The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 115

THE TAMPA TRIBUNE Friday, June 24, 1994 Route closure -to box in drivers giHltB'Sro "li'iwi wii 1 NT. Steve Otto r4rSi By LISA MAGENHEIMER Tribune Staff Writer TAMPA Better tell the family to keep your dinner, warm if you travel home on Piatt Street today or for the next six months. Because chances are you're going to be late. A lot. "It's a bunch of crap," declared Wilson Brinson of Oldsmar, one of many motorists sweating the latest construction and chaos about to disrupt downtown traffic.

Right after this evening's rush hour, the city will close and detour the last multi-laned, toll-free eastbound route through downtown from Hyde Park and points west. Despite the heavy traffic load already diverted to Piatt Street from this year's closing of the Kennedy Boulevard Bridge, the city's need to lay a 24-inch sewer line will back up drivers farther along the major artery as Piatt is closed from Florida Avenue east to Gunn Street for basically the rest of the year. Stopped at the light just west of the Piatt Street Bridge Thursday evening, several eastbound drivers were unaware what loomed ahead and most had unkind things to say. "It's horrible. This is definitely a bad situation," said Eric Adams, who uses the road in his commute as a Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office employee.

"This is poor planning on the part of the city." From the city's point of view, there's no time to lose in tearing up the street before development led by the Tampa Bay Light-See ROAD, Page 5 JAY CONNERTribune photo Handbell concert From left, Autumn Delahoussaye, Stuart Sims and Steve Kerin, all of Asbury United Methodist Church in Lafayette, take part Thursday in the 1994 Eastern National Conference of the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers. The event was held at the Tampa Convention Center. Gun show operator Hunch foiled; psychic tried; cult exposed Are you one of those people who acts on a hunch? If you are, stick to the lottery and don't be a cop. It just doesn't pay. Scott Roush is a policeman in Inverness.

Back in January he was sitting in a marked car next to the Inverness Highlands shopping center, waiting to meet his supervisor. It was there that he noticed a dark-gray Buick parked near the Beall's Outlet. He saw a man come out and get into the back seat. Then two women came out of the store with no bags. The man in the car got out and opened the trunk.

It appeared to Roush as if the women were Unloading something into the trunk. The women went back inside the store and a few minutes later came back and again" appeared to dump something in the trunk: A third time the women went off and came back and did the same thing. Roush drove over to get the tag number just as the car drove off. Roush took off in pursuit, pulled the car over and opened the trunk. Inside was more than $300 in stolen clothing.

On Monday of this week. Circuit Judge John Thurman praised Roush's instincts but threw out the evidence because it was the result of a hunch and not a well-founded suspicion. The grand theft charge against Cornell Jones was dismissed. Grand theft charges against the other two co-defendants are still pending and a third co-defendant has pleaded no contest. I don't know.

I can only think the judge has seen my wife at the mall, dumping one load and then going back for more and fig Tampa sues CBS affiliate roulette stops on Channel 10 A week after WTSP learned it would lose its ABC affiliation, the station lands another network. ured this is the way people act. It 'The company's constitutional rights were violated by the mayor's ban, a lawsuit says. By DAVID SOMMER Tribune Staff Writer TAMPA Mayor Sandy Freed-man's bid to block unregulated gun sales on city property drew a fusillade of return fire Thursday when a Fort Lauderdale gun show operator filed a federal lawsuit seeking money damages for not being allowed to rent the Tampa Convention Center. Bob Smith, of Atlantic Show Promotions, said he had planned to pay the city about $60,000 to hold three gun shows this year at the financially troubled convention center.

Now he hopes to recover about $15,000 in lost income in addition to advertising expenses, legal fees and punitive damages if he can prove Freedman and the city violated, his company's constitutional rights by banning gun shows at the convention center. Lawyer Greg Thomas, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Smith, said the ban violates state law in addition to the constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection. When Freedman banned the shows in March, her aides said allowing gun shows at the convention center sent a mixed signal about the city's commitment to fight crime. Specifically, they said Freedman was concerned that unlicensed deal-; ers could sell guns at the shows with- See GUN, Page 2 By RICK HARMON Tribune Staff Writer TAMPA ABC Network affiliate WTSP, Channel 10, completed the Tampa Bay area network shuffle Thursday, announcing it will become a CBS affiliate. No timetable for the latest switch has been announced, but it probably will occur when the other network changes take place near the end of the year.

WTSP has been an ABC affiliate since it went on the air in 1965. The move was expected since the recent announcement by WFTS, Channel 28, a Fox station, that it would become the area's ABC affiliate. Before that, WTVT, Channel 13, the CBS affiliate, announced it was switching to Fox. "We're really excited about this," said WTSP President and General Manager Steve Mauldin. "This is definitely a special day for the staff and the station." Mauldin declined to give details of the agreement with CBS, other than it is a long-term deal.

ABC's deal with WFTS was announced as a 10-year agreement. WTSP immediately announced that CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman," now delayed until 12:05 a.m. by WTVT, will air at its regularly scheduled 11:35 p.m. time slot when the switch is made. "We're definitely going to air Letterman at 11:35," Mauldin said.

"I can think of 10 good reasons to run him at that time." A factor in the recent moves was the advantage of being a VHF station. VHF stations, on channels 2 through 13, reach viewers who don't have cable TV. They attract bigger audiences than do UHF stations and generally charge more for commercial time. The move by CBS became necessary when New World Communications Group parent company of WTVT, announced May 23 that the stations it owned would become Fox Broadcasting affiliates, leaving CBS without a home. At the time, it looked as if WFTS, Channel 28, would become the CBS affiliate, although CBS was not pleased about moving from a VHF station to a UHF station.

But WFTS' parent company, Scripps Howard Broadcasting, made a 10-year deal with ABC involving WFTS and its sister station in Phoenix last That move left WTSP without a network affiliation, and its parent company, Citycasters immediately began talking to CBS. "There was never a time when I thought we would end up being an independent," Mauldin said. WWSB, Channel 40 in Sarasota, can't say the same thing. WWSB became a victim of the Tampa Bay network war when ABC announced it would drop the station when it switched to WFTS. ABC explained it didn't need two affiliates in this market because WFTS' signal is strong enough to reach Sarasota.

The Sarasota station became an ABC station because WTSP's signal wasn't strong enough to reach See TV SHUFFLE, Page 3 ANDY JONESTribune photo METRO Cleaning time A worker pressure washes the cupola of the old Citrus County Courthouse on Thursday in downtown Inverness. The work is part of the first phase of restoration of the 1912 building. University chiefs seek raises for professors age. Reed and the presidents have established a goal of getting Florida's faculty salaries among the top 25 percent of U.S. universities.

Reaching that goal will cost $70 million the first year. Reed said. Florida State University President Sandy D'Alemberte also proposed that universities seek $15 million from the Legislature to hire and develop more minority faculty members and administrators. FSU recently lost a recruiting battle See MINORITY, Page 5 The Florida Legislature gave the state's 10,000 professors and other university employees a 3 percent raise earlier this year. The state's Board of Regents, which governs the university system, had asked for a 10 percent raise, pushing it as the No.

1 priority in higher education. re-emphasized it again Thursday, calling faculty raises the "meat and potatoes of improving the overall quality of the universities." Florida's professors, who average about $45,000 annually, are paid about $5,000 a year below the national aver By JIM KENYON Tribune Staff Writer TAMPA Bigger paychecks for professors should again be the top budget priority for Florida's public universities, presidents of the 10 schools decided Thursday. The presidents and Chancellor Charles Reed, who oversees the daily operations of the university system, want the Florida Legislature to increase professors' salaries by 10 percent. It hasn't yet been decided whether the increase will be sought all at once or spread over two to three years. 0 ft i'U I' She should have known Mean while pveV in Sebring, home of McGruffs Bar and Grill heje tfey.know what swamp cabbage is, justice took anoth- er twist this week.

This time it came as a mistrial after Judge Jesse Barber said he could no longer deal with a Lake Placid psychic charged with practicing without a license. Laura Jean psychic, also attempted to practice law by representing herself in court. A county ordinance requires psychics to obtain a permit and post a bond before getting a license. She was accused of accepting $25 from an undercover sheriffs deputy who said he was having "personal problems and needed help." The trial got out of hand' when Uwana-wich complained about court-appointed assistants. She also said she was being treated differently because she is a gypsy and' a psychic.

Another court date has been set for next week but then you would suspect Uwanawich already knows what is going to happen. Letter from F.A.R.C.E. Finally, the mailbag has been heavier than usual, including a copy of one letter sent to Hillsborough school Superintendent Walt Sickles from the Florida Association for Removing Cults and Ecumenism, an organization you might have guessed is based in Lutz. "Are you aware," the letter begins, "the constitutional prohibition concerning teaching religion in public schools has been in place for years? Careful administrators should be very $ensitive to any 'mystical' or religious oriented instruction in the schools. Yet, here In Hillsborough County, you not only allow, but require, inclusion in the curriculum of courses which are based on the beliefs of a religious order.

"These beliefs include a faithful adherence to the idea that all things in heaven and earth are 'knowable' exclusively through the application of their dogma. They believe in the eternal recurrence of things and teach, as absolutes, things that have not been, indeed cannot be, proven. "Many teachers of these beliefs require that students memorize large portions of their canon and respond to questions using a most sophisticated sophistry. You must stop teaching geometry (one of their basic beliefs), trigonometry, calculus and especially you must remove algebra, with its mystical, ever changing values for "x' and "In fact, since there is much data to support our position that all numbering systems dealing with quantities beyond that which could be comprehended by an average person in a single glance were the invention of priests, we demand that any value beyond four be referred to, henceforth, as You are currently inculcating in a bunch of students a bunch of information that a bunch of us are prepared to stop." Hiving taken some of those courses myself, "2 can only add "4nen" to that. Proposed downtown-to-Ybor trolley HARTline gives go-ahead a 11 1 -L-l1 A.

to troiiey, snuiue systems n. -rnifl nn rum Tt-int cqM Knth ftvantuallv Dent said both eventually By TOM BRENNAN I LIUUUUUWUtUWIU14tUI UUUII I ionCntmj Zi Proposed trolley route I will expand. Board members said both projects were crucial in the overall plan to link Tampa's emerging downtown waterfront with attractions in Ybor City and businesses in the West Shore area. "If you don't have a strong downtown, the neighborhoods surrounding it suffer and the community generally suffers," said Tampa Mayor Sandy Freedman, also a HARTline board member. The board approved a with Florida Transportation Systems of Tampa to provide the five, natural gas-powered buses that will make up the West Shore fleet.

The buses will be shorter than HARTline's regular fleet 28 to 30 feet and will seat 28 people. See TRANSITTage 3 Tribune Staff Writer TAMPA Hillsborough County's transit board took tentative steps Thursday toward a grand design of linking Tampa's business and tourist attractions. The directors of the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HARTline) unanimously voted to buy five buses for a West Shore business district shuttle and authorized its staff to negotiate a contract with the state to pay for a gasoline-powered trolley between downtown and Ybor City. "These are two of the most important economic settings in our community," said Sharon Dent, HARTline's executive director. "If they are going to be viable, we must be able to move people to and around them." The rMittle and trolley will begin with lunch-time service, but Convention center Soutce Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority.

TIM PRICETribune map ran.