Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • 1

Our 100 th Year April 10, 1985 Great Falls, Montana 25 cents No.332-100thYear Democrats drop tax-hike plan Ln a. a Mr r. x. vj Cis Tuesday by feeding a flock of HELENA (AP) Democrats in the Montana House have abandoned their proposal to raise income taxes for middle- and upper-income Mon-tanans as a means of balancing the next state budget. The Democrats' decision to drop that legislation became apparent during the first major budget negotiation session between House Democratic and Republican leaders Tuesday.

Democratic Floor Leader Hal Harper of Helena said his party gave up on its push for the income tax increase because it continued to hit what he called a "stone wall" put up by GOP leaders. Republicans also appeared to have argued the Democrats out of an alternative to enact a minimum income tax requirement to make sure higher-income taxpayers are not able to escape taxes completely through loopholes. REPUBLICAN LEADERS said they would go for no income tax increase until it is needed and until it is proven which loopholes are responsible for a handful of wealthy taxpayers escaping taxation. Tuesday's negotiating session produced few solid agreements on any other budget-balancing proposals, except that the House would avoid reopening the main $2.2 billion state appropriation bill for fiscal 1986-87. With the agreement to hold the line on spending, the Democratic and Republican House leaders devoted their two-part negotiation session almost entirely to the revenue side of was always willing ii i fli til.

Feeding the gulls A man enjoys a pleasant morning Slain man By DAN HOLLOW Tribune Staff Writer Twenty-three-year-old Morris Davis Jr. was a great big kid who loved cars, jitterbugging and the Montana outdoors. In talking with his friends and others this week, one trait in particular kept coming up Davis was always ready to lend a hand when anyone needed help. "If you needed muscle for a job, he'd be there it would either move or break," said Jerry Rukavi-na, Davis' auto mechanics teacher his senior year at Great Falls High School in 197m DAVIS, i-FOOT-2 and 240 pounds, turned out "anytime she needed a hand" when a friend's sister finger printed youngsters during a public service project in local schools last year, according to Ruth Simonich, the friend's mother. "He didn't have an enemy in the world," friend Joe Sewell said.

That's why his brutal murder Friday night is so hard to friends say. If he had been a drug dealer or a drunken-driving fatality, at least there would be a reason, one friend said. But, as far as police or anyone else can determine, Davis was the victim of a pointless act of violence. He was just doing his job delivering a pizza when someone opened if up an the on him at point-blank range. A man called in an order from unknown phone, then broke in back of a vacant government-repossessed house at 1015 6th Ave.

NW to wait. With several persons delivering on a Friday night, the murderer could not have known Davis would be the driver, one friend said. A police spokesman said detectives have no good leads, just facts, including casings from a weapon that was used to shoot Davis at least eight times. The only apparent motive was robbery. The wallet containing Davis' pizza money was taken, although his personal wallet and coin changer were not.

"It's so senseless," said Sewell, who was one of the pallbearers at Davis' funeral service Tuesday afternoon in Croxford Sons Funeral Salem, Carter dam gone from report TrlbuiM Phot kv Mtve VtMnM the Gibson Park pond. to help Davis also liked waterskiing and had several jitterbug partners but no steady girlfriends at his favorite hang-outs, the Merry-Go-Round and the J-Bar-T. His first love was a toss-up between his dog and his pickup. Davis got his golden Labrador retriever, Missouri River Sunshine, when she was a pup and spent long hours out back of the family home on the upper northside when Sunshine had her first puppies, a relative said. Since Friday, Sunshine "keeps going out and looking at his pickup, looking for Morris," Simonich said.

Davis drove a red, 1958 Ford pickup that he had been working on for several years, according to Terry Collins, who knew Davis through their shared passion for hot cars. Davis had worked as pitman for Collins the past two summers at the Great Falls Speedway. "HIS REAL DREAM was to get his own stock car, then work up through hot stock to be a sprint car driver," Collins said. Davis had put a new engine and fancy wheels on the red pickup and planned to start restoring the body with his income tax refund check this year, Collins said. Davis, the son of Morris and Del-See DAVIS, 2-A to close through grade 5.

Committees com prising members of the three affected parishes will work out details to implement the consolidation, Gosselin said. Classrooms at St. Gerard's could be used for kindergarten if more space is needed than is available at Holy Family, Gosselin said. The space also can be used to expand youth programs, adult education and senior citizen programs. By CHARLES S.

JOHNSON Tribune Capitol Bureau HELENA Montana Power Co. says it has "indefinitely deferred" plans to build the 330-megawatt Salem power plant and the 100-mega-watt Carter Ferry hydroelectric dam, both near Great Falls, beyond the year 2008. They were dropped from Montana Power's latest annual projection of electric loads and resources report, a document covering the period from 1985 through 2008. Montana Power said it removed projects with high capital costs from the budget equation. The parties tentatively agreed to save about $12 million of a newly cak culated $27 million pot of revenue identified by legislative fiscal analysts Monday.

The $12 million will be. reserved to help fund public schools in the 1988-89 biennium, the negotia-' tors agreed. The $27 million was identified as money that would be available when, the state changes certain complex, accounting procedures during the coming biennium from a calendar-year basis to a fiscal-year basis. Saving $12 million for the future would leave $15 million to use in clos-. ing the present $47 million deficit in the FY887 budget.

HOUSE SPEAKER John Vincent of Bozeman refused to commit himself or his caucus to any other revenue figures offered by Republicans until he could get commitments from the GOP on three points: Full funding for the pay increases state employees have negotiated with the administration. A reasonably safe (at least $15 million) surplus at the end of the next biennium to cover contingencies that might occur during the budget period. And the inclusion of an equal amount of ongoing new revenue and one-time use of existing reserve revenues to balance the budget. That third point led to the breakdown of the inter-party talks Tuesday evening and was expected to be the primary topic when negotiations resumed Wednesday. its plans "to avoid risks which have become apparent recently in a changing regulatory environment." It was referring to the state Public Service Commission's decision last summer that refused to allow the company to recover any of its costs of building its share of Colstrip power plant 3.

The PSC granted Montana Power only $4.1 million of the $96.4 million a year electric rate increase it sought, including none for Colstrip 3, on grounds that the power wasn't needed. See REPORT, 2-A about 10 p.m. and said: "Call the cops, I just shot my wife." The Duncans 9-year-old daughter, Brandy, was in the residence at the time, but apparently did not witness the shooting, a neighbor said. Macdonald said the couple had apparently just come from Wisconsin. A passenger van parked in the driveway had Wisconsin license plates.

This is the second Great Falls murder in four days. Last Friday, a pizza deliveryman was shot eight times and killed at a vacant house. Police say they have no new leads in that case." year plan imports Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont, said the three-year plan announced by Japan to open its markets to foreign markets "is long on promises and short on action," The Associated Press reported. Baucus, a critic of Japanese trade policies, said in a news release that for the last four years, "Japan has been announcing new plans to open its markets, but the results have been few and far between.

"The goals in the package sound good. I am hopeful that Japan will follow through with concrete measures to open its markets." But he said be was "particularly disappointed by the provision on forest products, which translates into nothing more than a vague promise." lower tariffs on plywood products, to simplify technical standards for computer equipment and to ease the way for the purchase of American communications satellites. It also promises greater freedom for foreign lawyers to practice in Japan, another U.S. demand; more Japanese aid to developing nations, and attention to the interests; of Southeast Asia and Europe. Morris Woman shot to death St.

Gerard's parochial school seagulls that surrounded him at Home. Sewell said he went to school with Davis' younger brother, Cliff, and was a close friend to Morris the past five years. "The good times we had were out bird hunting by Ulm and Cascade," Sewell said. Their favorite fishing spot was on a farmer's land on Alice Creek this side of Lincoln, Sewell said. They pulled in many a brook trout at the end of worm-baited lines, he said.

Sewell was at a bachelor's party at the Merry-Go-Round Friday night when Cliff called with word of the murder. Merry-Go-Round owner Duane "Mac" McFadden was shot In the shoulder three weeks ago by an armed robber, but the semi-automatic pistol was a larger caliber than .22, according to police. "I'M STILL HAVING a tough time believing he's really gone," Sewell said. Another close friend, 21-year-old Rob Simonich, said Davis was an avid rodeo fan and rarely missed the annual events in Vaughn, Cascade, Augusta, Belt and Conrad and the winter finals in Great Falls. "I loved to watch him ski he had a strange style," said Simonich, who taught Davis to snow-ski two years ago.

"He would squat really low with his feet really far apart and his arms straight out." Under the plan, Sts. Peter and Paul School, 200 44th St. which now offers classes in kindergarten-grade 8, will become a middle school for grades 6 through 8. A possible decision to include grade 9 will depend on whether the public school district moves 9th graders into high school next year. Holy Family School, 2820 Central which now offers kindergarten through grade 9, will drop the four upper grades and offer kindergarten Classified 4-7C Comics 4-D Crossword 4-D Editorial 6-A Entertainment 7-C Flavor 1-D FamilyLiving 4-A Markets 6-D MetroMontana 1-B Obituaries, records 2-B Sports 1-3C TV log 3-C The Lockhorns i "Lerov Is very ood at watching television." Tribune telephones Local: 761-6666 Montana, outside Great Falls Toll Free: 1-800-438-6600 St.

Gerard's Catholic Elementary School, 2211 5th Ave. will close next fall when three eastside Catholic parishes consolidate their schools because of declining enrollment. The consolidation will save $70,000 to $100,000 in operating costs, according to the Rev. Robert Gosselin, associate pastor of St. Gerard's parish.

Parochial schools, as well as the public schools, have felt the impact of declining numbers of school-age children in the community. Total en Japan nnveils three to open markets to Good Morning! Sunny and warm today. High 74. 2-B. At the Legislature Welfare limit gets cool Senate reception 3-B Schwinden to act on striker benefits bill today 3-B Some say extra $27 million comes as no surprise 3-B By FRED MILLER III Tribune Staff Writer A Great Falls man was arrested on suspicion of murder Tuesday night after he allegedly shot and killed his wife with a high-powered rifle at their residence, police say.

Dale Claire Duncan, 43, of 2626 6th Ave. was booked into City Jail about 10:35 p.m. Tuesday. Duncan and his wife had been renting a small house from R. Mac-donald for about two months, Mac-donald said.

Macdonald said Duncan came to the Macdonald residence next door Yasuhiro Nakasone would result if such trading partners as the United States took protectionist measures. Japan had an overall trade surplus of $44.2 billion last year, $36.8 billion of it with the United States. Congress has called for sanctions unless Japan makes it easier for American goods to enter its markets and redress the balance. The report on "external economic measures" issued Tuesday includes the plan to open markets and says an outline of the program will be completed by July. In the package are pledges to accept foreign clinical test data for medical equipment, eventually to rollment at the three schools now at 423 was expected to drop to 375 next fall.

The schools could handle up to 685 students, Sister Joanne Abrams, principal of Holy Family School, told the Tribune last month. Pastors and pastoral councils of St. Gerard's, Holy Family and Sts. Peter and Paul parishes made the final consolidation decision Monday. Meetings within each parish had been conducted previously.

water Bay boating and water-skiing area. 4-B. IDENTIFIED (Washington) An Army laboratory has positively identified the remains of six American servicemen killed during the Vietnam War. 8-C. REMOVED (Chicago) A grocery chain whose low-fat milk was blamed for a salmonella outbreak in five states takes all the milk off its shelves and closes a plant linked to a possible second wave of the poisoning.

3-A. FROZEN (Newark, N.J.) A judge freezes the assets of three affiliates of a failed government securities dealer. 5-D. Your Tribun carrier will be collecting this week. TOKYO (AP) Japan announced a three-year plan Tuesday to open its markets to foreign products.

Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone urged his people to buy imported goods, saying a trade war would bring economic disaster. No quick results were expected from the Japanese plan, and initial reaction from the United States was muted. Congress, frustrated by a $37 billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan in 1984, has demanded the United States retaliate if Japan does not ease trade barriers. Japan also stressed the need to reduce the dollar's value against the yen, which contributes to the trade imbalance by making Japanese products cheaper to the consumer and U.S.

goods more expensive. Japan's three-year program deals with telecommunications, electronics and other major trade areas of most concern to the United States. Nakasone urged the Japanese, in a nationally televised speech and news conference after the program was announced, to "please buy foreign products." He said Japan must move rapidly toward freer trade because "terrible depression and unemployment" IMPLANT (Stockholm, Sweden) Doctors perform the first artificial heart implant outside the United States, placing a metal and plastic Jarvik-7 heart In a Swede with an "enormous will to live." 2-A. SMOKE (Great Falls) Smoke in the otherwise clear sky over Great Falls comes from mostly approved bums and a few grass fires. 1-B.

CONCESSIONS (Great Falls) The city park board discusses the possibility of putting a concession stand at the popular Broad 4.