Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 1

I jjlfly. Ij WEATHER Sunny, 1 1 FOREIGN 1 Free-wheeling days ending I 3 -B8 I 1 1 WYOMING 1 1 1 SPORTS AIDS testing Kelly Walsh li proposal boys prevail 1 II D1 Jl. iii 1 A7 Founded in 1891 15, 1992 Wyoming's Statewide Newspaper I Legislature pushes through final reapportionment bill Democrats call for Sullivan veto By CHARLES PELKEY Star-Tribune capital bureau CHEYENNE In a late night session that degenerated into a shouting match, the House on Friday gave final approval to a reapportionment plan that was rushed through the Senate earlier in the day. Following a near party-line vote "disgusted and disappointed" House Democrats said they would urge Gov. Mike Sullivan to veto the measure.

Earlier Friday, the Senate approved the reapportionment plan but only after adopting an amend Casper, Wyoming tween the House and the Senate versions of the bill, the House was required to concur with the changes or the differences would have been hammered out in a conference committee. In an early evening caucus Democrats decided to oppose the bill, despite the Senate action which House Minority Floor Leader Rep. Fred Harrison, D-Carbon, said "moved the bill closer to what we wanted." "Still, this bill contains some obvious gerrymanders," Harrison said. "I don't think we should vote to concur. I know I won't be." Please see REDISTRICTING, A14 and who can demonstrate that the species for which they request a special license account for 2,000 use-days annually.

On Tuesday Judge Kenneth Hamm issued the order effectively halting the drawing among 14,105 applicants originally set for Friday. A hearing set for 2 p.m. Feb. 21 in district court in Green River will address the legality and constitutionality of the practice of issuing the licenses. "We had planned to do this about five years ago," said Rep.

Peg Shreve, a Park County Republican and chairman of the committee that has agreed to sponsor the bill. "It's just very timely now. Most felt it should be in the Please see LICENSES, A14 Petera pushes bill to codify elk licenses for landowners ment limiting the size of multimember districts in the House to two representatives. Senators approved a suspension of their rules to allow the measure to be voted on twice in one day. Under normal procedures bills in both chambers are subject to three separate readings on three separate days.

The changes adopted in the Senate's amended version of the bill and approved by the House late Friday are almost identical to those included in an amendment rejected by the House on Wednesday. Because differences existed be stitutional because it gives landowning hunters a privilege not available to non-landowners. Petera asked the House Travel, Recreation and Wildlife Committee to sponsor his bill after he was contacted by several legislators. The travel committee on Thursday agreed to sponsor the bill. The lawmakers were upset, he said, over a restraining order Tuesday which halted the drawing of non-resident elk permits pending a ruling on the legality of special, non-competitive licenses issued by the agency to large landowners.

Current Game and Fish Commission regulation limits preferential licenses to landowners who own at least 160 contiguous acres, Blaine Phillips holds the hands of schoolmate Paul Westika and Paul's mother Susie Westika as members of the Sheridan wrestling and basketball teams visited their paralyzed friend Friday at the Wyoming Medical Center. See story A7 Saudi Arabia scuttles OPEC production deal GENEVA (AP) OPEC got close to a deal Friday that would cut oil output for spring, but Saudi Arabia backed out, according to sources at the cartel's contentious meeting. The sources, who spoke on condition they not be named, said Saudi Oil Minister Hisham Nazer told other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that Saudia Arabia had a series of proposals for slashing oil output. The cartel is seeking to cut production in the second quarter, in a bid to prop up prices when worldwide demand Please see OPEC, A14 Saturday, February Come together Cable fee increase expected this year By EMILY HARRISON Star-Tribune staff writer CASPER All United Artist Cable customers in Casper can expect a 3 percent increase in their cable service rates sometime this year, Robert Carnahan, manager of the cable company said Friday. At the direction of the Casper City Council, the city manager's office and Carnahan are negotiating an increase in the franchise fee the cable company must pay to the city.

The current" franchise fee charged by the city is 2 percent of the company's gross revenue. Under federal law, the city can charge the company 5 percent of its gross revenue. The city's new franchise fee will probably be set at the maxi-Please see CABLE, A14 INDEX Casper Area A3 Classified B9-14 Church B5 Comics B3-4 Crossword B3 Landers B4 Letters A13 Omarr B3 Markets B6 B8 Obituaries, Diary B2 Opinion A12 A7-11 Wyoming. Old Grouch It's getting more and more worthwhile to just read a book. RESULTS The Star-Tribune Classified Section is not just for selling unwanted items! If there is something you would like to buy or trade for, don't wait for someone else to place a 'For Sale' ad in the running your own advertisement in 136-Want to BuyTrade.

Right now, you can buy a classified ad there for just $6 for 7 daysl Just call 266-0555 or 1-800-442-6916 (in WY toll-free) for more detailsl i Commonwealth of Independent States ttMlJL aA A Military squabble could rupture CIS Three members won't join unified armed force JJ military diruciure Moldova Georrjia -J' '-iVlTajiKislan vA-- Kyrrjyzstan Armenia Azerbaijan Uzbekistan Turkmenistan AW TV Russia Member join the Member Join Rick SorensonStar-1 ribune tary command structure has been viewed as the strongest glue holding the old Soviet states together in their newly formed commonwealth. If the states each create their own army, it could jeopardize the future of the CIS. The leaders of the 1 1 states met Friday in the Belarus capital Minsk, which is supposed to become the capital of the CIS. Ukraine, Moldova and Azerbaijan said they would not have any military role in the commonwealth. They refused to join a working group proposed by Russia to work out details.

By KATHARINE COLLINS Southwestern Wyoming bureau ROCK SPRINGS The director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department wants the Legislature to codify the traditional practice of setting aside big game hunting permits for landowners. Department Director Francis "Pete" Petera said he drafted a bill that would give statutory authority to the long-established Game and Fish Commission practice of granting Wyoming landowners resident and non-resident hunting rights that others can obtain only through random competitive drawings. Opponents of the practice say the proposed law may be uncon- Russia has already warned that it will create its own separate army if Ukraine refuses to go along with a joint CIS military. Advisers to Russian President Boris Yeltsin say he may announce the formation of a Russian army as early as next week. Russia's own army could number as many as one million men and dwarf the others.

Ukraine plans to have an army numbering 450,000 or less. These discussions were about conventional forces only. None of the 1 1 leaders Friday suggested any change in their agreement to Please see CIS, A14 'inny 1 ii i mi I. states that refused to united commonwealth armed forces states that agreed to the united commonwealth armed forces SUr-Tribune gnphic by Greg Kearney Report says little drilling in Thunder Basin grasslands MOSCOW (COX) A one-day summit of the fledgling Commonwealth of Independent States ended Friday amid squabbling as its members split over whether they should maintain a unified armed force. Three of the eleven members of the commonwealth, which is the successor to the Soviet Union, refused to discuss a unified military command even for a two-year transitional period making it clear they intended to establish separate armies as soon as possible.

The sharing of a common mili- Democrats, Buchanan rip Bush over taxes SALEM, NlH. (AP) President Bush time under fire from rivals of botfy parties Friday for omitting a key middle-class tax break from his economic plan. He refused to resbqnd but accused congressional Democrats of trying to scuttle his plan to help home buyers. As his rivals campaigned here on the last weekend before the New Hampshire, primary, Bush tramped through a Maryland construction site in hard, hat and cowboy boots, saying he is taking "shots from all sides" and his critics are "having a field day." Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Republican challenger Patrick Buchanan both were critical of Bush for omitting a $500 increase in the personal exemption from the tax bill he sent to Capitol Hill this week.

"The rich get the gold mine and the middle class gets the shaft," the neighborhood of 1 50 permits to drill," on the grasslands, according to Medicine Bow National Forest lands and minerals manager Joe Reddick. "Last year we drilled four." Although there is currently a moratorium on leasing in the grasslands, government officials say the drop in interest is more a function of hard economic times than government restrictions. Leasing was stopped two years ago to give the Forest Service time to complete an environmental impact statement assessing the effect of drilling on the grasslands. And although there is a current backlog of over 300 lease applications, Forest Service officials Please see BASIN, A14 to study Deaf School of Education jointly study the issue of instruction for the deaf statewide. A story in last Saturday's Star-Tribune incorrectly characterized the participants in the proposed study.

By MICHAEL RILEY Star-Tribune correspondent DOUGLAS A new federal report offers a sour outlook for the future of oil and gas development on the Thunder Basin National Grasslands an outlook officials say reflects an industry hard-hit by a turbulent national economy and depressed oil prices. A recently released Forest Service assessment of foreseeable development on the grasslands predicts that the agency may approve as few as 10 drilling permits a year over the 1.8 million acres of federal land in northeast Wyoming, much of which saw heavy exploration in the early 1980s. "In 1982 we probably issued in Ed department, JAC CHEYENNE The Joint Appropriations Committee last month recommended funding the Wyoming School for the Deaf in Casper for one more year while the committee and the Department Presidential hopeful Jerry Brown lends a hand to student at Notre Dame College rally in Manchester Clinton said. "It's wrong and it's to send the measure to lawmakers going to ruin the country." in a second installment of his eco- Bush proposed in his State of nomic recovery plan later, the Union Message to increase the Buchanan concentrated his fire personal income tax exemption, on the issue as he campaigned here The administration says it plans pcase see POLITICS, A14.