Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 13

3 1 iHiJTJ lYVai Hiiii- in hi 1 1 ir iVif i Miff-' fil ItiiiMili'11 in Glsxt StarIYibune Saturday, April 29, 2000 MARKETS B4 MOVIES B5 o) Ca Czzx In Brief Report: Investing in children pays By DAVID EISENHAUER Star-Tribune staff writer with wire reports Underfunded federal care programs are (ailing children most at risk of turning to crime, according to a new report warning of a growing crisis in youth violence. Sanford Newman, president of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids a national anti-crime group whose membership includes police chiefs, prosecutors and victims stressed the importance of improving quality care for low-income children during a White House ceremony to unveil the report Friday. The organization focuses on the use of educational care as a means of crime prevention. "Much of the child care America's children are receiving is substandard," Newman said in a prepared statement. He reported that new studies of 400 randomly chosen care operations showed that one in 10 preschool centers and four in 10 infant care centers "were of such poor quality they may jeopardize the child's development." The Wyoming Department of Family Services licenses about 1)00 child care programs but few are nationally accredited because of the expense, said Kathy Emmons, director ol the Wyoming Children's Action Alliance.

Emmons said her organization is encouraging lawmakers to provide funding for national accreditation so child care programs in the state can afford the added measure of quality control. T. Berry Brazelton, a professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School who has written 28 books on child development, said scientific research had proven the value of early childhood development programs in the reduction of behavior problems. He cited several new studies of children, including a 14-year project that tracked 100.000 children 3 to 4 years old in 21 government-funded child-parent centers. It found that children enrolled in such programs were half as likely to get in trouble when they reached their teens.

Emmons said though preschool programs such as Head Start, the principal federal program for children in poverty, receive federal funds, the state Please see STUDY, B2 Zig Zag epetitive stress rule paies Enzi i By JASON MARSDEN Star-Tribune Washington bureau WASHINGTON Federal work safety officials are horning in on the role of state workers' compensation programs through a proposed new ergonomic safety standard, says U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi. Enzi, chairman of the Senate Employment, Safety and Training Subcommittee, says the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's proposed rule on repetitive motion injuries strays too far into compensation administration. OSHA's proposed rule would govern musculoskeletal injury in more than 27 million workers if implemented as planned by year-end.

Among other provisions, it would require employers to provide compensation to employees who are placed on temporary work restrictions or removed from work over ergonomic injuries. Enzi. at a hearing Thursday, complained that OSHA has rebuffed his efforts to get the agency to spend more on helping employers comply with safety rules, but now wants to spend more on administering benefits after the injuries occur. "I have been trying for years to get OSHA to increase the use Please see OSHA, B2 rROM STAFF AM) WIRE REPORTS RSHS gets 3rd bomb threat RtX'K SPRINGS For the third time in four weeks, school district officials in Rock Springs have been forced to evacuate Rock Springs High School because of a bomb threat. District Superintendent Richard Strahorn said local law enforcement authorities evacuated the high school around 1 p.m.

Friday after a bomb threat was found written on a wall at the scIkxjI. No bomb was found after a search of the school. A similar threat was found March 30 and April 13, but no Ixjinb was discovered in either of those incidents either. All of the threats have come in the form of a written note on a school wall, officials said. School District No.

1 administrators are offering a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators, Strahorn said. Bebout won't seek re-election RIVERTON Wyoming House Sxaker Eli Bebout, R-Riverton, announced Friday that he will not seek re-election but will remain involved in Wyoming politics. Bebout did not elaborate on his political future but said he will consider any level of public office. Bebout has served 14 years in the I louse, the last two terms as speaker. Bebout said he will continue his legislative duties through summer.

Bebout announced his retirement from the House partly to allow candidates from House District 55 to consider running. The filing period is May 18 to June 2. District 55 encompasses most of the city of Riverton. Target shooting ban upheld CI IEYENNE The U.S. Forest Service has upheld a ban on target shooting in the Pole Mountain area of Medicine Bow National Forest.

Ii)st month, John O'Byrne, of Cheyenne, filed an appeal of the ban announced in February for March 31 through Sept. 10. O'Byrne said Thursday that he had received a notice denying the apHal. Because Cheyenne has no public shooting range and private ranges have membership waiting lists of up to two years, sh(X)ters have to drive to a public range in l-aramie or to Forest Service land in the Snowy Range. Motion delays Moses trial Neb.

A defense motion for a continuance is pushing kick the scheduled June 12 trial in Keith County, for a Texas man accused of murder in the shooting death of a Paxton. farmer in February. Charles Moses 31, now is to face trials in both Keith and Lincoln counties. on July 18. The Texas fugitive is charged with five felony counts, including Task force: Jail, meth center should share ballot tVf By the Star-Tribune staff GREEN RIVER Voters should be asked to consider raising taxes to pay for both a new Sweetwater County jail and a proposed met ham phet amine treatment center, a task force working on the jail issue recommended this week.

The task force this week recommended the Sweetwater County Commission ask voters to approve in an August vote a half-cent capital facilities tax to raise approximately $17. million to fund the two projects. Final cost estimates from the county show it will cost county taxpayers about $13.7 million to build a new jail on Highway 191 between Rock Springs and Green River. State officials have proposed renovating the old Union Pacitic club house in Green River lor use as a methamphetamine treat ment center if the county, with some state funding, can come up with an estimated million to renovate the building. Green River officials had originally lobbied for the new jail to be built within city limits.

They lost that battle in March when a Please see BALLOT, B2 It 1 BEN FRANKLIN Star Tribune correspondent Eric Lindquist of Jackson skiis along the double-corniced ridge between the east and west summits of Saltlick Mountain. Above 9,000 feet, it still looks like winter in the Wind River Mountain Range. Sentence shortened for sex assailant Wyoming Supreme Court Woman gains road access through reservation to land guilty of committing sexual assault in the third degree between Feb. 1. 1W7.

and March 30. The statute in effect during those months called for a penalty of not more than five years in prison. Effective July 1. the statute was revised to provide for imprisonment for up to IS years. The revised law specified that it did not apply to crimes committed before July 1.

1W7. Nonetheless. Golden wrote, the district court sentenced Crawford to imprisonment for three to seven years. Since that isn't permissible, the supreme court remanded the case with instructions to the district court to resentence Please see SENTKNCF, B2 By JOAN BARRON Star-Tribune capital bureau CHEYENNE Because he was sentenced under the wrong law, a man convicted of sexual assault in Washakie County will get a shorter prison term. A Wyoming Supreme Court opinion issued Wednesday uv held the jury conviction of arren Crawford in Washakie County District Court for third-degree sexual assault of the 7-year-old daughter of his former girlfriend.

But the court opinion, written by Justice Michael Golden, said District Court Judge Gary llartman sentenced Crawford under the wrong law. The jury found rawford Bradley's property. The commissioners initially concluded that an extension of Eagle Road provided the most convenient act ess to Bradley's property and ordered appraisers to determine if any damage would result to the Burkhalters' and Millers' property. Appraisers concluded that the road would cause no injury to surrounding landowners. The Millers objected and the commissioners reversed their earlier decision, saying Bradley could seek right-of-way to her land through property to the west and south held in trust for Arapaho and Shoshone tribal members by the United States for their benefit.

Bradley, a Shoshone, had obtained the Please see LAND, B2 CHEYENNE (AP) The Wyoming Supreme Court has reversed a decision by the Fremont County commissioners and ordered a road be established so a woman can reach her landlocked property on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Janis Bradley had filed a petition in with commissioners to allow her to use a private road because she had no public outlet to her land west of Riverton. She said the most convenient access to her land was from Eagle Road, a public road which passes through a subdivision, then continues north as a private road on the western boundary of land owned by Robert and Marie Burkhalter and Steve and Esther Miller. The road ends at the southern boundary of Compromise planned for court administration two counts of attempted first-degree murder, in Lincoln County. In Keith County, he is charged with first-degree murder, felony murder, and theft and weapons charges.

Moses is accused of killing Rolx'rt Sedlacek, 48, and stealing his pickup truck in Keith County on Feb. M. He also is accused of wounding a Lincoln County sheriff's deputy and Nebraska State Patrd tr)er. it conflicts with the Wyoming Constitution and state law. Among other things, the amendment places administration of the district courts within the scope of the legislative branch, the order said Article 2, Section 1 of the Wyoming Constitution specifies that the judicial department is one of three distinct branches of government.

The other two are the legislative and the executive. The amendment to the bill directed the proHsed new district court conference to report to the Legislature's Joint Pleas1 (tee COURTS. B2 tatively called a Judicial Administrative Council that will administer all the courts, including the county courts. The Supreme Court, through the court administrator's office, now handles the payroll and budgets for the district courts and the county courts. "Essentially, the Supreme Court will lx delegating its superintending authority to that l)ody, Lehman said referring to the new council.

The new approach makes sense and will avoid duplicating services, he said. It also will enable the various judges to sit down together and communicate more. The council, he said, will be an overall management board and ill be responsible for more than administration. "For what may have appeared to be some division has served as an impetus to get everyone together on the same page," Lehman said. "I'm fully confident it's going to work." Lehman's April 5 order as in keeping with an amendment to the Court Consolidation Act, House Bill 43.

passed by the Legislature last winter. In the order. Lehman expressed rv klation alMiut the amendment because By JOAN BARRON Star-Tribune capital bureau CHEYENNE The district courts will not split off from the State Supreme Court to administer their own payrolls and budgets after all. Wyoming Supreme Court Chief Justice Lirry Lehman said Friday he intends to rescind an order he issued April 5 to separate the district courts administration from the Supreme Court. He said the district court judges and Supreme Court justices met last week and agreed to set up an organization ten Correction The name of the father of murder victim Li.sa M.

Bernal was misreported in an Associated Press story on this page Friday. Her father's name is Sammy Bernal. State Editor Nadia White. For information, questions ami comments about this page, call the newsitesk (3(17) (m)) ll2-i'l'. e-mail eriitorsff1rih.com: lax 4.