The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 11

Wednesday, January 15, 1997 3S Send comments and tips through e-mail to tribmetroSprodigy.com or write co The Tampa Tribune, P.O. Box 191, Tampa, Fla. 33601 Veterans will get new aid Steve Otto THE TAMPA TRIBUNE FtarMaMe SUMMARY: A new money allocation plan announced by the Department of Veterans Affairs will mean added and improved medical care for veterans in Florida. Grapes not all that's fermenting By ORVAL JACKSON of The Tampa Tribune I 'III' Mml' TAMPA The Department of Veterans Affairs will pump an additional $47 million into Florida facilities between April and September to improve availability and quality of medical service to veterans. The money becomes available April 1 when Congress-approved legislation scraps the old system of allocating veterans' health resources and replaces it with one that will distribute the medical dollars on the basis of veteran population.

The Veterans Equitable Resource Allocation System, sponsored by Florida Sen. Bob Graham, D-Miami 1 Lakes, and Sen. John McCain, will mean huge increases for growth states such as Florida, Arizona and Texas, which have suffered under the old system. "As veterans have decided to relocate in Florida, at the rate of about 100 a day, the services available have declined and the need has been proportionality greater," Graham said after the VA plans were announced Tuesday. "There have been longer waiting lines, tighter screening on what services were available, less access BOB FALCETTITribune photo King Festival begins Ben Hall, an employee of JCJ Amusements in Gib- Plant City.

The house of glass and other attractions sonton, checks out the side of the Clown College were being set up for today's start of the Martin house of glass attraction Tuesday at M.L.K. Park in Luther King Jr. Festival. Culverhouse's son criticizes trustees, says he sought suits This will improve access for both in-patient and out-patient care. Robert H.

Roswell Physician Design flaws and rising costs delay a Veterans Affairs office building. This section. Page 6 "Given the way the trustees acted with my father to defraud my mother, given the information about my father's lion fortune and is seeking an accounting of the trust. She also says they tricked her into signing the agreement that gave her husband control of their wealth while she got $5 million and deeds to their Bayshore Boulevard condominiums. She has also sued Cone, who acted as her lawyer, for malpractice.

Culverhouse Jr. believes his father replaced him, his sister, Gay, and mother as trustees in January 1993 because the elder Culverhouse was trying to cover up a $150,000 payment made to to proper medical services, and less availability of special care service," Graham said. Graham told veterans and staff members at James A. Haley Veterans Affairs Hospital the new system will relieve the pressure the influx of new veterans, including winter visitors, places on Florida facilities. The state now has nearly 1.8 million resident veterans.

The new system will be implemented over three years, with Florida's share growing each fiscal year. Graham said the VA now will allocate funds on a per-capita basis, so that when veterans from other states move to Florida or receive services while visiting the state, the money will be taken from the other states and applied in Florida. Graham said it is similar to the system used by Medicare. infidelities which cast a dark shadow on the veracity of the statements at the time she signed a post marital settlement agreement, we are in a position of being antagonistic to them SUMMARY: Hugh Culverhouse Jr. said he supported and encouraged his mother in the lawsuits filed against the estate and its three trustees.

By JEFF STIDHAM of The Tampa Tribune TAMPA Hugh Culverhouse Jr. persuaded his mother to file lawsuits against the caretakers of his father's fortune because he says they covered up the elder man's affairs and defrauded his mother. The son of the late owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers said in a deposition last week that neither he nor his mother, Joy, would ever again get along with the trustees of the estate Steve Story, Jack Donlan and Fred Cone. Hugh Culverhouse Jr. a woman named Patricia Smith hush money to conceal a love affair.

"I don't think my father wanted to have family members as trustees with See CULVERHOUSE, Page 4 until the end of time," Culverhouse Jr. said. His mother has accused the trustees of mishandling her husband's $380 mil- See VA, Page 2 1 Dental faith healer builds word-of-mouth reputation For a couple of years I've suspected the Children's Board was back in the wine-making business. I could be wrong. I haven't seen any bottles of "Children's Board Chardonnay '96" in the stores or anything.

But they must be doing something in that former winery in Ybor City they took over a few years ago. Every time I've stopped in to see someone over there, they're "in a meeting." In fact, in the years since Hillsborough County residents voted to create the board in 1988, it has managed to become a full-fledged bureaucracy with a staff big enough to run a small The idea was that the board eventually coordinate all children's services in the county. It would have the authority to levy up to a half-mill property tax, which at the time would be close to $10 million, to help fund many of those services. Its defined mission was "to ensure the delivery of comprehensive juvenile services in Hillsborough County with special emphasis on prevention and early intervention for children at risk." It was a pretty daunting task in a county where the only people treated with less respect than the isolated aged were its children. Good intentions It's not that there weren't plenty of agencies out there involved with the welfare of children.

There were and there are. But programs were uneven, services were being duplicated and much of the emphasis appeared to be at the wrong end, instead of early intervention and prevention. Nine years later, the board has just canned its second executive director. For more than a year, many agencies dependent on the board for funding have lived in fear that their programs were being slashed or eliminated. Some complained that the board itself was guilty of building its own empire and duplicating services already being provided.

Some said funding was being done at the whim of the director instead of through a formal process. The most recent director was Gerry Malouin. He came in as a counterpoint to the board's first director, Will Michaels. Michaels had nurtured the board's growth, slowly defining its mission. Unfortunately, he never found the gearshift and the board found itself getting tangled up in its own bureaucracy.

A hired gun Malouin changed all of that. He admitted he was like a hired gun who wanted to eliminate some of the programs that were little more than self-perpetuating. He wanted more networking among the agencies and he wanted to "simplify" the system. All were good ideas. None of that happened.

Under Malouin, the board threatened to shut down programs cold turkey. The "plan" that was to simplify things may be the most confusing and bewildering document ever written. Finally, this month the board voted 8-1 to get rid of him. He is listed as a "consultant" through April on his contract, but he is gone. The staff continues its endless meetings in the winery and sometime in February you assume the board will conduct an expensive "national search" to bring in somebody else.

Right now the board's budget is in the neighborhood of $14 million, a pretty hefty chunk of your change. They need to get off their duffs and round up a director quickly. They don't need a national search. I could give you a half-dozen great names right off the bat right here. Just for starters there's Ann Ash-craft from the Healthy Start Coalition, Liz Kennedy from the Child Abuse Council, former commissioner Phyllis Busansky and current interim director Luanne Panacek.

None of them might want the job. All would be stronger than what the board has come up with so far. SUMMARY: Claims of more than 40,000 dental healings keeps this traveling evangelist in the news and in pulpits around the world. By MICHELLE BEARDEN of The Tampa Tribune ST. PETERSBURG Every profession has specialists these days.

Even faith healers. Take the Rev. Willard Fuller. After experiencing his own miracle back in 1959, when he says he was "instantly cured" of his rheumatoid arthritis, the ordained Baptist pastor abandoned traditional ministry and took to the road as a healing evangelist. But he doesn't limit his prayer practice to the standard medical miracles.

His specialty: Dental healings. To date, he claims more than 40,000. That includes the sudden appearance of gold, silver and porcelain fillings, teeth mysteriously appearing where there were none, and overbites correcting themselves, he says. He doesn't produce documentation anymore, saying it has happened so much that it's "unnecessary." "Sure, I've been called a fraud. Doesn't bother me," says the 81-year-old Fuller.

"The insults run off me like water off a duck's back. I don't have to defend God." In 1986, the Toronto Star called him the "traveling tooth fairy." He's been the target of several skeptic organizations, and has been featured on several national television shows, See FAITH, Page 3 CHRIS DAVISfor the Tribune Willard Fuller, 81, travels extensively as a faith healer specializing in dental problems. He claims he has performed more than 40,000 healings. Convicted killer seeks new trial 15 years later building supervisor escaped unscathed. Jurors later decided that D'Arcangelo was sane and guilty.

1 And for 15 years, D'Arcangelo has lived quietly in prison. His two state appeals for a new trial were rejected the last one in 1987. Rescue raft Luke Blair from California demonstrates Hydro-Bronc, an inflatable device designed for ice rescue, white-water rafting and surfing. It will be on display at the 1997 Tampa Boat Show Thursday through Sunday at the Tampa Convention Center. SUMMARYt Sane or insane? Fifteen years after the murders of a Tampa fire chief and a firefighter at their station, the question lingers.

By JACQUELINE SOTEROPOULOS of The Tampa Tribune TAMPA Fifteen years ago, a jury weighed whether or not Anthony D'Arcangelo was insane. His lawyer said the 27-year-old former firefighter's mind was ravaged with delusions when he shattered a quiet afternoon at Tampa Fire Department headquarters, shooting at everyone in sight. He shot District One Fire Chief Franz Warner in the heart, killing him instantly. Firefighter Issac Royal Jr. died after five days in intensive care from a shot to the stomach.

Another firefighter survived a bullet in the back. The 1 D'Arcangelo But Mon day, acting as his own attorney, D'Arcangelo filed a case in Tampa's federal court challenging his murder convictions. In line after line of cursive See MURDER, Page 5 KAREN FLETCMERTnbune photo.