The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 147

E3 1 Thursday, September 18, 1980 THE TAMPA TRIBUNE Push Is On To Boost Pasco Teachers Union Hi if The union also will be offering improved liability insurance and group car and life insurance plans for members. The cost for belonging to the union? It's $7.15 a paycheck, once every two weeks. That works out to be about $180 a year. Suttle is hoping those added benefits, along with improved relations between the union and administration that were evident in the speedy and successful contract negotiations will sway teachers to join. "I think the PCTA has proven we can do it," he said.

considering the Pasco branch is the sixth largest of the 34 school districts in the Florida Education Association union. "I'm quite proud of that," he said. That 'position was obtained because of what the union has to offer teachers. "Basically we offer a process by which teachers can seek solutions to their problems," he said, whether those problems are at the school, district or state level. "We offer a process by which we can reflect the problems they incur in the classroom, at whatever level." group he has piloted for the past year.

Already, more than 100 teachers have joined the union, Suttle said recently, pushing total membership to about 875. But that only brings the organization to the level where it stood last June before about 100 teachers retired or left their positions for another reason. "We had to recruit 100 new members the first week to get back to where we started," Suttle said. "Hopefully, we'll be over 900 by the time October rolls around." Suttle said he was looking for a total membership of 1,000 by June 1981. That's not totally unrealistic, Suttle said, By SHELLY PINSKY Tribune Staff Writer LAND O'LAKES Candidates for public office aren't the only people on the campaign trail these days.

So is Dave Suttle. As president of the Pasco Classroom Teachers Association, Suttle will be visiting each of the county's 30 schools in hopes of recruiting teachers to join the union. He will bring bumper stickers "If You Think Education is Expensive, Try Ignorance" and will talk about improved union benefits in an effort to persuade teachers to join the Dave Suttle, president of the Pasco Classroom Teachers Association, has embarked on a recruiting drive to increase membership in the union. liiiiSpill jZ1 New Port Richej Council Approves Bus Fund Search sv fl 1 i By KATHY HOYT Tribune Staff Writer NEW PORT RICHEY By this time next year, there should be an unfamiliar but welcome sight on the streets of New Port Richey public buses. Tie City Council Tuesday night gave its consultant the go-ahead to seek funding for a mass transportation program.

"Starting Sept. 1 we should have buses on the road picking up passengers," City Manager John Gallagher said following the vote. The unanimous approval followed a work session during which consultant Ted Waters of Post, Buckley, Schuh and Jernigan Inc. recommended that the City Council pursue the bus system. The consultants will now proceed with funding applications and coordination with the state Department of Transportation.

According to Waters, the system should able to make it financially if there are a total of 70,000 riders the first year and 120,000 riders the second year. say this is conservative and we won't have any problems getting enough riders," Gallagher said. The system will have a total of four buses. Two will run regular routes and two will be used as back-ups. Although it is not yet known how many bus stops there will be, the buses should pass each stop every 60 minutes.

Funding for the system will be divided among three factions 80 percent will come from the federal government, 10 percent from the state and 10 percent from the city. The total cost for the first year of the system will be. $218,000. That means New Port Richey will have to chip in $5,250. The city's share increases dramatically the second year the system is in existence, how-; ever, to a total of $15,950.

The City Council will appropriate an increase in the coming year's budget to! pay for the transportation system for the first year. Gallagher said he would probably recommend that figure be set at $15,000, to leave plenty of room for error. At the meeting, he pointed out that an assessment of $1 against each of the 5,000 households in New Port Richey would almost generate the city's share of the funding. But, he added, Department of Trans-See BUS, Page 5 Brandy Beat has an intimate encounter with a snake an occurrence that would have unnerved her before she grew accustomed to serpents as part of her job with the snake removal business she shares with her Cx In The Grass Snake Removers Find Business There And In Other Locations Temporary Slowdown Ordered For U.S. 41 sr 5 a.

t- x. V. i I BY DIANA EVERETT Tribune Staff Writer LAND O'LAKES Less than six months ago, Brandy Beal refused to let her husband, Michael, remove his boa constrictor from its cage while she was at home. Now Beal helps her husband remove snakes from other people's homes and businesses. For a charge of $50 in Tampa or $75 for other areas, the couple will track and trap any type of snake even the poisonous varieties.

The partners in the snake removal business offer a two-week guarantee and will return without charge if a snake reappears on the property within that time. Michael Beal said poisonous snakes, which are captured alive, are sold to specially licensed collectors or milking stations for their venom. Non-poisonous snakes are relocated in a designated wildlife area or taken to the couple's home at Lakeview Trailer Park, off U.S. Highway 41. Beal said poisonous snakes are not allowed in their trailer because they live in a residential area.

The idea of starting the business, which Beal claims is the only one of its kind in the state, was sparked during a conversation in a pet store. The store owner said he had refused a request from a landscaper who wanted some snakes removed from a piece of property. The landscaper and his crew refused to work on the efty until the snakes were removed, Beal said. "I thought about the lady that sees a snake in her garage. Who could she call?" Beal said.

"Fear of snakes is a learned response, and people grow up with that intimidation." He said pet store owners and pest exterminators offer no help, but law enforcement officers will dispose of snakes that are poisonous. Because of the uniqueness of the snake removal occupation, Beal said, it was difficult at first to obtain a permit. The business was finally licensed jointly six months ago by the fish and game commission and the state pest control board. When she is surrounded by more than 60 caged snakes, it's difficult to believe that Brandy Beal once feared the creatures. She seems at ease in caring and living with the snakes.

"I've done a little bit of everything, but I've never found anything as exciting as working with snakes," said Brandy Beal. See SNAKE, Page 4 Hernando Administrative Assistant Henry Ledbetter read the department's letter at Tuesday's regular County Commission meeting. "There is a high percentage of commercial vehicles on U.S. 41 in this area The majority of these are hauling Iimerock," Gerald G. Lott, a state traffic engineer said in his letter.

"The trucks and the owners are paid by the number of loads hauled," Lott said. "This method of payment definitely encourages speeding by the truckers and the only way to control it is by strict enforcement, or legislation, making it illegal to pay truck drivers by the number of loads they haul." The normal speed limit on all state highways is 55 miles per hour. By lowering it to 45 on parts of U.S. 41, Lott said, a trial period must also be imposed under Florida's "Manuel on Speed Zoning for Highways. "After the (lower) speed limits have been in effect for 90 days, we will con- See U.S.

41, Page 5 By DANIEL MCLAUGHLIN Tribune Staff Writer BROOKSVILLE The Florida Department of Transportation has agreed to lower the speed limit temporarily on parts of U.S. 41 in south Hernando and north Pasco counties, clearing the way for a law enforcement crackdown on rock trucks. At the prodding of the Hernando County Commission and Circuit Court Clerk Harold Brown, the transportation department announced Tuesday the immediate reduction of the speed limit from 55 to 45 mph, mostly through Masaryktown on a half-mile stretch of U.S. 41. Along other parts of the highway, about two miles in all, the speed limit is being lowered to 50 mph by order of state transportation officials.

In a Sept. 9 letter to Hernando officials and Lt. C. Turlington of the Florida Highway Patrol, the department also called upon state and county law enforcement officers "to strictly enforce the speed limit." i ,9 Michael Beal rounds up a python, using techniques employed in his business. Tribune Photos By John Coffeen Charlie Wisler Works Cheap For A Reason Late News, 2B Metro f.

George Graham Classified Information A 25-year-old native of Lakewood, Ohio, Ayers has worked at WPAS since 1974, when he signed up as a disc jockey. It was then owned by Bob Artibasey. Shortly afterwards, Wister bought the station. Over the years, Ayres has been an announcer, reporter, ad salesman, music director, operations manager, program manager and station manager, Now, in addition to his administrative responsibilities as the person licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to run WPAS, Ayres is the host for open-line talk shows and covers Zephyrhills City Council meetings. And he is the only ad salesman on the station's payroll.

But together, Ayres and Wister don't seem to be doing badly. "Things are going very smoothly," Ayres reports. He is reluctant to provide details. In fact, he is reluctant to say anything. He explains that he has been through the courts and is likely to be called as a witness in future hearings.

But he does loosen up enough to say: "The receivership account is adequate." And he adds that WPAS leads all the radio stations in its area, according to a recent audience survey. Wister is also tight-lipped. He apparently shares the feeling that when lawyers are involved, words must be weighed with care. But he concedes that yes he works for nothing. Yes, he uses his own car.

Yes, he buys his own gas. See CHARLIE, Page 5 ZEPHYRHILLS Do you feel overworked and underpaid? Are your prospects uncertain? Cheer up. Things could be worse. You could be in Charlie Wister's shoes. Every weekday morning, Wister drives from his home to radio station WPAS in Zephyrhills and puts in a long, hard day's work as an advertising salesman.

He is not paid a salary. He does not earn a cent in commission. Yet he doesn't want to quit. Wister is the victim of a kind of Catch-22 situation. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he went into radio and television sales there after serving in the Marine Corps in the South Pacific during World War II.

He worked and saved, and in 1971 he was able to buy WFSH Radio in Fort Walton Beach. The station prospered. In 1 974, he bought WPAS. Last year, he decided to sell the radio stations. First, he sold WFSH, then WPAS.

"I was thinking of getting into something else," he says. But he had no inkling of what he was really getting into. About six months after the new owners took over WPAS, Wister filed a foreclosure suit against charging they had defaulted on their mortgage agreement He also said the company, Mayo Communications, was mismanaging the station, and that it was unlikely he would ever receive $230,000 still owed to him under the terms of the sale. Weather Partly cloudy through Friday with a chance of thunderstorms. Lows in the mid 70s.

Highs near 90. Winds from the south, 10 mph or less but gusty near thunderstorms. Rain probability 50 percent today and 20 percent tonight. "I thought it would be simple," he says now. "I wasn't getting the payments agreed on, so I decided to foreclose and take back my station." But he reckoned without Chapter 1 1 of the federal Bankruptcy Act.

Under the act. Mayo Communications requested a 120-day period in which to come up with a reorganization plan that would put WPAS back in the black. When the legal dust settled, former operations manager David Ayres was in charge of WPAS as the court-appointed receiver. The station's assets and bank accounts were frozen. Neither Wister nor Mayo Communications has been declared owner of the station.

At least, not yet. Someday soon, Wister expects, the courts will make a decision on that point. In the meantime, he obviously has a stake in the continued financial health of WPAS. If the station founders, Wister stands to lose a lot of money. So he apparently decided to do what he could to help it stay alive.

And Avres can use the help. Boats, cars, jobs, antiques they're all lurking among the want ads in the Classified Section of the Pasco Tribune. -Page 8.