Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 16

classified Group: Close insurance field offices Gunter's unsuccessful 1980 U.S. Senate campaign. Later, they came back to their jobs, he said. "You might well question, if such a substantial number of people can leave a regional office or a field office then what is happening, what are we losing?" In a slashing reprise of his earlier attack on the report, Gunter again claimed the report was based on insurance-company data that was biased against the department. "The report is flawed by incomplete and manipulated data," he said.

"Our critique of last week stands. This week's version of the CCBR report is old lemonade in a new By DAVE BRUNS Democrat Capitol bureau Florida Insurance Commissioner Bill Gunter should close 12 of 21 field offices around the state and save the taxpayers $1.8 million a year, a private budget-research group said Thursday. Gunter immediately attacked the accuracy of the report and denied that the field offices were wasteful. The field offices and other features of his administration give Florida citizens better regulation of insurance companies, he said. The recommendation, from the Citizens Council on Budget Research, was the latest move in a series of confrontations that began last week when Gunter launched a political first strike on the council's report.

Gunter called a press conference Sept. 26 to denounce the council's report as poorly researched and politically motivated. Gunter is wrong and is imagining a political attack where none exists, countered Dominic Calabro, the council's executive director. "The Citizens Council is not out to bang (Gunter) over the head," said Calabro, "or to use this (report) as a political tool or weapon. We think there's something unique to Florida's field-office operations." It's unique, the report said, because the offices are needlessly expensive.

The state-insurance department currently operates 16 field offices around the state to receive complaints and inquiries from Flori da residents. The department also runs four regional offices to coordinate the work of the field offices, Calabro said. Gunter recently closed five field offices and one regional office. But his department still has more field offices and more workers in those offices than the other 49 state-insurance departments combined, Calabro said. Last week, Gunter called a press conference and attacked the credibility of Calabro's report before it was released, saying Calabro had threatened a top insurance-department official, Bill Rubin, with political retaliation if the insurance department disputed the accuracy of the report.

But Calabro unexpectedly showed up during Gunter's press conference. Gunter refused to discuss the report with Calabro in front of the assembled reporters, then left the press conference. Calabro took over, denying Gunter's charges. On Thursday, Calabro said Gunter was misinterpreting the council's intentions in assembling the report. "It's a means," he said, "by which agency efforts can be improved." But Calabro acknowledged that some legislators have attacked Gunter's field offices, saying they really are a private political army that Gunter is using to prepare for a possible gubernatorial campaign in 1986.

Calabro said the council took no position on the political implications of the field offices, but noted that some workers at the field and regional offices took leave to work on Killearn residents and developer agree on plan I 4 7. Armed man robs Killearn bank By BRUCE MASTRON Democrat ttf writer A man wearing a gauze mask over his mouth pulled a gun out of a bag inside the Killearn Flagship branch bank Thursday and then escaped with an undetermined amount of money, the Armed Robbery Task Force reported. The two bank tellers inside the building at 3610 Shamrock West were not injured, officials said. The bank is at the east end of a block of offices that is parallel with Killarny Way. About 3 p.m., Task Force spokesman Dick Simpson said, the suspect was seen walking toward the bank along the sidewalk in front of the the shops.

Gauze tape covered the area immediately around his mouth, Simpson said, apparently in an attempt to cover distinguishing marks such as a scar or moustache. The suspect entered the office carrying a bag with handles on it and faced the two employees. Pulling a handgun out of the bag, the man then said "Give me the money," Simpson said. Tossing the bag onto the counter, the suspect brandished the revolver and ordered the two cash drawers be emptied. After the bag was filled, the suspect snatched it up and then ordered the employees to lie down on the floor, Simpson said.

The gunman then stuffed the gun back into the bag and left the bank, retracing his steps in front of the row of offices. He then fled northwest, but investigators are unsure whether he left on foot or in a getaway car. The area around the 20-feet by 50-feet office is surrounded by a gas pump on the south, a Sing store on the west and another complex on the north. Yet most people working in the area during the robbery said they never noticed the man and didn't know about the robbery until the Leon County Sheriff's Department and the Tallahassee Police Department arrived. One woman, however, said she saw the suspect pass in front of her on both his way to the bank and on his way out afterwards.

However, the woman, an employee at a nearby business, said she didn't suspect much. Another woman, speaking as she drove away from the scene of the robbery, said she heard the robbery from the next-door office of the Christian Covenant Community Church. "When I first heard (the suspect's demand for the money), I thought it was the guys at the Sing they're always doing things like that," she said. "But when I heard him shout, I thought uh-oh, this is the real thing." Simpson described the suspect as a white male in his 20s with brown eyes and hair. He was described as stocky, weighing about 180 pounds and about 5 feet, 9 inches tall.

He was last seen wearing a bright plaid shirt and light-colored jeans, Simpson added. George Bray, Flagship vice president and cashier, said he and the bank employees would have no comment. The robbery is being investigated by members of the task force, staffed with personnel from both the sheriff's and police departments. By MIKE CASSIDY Democrat staff writer After months of negotiating and heated neighborhood meetings, a group of Killearn residents and developer J.T. Williams have agreed upon a plan to develop 191 acres.

All the talk resulted in a contract between the neighbors and Williams that outlines the maximum number of homes that will be built on the land and calls for a road to be built to handle traffic headed there. Three months ago, nearly 100 angry residents turned out to protest Williams' proposal to rezone the land to a classification that would allow as many as 2,700 dwelling units houses and townhouses. But at Thursday's Tallahassee-Leon County Planning Commission meeting, only one person objected to Williams' latest plan. What happened in between, said Bill Davis, was a lesson in making a difference; Davis was the chief spokesman for a group of neighbors who were concerned about the increase in traffic the new development would cause. Under the original plan, cars would reach the development west of Centerville Road and south of Tip-perary Drive by driving down one of two residential streets.

But under the terms of the contract, Williams would buy a piece of land from the First Baptist Church that would allow access to the 191 acres from Shamrock South. "We really feel that that's going to take the pressure off of our neighborhood," Davis said. The contract would also limit the number of homes houses and town-houses that could be built on the land to 1,100. Both sides have agreed to the contract, but its terms would not become final unless the city commission approves the rezoning from agricultural to residential. Planning commissioners will vote on their recommendation to the city commission at a meeting Wednesday.

The city commission is scheduled to take final action on the request next month. Davis said the compromise showed that neighbors and developers can work together. "A lot of people in our neighborhood thought they couldn't do anything," Davis said. "They were able to do something because they got together and rationally examined what they needed to do." At their meeting Thursday, planning commissioners also discussed the possibility of broadening a proposal to allow home businesses in the city. In general, the original proposal would allow businesses to operate in residential areas as long as they cannot be detected by neighbors or passers-by.

But commissioner Robert Rhodes said a provision that would prohibit signs would prevent many professionals from running home businesses. Rhodes explained that state regulations require professionals, such as accountants and real-estate agents, to identify their businesses with signs. Commissioners also said a section which would ban selling products in homes would prevent Amway and Tupperware distributors and similar business people from operating out of their houses. But explained Mark Stamps, chief land-use administrator, "Don't lose sight of the fact that the goal of residential zoning is to preserve the residential quality." Commission Chairman Johnnie Ransom said commissioners would discuss the possible changes Wednesday. Commissioners will make a recommendation to city commissioners at that meeting, which will be held at 1:30 p.m.

at Myers Park. Photo by Phi Cult SIldQ ridQ 2-year-old youngster is enjoying the play- Teill Lewis of Tallahassee is having a slip- ground in Myers Park and the fine weath-perytimeof it and loving every minute. The er. Mistrial declared in case of man charged with cocaine possession By JAN PUDLOW Democrat staff writer Plagued by technical difficulties from the onset, the second day of Robert Lee "Bobby" Vause's cocaine trial ended in a mistrial late Thursday afternoon. As a result, defense lawyer Tony Bajoczky will have to save his entrapment defense for a new trial.

A date for a new trial has not been set. Vause is charged with possession of more than 28 grams of cocaine, aggravated assault and opposing an officer with violence. He faces a possible 40 years in prison for an Oct. 27, 1982, cocaine deal that turned into a traffic accident seriously injuring Leon County Sheriff's Deputy Ken McDonald. The trial's second day got off to a bad start for Assistant State Attorney Steve Parton when the fancy tape recorder pointing toward the jury stubbornly refused to rewind a cassette tape of evidence.

For what seemed an eternity, the only sound in the courtroom was Parton manually cranking the little plastic wheel in the tape with a felt-tip pen. Finally, he slid the tape into place and pushed the "play" button. But the voices that filled the courtroom dragged like a 45-rpm record played on 33-rpm speed. While the defense lawyers smiled, Parton had to sum mon a replacement for the damaged tape. But before it could be introduced into evidence, the official from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who had copied the original tape had to race to court and take the stand, in keeping with the chain-of-custody rules.

It was all for nothing. The jury never got to hear that tape. Worse yet for the prosecutor, Leon Circuit Judge J. Lewis Hall decided the jurors never should have heard any of the tapes. Since it would be too much to ask jurors to ignore what they'd already heard, Hall granted the defense motion for a mistrial.

So Vause, the 30-year-old cousin of Leon County Commissioner Lee Vause, got to leave the defense table and take a seat with his wife in the front row of spectators as the trial for co-defendant Robert Andre Franklin continued. Franklin's voice never showed up on any of the disputed tapes so his trial was allowed to continue. The 28-year-old welder from Colquitt, is charged with possession of more than 28 grams of cocaine. Of the three tapes Parton introduced into evidence, all were difficult to understand. Snatches of conversation between Vause and a professed drug dealer turned informant, Reed Zollar, would rise from a sea of static.

Then, snippets of silence cropped up in several places that law-enforcement officials couldn't explain. The copy of the damaged (Please see COCAINE, page 2D) McLean declines to run for city commission seat Channel 40 signs off temporarily Sunday following football game Jf short 4 takes i jf.i.f.i'.'ji.-i.j.i.i. By BROWNING BROOKS Democrat staff writer Attorney Jack McLean and incumbent Tallahassee City Commissioner Judd Chapman will not be squaring off in February in a repeat of a 1982 battle for a seat on the city commission. Chapman, whose term expires this year, hasn't said whether he'll run again. But at a Thursday news conference, McLean said he would not.

"I'm looking at maybe 1985," said the 34-year-old executive director of North Florida Legal Services. "I would like to run again. I've enjoyed (campaigning). I've made a lot of friends." Some of them strongly encouraged him to enter the 1984 campaign, said McLean, but after thinking hard on it "for about 40 days," he decided to devote his attention to other commitments. "As much as I'd like to be on that train when it leaves the station," he said, "my overriding concern at the moment is to devote more time to Legal Services of North Florida.

That is my first public trust." McLean said his decision was not affected by the mental and financial drain of a lengthy, unsuccessful court battle against the city, and against the man who defeated him in his first bid for the commission. In a February 1982 runoff election for the Group 2 seat, McLean won the machine vote, but Chapman, a local optometrist, won the election by 89 absentee votes. McLean sued, charging the city with mishandling more than 200 absentee ballots, and with sloppy and illegal election procedures. McLean ran out of appeals but caught the attention of the city commission. Commissioners recently amended the city charter to allow city officials to contract with the county supervisor of elections to handle city elections, and they clarified city election codes.

McLean explained Thursday that he is neither disenchanted with the election process, nor in financial trouble. Legal Services of North Florida is facing a $50,000 deficit in 1984, said McLean, and he needs to work to raise money for the agency. A second concern, he said, was his commitment to fight poverty by devoting his time to such projects as the renovation of a Macomb Street housing complex. A campaign would distract him and take him away from the project, he said. day afternoon and evening.

Neither would make it to the air with Channel 40's 4 p.m. sign-off, meaning only cable subscribers in the area would be able to receive the broadcasts on other NBC stations. Fouch said lowering the antenna will affect the station's signal strength somewhat, "especially in outlying areas, but we don't think it will be too drastic." Removal of the top half of the old tower will make it easier and safer for construction workers assembling the new tower to secure guy wires supporting it, Fouch said. The old tower was the main reason for a 2 Va -month delay in getting the new station on the air this winter. The station was supposed to sign on Jan.

30, but several days before that, as workers were hoisting a 1.7-ton antenna to the top of the tower, the tower twisted under the weight. Channel 40 borrowed a lighter, temporary antenna, and eventually signed on April 21. An independent inspection of the old tower turned up construction and design flaws that allegedly caused the buckling. On May 25, Holt-Robinson Television, Inc. the owner of Channel 40 filed suit in U.S.

District Court against the designer and construction company seeking damages "exceeding $10,000." Design and construction of the tower cost approximately $300,000. So far, Carter Engineering Co. of Mississippi has denied the charges in the suit, and the builder, Stevens also of Mississippi, has not responded. By MARC BROWN Democrat staff writer Tallahassee's WTWC-TV Channel 40, in the process of building a new broadcast tower to replace a faulty one completed earlier this year, will sign off the air Sunday afternoon following the broadcast of the Miami Dolphins-Buffalo Bills game, station officials said. The sign-off, General Manager Bill Fouch said, will allow construction workers to lower the station's temporary antenna now at the top of the old 750-foot tower to about 400 feet.

The top half of the tower eventually will be dismantled to make construction of the new tower about 80 feet to the northeast safer, Fouch said. After tuning the antenna to perform at its lower height, the station should sign back on at about 6 a.m. Monday, Fouch said. Lowering and tuning the antenna can only be done on Sunday nights because that's the only time two nearby stations with similar broadcast frequencies are off the air, Fouch said. "We realize that this could affect coverage of the baseball playoffs, but we need to get moving on this and we can only do this on Sundays," Fouch said.

"The weather forecast for this weekend is Next weekend, we don't know what we'll have." NBC, the network with which Channel 40 is affiliated, is broadcasting all games in both the American and National leagues' best-of-five pennant playoff series. Fifth games in those series if necessary are scheduled for Sun Suspect bought handgun The man accused of gunning down a woman this week at the Talla Villa apartments purchased a handgun on the day of the shooting, Tallahassee police said Thursday. Judy C. Russell, 38, was killed Wednesday night at the 925 E. Magnolia Drive complex by a man police said was apparently a former boyfriend.

Carroll King of Perry was arrested later that night outside the Perry Florida Highway Patrol Station. He has been charged with first-degree murder. Tallahassee police Sgt. Donald Patchen said investigators found a receipt in King's car that was dated Wednesday. The slip from a Perry store was for a handgun, Patchen said.

However, he noted the weapon used in the shooting has yet to be found. King was brought to Tallahassee Thursday morning for his first court appearance. He said his mother was trying to raise money for a private attorney, according to a spokeswoman for the Public Defender's Office. King did not enter a plea to the murder charge at the proceeding. No bond has been set as of yet.

Russell was shot with as many as three bullets shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday as she was fleeing a man fitting King's description, police said. Russell had recently moved to the complex from Perry and was living with her 10-year-old son, police said. Officials said the child either will be taken to live with his grandparents in Perry or will be turned over to the state for care..