Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 1

I 1 VII A I lbV I II 1 I IM II 1 A I VI I LJ II 'LI llIN I If If I 1 re ii I 1 Causer Black Thunder Miners Reinstated Board votes to dump renewal rights Seeks to eliminate preferential renewal on state leases CD How thoy voted jo krv KARPAN FERRARI SMITH OHMAN SULLIVAN ELIMINATE PREFERENTIAL LEASE RIGHTS NO By JOAN BARRON Star-Tribune capital bureau CHEYENNE la a split 3-2 vote, the Wyoming Farm Loan Board Tuesday voted to ask the Legislature to eliminate preferential lease renewal rights for state grazing lease holders effective Jan. 1, 1996. But the five elected state officials who sit on the board voted to make no recommendation to the Legislature on whether to eliminate lease holders' rights to match the high bid when leased land is put up for sale at auction. Recommendations to eliminate the 100-year-old preferential rights of grazing lease holders for both lease renewal and land purchase were the most controversial forwarded to the state board by a task force that studied state trust land issues last summer. The officials also rejected a $10 annual fee the task force recommended for casual recreation users of state trust lands.

Instead, the board voted unanimously to have its staff explore a to 35 percent in 1995. The task force had recommended a slightly different formula. This works out to about $3 per animal unit month for 1994, increasing to $3.50 in 1995, which is the same rate the state board set in September. The state board's recommendations will be submitted by Dec. 1 to the Legislature's Joint Interim Committee on Agriculture, Public Lands and Water Resources.

Preferential rights votes Voting to recommend to the Legislature to eliminate the pref "super permit" that would combine a conservation stamp and state park permit with the recreational use permit for state trust lands. Board members said they thought $10 a year was too high. The Game and Fish Department estimated the recreational use permit would cost $1.2 million for the agency to administer and enforce. The officials also voted unanimously to reconfirm their earlier decision to set minimum grazing lease fees at 30 percent of the cost of private leases in 1994, rising erential rights of lease holders to renew their leases were Secretary of State Kathy Karpan, Auditor Dave Ferrari and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Diana Ohman. Opposed were Gov.

Mike Sullivan and Treasurer Stan Smith. The board split on the task force recommendation to eliminate the preferential rights of lease holders to match the highest bid at auction when the leased land is put up for sale. Sullivan, Smith and Ohman voted to make no recommenda-Please see VOTE, A10 Rick SoirensonStar-Tribune Loy Peters, Darryl Anderson and Donald Gregory claimed they were fired for raising safety concerns Fired miners win temporary ruling More hearings ahead ca Packwd to resign as Senate nears vote From wire service reports Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. But the proposal would avoid a subpoena of 3,000 pages of the senator's private diaries, but lawmakers con By MICHAEL RILEY Northern Wyoming bureau GILLETTE Three miners who say they were fired from Campbell County's Black Thunder Mine for complaining about workplace safety have been temporarily reinstated by an administrative judge, according to the workers.

Although the judge's decision wasn't yet available Tuesday, Loy Peters, one of the fired miners, confirmed that Labor Department Judge Arthur Amchan had ordered the three plaintiffs back to work. Company administrators "now know that the charges are of a most serious Peters said, reading a prepared statement, "and that we are no less serious in our continuing effort to see this company and its managers forced to right a disgraceful wrong." Greg Schaefer, a spokesman for Thunder Basin Coal Company, the ARCQ subsidiary that runs the mine, said Tuesday afternoon that the company hadn't yet seen the judge's decision and had no immediate comment. Please see MINERS, A10 WASHINGTON The Senate's senior Democrat, Robert C. Byrd, called Tuesday night for embattled Sen. Bob Packwood to resign rather than continue his fight against an ethics committee subpoena, "it is time to have the grace to go," Byrd demanded.

The West Virginian's broadside came as the Senate neared a climactic vote on whether to support the ethics panel's request for authority to ask a federal court to enforce its subpoena. Byrd said, "The Senate is larger than. any one of its members." Tied in political knots over allegations of misconduct against Packwood, the Senate searched into the night for a compromise that was rejected by the panel chairman, Sen. Richard Bryan, and its vice chairman, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

McConnell argued that the question of what was relevant to the inquiry would be made under the proposal by Packwood and his lawyers, something he said was unacceptable. "It's the committee that must determine what is and is not relevant," he said. "We cannot or should not in my judgment subcontract that to anyone else, and least of all to the person being investigated by the committee." Bryan and the five other senators on the ethics panel, made up of three Democrats and three Republicans, voted unanimously last Please see PACKW OOD, A10 ceded that prospects for an agreement were dim. After two days of extraordinary political debate over the privacy rights of modern elected leaders, Packwood's supporters Tuesday evening abruptly dropped a proposal to turn the diaries over to an outside arbitrator. Instead, they proposed that the two sides strike an accord that would allow the Senate ethics committee, which is investigating Pack-wood, subpoena all "relevant portions of the dianes.

The proposal wai offered by Sen. Al Simpson, R-Wyo. It captured for Packwood's side in the debate one of the six members of the committee. Wyo, Oklahoma vie for appellate judge Mi 111 11 1 By DAVID HACKETT Star-Tribune Washington bureau WASHINGTON Lawmakers from Wyoming and Oklahoma have renewed their struggle to influence the President's choice of nominees for a newly created judge's position on the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Several Democratic members of the Oklahoma congressional delegation wrote to President Clinton Oct. 26 to inform him that "this new position is most appropriately filled by an Oklahoman. Wyoming Democratic Governor Mike Sullivan, meanwhile, said Tuesday he personally appealed to President Clinton last August to nominate a Wyoming native for the job. Sullivan said the post was originally intended for Wyoming and that he told the president that fairness demands a Wyoming nominee. The governor said he does not have a particular candidate in mind for the job and that he is not personally interested in the position.

Sullivan was the first Democratic governor to endorse Clinton's presidential candidacy. The Oklahoma letter to Clinton is signed by the state's Democratic Reps. Mike Synar, Dave Mc-Curdy, Bill Brewster, Glenn English, David Walters, along with Democratic Sen. David Boren. The White House press office did not respond Tuesday to an in quiry by the Star-Tribune.

The opening on the 1 0th Circuit Court of Appeals headquartered in Denver was authorized in 1 990 with passage of the so-called Biden Bill, which expanded the number of judges serving in the federal judiciary. Wyoming GOP Sen. Alan Simpson and Oklahoma Republican Sen. Don Nickles were the first to contest the nomination. Nickles and Simpson lobbied President Bush to choose a nominee from their states shortly after the vacancy was created.

Bush ultimately decided in favor of Oklahoma, nominating Frank Keating for the position. The Senate Judiciary Commit-Please see JUDGE, A10 i 'ft Clinton not part of investigation Probe limited to businessman I Border To Border B3 Calendar A2 Casper Area CI -2 Classified C7-I0 Comics C5 Crossword C10 Landers.Omarr C3 Letters A7-9 Markets C4 Movies C2 Obituaries, Diary B2 Opinion A6 Sports DI-4 Wyoming Bl Nuns from Immaculate Conception convent wait to vote at the Hamburg, N.Y. Town Hall during general elections Tuesday In busy off year, voters get their turn Old Grouch I'll bet those sorry senators are sorry they ever allowed TV. WASHINGTON (AP) The White House took the offensive Tuesday in an effort to dissociate President Clinton from two federal investigations involving an Arkansas businessman with longtime ties to the first family, "We did nothing improper," Clinton told reporters after the disclosure that federal investigators, among other things, are examining a real estate venture the president and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton once partially owned. The White House emphasized the allegations dated to 1992 and that both criminal investigations were focused on political supporters or former business associates and not the Clintons.

"The president is not a subject or target of an investigation. That is clear. It is something that was well reported during the campaign," White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said. A former Arkansas judge under indictment in one of the investigations alleged Tuesday that Clinton was involved personally in persuading him to loan money improperly to James McDougal, a 'The president is not a subject or target of an investigation. That is clear.

Dee Dee Myers, White House press secretary political ally, fund-raiser and friend of the first family. The investigations are focusing on Whitewater Development Corp. and Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, both of which are connected to McDougal, according to Resolution Trust Corp. officials who spoke on condition they not be identified by name. The Clintons once owned a partial stake in Whitewater, a venture to develop property in the Ozarks.

The Clintons have said they lost money in the arrangement. According to reports in The Washington Post and The New York Times, one of the investigations is focusing on whether over- Plcase see PROBE, A4 Dinkins and Giuliani head-to-head in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 5 to 1, and Florio had but a narrow lead over GOP challenger Christie Whitman as he tried to survive voter anger over a huge 1990 tax increase. As the candidates joined voters at the polls, their predictions were, well, predictable. "We're going to win this election," former federal prosecutor Giuliani said as he voted in New York's Upper East Side. I think it will be a close contest, but I expect to emerge victorious," Dinkins said as he voted at a high school near Gracie Mansion.

Next door in New Jersey, challenger Whitman rode a mountain bicycle to her polling place. A cluster of students greeted Florio at his precinct in Princeton. Florio's $2.8 billion 1990 tax hike was the paramount issue in that race, viewed as a test of whether politicians could overcome public anger by selling taxes as tough but sometimes necessary medicine. Terry and Allen both voted early and then headed outside to shake a few last hands, and appeal for a few more votes. At stake in the gubernatorial races was the 31-17 Democratic edge in statchouse control, a lopsided advantage the party hoped to carry into Please see ELECTION, A10 By The Associated Press Voters decided Tuesday whether to rehire New Jersey Gov.

Jim Florio and New York Mayor David Dinkins as a cantankerous off-year political season came to a close. Virginia was assured a new governor, and ballot issues around the nation tested the public mood about crime and taxes. Dramatic turnover in the nation's city halls was a sure bet, as Boston, Detroit, Atlanta and Miami led a long list of open mayoral contests. Statewide propositions included a school voucher proposal in California, term limits in Maine, a tax repeal in Washipgton and initiatives in Washington and Texas aimed at answering rising public anxiety about violent crime. Republicans held out hopes for a sweep of the Big Three contests: the two governor races and the rematch between Dinkins and Republican Rudolph Giuliani.

Virginia polls closed earliest, and as the first results trickled in Republican George Allen was leading Democrat Mary Sue Terry. Allen, a former congressman and son of the late foot Jf coach, had led in late polls as he looked to end 12 years of Democratic rule in Richmond. New York and New Jersey were too close for comfort or safe predictions. Late polls showed It's True You can choose the price of your own ad! If the value of the Item you want to sell the ad Is fcej the ad Is 15 the ad latJi. Call 266-0555 or 1-800-442-6916 (Toll free In Wyoming) for more Information..