Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page B4

The 21-member advisory committee, which includes business and community leaders, legislators, residents and city and county officials, have a vote on what candidate the mayor chooses. But they will meet with the candidates and give Rybak unique viewpoints that come from all their different he said. Members include the Rev. Albert Gallmon. head of the Minneapolis NAACP; Linda Longino, mother of 11-year- old Tyesha Edwards, who was killed by a stray bullet in her south Minneapolis home last year; Metro State University student Miguel Sotambo; Sharon Henry-Blythe, chairwoman of the Minneapolis school board; Doug Faderhart, a community organizer with a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered group, and Cha Lee, executive director of the Southeast Asian Community Council.

Rybak will ask all the members to sign a confidentiality agreement. have a good sense of happening within the community on issues regarding race and said committee member Tom Johnson, a former Hennepin County attorney who is now president of the Council on Crime and Justice. looking for ways to improve the criminal justice While the majority of City Council members appear to take issue with plan, members Paul Zerby and Dean Zimmermann said they had hoped to have some imput on the advisory committee. Council Member Barbara Johnson, a longtime supporter of Olson, asked Rybak if he would require the new chief to live in Minneapolis, as Olson does. At meeting, Rybak also discussed a five- point list of community expectations he developed for the new chief from dozens of meetings that were held with residents about the relationship between police and communities.

The expectations say the chief should maintain public safety, be a strong leader and manager and demand respectful service in all communities. Rybak and Olson never agreed on the leadership style, which has been to let his precinct inspectors take his message to the rank-and- file officers. needs to be a chemistry between me and the new Rybak said. crisis situations, you have to be on the same page. You have to have a trust level and similar Olson, 56, was police commissioner in Yonkers, N.Y., before coming to Minneapolis in March 1995.

He was asked to tackle disciplinary concerns and the issue of off-duty work by officers. Former Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton said Olson beat out three highly qualified candidates from St. Louis Park, Houston and St. Louis. The Oldani Group has led police chief searches in Bloomington, Apple Valley and Roseville, Seattle and Oakland, Calif.

Minneapolis will pay it $34,000 for the search. Oldani Group President Jerry Oldani said his staff has started to talk to council members, police leaders and other about what the city wants in a new chief. The staff also has worked with Rybak on his advisory committee, which they will meet Sept. 16. Oldani said they also will create a recruitment brochure that defines the position and describe issues surrounding the department and community.

After a 30- to 40-day recruitment period, the company will submit a list of about 20 candidates to Rybak and the advisory committee. The mayor will cut that list in half, and then the company will interview the candidates. Then the final four to six candidates will be recommended to Rybak, Oldani said. advisory committee will rank the candidates, but the mayor will make the final Oldani said. the committee will bring a sense of comfort to the general public because they know there are other eyes and ears to validate the The city charter calls for Rybak to submit his nomination to the City Executive Committee.

If the committee approves it, the nomination will go to the Public Safety Committee for a public hearing before the entire council votes on the candidate. will be one of the most important appointments ever Rybak said. David Chanen is at tribune.com PAGE B4 AUGUST 28 2003 Open since January, the $6.7 million red-brick station at the junction of Pilot Knob and Yankee Doodle Rds. is just off Interstate Hwy. 35E to lure converts from the stream of traffic headed to the freeway.

About 400 vehicles are parked there each weekday. Those who recently caught commuter buses said they had been riding from this location when it was just a park-and- ride lot. While the new station did not covert them, they said they appreciated the covered parking and the waiting area. Said Seth Anin of Eagan: you can sit down and wait for the Minnesota Valley Transit serves the south metro suburbs of Apple Valley, Eagan, Burnsville, Rosemount and Savage. About 85 percent of its 7,000 daily riders are commuters on express buses.

The Eagan station will serve the same crowd, said City Council Member Meg Tilley, who also is chairwoman of the Transit Authority. is for the businessperson going to downtown Minneapolis or St. she said. These riders have an average household income of $60,000, she said, and want to take the bus, but you have to make it Kimberlee Vega of Eagan rides the bus to downtown Minneapolis, where she works as an analyst for Wells Fargo Bank. She said the station be more convenient: about a mile from her home, and buses run at a range of times that have never left the 38-year-old mother of two stranded downtown.

She leaves her car at the sta- tion because have a tolerance for stupid drivers, and I hate she said. would much prefer to ride the bus and leave the driving to the bus drivers. I can relax. I read a book. I can catch up on reading for work.

And I have the wear and tear on my own She has her hair done at the salon near the station and drops off her dry cleaning. love that Starbucks is right she added. a nice way to start the The coffee shop opened almost two years ago, snagging customers heading both for the bus and toward I-35E. is always looking for locations to be where customers want to said Bridget Barrett, regional marketing manager for the Seattle chain. be convenient for commuters is really And new this year, riders are getting the chance to use the Eagan Station to take special weekend express buses to the State Fair.

Growing service Minnesota Valley Transit is one of six transit authorities in the metro area that serve outer-ring suburbs. All of them withdrew from the central bus system in the 1980s to improve and expand suburban service. Minnesota Valley, with a $12 million operating budget for 2003 and about 100 buses of various sizes, is the largest of the suburban systems. Combined, they carry about 5 percent of the total riders. Parking decks have been added twice to its Burnsville Station on Hwy.

13 off Interstate Hwy. 35W. It now has 1,400 parking spaces and is 90 percent full again, officials said. Its second station, which opened two years ago in Apple Valley, has about 500 spaces and serves commuters on Hwy. Avenue S.

Where Minnesota Valley is headed depends on funding and ridership, Miller said. It has applied for a grant from the Met Council to build a fourth station, this time as part of the redevelopment of the Cedarvale shopping area in Eagan. Laurie Blake is at STATION fromB1 Eagan station serves riders going to both downtowns KEY FACTS Minnesota Valley Transit Authority The bus system serves Apple Valley, Burnsville, Eagan, Rosemount and Savage. For more information on routes, schedules and fares: Phone: 952-882-7500, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

weekdays. Web site: http://www.mvta.com Other systems Metro Transit: Regional transit information, 612-373-3333; BusLine (24-hour automated information) 612-341-4BUS (612-341-4287); online trip planner and information, http:/www.metrotransit.org Maple Grove Transit: 763-494-6005; online at http:www.ci.maple- grove.mn.us and click on and Public then Plymouth Transit: 763-509-5521; online at http://www.ci.ply- mouth.mn.us and under click on Prior Lake Laker Lines: 952-447-9802; online at http://www.cityofpri- orlake.com and click on Scott County Transit: 952-496-8341; www.co.scott.mn.us and click under on and then County Southwest Metro Transit: 952-949-2BUS (952-949-2287); online at http://www.swtransit.org. CHIEF fromB1 Search for new police chief to cost Minneapolis $34,000 AT A GLANCE Advisory committee appointed Mayor R.T. Rybak has appointed 21 people to advise his office as the search commences for a successor to Police Chief Robert Olson, whose contract expires in January. Henry-Blythe Dean Ellis Faderhart Forte Albert Gallmon Jibrell Johnson King LaFleur Lee Longino Looking Elk Luger Metge Sen.

Jane Ranum Selin Sotambo Strand Delmonico Benson Hatch said the drug companies the amount of money doctors and dentists could giving them an incentive to use those drugs. This benefitted the drug companies because they stood to gain market share, he said. Hatch said an estimated 350,000 Minnesotans use al- buterol, ipratropium bromide, acetylcysteine solution and cromolyn sodium, the drugs mentioned in the lawsuits. Schering-Plough spokesman Bill denied wrongdoing and said that states should use more reimbursement instead of one that is well known does not reflect actual A spokesperson for Dey did not return calls. In one example cited by Hatch, doctors and pharmacists in 2002 were charged $9.60 for albuterol dosages by Dey, which reported that the average wholesale price was $72.60, giving the physicians a gain of $63.

Doctors and pharmacies were not named as defendants. might ask why not going after the and druggists, Hatch said. because the drug companies that put together the scheme. Similar suits against Dey and Warrick have been filed in Texas, West Virgina, Montana, Nevada and Connecticut. In Texas, Dey recently agreed to pay $18.8 million to settle a suit over its pricing of inhalants, although it denied any wrongdoing.

The Minnesota suit also is similar to one Hatch filed last summer against Pharmacia Corp. over its pricing of cancer drugs. That case is pending. Warren Wolfe is at DRUG fromB1 Cost to doctors is less than to programs, Hatch says That means the alleged victims would be eligible to share unspecified damages being sought, Moccio said. Ford said unknown how many people once booked at the jail in Hudson intend to participate in the suit, because of a deadline next month for opting out of it.

might shrink to much less than what is currently being she said. it stands right now, we are really only aware of a number of named inmates that I can count on both hands that claim they were strip-searched in the six-year Moccio said that attorneys contacted more than 3,000 people and that some have already opted out. left with a little over 3,000 he said. In the suit, which Moccio said was originally filed in August 2002, the plaintiffs contend they were illegally strip- searched after being taken to the Department for three minor violations driving while intoxicated, driving with a revoked license or writing two bad checks. The suit accuses the Department of having an unconstitutional policy regarding strip-searches of anyone arrested and booked into the jail from August 1996 through February 2001.

At issue is whether people arrested on misdemeanors and ordinance violations were illegally strip-searched, which requires an inspection of body cavities, without proper cause, Ford said. Changeovers from street clothes to jail uniforms in a private room do not violate constitutional rights, Ford said. Plaintiff Renee Houser said she was arrested at her home in Roberts, in November 1996. She was accused of writing two bad checks, court records said. After waiting in a county jail holding cell for several hours, she was taken to a room, told to remove her clothing and ordered to her buttocks, genitals and court records said.

Moccio said the suit was filed after two teenage girls who had been picked up for minor alcohol violations were strip-searched in August 2001. Their parents complained to the sheriff, and a Wisconsin attorney represented them in a suit they settled with the department, Moccio said. Moccio said the department conducted an internal investigation. The suit said a deputy named as a defendant in the case said she was trained that the policy reflected that everyone who changes into a jail uniform shall be strip- searched. Staff writer Pam Louwagie contributed to this report.

SEARCH fromB1 Department settled with 2 girls searched in 2001 unconstitutional to conduct a strip- search without a reason to believe a person is carrying a weapon or Vincent Moccio attorney. Minneapolis death probed after inconsistencies Authorities were investigating the death of a Minneapolis man after receiving conflicting reports about how he suffered the head wound that apparently killed him. Stewart Sheppard, 48, died at Hennepin County Medical Center on Wednesday after being injured Tuesday. He was transferred to Hennepin County from a hospital in Glencoe, about 35 miles southwest of Minneapolis. Officials were told he was hurt falling in the bathtub at a house near Glencoe, which he was helping to renovate, but by Wednesday they believed his injuries were inconsistent with that kind of accident.

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