The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 41

i ILi Sports Classified C1 THE SUN, Wednesday, June 4, 1980 injure rage across state 7" iv as tor storm a general store that is the town's only business. Tiney Bucklew, who was in her Crellin home on Route 39 when the storm came, said, "First I thought it was my dryer, but I turned it off and I could still hear the noise." Nora Fox said she was making dinner and looked out the kitchen window to see shrubs "sweeping the ground." According to Mr. Gibson, the tornado "cleared out one whole section" in the southwest section of Crellin. He said several people lost their homes, and "several trailers were torn to pieces and scattered for miles." Reports said the storm knocked down power lines, trees, small buildings and one mobile home, causing more than $350,000 damage throughout Garrett county. Another apparent tornado touched down on Sunshine avenue in the Kingsville section of Baltimore county about 4:30 p.m., clearing a 25-foot-wide swath down the street.

According to Bob Graf, of the Kingsville Volunteer Fire Department, a 75-foot tree was picked up and dropped across the middle of the road. The tree knocked down a utility pole, causing a power outage in the area. Driveways and bushes also were ripped up, he said. In Frederick county, authorities reported two sightings of funnel clouds in the Hansonville area. No injuries and only minor property damage were reported.

Montgomery county police reported an apparent tornado touched down near the county airport outside Rockville. Minor See WEATHER, C2, Col. 3 and Delaware, as well as parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia. In addition, a tornado warning was issued for Garrett, Allegany, Frederick, Carroll, Howard, Talbot, Montgomery and southern Anne Arundel counties. The weather service cancelled its last tornado watch, for extreme Southern Maryland and the lower Eastern Shore, about 9 p.m.

In most areas of the state, the storm came and left with a roar, leaving widespread damage in its wake. Police and fire departments around the state were inundated with reports of flooded basements and downed trees and power lines. A portion of U.S. 1 in Harford county was blocked by fallen trees, police said. A State Police spokesman in Pikesville said troopers had been sent to the sites of two reported tornadoes in Garrett county, near the tiny communities of Pleasant Valley and Crellin.

Only the Crellin tornado was confirmed as such by the Weather Service. Three persons one of whom was treated for anxiety were taken to Garrett County Memorial Hospital in Oakland. Two brothers-Reuben Collins, 23, and Michael, 29 jumped out of a mobile home just before it blew over. Reuben Collins was admitted to the Garrett county hospital with a fractured ankle. His brother was treated for minor injuries and released.

The tornado "came all at once," said Steve Gibson.at the Crellin Service Center, A confirmed tornado in Garrett county and several funnel-like storms ripped through Maryland yesterday, Injuring at least two persons, damaging homes, and depositing trees in roadways and on roof-tops. The tornado cut a path 150 yards wide and a half-mile long through Crellin, about 5 miles west of Oakland, damaging 13 dwellings and destroying two mobile homes. One man fractured his ankle when he and his brother jumped from one of the trailers just before it was toppled by the storm. Widespread power outages were reported in the state as brief, but dramatic, thunderstorms accompanied by heavy rain, hail and high winds- swept in with a low-pressure cold front from Pennsylvania. Hail the size of golf balls reportedly fell in Ellicott City and Salisbury.

Smaller hailstones pelted downtown Baltimore during the storm, which lasted about 10 minutes before moving out of the city in a southerly direction about 4:30 p.m. According to the National Weather Service, 1.18 inches of rain had fallen in the metropolitan area by 6 p.m. The cold front brought drastic changes in conditions and turned late afternoon skies from hazy sunshine to midnight-like blackness. The hot, muggy weather that had enveloped the area for several days was replaced by slightly cooler, much drier conditions. The National Weather Service's Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City, issued a tornado watch for Maryland ill W1: si Pif f- -i r(p lilllk I men iHWimilr -iw Hm 1 lint iliiimmtt A tree and utility wires block Belair road in Kingsville after an apparent tornado briefly roared through the area about 4:30 p.m.

Rent ruling could change initiatives, but not voter reaction ballots may be left to courts want controls owners don't keep apartments liveable." "So. Now they'll have a free hand," added her neighbor, Timothy Savoy, an electrical glazier who said he once had to take his landlord to court for an illegal rent increase, and voted for rent control in November. "I'll tell you, it doesn't help the working man or the little man any." Among the neatly tended lawns and brick detached homes of suburban North Baltimore, it was a different story. "I hope they keep it rejected," said Clyde Oney, a steelworker who owns a house on Crosswood avenue in the east section of the city. "I've seen New York and some of the other cities that had rent control, and it's pitiful.

When they cut that money off, it's like cutting the blood out of someone's body." Mr. Oney said he sympathized with his Renters still By PAMELA CONSTABLE It wasn't exactly the same hot topic that inspired emotional outbursts and bitter cross-charges last November. In fact, a lot of people couldn't even remember which way they had voted on the initiative. But rent control, the people's initiative that was declared illegal in yesterday's ruling by the state Court of Appeals, still aroused some strong reactions from renters and homeowners across the city wheh they were informed of the court's decision. "I think it's terrible," said Doris Baker, a West Baltimore switchboard operator who has rented a rowhouse on Presstman street for eight years.

"Now the landlords can charge whatever they want, and they still aren't compelled to do anything to Kerpelman By J. S. BAINBRIDGE, JR. Annapolis Bureau of The Sun Leonard J. Kerpelman, the lawyer whose arguments helped knock compulsory prayer out of the nation's public schools and who has fought for causes throughout his professional life, argued in court again yesterday.

This time, his cause was to save himself from disbarment Lawyers for the state Attorney Grievance Commission have been trying to get Mr. Kerpelman disciplined for acts they and a lower court judge have determined were grossly wrong. Mr. Kerpelman stands accused of "maliciously and improperly" increasing fees for his services in one case and advising a client in another domestic case to ignore a The Court of Appeals looked beyond Maryland's borders for guidance on the complex issue of the power of voters in initiatives. But perhaps the court's closest look was at a two-year-old decision of its own involving an Anne Arundel county zoning case.

In that decision, the appeals court held that in home rule counties, citizens can petition to referendum laws passed by their councils if the charter allows it. This case was relied upon heavily by lawyers hoping to see the rent control measure revived after it had been voided by a city Supreme Bench judge last November. However, the court ruled yesterday that the Arundel case differed frbm the rent question because in the former, action was taken to review a law after Mr. Kerpelman also said his former client in the alleged child-abduction was possibly under the influence of cocaine when he gave his testimony. Mr.

Kerpelman, whose main business is divorce and custody cases, has for years been known as an independent and colorful gadfly whose demeanor and causes have often run afoul of the traditionalists in the legal community. He was the lawyer who argued the case before the Supreme Court which ended in a landmark 1963 decision to eliminate prayers from the country's public schools. What will happen to him and his career is now in the hands of the seven judges on the state's highest court. It is not known how long they will take in making their decision. argues for himself in state disbarment hearing Legality of By J.

S. BAINBR1DGE, JR. and JOHN SCHIDLOVSKY Annapolis Bureau of The Sun Annapolis Yesterday's Court of Appeals decision that declared illegal a city rent control ballot question will not end speculation over what voters can do on their own. The decision does, however, offer a set of guidelines for both voters and lawyers the next time a question comes up about the right of citizens to bypass their elected officials and take issues directly to the voters. But the guidelines are limited.

How much the state's highest court will restrict the power of future initiatives will not really become clear, according to a number of legal observers, until some more cases are decided. In responding to a question from Chief Judge Robert C. Murphy, Mr. Kerpelman said he told the man, "Here's the situation, you have to decide what to do." J. Martin McDonough, one of the lawyers representing the grievance commission yesterday, told the judges that Mr.

Kerpelman should be disbarred for allegedly recommending that the child be taken. In arguments yesterday, the tousle-haired and flamboyant Mr. Kerpelman attacked the grievance lawyers as "a group of paid hatchetmen" who misuse their power to "go after the small practitioner." The rules under which they operate, Mr. Kerpelman said are "useful for oppression and suppression which will put us in league with the group in Moscow." chauffeuring the older ones around the county. We tend to run into each other in front of the neighborhood school, with kids in tow, usually five minutes late, most often on rainy and snowy mornings.

Last week, after a half-dozen chance encounters, we decided to have lunch together in the city. Then he recognized the cartoon face stamped on my hand, and suddenly I realized that he and I now have a few things in common. Ted's hair is grayer now, but he has lost weight and looks tanned and relaxed. An eternal optimist (he seemed almost more cheerful after his defeat than Harry Hughes seemed after his victory in the gubernatorial race), Venetoulis now says the publishing business is "a great way to make a living," and he swears he's through with politics for good. But curiously enough, Ted Venetoulis is still campaigning.

He greets almost everyone he sees on the street with a wave or a hello, and when he walks into a restaurant he shakes hands all the way to his table. When Ted Venetoulis was running for office, I thought the laying on of hands routine was an act. Now, suddenly it seems sincere. When I talked to him during his campaign, I sometimes felt like I was talking to a tape recorder. Now, suddenly, I am struck by the man's energy and enthusiasm.

During the Venetoulis campaign, the candidate's almost compulsive, trade mark charm seemed calculated to se duce votes. Now, two years later, it seems spontaneous and genuine. And the remarkable thing is, I sus pect Ted Venetoulis hasn't changed a bit. enactment. In that case, "the referendum is an integral component of the legislative process and that it establishes, in effect, a 'coordinate legislative entity' i.e, the county electorate," the court said in a majority opinion written by Chief Judge Robert C.

Murphy. The referendum power "is a power exercised by the voters after a law has been enacted, rather than a power to enact the law itself," the court held, finding that the referendum authority was proper. In contrast, an initiative, such as the rent control question, "completely circumvents the legislative body, thereby totally undermining its status as the primary legislative organ," the court ruled. Increasingly, voters have used initia-See BALLOT, C4, Col. 1 LEONARD KERPELMAN defendant in disbarment proceeding M.PHELPS for successfully helping department stores in their efforts to win revisions of blue laws (for a fee of $11,470) and representing a wide variety of other clients, from scrap metal processors to psychiatrists.

The more successful lobbyists this year also included: Former House Speaker John Hanson Briscoe, who in his first year as a lobbyist earned $27,205 from four clients interested in medical malpractice, title insurance, the excavation and construction business, and optometry. Bruce C. Bereano, an aide to Steny H. Hoyer when Mr. Hoyer was president of the state Senate, who pulled in $48,275 plus expenses by representing chain stores, opticians, venders, conservationists, health facilities and Harford county.

He received $25,000 for representing chain stores and supermarkets in their annual battle to gain the right to sell beer and wine. (The liquor stores spent $21,000 and successfully fended off the chains.) Richard T. Rombro, who earned $46,000 representing ophthalmologists, contractors, an outdoor advertising firm and others. Thomas W. Downs, a one-time aide to former Lieutenant Governor Blair Lee III, who earned $60,177 from highway contractors and solid waste disposal companies.

Paul McHenry, who earned $36,850 in fees. His largest fee, $25,000, came from tobacco growers. Other former state officials who lobbied were Maurice R. Wyatt, once Gov-See LOBBYISTS, C4, Col. 4 niece, whose apartment rental rate in mid-town Manhattan had been increased from $500 to $700 a month, but added that "renters can destroy your property." "I'm glad they finally won.

I felt that it would lead to the deterioration of the city and subsequent abandonments. When you put rent control on, owners can't afford to make repairs," agreed Rene J. Gunning, a young real estate agent who lives in Roland Park with his parents and was active in the campaign against rent control. While some opponents saw rent control as "another government handout" for "do-nothing" tenants, a number expressed empathy for tenants on fixed incomes, and said their decision on the issue had not been easy. "I was a renter for 10 years, and I See REACTION, C4, Col.

1 that Mr. Kerpelman had "maliciously and improperly" escalated legal fees in a case in which he lied to a client. Judge Levin wrote that Mr. Kerpelman told the client that more work needed to be done on his case, even though a judge had made a decision. Judge Levin, said that the "misrepresentation was made to justify an improper fee." Mr.

Kerpelman yesterday vehemently denied Judge Levin's conclusions. The client said, according to Judge Levin's opinion, that Mr. Kerpelman had advised him "not to make it a breaking and entering charge type of thing but to try to get in without breaking the door down, and, you know, just get my child." Mr. Kerpelman yesterday denied that he advised the man to take his child. other in that campaign.

But it was also because a horse race makes better copy than an idea. For the most part, despite our best intentions, this was the way we covered the gubernatorial race here two years ago, and generally, it's the way the papers have been covering the presidential campaigns this year. I think Ted Kennedy has suffered most from the horse race treatment this year, just as Venetoulis did in the gubernatorial election. Unfortunately, the most likeable candidates seem to get the worst deal. We have reached a point where the quality we once called charisma has now become a liability.

I guess that's the way this business works. A good reporter shouldn't let a politician get away with hokey lines and phony promises. A good reporter shouldn't allow himself to be politically seduced by a glamorous candidate. A good reporter shouldn't become a crony of the men he's covering. Vietnam taught us to question.

Marvin Mandel taught us to doubt. Watergate taught us to mistrust every word a politician utters. Those were valid lessons for a political reporter, as important today as ever. But now I'm not a political reporter, and Ted Venetoulis is no longer a politician. In fact, he is now a political commentator on TV, and a newspaper publisher (The Towson Times), which makes us colleagues, after a fashion.

We also happen to live in the same neighborhood. We are both fathers of two little children. Our kids go to the same school. We both spend a lot of time baby-sitting with the little ones, and Traits once held suspect now smell genuine Cajoling lawmakers is profitable business court order and travel out of state to snatch the man's child from his ex-wife. Yesterday, the seven judges on the Maryland Court of Appeals heard Mr.

Kerpelman defend his record and attack both the grievance commission and Supreme Bench Judge Marshall A. Levin, the judge who wrote a report on the Kerpelman case for appellate review. Not once in his 30 years of practice, Mr. Kerpelman argued, have any charges against him been sustained. "Levin performed the most outrageous kind of judicial conduct," Mr.

Kerpelman said, arguing that the judge's handling of his case was biased and reached the wrong conclusions. In his exhaustive formal opinion issued earlier this year, Judge Levin had said Matt Seiden fit of the doubt. A politician was the only class of American you could consider guilty until proved innocent. When I wrote my articles, I tried to avoid giving the reader any hint that I might actually like the guy, that I might have found his energy and optimism infectious or his ideas attractive. If I had, my colleagues and editors would have thought I'd fallen for the candidate's line.

It was okay to report the facts, and it was okay to report anything negative. But no self-respecting political reporter would be caught dead reporting anything blatantly favorable that is, anything his colleagues might consider partisan, or worse, a "puff" piece. So you reported a discrepancy about the candidate's age, and you reported any mistakes his people may have made in filing political contribution statements. And you reported how the polls showed him losing. But you tended not to report the enthusiasm that surrounded his campaign or the excitement with which people greeted him in the streets.

And no matter how you started out, you seemed to end up treating the campaign more as a horse race than a confrontation of ideas. This was partly because there were not a whole lot of ideas confronting each Midway through lunch with Ted Venetoulis last week, I looked down and noticed a cartoon face I think it was a dog stamped in black ink on the back of my right hand. I showed it to Venetoulis. He recognized it immediately and laughed. My hand had been stamped the night before when I bought a ticket to my little boy's school play.

The play was Alice in Wonderland or "Alison Wonderland," as my son called it. He thought Wonderland was Alison's last name. He's in kindergarten. But I digress. The point is that Ted Venetoulis recognized the stamp because he had also seen the play that night in the hot, airless gym of the public school in our neighborhood.

He saw the play because his son was the Knave of Hearts. I tell you all this because the stamp seemed to symbolize something for me. When I noticed the silly cartoon face still smeared on my hand, and when Ted Venetoulis recognized it and laughed, at that moment I realized that something had changed between Venetoulis and me. The last time I had sat down with Ted Venetoulis he was the Baltimore county executive, and he was running for governor. I was a political reporter covering his campaign.

I approached him then as I approached the other candidates with a degree of skepticism bordering on suspicion. I tuned my ears to pick up every phony cadence, every bit of memorized rhetoric, every contradictory promise. I eagerly checked out every rumor of scandal and diligently resisted the candidate's legendary charm. I never gave any politician the bene- By TIMOTHY Flushed with victory in perhaps the toughest battle of the last legislative session, lawyer-lobbyist Joseph A. Schwartz was having lunch at an Annapolis restaurant when a messenger walked in and placed a small box on his table.

Mr. Schwartz, who had just helped to kill a bill extending hours of bars on The Block, opened the box to find a red rose with a black ribbon tied around it-a Mafia message of death. There was no note. He laughed nervously, speculating that the flower was a morbid joke, perhaps sent by state Senator Joseph Bonvegna (D, Baltimore), the prime advocate of the bill. But Senator Bonvegna did not laugh when he heard the story.

"I would never joke about that," he said, very seriously. The florist who took the order would not say where it came from. Mr. Schwartz is still alive and well a month and a half later, $6,000 richer as a result of his lobbying fee from a group of bars and nightclubs not located on The, Block and therefore strongly opposed to the bill. But fellow lobbyists wonder if the fee was worth the scare, and the enmity of legislators who favored the bill.

Whatever the risks, lobbying can be a lucrative profession, as shown by an examination yesterday of disclosure forms filed with the state Ethics Board. As usual, James J. Doyle, of Baltimore, was the top paid lobbyist by faf, earning $162,187 in fees, not including expenses, from 18 clients, including railroads, utilities. Pizza Hut and hospitals. Franklin Goldstein, another Baltimore lawyer, was second, with $91,069 in fees.