Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 29

Doa PS! Section 2 (EhicagO (Tribune Thursday, December 21, 1989 ChicsgoSand Aurora opens way for science museum Test for bus terminal Greyhound bus officials brace for the Christmas crunch at their new terminal southwest of the Loop. Page 2. High death rates A U.S. report says eight Illinois hospitals have higher-than-expected death rates among Medicare patients. Page 3.

tended to sell it to developers who would convert it into an office and retail center. Under the current proposal, the city would lease the building to SciTech Museum and get no property taxes from it The two bids to buy the building that the council rejected called for too much financial help from the city, city planners said. A bid by the Aurora accounting firm of Nickels, Beilman See Museum, pg. 6 attract 100,000 to 200,000 tourists to downtown Aurora every year and create business for nearby restaurants and shops. The museum is currently located in Naperville and is the only one of its kind in the western suburbs.

"The center would be an excellent science, cultural and educational attraction for the whole region," Pierce said Wednesday. "We would be pleased if we could find a location in Aurora for it" The old Post Office is on the southern tip of Stolp Island and within the city's tax increment financing district, which was established to help attract taxpay-ing businesses to Aurora's long-dormant downtown. In the district, businesses continue to pay more taxes as the property value increases, but the additional taxes are used to improve the district The city bought the building from the federal government last spring for $330,000 and had in- city officials have pushed for economic rejuvenation and a higher tax base. "I thought it was clearly in our interest to turn the building over to developers who would put it to maximum use as an office center and restaurant," said Aid. Charles Pagels (5th), who voted against rejecting the bids.

"This is a step in the wrong direction." But Mayor David Pierce, who supports leasing the building to the SciTech Museum, has said the museum would ultimately By Nancy Ryan A hands-on science museum is one step closer to finding a permanent home in the old Aurora Post Office, even though some aldermen are questioning the practicality of locating a not-for-profit corporation in the heart of the city's depressed downtown. The City Council voted 5-3 Tuesday night to reject two bids to use the building for commercial purposes after a debate over the long-term benefit of having the museum in a location where Addison bond sale Addison Village President Anthony Russotto schedules a special meeting of the Village Board to discuss the sale of revenue bonds for a major commercial development in town. Page 6. Wheaton teen poll lends hope Historians lament fire in Aurora Russotto Darien police chief quits Darien's police chief, David Kohnke, has submitted his resignation, but he'll remain with the department. Page 7.

Jail privileges for mobster Albert Tocco will be allowed visitor and phone privileges while he remains confined in federal custody. Page 8. miiiiiiiiii in ii -mi stop fight puts people at Battle stations Aurora Historical Muaeum photo The historic Aurora Watch Co. building, designed by Adler and Sullivan, in February, 1970. By Mike Nichols To passersby it seemed little more than a dilapidated warehouse sitting incongruously in a quiet residential neighborhood southeast of downtown Aurora.

But when the old Aurora Watch Co. burned to the ground last Sunday, much more was lost than just another outmoded factory that apparently had become even less useful than the 19th Century timepieces it once produced. Only eight months after fire claimed an unusual example of turn-of-the-century architecture in the River North area of Chicago, local historians this week are lamenting the loss of what they say is the only other significant building of like structure designed by one of America's great architectural duos, Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. And they are mourning, they say, much more than simply a rare building. "What has been lost is the ability to look at the whole range of Sullivan's career," said Joan Pomaranc, assistant to the director of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

"Sullivan was one of the major architects in American history." Along with Adler, he also designed the old Chicago Stock Exchange on North LaSalle Street, the old Garrick Theater on West Randolph Street and the Auditorium Building at Michigan Avenue and Congress Parkway, See Building, pg. 6 By Casey Banas Education writer In Wheaton and Warren ville, 16 percent of middle and high school students say they use alcohol at least weekly, but the majority don't drink and do share their problems with parents whom they regard as strict Findings from a 150-item survey completed by 3,500 of 5,200 6th through 12th graders in Wheaton-Warrenville Community Unit School District 200 show that although a few youngsters use alcohol, drugs and cigarettes regularly, most students shun them because of family values and drug education programs. "If parents make their values regarding alcohol and drugs known to children early in life, maintain credibility by living these values in their actions, the message sent to their children will last a lifetime," said Rob Lee, the school district's director of evaluation. "If parents communicate with other parents, a supportive unv brella can be developed to dramatically increase our children's chances of avoiding substance abuse." Lee presented survey findings to the Wheaton-Warrenville school board Wednesday. The questionnaires were completed last April and May.

"We have a community that enjoys good relations between parents and children," he said. The survey showed that 65 percent of students share problems with their parents and 68 percent regard their parents as strict. "Students say their parents have rules, but are fair in administering them, and they can go to them with their problems," Lee said. "That's a sign of a healthy society." Further, 73 percent said they have tried alcohol perhaps, Lee said, "a sip of beer at the age of 12" but about three-quarters of that group said they do not now drink at all. A factor in students' decision to avoid drinking, in addition to family values, is the school district's drug and alcohol education program.

More than three-quarters of surveyed students praised the program for providing accurate information and for helping them make their own See Wheaton, pg. 6 1 i Photo by John P. Jarot The building, considered an architectural landmark, was destroyed by fire Sunday. Kenny Rogers and his Glen Ellyn chorus By Jody Temkin Patty Fogarty is a video producer from Glen Ellyn. This week, though, shell be on stage at the Pheasant Run Resort singing with Kenny Rogers.

Dick Allen of West Chicago is a general contractor. But this week, he, too, will have his moment in the theatrical sun as he croons Christmas tunes with Rogers at Pheasant Run's MegaCenter in St Charles. The 40-or-so members of the audition. Typical of show business, it's whom you know that counts, and in this case, the Glen Ellyn Chorale had the right connections. Diana Martinez, the director of entertainment at Pheasant Run, was the person charged with selecting a local chorus for Rogers, who frequently asks for backup help from local groups his tours.

Martinez did not hold tryouts. She did not call countless choruses throughout Chicagoland and ask them to come to St. Glen Ellyn Community Chorale typically perform before a couple of hundred people, many of them friends and neighbors, in a local church hall or community center. This week's gig is decidedly atypical. At the end of each performance of the Kenny Rogers' Christmas Concert, through Saturday, the Glen Ellyn singers join the MegaStar on the MegaCenter's stage for three Christmas songs, two with Rogers and one by themselves.

And they didn't even have to Charles to audition. She didn't have to. Martinez had worked with a theater group at the Glen Ellyn Park District, which sponsors the chorale, and was familiar with the chorus. "I knew they'd done good work in the past," she said. "I'd seen a couple of their concerts." So they were hired, for $1,000 for each of the five performances.

The $5,000, which will go into a chorale account instead of indi-See Chorus, pg. 6 Dai Lim cracked three eggs onto the skillet and looked over his shoulder at the customer who ordered the cheese omelet "You sign petition for station?" he asked, nodding to the clipboard on the lunch counter- As neighborhood declarations go, it was a sensibly worded thing. Written over the weekend by Marty Scharaga of Jarvis Liquors, reproduced on the photocopier, at Michael Lee's Jarvis Pharmacy, it began: "Petition to oppose the closing of the Jarvis 'V Station. We the residents, workers and About tho town John McCarron business people strongly oppose the closing of the-Jarvis 'L' Station an integral part of our have fought this battle before. So the Jarvis merchants were quick to react last week when the Chicago Transit Authority listed their station among the 16 to be closed next year for budgetary reasons.

So far they've collected 600 signatures. "Four years ago they tried to do the same thing," said Lim, a Korean-American who, with his wife Sang, operates Andy's American and Oriental Foods under the station at 1S27 W. Jarvis Ave. They bought the business six years ago from someone named Andy. The 7-stooI, 3-booth operation opens before dawn for coffee-to-go commuters.

After the rush, it turns into a ham-and-egg mill for local tradesmen, delivery drivers and beat cops. There's an old-fashioned phone booth up front and a clean washroom in back. "Why do they want to do this?" Lim said, chopping his spatula through the hash browns that, with omelet, wheat toast and coffee, comprise the $3.50 breakfast special. "A lot of people are going to get hurt" The official answer to Lim's question was '-announced last Thursday at a meeting of the transit authority's Committee on Finance, Audit and Budget The staff recommended $5.5 million in service cuts to help close a $10 million deficit in next year's projected budget of $707 million. Cuts are necessary, the staff explained, due to the higher cost of health insurance, of testing employees for drugs, of installing wheelchair lifts in buses.

No mention was made of the former executive director's $225,000 severance package; or of a former board member's recent conviction for bribe-taking; or of the record $3.3 million paid last year to outside law firms whose senior partners read like a bipartisan Who's Who of Chicago politics. Instead, the CTA staff offered to absorb half the deficit by laying off at least 65 middle-management types. The other half, they said, will have to come from cuts in bus and train service. So the budget analysts produced a list of 16 low-volume transit stations that are relatively close to other stations and 21 bus routes for which there is "parallel service." Besides Jarvis, other transit stations on the hit list are Thorndale, Berwyn, 58th Street, and Harvard Avenue on the Howard line; Foster and Dempster on the Evanston line; Rockwell, Paulina, and Wellington on the Raven swood; Halsted and Kedzie on the LakeDan Ryan; Grand Avenue on the O'Hare; and Hoyne, Kildare, and Laramie on the Douglas. Closing a station saves on maintenance and utility expenses.

But the big savings, according to the CTA, comes from eliminating a $10-an-hour tickets agent. That's a $240-a-day savings, plus benefits, for stations with round-See Station, pg. 6 Abused wife gets clemency 12 years after hiring hit man Virginia to spend the holidays with relatives, including her 26-year-old daughter and two grandchildren she has never, seen. Vl'm thinking of what to say when I see her first," her mother, Opal Hill, said in a phone interview. "I'll probably just fall over." Claiborne said she would re-' turn to Illinois to work on behalf of abused women.

"I spent 12 years in prison' thinking about those other battered women out there still going through what I went through," she said. "I want to do all I can for them so hopeful-, ly, God forbid, no one ends up like I did." Claiborne pleaded guilty in. 1978 to murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder after confessing to police, who had been investigating her husband's death for months. A judge sentenced her to 14 to. 50 years in prison.

Lorenzo Louden, the man hired to carry out the murder, is in prison See Wife, pg. 6 By Rob Karwath Evelyn Claiborne began crying Wednesday when Gov. James Thompson said the words she had waited 12 years to hear. "I would like to present at this time Mrs. Evelyn Claiborne, a free citizen," Thompson said, ending the South Side woman's prison sentence for hiring a hit man to kill her abusive husband in 1977.

During seven years of marriage, Claiborne was beaten so severely that she partially lost hearing in both ears and had to undergo a hysterectomy. Her husband, Frank, also tattooed his name and initials into her arms, telling her, "Now everyone will know you're mine." Claiborne, 42, had asked Thompson for mercy, saying she had hired the hit man as an act of desperation after family, neighbors, police and a lawyer ignored her pleas for help to end the chronic abuse. When Thompson announced he was granting Claiborne clemency and commuting her sentence to time served, she was the only Illinois inmate still serv ing time for the slaying of an abusive husband before 1982, when the legislature allowed courts to grant abuse victims leniency. "This woman suffered a life of torment that was almost unbelievable, and very little of it came out at her trial or during her sentencing," Thompson said at a news conference in the State of Illinois Center as Claiborne stood nearby. "It is out now, and I have acted in response to what I believe to be the demands of justice and certainly the demands of mercy." Claiborne said, "I'm very thankful to Gov.

Thompson for granting me my freedom that I prayed for for so many years not only while I was in prison but in an abusive situation." Last year shortly before Christmas, Thompson released Gladys Gonzalez and Leslie Brown, two other women imprisoned for arranging the deaths of abusive husbands. Both had served less time in prison than Claiborne. Claiborne said she would travel to her parents' home in West X- 4,,. sr a Trlbuna photo by Karan EngMrom Gov. James Thompson comforts Evelyn Claiborne after commuting her prison sentence Wednesday.

She spent 12 years in jail..