Albany Democrat-Herald from Albany, Oregon • 1

mm N003ao do AiisaaAiNn jDOIJ on nap off V. 77 ('" The measure would prohibit racial or, gender discrimination in public hiring, contracting and education, thus ending affirmative action programs. BY BOB EGELKO Associated Press Writer SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Voters have a right to outlaw affirmative action based on racial or gender preferences, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court said today in upholding California's Proposition 209. In a 3-0 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the lifting of a lower court injunction that had blocked enforcement of the initiative since shortly after voters passed it last November.

Proposition 209, passed by 54 percent of the voters, would prohibit racial or gender discrimination in public hiring, contracting and education, thus ending many affirmative action programs. "A system which permits one judge to block with the stroke of a pen what 4,736,180 state residents voted to enact as law tests the integrity of our constitutional democracy," said the opinion by Judge Di-armuid O'Scannlain. Rejecting civil rights groups' arguments, the court said Proposition 209 "addresses in neutral fashion race-related and gender-related matters" and does not Maxine Matland, right, her daughter Gail Armstrong-Cabrera and son George Matland listen to testimony Monday concerning property Matland owns in the Hackleman District. Matland neighbors air frustrations 'V Albany kidnap suspect caught in California issue of home occupation. Under the court's decision, the ruling is scheduled to take effect in 21 days.

But opponents are virtually certain to appeal to a larger panel of the 9th Circuit and can ask the court to continue the ban on enforcement in the meantime. In issuing the original injunction, Chief U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson of San Francisco said that although the initiative was neutrally worded, it would abolish only programs that benefited minorities and women. Those groups would have to seek a new state constitutional amendment to allow preferential programs to remedy discrimination, he said, while other groups, such as military veterans, the elderly or children of college alumni could continue to lobby for preferences from local or state agencies. Henderson said that difference in treatment violates standards of equal protection the Supreme Court declared in 1982 when it struck down a Washington state initiative prohibiting local school boards from ordering busing for integration, Henderson said.

The appeals court rejected that comparison. "Unlike racial preference programs, school desegregation programs do not work wholly to the benefit of certain members of one oup and correspondingly to the arm of certain members of anoth er group, and do not deprive citizens of rights," the opinion said. O'Scannlain said preferences based on race or gender are constitutionally suspect and can be abolished by a state without violating the rights of any individual. in Oregon. After the phone call, he surrendered.

He was being held in the San Luis Obispo County Jail today, awaiting extradition. Sisson is accused of abducting his former wife and their 2-year-old son in Albany last Nov. 6, assaulting her and holding them both at gunpoint for several hours before letting them go. He allegedly threatened repeatedly to kill his wife. The woman reported the attack to police, and a judge signed bench warrants for two counts of first-degree kidnapping and one count each of firstniegree burglary, second-degree assault, being a felon in possession of a firearm, violating parole and violation of a restraining order.

Bail is set at $500,000. Albany police asked the public to help them find Sisson after the warrants were issued. The case was described in a "Special Bulletin" on the NBC program "Unsolved Mysteries" on Feb. 21. Albany Police Detective John Fowler said the broadcast generated hundreds of calls and several leads from people who had contact with Sisson after he disappeared.

The man he was camping with was someone he had met while hitchhiking in Texas, Fowler said. Fowler said Sisson was convicted of another felony assault in 1992 after attacking a uve-in girlfriend and permanently damaging her hearing. That assault happened a few weeks after Sisson shot and killed another person in Polk County, Fowler said. The shooting was ruled as self-defense. The former girlfriend and Sis-son's former wife are both in hiding, Fowler said.

People B1 Sports B2 TV listings B7 web site: http:mvonline.com Robert Pyburn testifies on Don Stutheit, who owns properties in the area, said Matland's home and rentals were "total trash piles. She's not a good neighbor." Neighbor Gary Brumbaugh said of the apartment property that "people there lived like rats in an overcrowded cage." Police, he said, were called to the apartments on a regular basis. Commission chairman Don Rea at one point admonished people to be good neighbors and not to air their "dirty laundry" in public. On the home occupation issue, neighbors complained that a noisy truck visiting and making deliveries to the house was left to idle for STANFORD SMrrHDmocrat-HMrM said her family keeps a fan running to drown out the noise created by the truck. She also keeps her curtains drawn so she does not have to see the debris in Mat-land's yard.

Cindy Perkins said she cannot sell a nearby duplex because of the appearance of Matland's house. The commission voted to allow Matland to store foodstuffs from the Linn-Benton Food Share in her basement under the condition that truck deliveries of food be only once a month and no "dispatching" for the mission's pallet-making business be done from the house. Voting in favor were Paul Davis, Dale Goin, Don Rea, Dala Rouse and Moni Shuttlesworth. The commission also heard Matland's appeal involving the rebuilding of the fire-damaged house with five units she owns at 532 Baker St. S.E.

A decision was delayed when Matland lawyer Amy Barnhouse of Salem asked that the record be kept open for additional information. Under state law, the commission must grant the request. The record will remain open for 14 days. In January the Albany Building Board of Appeals upheld a building official's decision that the apartment was more than 70 percent damaged by a fire on March 31, 1996. By city code, the house must be demolished or rebuilt as a single-family residence.

Matland wants to keep it in apartments for financial reasons. assessed every two years. The mileage tax proved unpopular in the Legislature, but the Transportation Committee decided to keep the idea for a $2 access fee. According to a rough outline of HB 3163's basic principles, all Oregon homes and businesses would be charged the access fee through their electricity bills, and the money would be collected by utility companies. But utility companies may be apprehensive about collecting the fee without getting a percentage to offset their costs.

Kitzhaber's plan called for businesses to pay $1.65 per employee per month on top of the access fee. But committee chairman Bob Montgomery, R-Cascade Locks, said he wouldn't consider that provision. The Oregon Public Utility Commission said there are approximately 1.5 million electricity customers in the state. If each pays the $2 access fee, the state could take in $72 million over two years. Kitzhaber would have preferred a mileage tax to encourage people to drive less, but the access fee also achieves his goal of spreading the burden of maintaining roadways to all Oregonians, even those who don't drive.

BY CATHY INGALLS Albany Democrat-Herald Sixteen witnesses including neighbors bombarded the Albany Planning Commission Monday with their frustrations concerning how Maxine Matland, director of the Signs of Victory Albany Mission, manages her properties. The commission held two public hearings totaling four hours to deal with two Matland properties. In the first, the commission voted unanimously to allow Mat-land to continue operating a food warehouse at her home at 208 Seventh Ave. S.E., but with conditions intended to prevent disruption of the neighborhood. In a second case, the panel heard testimony but postponed making a decision until May 5 on whether Matland can rebuild a five-unit apartment house in a sin- ijle-family zone after it was heavi-y damaged by fire a year ago.

About 50 people attended the hearings. The only people supporting Matland in either case were her son and daughter, two workers from the mission's pallet-making business, and her attorney. Matland, her son, George, and daughter Gail insisted that they abided by the rules with their warehouse operation. They denied neighbors' testimony that a truck and crew were making frequent deliveries or pickups at the Seventh Avenue house. "What they're reporting does not exist," Matland said.

Neighbors laid out a number of complaints. Shuttle lands, ends mission cut short by bad generator CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) Space shuttle Columbia and a disappointed crew returned to Earth today and ended a science mission that was chopped from 16 days to four because of a dangerously defective generator. Columbia touched down on the concrete runway at 2:33 p.m. Commander James Halsell Jr.

had to land the spaceship one of the heaviest ever -with one-third less power than usual because of the faulty electric generator. The two remaining generators apparently worked fine during descent. Columbia almost ended up at the backup landing site in California. Worried about high wind, Mission Control waited until practically the last minute before giving Halsell the go-ahead to fire the shuttle braking rockets for a Florida touchdown. Flight controllers expected the crosswind to be right at the safety limit of 17 mph.

The radio link between Columbia and Mission Control seemed quieter than usual as the shuttle descended through the atmosphere. House panel would charge all Oregonians transportation fee long periods of time, that there was excessive foot and vehicle traffic to her home, and that noise and deliveries adversely affected the residential character of the neighborhood. Next-door neighbor Robert Pyburn charged Matland had violated about every aspect of the home occupation code. "I've watched this for the past 15 years, and I've grown tired of it." Realtors Karen Stutheit and Beth Furry testified that a number of homes for sale in the area were not selling because of the state of Matland's home and her nearby rentals. Neighbor Colleen Hammond The bill SALEM (AP) The $600 million transportation funding bill being considered by the House Transportation Committee, HB 3163, would: i Charge a $2 monthly access fee to every home and business in Oregon.

Raise the gas tax from 24 cents a gallon to 33 cents by 2000. Increase vehicle registration fees from $30 every two years to $70, beginning in 1998. Possibly alter or repeal the weight-mile tax paid by the trucking industry in favor of other fee increases. Distribute half of new revenues to the state 30 percent to counties and 20 percent to cities. Put up to 100 new state troopers on Oregon roads.

Associated Press for automobiles from $30 to $70. The committee still must decide what to do about the weight-mile tax assessed to the trucking industry. Truckers want the tax repealed in favor of other fee increases. Kitzhaber's plan called for a transportation access fee and some increase in the gas tax, but also for a vehicle-mileage tax that would be BY MARILYN MONTGOMERY Albany Democrat-Herald An Albany man, charged with the November 1996 kidnapping and beating of his estranged wife, has been arrested in California. Billy Raymond Sisson, 34, was arrested by San Luis Obispo County sheriff's deputies Saturday after they found him and another man camped on private property about 10 miles north of Morro Bay.

Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Dave Piotrowski said Sgt. Sean Donahue was on patrol when he spotted two Billy Raymond Sisson tents in an open field where he knew camping was prohibited. One man was outside and a second was in one of the tents. The second man told Donahue his name was Raymond Sutter but didn't have any identification.

"This guy started acting kind of strange," Piotrowski said this morning. "Obviously, he knew we were suspicious. He said, 'You're going to find out who I am anyhow. I was on 'Unsolved The sergeant said, 'Sorry, I must have missed that Police said Sisson pulled a knife out of a pocket and held it against his wrist. For the next two hours, Sisson refused to put the knife down.

Deputies surrounded the area and eventually gave him a cellular phone that he used to call a relative Deiside 132nd yMrMo. 84 Classified ads B8 Comics B6 Crossword B11 I Movies Markets Obituaries BY LANDON HALL Associated Press Writer SALEM (AP) Households and businesses would each pay $24 a year to help pay for for state transportation projects, under a plan that is gaining the tentative approval of a House panel. The House Transportation Committee indicated its support "Monday for a controversial $2 monthly access fee as part of a nearly $600 million funding package. The committee also leaned toward hiking the state gasoline tax by 38 percent and more than doubling the vehicle registration fee. Gov.

John Kitzhaber, who originally wanted to raise revenues by charging Oregon drivers by the mile, was pleased by the committee's direction, an aide said. "We're very encouraged that there's an openness and a willingness to discuss transportation financing outside of a gas tax," spokesman Bob Applegate said. The funding package, HB 3163, calls for raising the state gas tax -currently 24 cents a gallon by 3 cents per year for three years, beginning in 1998. The committee also wants to raise the biennial registration fee A3 All A11 I Check out the information on our.