The Press Democrat from Santa Rosa, California • 16

19X0 ia PRESS rTiA' 22- Continued from page 1 He's got a home but no vet loan Weather. Inflation. 1 A LkLAYI fresh fruits and vegetables registered substantial drops, the Labor Department said. In his economic message to Congress three weeks ago, Carter predicted that the 1980 inflation rate he 10.4 percent dismal by historical standards but less than the 1979 level of 13.3 percent. Carter's prediction was based on the assumption that a mild recession would materialize during the first half of the year that would slow growth and help in the inflation-fighting drive.

However, the economy has continued to show strength during the first two months of the new year and some private economists have backed off from the recession prediction. To make matters worse, the outlook for near-term improvement is gloomy. Recent OPEC price increases have still not been fully passed along to consumers. And the Federal Reserve Board's decision last Friday to jack up interest rates again will also have a adverse impact on the overall inflation rate. In a separate report, the Labor Department said the purchasing power of the typical American family fell at the steepest rate since last April 11 percent and was down 6.9 percent from a year earlier.

The consumer price category that showed the largest gain, second to transporation, was housing a trouble spot in recent months. Housing costs went up 1.4 percent in January, the same as in December, and are now 16 percent above a year earlier. Last month, home financing costs rose 3.6 percent, reflecting an increase of 3 percent in mortgage interest charges and 0.9 percent in home prices. Home heating oil climbed 5.3 percent far above the monthly average of 1.4 percent during the previous three months, the Labor Department said. Other categories: Clothing posted the most moderate gain, outside of food, 0.9 percent.

But it was still the largest gain since last September. Medical care rose 1.3 percent and was up at a 13.8 percent annual rate over the past three months. Charges for professional services outstripped hospital room we might have some responsibility in part for not assuring he signed the back of the form when he was in the office," Keppel said Thursday. Neyman said he received the form in the mail Feb. 8, put it in the mail the next day, "and they claim they got it the 13th." Which was a week after the state told regional offices funds had been cut off.

Keppel, manager of an area comprising Marin, Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties, said "all the old-time" Cal-Vet, managers were aware funds were running out but were "told it wasn't our job to worry about it. They put us in the position of luring (vets) out to the edge of the limb and sawing it off." Neyman's application, Keppel said, probably won't start to move until "they start calling for (in-of-fice applications) in the first couple weeks in March. "He probably will be funded in late April." Neyman's application was dated before Dec. 7, 1979, the key date which will let the lucky 476 get a home or farm loan. But the lack of the signature, Keppel said, blocked his papers from moving.

Neyman's problem has received the publicity, but there are 26 more in Keppel's area and from 4,000 to 6,000 around the state in similar predicaments. Keppel said "they closed the pipe at the wrong end," meaning the state should have turned back applications before the money ran out. Joe Farber, lobbyist for veterans and police officers' organizations, agreed with critics who said Virginia May Days' director of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and her deputy, Willie Ellison, have acted "with arrogant incompetence down the line." Farber said the Veterans of Foreign Wars has passed a resolution asking Gov. Jerry Brown to fire her Farber said, "she shows iO compassion for the war veteran and is incompetent and doesn't cooperate with veterans' organizations." Days, a Brown appointee, should be replaced by a civil servant one of the Cal-Vet area managers who knows the job, he said. By GEORGE IIOWER Bobby Joe Neyman, the 43-year-old former serviceman who waited more than 20 years to use his Cal-Vet loan only to find out there was no money to lend him will move into his dream house Monday.

A short-term, interest-only loan from Wells Fargo will get him in; I but, Neyman said Thursday, "if Cal-Vet doesn't come through I'll be forced to sell." He'll be paying 13 interest rates nothing toward the principal and he estimated yesterday the interest rates and closing costs will cost him an additional $2,000. The short-term loan leaves him $43,000 short, and he said "I hope Cal-Vet will come through in April" with the full $55,000 loan he originally put in for late September, 1979. Neyman, like thousands more ex-servicemen in California who sold their homes or otherwise were left out on a limb when it was learned there's no money to borrow, can only hope for relief. Some 476 to be exact were bailed out earlier this week when the state was authorized to sell $80 million in general obligation bonds. "On the strength of that," said Santa Rosa office District Manager Jack Keppel, "we borrowed the $80 million from the state General Fund so we have 476 loans up in Sacramento where the escrow instructions have been issued." The bad news, for Neyman, is his is not one of the 476 applications that will be backed with a loan.

Nor is his one of another 940 loan applications, Keppel said, which may be funded in late March with the sale of revenue bonds. Neyman's application package is still in the Santa Rosa office, Keppel said, and was never sent to Sacramento because an escrow insurance form wasn't signed on the back side as well as front. "They had an employee sit there and point out where to sign it," Neyman said Thursday. Then, when the missing signature was noted, Neyman said, "they mailed the form" rather than telephone him as he had requested in the event of any problem. Whose fault was it he didn't sign both sides? "Him for not signing, in part, and Sebastiani's widow, Sylvia, and church steps.

his sons, Sam, left, and Don on Sebastiani funeral of the Catholic faith to Sebastiani just before he died Saturday at his Sonoma home after a long battle with cancer. Following commital services at the cemetery, 100 doves from Sebastiani's aviary were released as a living memorial to Sebastiani, a bird lover and world-renowed authority on doves and waterfowl. Sebastiani was entombed adjacent to his father, Samuele Sebastiani, who founded the family winery in the early 1900s. Following his father's death in 1944, August Sebastiani took over as head of the winery and built it into one of the leading producers of varietal table wines in the United States. Cases of Sebastiani wines were poured for August's friends at a luncheon in the winery following his funeral services.

mcnto-San Joaquin Delta. A number of levees are threatened with erosion, and three small delta islands Dead Horse, Little Mandeville and Prospect were flooded Thursday when a 35-foot break opened up in one of the levees. A family living on Dead Horse Island was evacuated, and on Bradford Island, with a population of 26, children were removed as a precautionary measure and adults were asked to have their belongings ready to move. Kill Helms, state Flood Control Center spokesman, estimated water was rushing into the delta from the Scramento-San Joaquin systems at a rate of 300,000 cubic feet per second. Worried federal and state officials predicted that high tide levels could reach 9.9 feet this weekend, just below the all-time record of 10.2 feet.

If the prediction comes to pass, Helms said, the 3,500 residents of Bethel Island might have to be evacuated. The ports of Sacramento and Stockton will be closed to all deep-sea vessels from Saturday morning to Monday afternoon because officials fear the wave action the ships could create. More than 1,300 emergency personnel were expected to be in the delta this weekend, aiding in efforts to shore up the storm-battered levees. A wet, heavy snowfall in the Sierra Nevada created traffic headaches on U.S. Hghway 50 Thursday, closing the road for several hours.

Hazardous driving conditions also were reported on Interstate 80 through the mountains to Truckee, Nev. One million gallons a day of raw sewage was spilling into Monterey Bay, after Tuesday's storm broke a sewage line in Santa Cruz County. Israel-bomb. Israeli newspaperman, Matti Golan, whose book on former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A.

Kissinger was censored in part. The censored section leaked to the press. The result: high sales of the book. Golan worked for the newspaper Haaretz. Speculation about Israeli possession of nuclear weapons has been rife in the past two decades and surfaces about every 18 months.

Israel always has denied the reports and has pledged never to be the first nation to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. The Dimona facility and a smaller, experimental nuclear reactor at Nahal Sorek on the coast between Tel Aviv and Ashdod are closely guarded installations. Indeed, a missile reportedly shot down an Israeli Mirage fighter-bomber during the 1967 war because the pilot mistakenly flew over the Dimona reactor on his return from a mission. Afghanistan Leonid Brezhnev today offered to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan as soon as "outside interference" against the country ends. "I want to state very definitely: We will be ready to commence the withdrawal of our troops as soon as all forms of outside interference directed against the government and people of Afghanistan are fully terminated," Brezhnev said.

"Let the United States together with the neighbors of Afghanistan guarantee this and then the need of Soviet military assistance will cease to exist." "Reliable reports to New Delhi from the Afghan capital said "The city is in the grips of a crisis." The strike was described by these reports as the "first large-scale civil disobedience in Kabul against the Russians since they invaded" last December. Kabul's bazaars and city shops were shut down as part of a nationwide strike involving at least nine other major cities in protest against the Soviet occupation, the reports said. As of noon, Kabul time Friday, "firing could be heard every few minutes in various parts of the city," said the reports which had Iran Sari, Tabriz, Bushehr, Urumiyeh and Ardabil, flared in connection with debates on the parliamentary elections that are to begin March 7. The radio broadcast, monitored in London, said there were injuries but did not say how many. The Carter administration and U.N.

officials declined to comment on whether the uncompromising attitude expressed by the Iranians in their latest public statements was also being displayed in private negotiations for the release of the hostages now in their 111th day of captivity in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The naming of the commission to look into alleged crimes of the de Our exclusive original design, the classic 17' sectional sofa. FURNITURE ers among the honorary pallbearers were Congressman Don Clausen, the Kunde brothers, Joe Vercelli and county Assessor Ernest Comal-li. The honorary pallbearers wore red carnations, which they took off and placed on Sebastiani's oak casket following final services at the cemetery.

There were bankers, farm workers, government officials, ranchers, wine industry leaders and nuns who joined the hundreds of cars in the funeral cortege that went from the church to the granite and marble Sebastiani family mausoleum at Mountain Cemetery. The funeral procession, however, took a detour and passed by the Sebastiani Winery and the family home where August Sebastiani was born 66 years ago. The winery doors were adorned with huge evergreen wreaths tied with flowing purple ribbons to symbolize a state of mourning for the family patriarch and winery chief. Nine priests con-celebrated the Mass of Christian Burial at St. Francis Solano Church, which had mourners flowing out the doors and onto the sidewalk.

There were hundreds of floral tributes lining both sides of the church and spilling onto the church steps. It took at least four vehicles to haul the flowers from the church to the family mausoleum that overlooks the Sebastiani winery and vineyards. The main celebrant of the funeral mass was Father James T. Mona-gle, who administered the last rites been accurate in the past. It was unclear who was shooting whom.

"Large gatherings of Afghans took place in three parts of the city. An estimated three civilians were killed," they added, unable to give details. They speculated the civilians could have died in a "crossfire." Soviet MiG-21 jetfighters were seen buzzing rooftops, flying very low over the city. Soviet armored personnel carriers were seen coming into Kabul and Soviet troops were observed moving in the city and guarding vital buildings in a show of force, the reports said. A Western reporter said about 2,000 Afghans demonstrated near the Kabul Municipal Building waving green flags symbolizing Islam as opposed to the red flags of the Soviet-backed Kabul regime.

In the Sherpur section of Kabul, an estimated 2,000 more Afghans were in the streets and gunfire could be heard in that area, the reports said. Soviet troops were seen rushing in reinforcements toward midday. The reports from Kabul said more trouble was expected after evening Moslem prayers. posed shah had been seen by Western diplomats as the next step toward release of the hostages, provided Bani-Sadr could persuade the militants to give up their captives. Bani-Sadr, in an interview with Radio Canada, echoed remarks by ailing Iranian strongman Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in calling for the return of Mohammed Reza Pah-lavi.

He said Wednesday night the Iranian government was "firmly determined" to have the former monarch returned and put on trial, adding, "The U.N. commission's work had no direct connection with the release of the U.S. Embassy hostages." Versatile styling for settings, with 6" foam cushioning for deep comfort, finest craftsmanship and a deluxe 100 olefin fabric that's stain resistant and long wearing (or other fabrics of your choice, some at additional cost). Decorating service, delivery and our famous warranty of quality included at no extra cost. Also available: loveseat $339.

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