The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 25

nn Jul THE TAMPA TRIBUNE Sunday, June 17, 1990 Section Chiles, Nelson agree to TV debate Martinez rivals attention at convention meeting that Chiles made it clear that he wasn't tying any strings to the offer. "That's terrific. I think the people are the winners," Nelson said, when Chiles' clarified his debate offer. "That's what I've been asking for." During their presentations to the newspaper organizations, Chiles and Nelson took friendly jabs at each other that obviously were aimed at drawing attention to the age span between the 60-year-old retired senator and the 47-year-old congressman. Nelson, who is promoting himself as part of "a new generation of leadership," reached back in history to toss out a quote from Chiles when he won his U.S.

Senate seat in 1970. When Chiles beat former Gov. Farris expected to end after a scheduled Monday clash before the bipartisan Forum Club in West Palm Beach. Chiles had said he would not continue debating Nelson unless the Melbourne congressman stopped running television commercials and saved his remaining campaign money for a general election race if he won the Democratic nomination. But the former U.S.

senator said Saturday that he has given up on getting Nelson to agree to his terms and will debate the congressman on prime-time television. Chiles suggested a series of debates be scheduled for Wednesday evenings, but no dates were discussed. Chiles made his debate offer in some opening remarks to the newspaper executives. It wasn't until after the luncheon Chiles See DEMOCRATS, Page CB Nelson ZAv By BRUCE DUDLEY Tribune Staff Writer i FORT LAUDERDALE Democratic gubernatorial candidates Lawton Chiles and Bill Nelson ended a standoff Saturday and agreed to statewide televised debates In prime time. No dates were set, but the two candidates reached the agreement at a joint convention of the Florida Press Association and the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors.

During brief remarks and questioning by some editors, Nelson said Chiles seemed fuzzy again on abortion, and both candidates reiterated opposition to a state income tax. the only new development was on the debates between the two leading Democratic contenders. The debates had been Night court County adds convenience, i makes money By IVAN J. HATHAWAY Tribune Staff Writer TAMPA Less than an hour after the customary 5 p.m. desertion at Hillsborough's Courthouse Annex, people are coming in.

To the front of a courtroom mingle Tampa police officers in Vblue, sheriff's deputies in white and green, and Florida Highway Patrol troopers in off-brown, I which they say is properly called "confederate pink." To the back, sitting in rows, are an assortment of everyday folks in dresses, jeans, or suits, all whose daily lives have been interrupted by a traffic stop and a cita- Night court has begun. When night court sessions Cranked up in January with the recently created Traffic Hearing Of- ficer program, a key aspect touted by court officials was that it would give all those everyday folks a chance to contest the tickets without losing workday hours and wages. The program is not only paying its way, it's making money and running so smoothly that Chief Judge Dennis Alvarez said he in-" tends to ask the Legislature to broaden its powers. Alvarez hopes hearing officers; i i I V'. j.

i rr a I Tribune photograph by CLIFF McBRIDE listens in during a session of Traffic Night Court. Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Steve Hill talks with John Dimura, right, while R.S. Kirk, left, someday will be able to handle an array of minor offenses that carry only civil penalties, with no jail time. For now, it's just for those with parking or traffic tickets who aren't going down without a fight.

On a recent night, motorists flocked to Courtroom 8 where they could face their accusers and battle it out before local lawyerhearing officer John Bothwell. Visitors could see the name of the courtroom's daytime user. Circuit Judge Harry Lee Coe III, at the entrancefA young couple had heard of this judge, nicknamed Harry." They seemed a bit apprehensive, like "Why me?" or "Will I be the first person to do six years for a traffic ticket?" Bothwell gets the show rolling by addressing all 30 motorists who have shown up for the early evening session, from 6 p.m. to about 7:30. (A second session is supposed to end about 9 but has been known to go past 11.) Has anyone changed their mind between this hearing date and the earlier arraignment date when not guilty pleas were entered, Bothwell asks.

"Some of you might have thought the officer wouldn't show up. Or maybe you thought you had a witness but now you don't or you've changed your minds for whatever reasons," Bothwell says. "If you want to plead guilty, come up." Two decide to fess up. The oth-See NIGHT, Page 4B By MORRIS KENNEDY Tribune Staff Writer ORLANDO Gov. Bob Martinez spoke to a hall of cheering delegates Saturday at the state Republican Convention, but before the day was over he took a pounding from rivals challenging his right to seek re-election.

It was a relatively tame convention for the most part The deep divisions in GOP ranks over abortion never surfaced. Republican abortion-rights activists raised no protest as delegates approved a platform that included an anti-abortion plank. CAMPAIGN Although Martinez got a standing ovation when he stepped to the podium for the keynote address in the morning, the day's events showed that not everyone was on their feet, ready to cheer, despite four years of Republican rule, Echoing campaign themes from four years ago, Martinez said being mayor of Tampa had given him a more intimate knowledge of the state's problems that someone isolated in state government could have. "I had seen the victims" of crime, he said. He spoke of supporting tougher drug penalties and building 28,000 more prison beds, and his belief in the death penalty.

"I've signed a good number of death warrants," he said. Martinez also pointed to programs to curb water pollution and his opposition to off-shore oil drilling. s. The centerpiece of his environmental record was Preservation 1 2000, a plan to borrow $3 billion through the sale of bonds and use the money to buy environmentally threatened land. He said it is the biggest land-acquisition program of its kind hi the nation.

The government buys land instead of telling the owner, "you pay the mortgage and taxes, but you can't use it," he said, "and that is fair." He spoke of establishing the "one church-one child" program to encourage the adoption of black 1 4 Tribune photograph by RON J. BERARD out thong-suited women on Clearwater Beach. "When I first came here in 1987, there seemed to be a chronic problem with school-age or young people congregating behind hotels and drinking. Older people were buying drinks for younger people and there was some marijuana being smoked," said Treasure Island Police Chief Joseph Pelkington. "We went in there three or four times in force and made a number of arrests.

There's been no problem since." See ATTIRE, Page CB on East Coast the Florida Marine Patrol. "Are we really doing the best thing, or causing more harm?" While scientists aren't sure how many sea turtles remain, loggerheads are classified as a threatened species, and leatherback, green and Kemp's Ridley turtles are on the endangered list Adult turtles can live about 75 years in the wild, and each female digs up to seven nests a year. But pollution, beach traffic, poachers, storms and natural predators prevent all but See SCIENTISTS, Page nil Martinez Woodson-Howard "children, a job training program for people on welfare, and the "dead-beat parent" program to publicize the worst offenders who are failing to pay child support He said nothing about his opposition to abortion. Raising the specter of a Democratic government drawing the political lines again in 1990 with reapportionment, he said the party must re-elect him or be set back 10 years politically. Martinez's speech was greeted with a two-minute floor demonstration that was muted compared to the pandemonium that marked his appearance Friday night with television evangelist Marion G.

"Pat" Robertson at a rally of the Christian Coalition. The governor left after lunch and his rivals took the stage. Martinez's harshest critic was state Sen. Marlene Woodson-Howard of Bradenton. She said Martinez has brought the state national ridicule for flip-flopping on the services tax, calling a special session to try and reduce access to abortion, and fighting with the Legislature over transportation spending.

The state has no comprehensive water plan, criminals are being released early, and babies are being born addicted to cocaine, she said. "To have the chief concern of this administration be the thong bathing suit is absurd," referring to a recent Cabinet decision to ban the revealing suits from state beaches. She said the convention was poorly attended because some delegates are "feeling despair" over Martinez's administration. Van Poole, party chairman, later said the attendance varied depending upon how organized each county is, but it was generally good. Woodson-Howard has campaigned for abortion rights, and she was See MARTINEZ, Page 6B Man wills stuck bullet to police HALLANDALE (AP) A 77-year-old man is "glad to be of help" by signing a release allowing police to remove a bullet lodged near his heart after he dies because it may link the weapon to a homicide.

"Hey, I don't mind," Lou Schul-man said Friday. "If they need the bullet, they need the bullet." The bullet is the only piece of ballistic evidence police have against two teen-agers charged with kidnapping and robbing Schulman last month, but police say it is potentially more important as evidence in other cases. Police will bide their time to get the bullet from Schulman, who has almost recovered from the shooting. Doctors decided the bullet could not be surgically extracted safely because of its position. Schulman spent four days in intensive care with a collapsed lung after he was shot in a Fort Lauderdale parking lot.

A few days later, police arrested two Dade County teen-agers who they said stuffed Schulman in the trunk of his car at gunpoint in the parking lot of his Hallandale condominium. The pair took Schulman for a joyride around Broward County before stopping to take $5 from his wallet, shoot him and leave him for dead, police said. A semiautomatic handgun used in the shooting wasn't found. Police want the bullet "so that they can determine from a ballistics test if the gun from which it fired may have been used" in a murder, Faragher said. "You would be surprised what could pop up when you finally gef the -v" Schulman, who said he doesn't mind walking around with a crucial piece of evidence stuck in his chest, hopes police won't be getting the bullet any time soon.

T-back suits not only issue making waves on beaches turn rules at the state's 105 parks which ban exposure of genitals, pubic area, buttocks and the female breast below the nipple top. Renee Morgan, a 19-year-old Indian Shores hairdresser, sees nothing wrong with thong suits; she owns and wears one. "If you look good, then show it," she said last week while soaking up the sun on Madeira Beach. "If you look bad, wear it anyway. Why not show it all? It's just a butt and we all have one." Other beachgoers, particularly those who don't like the nearly nude look, also don't hide their opinions on appropriate beach-wear.

"I think they're immoral and shouldn't be permitted," Margaret Spitall, 74, said of thong suits. "What is in the mind of a young lady who would wear a bathing suit like that? She's asking for trouble." Others are more tolerant Julie Kunkel, 67, who, like Spitall, is a Gulfport widow, opts to pretend they don't exist. "I see what I want to see," she said. While the advent of the suits spurred city and state governments to take another look at the law books, fashion isn't the only aspect of beach mores that recently has received government attention. Increased rowdiness, underage drinking and crime are threatening the practice of drinking on the beach in the few municipalities that still allow it.

In Madeira Beach, drinking-related arrests By DONNA VAVALA Tribune Staff Writer CLEARWATER BEACH As Cathy Cannon strolled along Clearwater Beach in her neon pink thong suit, a few guys ogled her exposed buns and hooted appreciatively. A muscle-bound man in his mid-30s drew giggles and a few "oh, gross!" remarks as he pranced past in his T-back trunks. Eyebrows and some blood pressures are being raised on other beaches around the state, and in some halls of government. Florida, with more miles of beach than any other of the 48 contiguous states, finds itself in a controversy gathering national attention about what's appropriate on the beach and what It started on Sarasota's North Lido Beach in May when five people were arrested for wearing thong bathing suits, which expose the buttocks. Commissioners there moved quickly to uphold the language in the city's 1985 anti-nudity ordinance banning anal cleavage, thus banning the skimpy suits.

Key participants in that issue are scheduled to appear on Phil Donahue's talk show Wednesday. State government also has reacted. Wednesday, the governor and Cabinet issued edicts for appropriate beachwear on state beaches. The decision prompted network news coverage and more than a few screeches of outrage from some regular "beachgoers, who' threatened to sue to over 'Eco-tourism' By MICHAEL WARREN of The Associated Press JUPITER BEACH She rose out of the sea at midnight and carefully dug a nest in the sand as her ancestors have done for about 90 million years. Only this time, the giant loggerhead sea turtle had an audience.

Two-dozen flash-popping, oohing-and-aah-Ing beach goers encircled the 200-pound turtle and watched transfixed as she slowly deposited more than 100 pingpong-ball-sized eggs into a hole in the sand, covered them Bill Herman and Stan Hines, holding his 18-month-old son, David, check had risen and city police suggested a ban. About 150 residents showed up at a public hearing June 5 to take a stand. The majority said that if police beefed up enforcement, there'd be no need to yank the city's privilege. Police are preparing a cost analysis now. Treasure Island, the only other Pinellas County Gulf Coast city that allows drinking on the beach, held a referendum on the subject in 1985.

Residents supported alcohol on the beach. turtles watches Biologists credit the late-night watches with raising public awareness and aiding research about the endangered sea turtles, which seem to face threats from every corner. But the watches also have raised concerns among some biologists who want to minimize human impact on the skittish turtles. They want to prevent the excesses of swim-with-the-dolphin programs and parks like Yellowstone where bears accept handouts from tourists. "You have to be careful when we interfere with nature," said Maj.

Roger Bennett of extends to hotel and lumbered back into the surf, never to see them again. "It's almost a religious experience. Maybe it's a female thing, but I empathize with the turtle. All that multiple labor," said Sue Shee-han, 44, a teacher from nearby Jupiter who brought her mother from Phoenix to see turtles give birth behind the Jupiter Beach Hilton. The women were among thousands of locals and tourists taking part in turtle watches on Florida's East Coast last week during the peak of the state's May-through-September nesting season..