El Paso Times from El Paso, Texas • 9

Buy Stuff SeU Stuff Section Boraenano For Your Information 2B Texas, New Mexico 3B Neighborhoods 4B WEDNESDAY, JAN. 17, 2001 dpasotimecdm www.elpasotimes.com Metro Editor Dan Williams, 546-6124, dwilliamselpasotimes.com Pro-Musica director resigns to lead school of music siasm for music and, more importantly, is personable. "El Pasoans do not respond well to dry, overly sophisticated people with their noses in the air" Carnes said. "Kwang-Wu is so friendly and nice to everyone and still manages to get people excited about music. He even sits at the edge of the stage to (make others feel president July The Longy board made the selection official Tuesday morning.

Kim had mixed feelings about the news. "My first response was sadness because that meant I'd be leaving El Paso," Kim said. "But it must have been meant to be because everything just seemed to click." Pro-Musica officials are putting together a selection committee to find a replacement for Kim, who is credit- ed with transforming the once-ailing organization into one that is nationally recognized. In the next few weeks, the position will be advertised nationally, said Caryl Fickett, executive director. In June, Kim received a phone call from a headhunter who told him about the Longy position.

In November, he was informed he was a finalist, and a month later, he was the school's final choice for president. Kim said he is not ready to cut his ties to El Paso so quickly. He will organize next year's International Music Festival, Pro-Musica's annual concert series that brings in young, up-and-coming musicians from around the world. Til do that for one year and see how it goes," Kim said. El Pasoan Carol Carnes, a Pro-Musica board member, said Kim's successor needs to be one who shares his enthu rltt unris dtesSrad EPISD cited for dropout problems The El Paso Independent School District was one of six districts in Texas that rank among the 14 urban districts with the worst dropout problems nationwide, according to a study by two researchers from Johns Hopkins University.

In Texas, the problem districts are in El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Austin and Fort Worth, and the other eight systems are in industrialized cities in the north and Midwest, the study states. The study was one of 14 reports on high-school dropouts presented Saturday at a conference of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and Achieve a consortium of governors and corporate leaders that supports higher academic standards. Times wire report Killer faces death sentence: An El Paso jury today will continue deliberating whether to give reputed Mexican Mafia gang member Richard Morales Castillo a death sentence. The jury found him guilty of capital murder Monday. Castillo and six other reputed members of the Mexican Mafia, a prison gang, were charged with the hanging death of Richard Bracknell, 26, on Dec.

12, 1994, in the county jail. Castillo was charged with planning and carrying out Bracknell's murder. Castillo's first trial ended in a hung jury in 1999. Jennifer Shubinski Bel Air qrad to run for council: John Chat-man announced his candidacy for EastridgeMid-Valley city representative Monday. Chatman, 47, a Bel Air High school will run against city Rep.

Luis Sarifiana in the May election. Chatman has run and lost against Sarifiana in the last two elections. He works for a state funded dropout-prevention program. Chatman has previously run unsuccessfully for a City Council seat in 1981, 1983, 1997 and 1999. Laura Cruz Please see Pro-Musica 3B Victor Calzada El Paso Times By Maribel Villalva El Paso Times El Paso Pro-Musica's administrative and artistic director, Kwang-Wu Kim, will resign from the chamber music organization after eight years to head the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass.

He will stay with Pro-Musica until his contract ends June 30, he said, and will begin his new job as Longy El Paso can aid quake victims By Daniel Perez El Paso Times The best way El Pasoans can help the victims of Saturday's deadly earthquake in El Salvador is to send money via relief organizations, officials said Tuesday. The American Red Cross El Paso Chapter and the Salvation Army have promised to wire money to the stricken area to help relief groups pay for medicine, drinking water, food and funerals. "They'll take care of whatever the most urgent needs are," said Guadalupe Cano Daley, director of community relations at the Salvation Army, 4300 Paisano. Tuesday, the death toll from the 7.6-magnitude earthquake neared 700. Government officials counted more than 2,400 injured and more than 45,000 homes damaged or destroyed.

Almost 18,000 people have been evacuated from the hardest-hit arqas, where an estimated 185 landslides have cut off communications with the rest of the country. Authorities continued to look for trapped survivors Tuesday, as work crews began burying unidentified bodies in mass graves. The Salvation Army sent Maj. Michael Olsen on Monday to oversee its operations, Daley said. Olsen, who leads the international relief program from London, was in charge of the El Paso office from 1994 to 1999.

The Red Cross office in El Paso is taking information from people looking for immediate family members in El Salvador, but that information isn't being accepted by on-site officials, chapter Executive Director John Stock said. "They can't contact people because they're too busy saving lives," he said. The local office encourages people to provide information about their loved ones, in hopes of receiving information as soon as possible. Relief organizations do not want to deal with donations of food, bedding or clothing because of the cost and difficulty in transporting those items while the situation is still unfolding, officials said. "We'll hold off sending tangible things until we can assess the need," said Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House, 1003 E.

San Antonio. The house provides food and shelter for undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America. Daniel Perez may be reached at dperezelpasotimes.com How to help El Pasoans who want to help the people affected by the Jan. 13 earthquake in El Salvador should note the donations are for Central American Earthquake Relief on their checks and money orders. Donations also can be made by credit card or cash.

Receipts will be given. Donations can be sent to the Salvation Army, 4300 E. Paisano, El Paso, TX 79905; or the American Red Cross, 320 Admiral, El Paso, TX 79925. El Paso police, members of the Central Regional Com- Downtown. The men are suspects in Monday's armed mand Center's Impact Unit, took three men into custody robbery of Cash It Here at 8034 N.

Mesa and were try-Tuesday near the corner of Franklin and Kansas streets ing to cash in stolen lottery tickets, police said. Kwang-Wu Kim By Louie Gilot El Paso Times The decision to disband three specialized units of the El Paso Police Department has some people worried, but an assistant police chief said officers would be more useful out on the streets. "Crime changes. We have to change with it," Assistant Chief Richard Wiles said. Statistics highlight the current need for more patrols, he said.

Out of the Police Department's 1,089 officers, only 394 were assigned to answer last year's 358,000 phonecalls for police, Wiles said. Reassigning the 110 officers from the special units, which is tentatively set to happen Feb. 11, could help, he said. The targeted units, present in each of the five regional commands, are: Community Response Against Street Hoodlums, or CRASH, a unit that gathers intelligence on gangs. Impact, a plainclothes unit that mostly handles burglaries.

Police area representatives, or PAR, a community-policing program. When she first heard she would lose her district's PAR officers, Christina Flores, a civilian volunteer captain of a West Side neighborhood watch, said: "Oh, no. I depend on those guys." West Side city Rep. Jan Please see Units 3B City clerk says she took item off agenda 3B Lowe's Home Centers plans to invest $9.1 million in a store that will open in May and eventually employ 162 people. The company is actually opening three stores, but is only requesting tax abatements for its store at Rojas and George Dieter.

The other two stores are going in at the intersection of Patriot Freeway and Trans Mountain Road in Northeast El Paso, and HO at Redd Road on the West Side. Gene Acuff, manager for property taxes and licenses for the North Carolina-based Lowe's chain, said he was not surprised by Medina's argument about tax abatements. "You hear it all the time," Acuff said, adding that tax abatements for retail stores are a little unusual. El Paso is to be the last major city in Texas to get a Lowe's store but the first in the state to offer the company property tax breaks for a retail store. The 25 percent property tax breaks for Kohl's and Lowe's will mean a reduction of $13,205 in city taxes annually and a total of $26350 if all five taxing jurisdictions approve the proposed breaks.

All but seven of the 107 full-time jobs will pay a starting wage of $7.75 and the 55 part-time workers will be paid the same rate. David Crowder may be reached at dcrowderelpasotimes.com For more information: www.ci.el-paso.tx.us 1 I I JU mammmmammmm mmmmmm amm ,7 I (Hill they call it a barn." The 60-year-old Coliseum's renovations include a large box office that curves outward, creating enough room for people to distinguish ticket lines. It also has a window for the handicapped. Other additions include new restrooms with 40 stalls and a large meeting room with a patio that can accommodate about 100 people. "The Coliseum is something we can showcase and be proud of," County Commissioner Carlos Aguilar said.

"We talk a lot about building a new arena or sports complex, but we need to look at what we have." Kennedy said all the improvements may be enough to draw big events and even convince the city's hockey team, the El Paso Buzzards, to stay at the Coliseum. "The Buzzards are very happy here and I look forward to the possibility of ex- tending their contract," Kennedy said. County Commissioner Dan Haggerty said the improvements are great, but he's not happy about the cost of the entire project and the lack of attention given to parking. "We need to get a handle on the parking you have to park four blocks down the street," Haggerty said. Aguilar and Kennedy said the parking situation is being looked into.

Kennedy said the next phases, which are expected to cost about $6 million, include renovating the west side of the building, replacing the arena seats and improving the heating and air conditioning system. The phase for a heating and air-conditioning system is scheduled to begin this spring. Laura Cruz may be reached at lcruzelpacimes.com For mori information: www.co.el-paso.tx.us sis 2 new stores get property tax break from city Rudy Gutierrez El Paso Times Ernesto Guereca of Mosher Enterprises seum. The expansion includes a new tick-added finishing touches Thursday to the et center, bathrooms and a meeting new addition at the El Paso County Coli- room. Coliseum makeover begins to show Lawmakers send letter to Powell: One of the first letters the likely new secretary of state may see on his desk is a complaint about the Stanton Street Bridge commuter lane fee increase.

Border lawmakers from Texas, including U.S. Sens. Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison, both Republicans, and U.S. Rep. Sil-vestre Reyes, a Democrat, sent a letter Tuesday to "Gen.

Colin L. Powell" that said the lane is "an innovative attempt to streamline legitimate cross-border travel and trade. Unfortunately, recent actions by the Mexican government have threatened the continued success of this project." Recently, Mexico unilaterally increased the Mexican portion of the lane fee by about $31 per year. Diana Washington Valdez UTEP student wins awards: utep student Daniel Vasquez took home two awards this weekend from one of the nation's most competitive college speech events. The event included two tournaments called the Hell Froze Over Swing at the University of Texas at Austin.

Co-hosts for the event were UT-Austin and Bradley University of Illinois, he country's top two intercollegiate speech pro- grams. Vasquez took first place in extemporaneous speaking at the first tournament and fourth in impromptu speaking at the second tournament. Times staff report By David Crowder El Paso Times Two new chain stores that will open this year in El Paso won the first property tax breaks the city has ever given to retail outlets Tuesday, but one City Council member questioned the wisdom of it. "I would like to see tax abatements going to those companies on the cutting edge or that wouldn't be coming here anyway," said East-Central city Rep. Larry Medina, who cast the only dissenting vote.

City Council approved five-year, 25 percent breaks in property taxes on real estate and personal property for Kohl's Department Stores and Lowe's Home Centers. Kohl's intends to invest $10.6 million in two stores that will open in August next to Interstate 10 one at George Dieter on the East Side and the other at Redd Road on the West Side. That will mean 308 new jobs. The stores will employ 25 full-time employees, each starting at nearly $10 an hour and an array of benefits, and 125 part-time jobs starting at $7 an hour. Medina questioned whether those $7 jobs are what El Paso needs, but South-West city Rep.

Elvia Hernandez said, "Seven dollars may not seem like a lot, but it is a lot to those who don't have jobs." Kohl's tax abatements will reduce its city taxes by $8,765 a year and by a total of $17,490 if all five taxing jurisdictions approve abatements. By Laura Cruz El Paso Times After being hidden behind fencing for about eight months, the El Paso County Coliseum is finally showing off its face lift. "It doesn't look like you're in the El Paso Coliseum anymore," Brian Kennedy, Coliseum director, said. "People who haven't seen the improvements arc shocked. They come in and say 'Oh my gosh, I didn't know you guys were doing The county has scheduled a ribbon-cutting ceremony for noon Jan.

26 to showcase the $1.4 million renovation of the east side of the building. "It's a vast improvement-over what it used to be," said Eastsider Raul Martinez, who has not seen the indoor improvements. "We've gone to the Buzzards games and the Disney on Ice shovs and well, the Coliseum, it's what.