Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 3

Friday, January 2, 1987 Star-Tribune, Casper, Concerns about Highway 220 being ignored, residents claim who urged widening the highway at public hearing early this month say their concerns are still not being taken seriously by the Highway Department. They say highway olficials are focusing their attention on improving intersections instead of slate Highway 220. Despite. assurances by the Highway Department that it will consider widening the highway southwest of Casper, Ketchum and other local residents continue to express their frustration. Ketchum and some of those Jt tr7 .1 If a from head-on collisions" in The Narrows.

"In the past three and a half years I've seen seven people get killed," Reed said. "They don't understand the problem. has to tell me they refuse to understand the problem, because people over and over are reiteraling these things." "1 maintain how many more accidents, how many more deaths have to occur before they act," Reed said. And Verba Barnes, a county resident who last summer spearheaded a drive for the hearing, termed the meeting "an exercise in futility" in a recent letter to the editor. But highway officials said the hearing provided them with "very valuable input" towards understanding what work needs to be done on The Narrows.

A Highway Department spokesman said traffic statistics do not show a high accident rate on Highway 220, which prompted officials to turn to local residents for explanations. "1 think they have a very good point. really got our attention," Highway Department Environmental Services Engineer Bill King said from Cheyenne. "But we couldn't give them the answers that they wanted." Local participants at the hearing asked Highway Department officials to divert money from the proposed intersection improvements to The Narrows. But King said the Highway Department Slar-Tribunc file pholt have residents calling for Highway 220 to le widened student loan call for new an innovative loan program that would let students borrow up to $50,000 and peg repayments to their incomes.

The "Income Contingent Loan" program the loans would be called ICLs will be included in the Reagan administration spending plan to be submitted Monday to Congress. "We believe this is the single biggest advance in the financing of higher education for students in the last 15 years," Deputy Education Undersecretary Bruce Carnes said this week at a briefing. The $600 million, combined with up to $393 million in collections from other loans, would be available to students who met the same eligibility standards applied to other aid programs. ICLs would be self-supporting since students eventually would repay the full loans with interest. Carnes refused to say what cuts will be proposed in other areas in order to pay for the new ICL program.

He said changes will be sug widening the highway. About 100 persons attended the hearing Dec. 3 to ask that "The Narrows" a treacherous three-mile stretch of road about 10 miles southwest of the Goose Egg Inn be widened into a four-lane road to help prevent serious traffic accidents. Highway Department officials at the hearing said they had no money to work on The Narrows, but announced their plans for modifying three segments of Highway 220. Ketchum on Tuesday complained Highway Department officials "aren't looking at it wilh the same perspective as the people who live out there and the people who patrol it.

a real need to do something to improve safety on that highway." "Certainly we could flood that area (wilh patrol cars), but we have other areas of responsibility," Ketchum said. "It just seemed the whole meeting didn't accomplish anything for the people who live out there," Ketchum said. Concerned residents should "work through their legislators (or) start a petition drive" to draw immediate attention to the problems on Highway 220, he said. Alcova resident Michael Reed said, "We understand that it's expensive, (but) the things they're doing don't need to be done they're directing all their attention to intersections." But the serious accidents have occurred not at intersections but p3 Help! Party fun cannot spend money the state allocated for specific projects on other projects. "We can stop work on it, but we wouldn't take that money and put it in a savings account for The Narrows path," King said.

"That's just not the way government business can be done." The proposed improvements include modification of several intersections from Wyoming Boulevard southwest to the end of the four-lane divided section near the Goose Egg, about 15 miles of pavement overlay from the Goose Egg to the top of the hill just north of Alcova, and modification of the Alcova and Pathfinder intersections and the corner of Lake Shore Drive and Highway 220. "We will work on analysis, look at various options" on making Highway 220 safer, King said. Improvements should be made within the next two or three years, he added. But Alcova residents and people traveling Highway 220 "would like to see them give their immediate attention to it," Reed said. "There are some other things that can be done" besides turning The Narrows into a four-lane road.

"They can make little cuts in the highway, so tires start singing when you cross over. that wake you they can put concrete dividers down the middle," Reed said. "They must have something to keep people from crossing the center line. highway is very unforgiving." Star-Tribune 'Rick Sorenson It added that the arresting officer had no authority to arrest Hinton without a warrant on the private property and that when Hinton reached the Natrona County Jail, she was denied a blanket during the night she spent there. The lawsuit charged that Hinton's rights to due process, liberty, no arrest without probable cause and to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment were all violated in the incident.

The lawsuit also charged that Casper Police Chief Edward Kin-nion, Natrona County Sheriff John Barrett and the Natrona County commissioners failed to instruct, supervise, control and discipline the arresting officer. The lawsuit seeks $200,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages for the loss of freedom, severe emotional distress, humiliation, embarrassment, depression and invasion of privacy it said Hinton suffered in the incident. It asks another $300,000 in compensatory damages for the violation of Hinton's civil rights. ByGWEN RICHARDS Star-Tribune staff writer CASPER Sheriff-elect Ron Ketchum says the Wyoming Highway Department appears to be ignoring local concerns about safety on a dangerous stretch of f. Fatal wet-Ls such as this one Proposal to WASHINGTON (AP) The Education Department will ask Congress next week to earmark $600 million of its new budget for Council OK's liquor dealers' tardy request CASPER The City Council held a special meeting Wednesday to grant a tardy request from the Casper Retail Liquor Dealers' Association to keep Casper bars open 24 hours four days out of the year.

The request came too late for councilmen to consider at their last scheduled meeting of the year, and the special meeting cost the taxpayers $300, according to Councilman Larry Clapp. If the association does not file a timely request next year, the request will not be granted, councilmen decided at Wednesday's meeting. The bars will be open all night for the same four occasions as in 1986: Dec. 31, 1986 to Jan. 1, 1987, July 28-29 Parade Day, Oct.

31 -Nov. 1 and Friday to Saturday of the pro rodeo. 3 citations issued New Year's Eve CASPER There were no alcohol-related traffic accidents anywhere in Natrona County New Year's Eve, according to police spokesman Bill Barnes and a spokesman for the sheriff's office. Police did cite two minors for possession of alcohol and gave another citation for having an open container in an automobile, Barnes said Thursday. "This is the first time I ever remember not arresting a drunk driver on New Year's Eve," said Barnes, who has been with Casper's police department 17 years.

"We had extra people, we stayed real visible I think that helped" deter people from driving under the influence, he said. Almost twice as many patrolmen as normal were on the streets Wednesday night, he said. Truck set afire after argument CASPER Following an argument between two persons at about 4 a.m. Thursday, one of them allegedly set fire to a jar of gasoline in the back of the other's pickup truck causing $500 in damage, according to a police spokesman. The suspect is described as a white male wearing a Natrona County High School jacket.

No arrests have been made yet. Also early in the morning of New Year's Day, a man allegedly threatened to bomb the Elk's Club at 108 E. 7th the police spokesman said. The man allegedly made the threat after club members refused to let him enter the club at 2:45 a.m. Car stolen from North Casper home CASPER A 1977 Mercury-Cougar station wagon was stolen from a house in the 700 block of North 4th Street Tuesday, a Natrona County sheriffs report says.

The station wagon, alucd at $3,000, belongs to Sylvia Bassett. It was taken shortly after 5 p.m. gested in other loan and grant programs, but that all students now eligible for federal aid would still be eligible for essentially the same amount. Carnes said the administration also will be requesting an increase in adult education funds distributed to states to fight illiteracy. The current level is $106 million; the department, will propose $130 million for 1988.

The undersecretary declined to say what the department's overall budget request will be except that it will be closer to the administration's $15.2 billion request for 1987 than to the $19.5 billion authorized by Congress. He said the agency had cut enough to meet the target set by the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction act, but would not give a figure. The Education Department in its last budget request asked Congress to approve $90 million for the ICL initiative and ended up instead with $5 million for a pilot program to begin on 10 campuses next fall. The engineering firm for the project, C.E.I. claimed the drain bed course material the contractor wanted to use was unsatisfactory and could cause future street settling and pipe damage problems unless reinforced.

The high court upheld the decision of the 7th District Court in favor of the city, although the opinion said the findings by Judge Dan Spangler and Judge Harry Leimback were "not very detailed." Nevertheless, the unanimous opinion said the trial court's finding that the city did not violate the contract with Western Utility Contractors in refusing to permit drain rock as trench bedding material "was not clearly erroneous or contrary to the great weight of evidence," and therefore should not be overturned. Star-TribuneRick Sorenson Six-year-old Travis Hill tried skiing for the first time at Hogadon Ski Area apparently with mixed results. Casper doesn't have to pay contractor more, court says TV: Dena Dorough, 12, Jennifer Burris, 12 and Jennifer Preston, 12, (left to right), enjoy pizza and Pepsi at the New Year's Eve party for junior high students at the Casper Recreation Center. Casper woman sues police, commissioners over arrest CHEYENNE -The Wyoming Supreme Court has ruled that the City of Casper does not have to pay an additional $214,000 to the contractor for delays on a $1.5 million storm sewer project. The contractor, Western Utilities Contractors maintained it was delayed on the 1982 project because the city insisted on using fine sand material as bedding in a trench dug for a concrete drain tile.

This contract requirement was consistent with Wyoming Highway Department specifications, the court opinion noted. The opinion by Justice Walter Urbigkit said the contractor wanted to use drain rock, or sized gravel, in the trench. The contractor said the drain rock, even though more expensive than what the city wanted, would have expedited dewatering and pipe laying. V. Fans II -i 1 If CHEYENNE (AP) A Casper woman is seeking $800,000 from Casper police and Natrona County's sheriff and county commissioners, charging that her rights were violated when she was arrested in connection with an automobile accidem in a private parking lot.

Cheryll Hinton, in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Cheyenne on Wednesday, charged that she was improperly arrested and jailed for two days on a charge of alcohol-related careless driving. The lawsuit said that on July 15, Hinton was involved in a minor automobile accident in a private parking lot in Casper. It added that she was arrested on the careless driving charge by a Casper police officer. But Hinton argued that Casper ordinances contain no such offense as alcohol-related careless driving.

She added that state law calls for a person charged with careless driving to be released with an unposted bond of $30 and does not allow that bond to be increased if alcohol is allegedly involved. Hinton's bond was set at $310. Slar-Tribune, Rick Sorenson Mark Leister, (left), and Terry Kiser enjoy bowl games Thursday afternoon at Sonny's Sports Lounge in Casper..