The Journal Times from Racine, Wisconsin • 3

the Journal Times, Tuesday, July 22, 1986 Racine, Wis: 3A 0 BMU wetlands program approaches 23 farms in wetlands program this year for the program, he said, which must be used both to renew old contracts and sign new ones. This year, said William Conner of the UDSA Soil Conservation Service, only property-owners in Dunn, Polk and St. Croix counties, areas in the St. Croix migratory flyway, will be able to enter new acreage in the program. But three contracts in Racine County that expire this year can be renewed, he said.

Wachter said most people who sign contracts have an interest in preserving their wetlands for wildlife, especially migratory birds. Wachter, a conservation specialist with the service. The property owners also have set aside another 633 acres of adjacent nesting areas under the program, he said. Property owners receive $10 per year for each acre of wetlands, $15 an acre for non-cropland adjacent areas, and $55 an acre for adjacent cropland. In Wisconsin, a total of 20.886 acres are in the program, he said.

Officials won't be signing up any new contracts in Racine County in the near future, Wachter said, because dwindling budgets have forced them to set priority areas. Wisconsin will receive $320,000 By Linda Shaw Journal Times RACINE The federal government, as well as the state government, has been working to preserve wetlands in Wisconsin since the early 1970s. Under a program started in 1972, the federal government will pay property owners to preserve their wetlands and adjacent nesting areas for 10 years. In Racine County, owners of 23 different farms with a total of 417 acres of wetlands are participating in the program, run by the Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service, said Donald But Retzinger, as chairman of the board's planning and development committee, voted to recommend the ordinance. "We have no choice," he said.

"The DNR is holding a gun to our head." But proponents say the new regulations are the only way to protect the state's remaining wetlands. State Sen. Joseph Strohl, D-Racine, who encouraged the DNR to adopt its administrative rule on which the new regulations are based, said 80 percent of the wetlands in Wisconsin have been destroyed or drained. Strohl also authored a bill in 1982 that will require all incorporated areas to adopt the same regulations, a process that the DNR has not started to enforce. Strohl and Dresen said there are economic as well as environmental reasons for preserving most of the remaining wetlands.

"This is more than a ducks and bunnies issue," Dresen said. For example, he said, wetlands are areas that absorb storm and flood waters, protecting other properties that might be flooded. Wetlands also collect water that eventually seeps into aquifers, replenishing ground water supplies, he said. Strohl said although Racine County in the last several years has had a good record in protecting wetlands the way the DNR would like to see them protected, "simply because one county did a good job and others did not, you can't exempt that one." County Planning and Development Director Arnold Clement said property owners here probably won't notice any changes after the new regulations are adopted. The county already has been regulating wetlands under the older shoreland and floodplain regulations, he said, and the new regulations will make more changes in form than substance.

By Linda Shaw Journal Times RACINE If Racine County supervisors adopt state-mandated wetlands regulations tonight, it will be 64 down and six to go for the Department of Natural Resources. Of the 70 counties required to adopt the regulations, all but Racine and six others have done so since 1979, when the DNR started requiring non-incorporated areas to restrict wetlands, said Michael Dresen, a shoreland management specialist for the department. The other six counties Crawford, Grant, Kenosha, Ozaukee, Rusk and Waukesha also are in the process of adopting the new rules, he said. The Waukesha County Board also is scheduled to consider the issue tonight. As each county adopts the regulations, state officials get closer to their goal of overseeing the use of wetlands in shoreland areas five acres or larger, areas previously under county control, Dresen said.

The new regulations will allow state officials to oversee wetlands use in shoreland areas five acres or larger and will give them the power to intervene if they believe the area will be damaged by any planned development, he said. Under existing regulations, officials can oversee shoreland areas, but wetlands were not included. Implementing the new regulations, which state officials felt necessary to preserve the state's remaining wetlands areas, has not been easy. Many counties, even those such as Racine where wetlands use already has been restricted by ordinances, have notTeadily adopted the new regulations. Officials in Door, Green and Monroe counties went as far as to refuse to adopt the regulations, Dresen said.

But the DNR has gone over their heads and adopted ordinances for them with the state legislature's approval. "I believe we are trying to regulate people too closely without adequate compensation," said County Board supervisor David Retzinger. He said the state should buy wetland areas it wants to preserve or at least compensate the property owner for any decrease in property value the new regulations bring. "There are a lot of damp areas in Racine that wil be classified as wetlands," he said. which they will do if Racine County doesn't adopt its ordinance soon.

The DNR already has scheduled a public hearing in Racine County on Aug. 4, the first step in that process. Dresen said the DNR will cancel that hearing if supervisors adopt their ordinance tonight. Opponents of the new regulations in Racine and elsewhere say they are an unfair usurpation of the rights of property owners. omimoceiruti pOea 3 i Highway 31 and Klaczynski was turning west on 5 Mile Road when turned in front of the truck, deputies said witnesses told them.

Trial for Webster is scheduled to begin Aug. 5. but his attorney, public defender Daryl Kastenson, said testing of blood and urine samples taken from the victims have not been returned to prosecutors from the state crime laboratory in Madison. Kastenson said he may ask for independent testing of the samples, a request that could delay the trial. The progress of the crime lab reports is to be reviewed in a court hearing Friday.

Webster, who was convicted in 1964 of manslaughter in an Ohio traffic accident, has a history of mental illnesses, deputies said Webster's son, Anthony, told them. Deputies also said Webster told them about his hospitalization and prison record during interviews after the accident. During the interviews, Webster said the last time he slept was in April of 1973. Deputies said Webster also told them he had been hospitalized in Macon, for mental illness and had served time in Georgia prison for a drug conviction. Records from the Florida Department of Corrections include reports from a psychologist who found Webster competent to stand trial in a 1985 case involving burglary, auto theft and trespassing charges.

Webster, who was brought into court Monday wearing leg irons, handcuffs and belly chains, remains jailed in lieu of $18,000 cash bond. By Andy Blankenburg Journal Times RACINE A 51-year-old drifter pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect Monday to causing the deaths of two teenagers in a June 8 traffic accident in which he was driving a stolen Army truck without headlights. Charles C. Webster is charged with two counts of negligent homicide and a charge of operating a vehicle without the owner's consent. The plea, entered before Judge Emmanuel Vuvunas, will require a jury to consider whether Webster was mentally ill at the time of the crash if he is found guilty.

Witnesses said the victims, Ma.rk E. Cantele, 18, of 3055 Ruby and Nancy M. Klaczynski, 17, of Allegany, N.Y., were dead at the scene of the early morning crash, at Highway 31 and 5 Mile Road in Caledonia. They were on their way to Klac-zynski's aunt and uncle's home, where the girl lived during the school year, when they were hit broadside by the 5-ton truck, according to sheriff's deputies. Webster, who was walking around after the crash, said, "Don't worry about them, they're dead.

This truck can go over anything," according to a deputy who testified at a preliminary hearing. Deputies said Webster told them he was driving without headlights because "I'm just an old hillbilly and I like to drive without headlights." Webster was driving south on imf vMV: Ul Mark Hertzberg, Journal Times Probing fire ruins Sheriff's Deputy James Dehne, an arson investigator, destroyed his home shortly after 10 p.m. Monday. Dehne, shovels debris this morning at the home of Dugan Styve, fire officials and other investigators were working to pin-50, 4208 96th Raymond. Styve died in a fire that point the cause of the fire.

(Related story, 1A). GCirodeG'gaG'tenefs must foroircg crayons 1 The biggest shock for the district, Marta said, came in the increase in insurance Last year the district budgeted $17,000 for liability insurance. District insurance next year will nearly double that at $33,000, Marta said. Tax bills also have been increased to pick up costs formerly paid for through state funds. State aid to the district is expected to drop in the upcoming year by about $100,000, according to district figures.

State sources supplied $601,110 to the district last year, while it is expected to provide $501,000 in the upcoming school year. The proposed budget includes only minor capital expenditures, Marta said.i The district is also facing a depleting reserve fund in the budget, Marta said. The district had nearly $1.5 million in reserves in the 1984-85 school year, compared to $683,999 anticipated for cash flow purposes this year. Marta presented his proposed budget minus what he estimated would cost a couple hundred dollars for crayons to the school board Monday night. The board apprAved the budget for consideration at the annual district meeting Aug.

25. The proposed budget requires taxes of $8.02 per $1,000 of valuation, compared to $6.90 per $1,000 valuation required for last year's budget. Under the proposed budget, an owner of a home valued for tax purposes at $50,000 will have to pay $401 in the school's portion of the taxes for the upcoming year, compared to $345 last year. The largest areas Of growth in the budget are in salaries and insurance costs. Marta said.

Teacher salaries are to jump 8.1 percent, as agreed upon in contract negotiations. According to that agreement, teachers will average a raise of $2,400, bringing the salary for a beginning teacher with a bachelor degree to $16,570 and a top-of-the-scale teacher to $28,545. By Laurie Whitters Journal Times WATERFORD When the 114 kindergarten students in the Waterford Graded School District file into class for the first time this September, they will come equipped with something their older brothers and sisters did not have bring. Crayons. For the first time next year, kindergarteners here will have to buy their own.

A staple provided by the district at the Rochester school for at least the last 15 years, crayons for kindergarteners were cut in a proposed $2.5 million 1986-87 Waterford Graded School District budget a budget that is up 10.7 percent over last year's budget. "Crayons might not sound too controversial, but it is here," said district administrator Richard D. Marta. "It sounds minuscule when compared to $2.5 million, but the minuscule things are the thorns in people's sides." Principal appointed Journal Times staff RACINE Starbuck Middle School's new principal is Jetha Pinkston, a former reading specialist and Case High School subschool principal since 1983. Pinkston began her teaching career in 1967 and came to the Unified School District as a reading, specialist at Case in 1973, according to Unified Administrative Assistant Sandra Hart.

Pinkston first served as subschool principal at Case in 1982, and spent a year as assistant principal at Gil-more Junior High School in 1982-83. Her hiring was approved by the Unified School Board Monday. She was to start immediately, but is on vacation this week, according to Starbuck Assistant Principal Marilyn McGoldrick. Pinkston was born in Mississippi and earned a bachelor's degree in English from Tougaloo College there and has a master's degrees from Jackson State University and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Hart said. Pinkston.

whose 1986-87 salary was set at $42,600, replaces Larry Yarck, who was named in June as principal of Horlick High School. Telephone refund approved by state panel Jetha Pinkston new Starbuck principal Also Monday, board members approved the hiring of Anne Fox-Swanson as assistant principal at Mitchell Middle School. Fox-Swanson, 36, came to Unified in 1972 as a third-grade teacher at Hansche Elementary School, and has taught sixth-grade at Hansche and Olympia Brown Elementary School, Hart said. She was sixth-grade team leader at Mitchell Middle School since 1983. The 1986-87 salary for Fox-Swanson, a 1968 graduate of Horlick High School, was set at $33,600, according to Hart.

Rut he added. "It's difficult to sort both for interstate and local calls. The PSC in 1984 had approved a less generous depreciation formula than the federal government, and made higher rates collected under federal court order subject to MADISON (AP) A $30.35 million refund this fall for the 1.2 million customers of Wisconsin Bell Inc. was approved today by the state Public Service Commission. The three-member panel rejected a proposal by some legislators and the Citizens Utility Board that some of the money go toward installing "911" emergency telephone service in communities that do not now have the emergency switchboards.

"I think it's somewhat strange the elected officials who could put it into place are asking us to do so," PSC member George Edgar said. of have the chance to do it and say no." The Supreme Court paved the way for the refund May 27 when it ruled the federal government could not impose its depreciation schedule on states for equipment that is used woiro'ti oiniteiieii'e wiitih bsun odd oimspecoiriis appeals if there are no provisions to see interiors of properties. "It's unprecedented as far as I know Holmes said. "I don't know how the board will decide." David Milligan, who heads the Board of Review, said the board can determine fair assessments without in-home inspections and doesn't anticipate any big problems in the future. The city's reassessment program that started in June with the first citywide in-home inspections since the 1930s is intended to correct inequities by the 1988 tax year for bills payable in 1989.

Racine's property value total is likely to be within state guidelines because of past experience, Holmes said, and it's rare for property owners to request a state-supervised reassessment. A state study showed 23 percent of the homes sold in Racine in 1985 had assessed values that were more than 15 percent too high or too low. But, the state revenue department doesn't concern itself with individual properties, only the total citywide figure. Holmes said. A state-supervised reassessment would include in-home inspections.

Holmes said. He added that he doesn't understand how the Board of Review will be able to handle property owners decide on their own if they want their interiors inspected and allowing them all the right to appeal to the Board of Review. The council's action "eliminated the right to choose," Reavey said. But, the council apparently isn't going to get into trouble with the state. Glenn Holmes, director of the state Department of Revenue's property tax division, said the only way his office would step in and "supervise" Racine's reassessment program would be if a group representing at least 5 percent of the city's assessed value asks for such action, or if the city's total assessment figure is far different from the state's estimate.

ting its data collectors to enter homes, and those who want, interior inspections are being put on a list that now includes 20 to 30 names, City Assessor Mary Reavey said. "I don't know myself how that (council) resolution affects assessments," she said. People who complain they want their home's interior to be inspected for a good assessment are being told to contact their aldermen so they can hear another side of the story, Reavey said. Before the council banned in-home inspections, data collectors were refused entry into 8 percent to 9 percent of about 1,200 properties that were re-evaluated, Reavey said. Reavey said she favors the idea of letting By Mike Hill Journal Times RACINE A state Department of Revenue official says the possibility that his department will interfere with Racine's ban on in-home assessments "seems remote." Meanwhile, City Attorney Joseph Boyle said he is not sure whether any rights are being violated by the city banning in-home assessments because no city officials have asked him to give a legal opinion.

Boyle said he would guess that some clarification will be needed on the city council's 13-3 vote last week to "cease and desist" in-home inspections. The city assessor's office is not permit.