post offices will be closed, and no mail will be delivered. Some city halls in Broward, including Hollywood, Pompano Beach and Coral Springs, will be closed.

Fort Lauderdale's will be open. The Broward County Governmental Center will be open, and county officials said buses will run on normal schedules and libraries will be open. Major supermarkets, including Publix, Winn-Dixie and Pantry Pride, will keep regular hours, as will major shopping malls such as the Hollywood Fashion Center, Galleria in Fort Lauderdale, Broward Mall in Plantation, Pompano Square in Pompano Becah and Coral Square in Coral Springs. Suspect arranging bail An Inverrary condominium resident accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill her son-in-law was arranging late Thursday to post $75,000 bail, the Broward County Sheriff's Office said. Lee Goldsmith, 67, of the 18th Hole at Inverrary in Lauderhill, spent Wednesday night in the Broward County Jail after being arrested on a charge of solicitation to commit murder, the Sheriff's Office said.

Goldsmith is accused of paying a total of $10,000 to two people, one of whom was an undercover detective posing as a hit man, authorities said. The Sheriff's Office has asked that the son-in-law's name not be published for his own protection. When contacted at his home on Thursday, the son-in-law said he was trying to avoid media attention. "I don't want it to turn into a circus," he said. "I don't want my life to be ruined because my face has been splashed all over the media." He said he and his wife had not spoken to Goldsmith in about two years, but he would not say why.

Ambulance rates to rise Emergency ambulance rates in Broward County will increase 4.4 percent on April 1, it was announced on Thursday. The rate hike, which is regulated by the county government, is automatic and is tied to the Consumer Price Index. The base rate for an emergency ambulance call will go from a minimum of $130 to a minimum of $135.70, county officials said. 41 prosecutors to be hired Within a month, U.S. Attorney Dexter Lehtinen will hire 41 more federal prosecutors, giving the Southern District of Florida the largest crime-fighting staff in the country.

Officials announced on Thursday the addition of five prosecutors in the district's West Palm Beach branch and possibly seven more prosecutors in the Fort Lauderdale branch. That would bring the total in West Palm Beach to eight and the total in Fort Lauderdale to 19. The rest would be based throughout the district, which stretches from Key West to Vero Beach. "We just need the manpower," said Diane Cossin, Lehtinen's spokesman. "We filed the largest number of cases in the nation last year." The move is a direct turnaround from the message federal authorities received nearly a year ago: Cut your staff and set priorities.

United Way reports gains A record fund-raising campaign has collected nearly $8 million for United Way of Broward County, officials of the organization announced on Thursday during the group's annual meeting and final report on the 1988-89 campaign. The total, the highest ever and about $1 million more than raised last year, marked the second year of the United Way's Second Century Initiative a plan unveiled in 1986 that would double the charity's contributions within five years. The United Way raised about $5.7 million that year. "We raised a million new dollars last year, and we raised a million new dollars again this year, which keeps us on target," Executive Director E. Douglas Endsley said.

The 14 percent increase in contributions also puts the Broward chapter well ahead of the United Way's national average, which was slightly less than 7 percent, Endsley said. Much of the increase was the result of an aggressive campaign led by Jim Blosser, presidentelect and fund-raising chairman, and a jump in corporate commitments to the United Way, Endsley said. "We're getting a lot more firms and organizations involved," Endsley said. At the luncheon meeting, more than 200 awards were handed out to volunteers and representatives of dozens of organizations and corporations, with three groups ArvidaJMB, the Broward County School Board and Southern Bell being singled out for top honors. Partial skeleton found FORT LAUDERDALE A partial skeleton, possibly human, was found on the beach in the 1900 block of North Atlantic Boulevard on Thursday evening, police said.

Someone called police to report that the bones had been seen in the surf and were pulled onto shore, police said. The Broward County Medical Examiner's Office is expected to examine the bone today. On tour Mary Jane Martinez, wife of Gov. Bob Mar- Thursday afternoon, accompanied by Dr. social service centers in Broward County in tinez, pays a visit to a baby at Broward Gen- Brian Udell, head of the hospital's neonato- order to familiarize herself with the pro- eral Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale on logy unit.

Martinez was on a tour of several grams they provide. Witness tells jury in detail how his friend murdered man Symphony music chief quits post 4 By TIM SMITH Music Writer The South Florida Symphony Orchestra, which was effectively shut down earlier this month by the local musicians' union, is now without a music director. And a concert scheduled for Tuesday at Bailey Hall on the central campus of Broward Community College in Davie has been canceled. Cash Pawn Shop in Fort Lauderdale, where Vaughn dropped by nearly every Monday to conduct business, Mosely said. After Weisz clubbed him two or three times, followed by one blow from Mosely, Weisz dragged the body to the rear of the pawn shop and continued to see customers until closing time, Mosely testified.

Weisz admits helping cover up the murder, but says it was Mosely, not he, who killed Vaughn. "You may not like what he did," said Weisz's lawyer, Ted Crespi. "But what he did is not what he is charged with." On cross-examination, Mosely did not waver from his version of events. "I have not set up nobody," he responded calmly to a suggestion by Crespi that he had. Also testifying on Thursday was Weisz's wife, Doreen.

About 10 hours after Vaughn's murder, she was awakened at home by the sound of a flushing toilet, she said. "I saw Bruce had a bag of bloody Scott towels," she said. "He was flushing them down the toilet." Also in the bag was some green carpeting, she said. By LARRY KELLER Staff Writer Speaking as matter-of-factly as a newscaster reading a financial report, Dennis Mosely told a jury in chilling detail on Thursday how his friend Bruce Weisz clubbed a jewelry wholesaler to death so he could rob him. Weisz, 35, is on trial in Broward Circuit Court on charges of first-degree murder and armed robbery.

If convicted, he could be sentenced to death in the electric chair. Mosely, 34, admitted helping Weisz dispose of Don Vaughn's body and concoct a cover-up story for police, but he said Weisz was the architect of the scheme and the one who delivered the fatal blows to Vaughn's head with a galvanized pipe. Vaughn, 40, never saw what hit him on Feb. 8 of last year, Mosely said. "He was bleeding real bad.

All over the floor and splattered on the wall," he testified. Vaughn is thought to have been carrying about $120,000 in jewelry and cash when he died. Mosely faced the same charges as Weisz until he agreed to plead guilty to Ottavio deR-osa, who started as music di-rector in September, resigned Wednesday evening. "For all intents and purposes, I was music director of nothing. There is no or Staff photoBOB MACK Bruce Weisz in court.

a less serious charge in exchange for his testimony against Weisz. He will be sentenced to 25 years in prison when Weisz's trial ends, but said he has been told he probably will be released within eight to 12 years. Weisz, Mosely and Vaughn knew each other from bowling in a league at Don Carter Lanes in Tamarac. Mosely testified that he and Weisz plotted Vaughn's murder for more than two weeks. Both men needed money, he said.

The killing took place in Weisz's All deRosa Officials agree to free more inmates chestra left," deRosa said. Earlier this month, Local 655 of the American Federation of Musicians notified the national union office in New York that the South Florida Symphony owed a considerable amount of back pay to about 65 musicians. The orchestra was placet! on a national defaulters list, and union musicians were prohibited from working for it. About the same time, the orchestra's general manager and administrative director resigned, along with most of the board of directors. In an effort to keep the organization afloat, board President John Mercede engaged a professional fund-raising team this week.

In addition to the back pay, which some reports put as high as $86,000, the orchestra has a deficit of more than $200,000, stretching back several years, and owes about $200,000 in taxes to the state and federal governments. DeRosa said he hopes to keep many of the orchestra's musicians working for the Miami City Ballet. He also is music director of the ballet. ists will not be allowed back on the streets," said Howard Messing, special master in an ongoing federal lawsuit over Broward's jail situation. "The only thing that is keeping these people in jail in the first place is their poverty, not their danger." There were 3,209 inmates in the county's jail system on Thursday, 559 more than the limit set by a federal judge.

The agreement from Navarro forestalled the possibility that control of community release would be transferred from the Sheriff's Office to the judiciary. Navarro promised a blueprint for expanding the program as soon as possible. He said he would increase the staff of 11 and hire a new director. Chief Judge Miette Burnstein agreed to assign three hearing officers to conduct arraignments, mostly for traffic offenses. That is expected to free one additional judge to hold trials.

lions of dollars building jails at the expense of other programs. As he left the meeting, Navarro said only: "It is my job to arrest them." But the sheriff agreed to beef up his community release program to process more inmates, including those accused of misdemeanors who are not considered dangerous but take up jail space because they cannot afford bail. Defendants in community release are set free but monitored by counselors until their trials. On average, between 400 and 500 inmates are in the program. In January, nine failed to show up in court and 11 were rearrested for violating the terms of their release.

An internal audit by the Sheriff's Office last year found the program was losing track of a "substantial number" of defendants. But officials promised on Thursday not to let dangerous criminals spill out of the jails. "Murderers, mad-dog killers and rap By JON MARCUS Staff Writer More defendants will be released while awaiting trial and one more judge will hear criminal cases in an attempt to ease crowding in Broward County jails, officials decided on Thursday. "That ought to move several hundred bodies out of the jail count, said County Commission Chairman Nicki Grossman, who took part in closed-door negotiations between law enforcement officials and judges at the courthouse in Fort Lauderdale. The agreement was reached despite a shouting match between Sheriff Nick Navarro and County Administrator Lex Hester that was so loud it could be heard outside the meeting room.

Their argument was over the escalating number of street-level drug arrests being made by Navarro's deputies, and the need for the county to spend mil i.