Elko Daily Free Press from Elko, Nevada • 1

ll 1 Al 2625 inc. Bav lCnFS AVE VoL 114 No, 3 Established Jan. 5, 1883 ELKO, ELKO COUNTY, NEVADA 50 CENTS SUNNYVALE' 20 Pages Natural Recources Comsrvalzon Ssnzcs Snow Suirvsy Clinton declares disaster Carnal Yew JT7 atsf January 1997 Yeari 1337 Tyeate beats ry U1TOI EUtSCIXT KIYX3 Basin average lffl percent of normal. 17.1. -54.

Corral Canyon Snotel UD1 114 jU. U51- Dorsey Basin HO Snotel -11. -12. -17! UD1. .11.1.

Draw Creek 12. Green Ktn. -743) Snotel JCCO Snotel .114. -8A. UC1.

Lamoillef3 7700 -53. UU. CLOVE2 VALLEY FIAN2LIN VYEX Basin average 4C8 percent of normal. 12 Hole-in-Ktn. 7800 Snotel 253 5J.

OWYEEE KTVEX Basin average 178 percent of normal. Big Bend 6700 Snotel 101 10. -23 -117. .17. .145 Fawn Creek 12 7050 Snotel Jack Creek-upper 7250 Snotel Laurel Draw 6700 Snotel -115.

-18. JU- 1D1. U01. U0L -167 .183 -L3. -42- .11.

-10- -2u5 Taylor Canyon 6200 Snotel 10L SNAKE RIVES Basin average 200 percent of normal -71- -215 Bear Creek 7800 Snotel 101 153. Pole Creek RS 8330 Snotel U01 151. 76 Creek 7100 Snotel UD1 9.8- -A0 -120 .7.9. J.0. -12 Snowpack in area drainage basins are well above Snowpack: IFire netcs summary: Gingrich gaining support from GOP WASHINGTON CAP) A dozen Republican lawmakers have moved from fence-sitters to supporters of Newt Gingrich significantly increasing his chances of winning reelection as House speaker on Tuesday.

All had been listed in news accounts as undecided about supporting Gingrich because of his admission that he violated House ethics rules. On Friday, they demonstrated that a massive lobbying effort by Gingrich and GOP leaders is starting to pay off. In a letter to their Republican colleagues, they wrote: "In recent news accounts you may have seen us listed as "undecided" in terms of whether we would vote to reelect Newt Gingrich as speaker. "We're writing to you today to let you know that we will be voting to re-elect Newt Gingrich on Jan. 7." Republicans outnumber Democrats, 227-207, in the House, and there is one independent who generally votes with the Democrats.

The lawmakers not only backed the speaker but offered themselves as missionaries who would speak with any other GOP member harboring doubts. News organizations have run different lists of Republicans who were unsure about Tuesday's speaker's race and all 12 appeared on some of them. The Associated Press list, 24 names long earlier Friday, dropped to 15 as a result of the letter. Several of the signers already had been removed from the AP's count Cold snap PARIS (AP) It was warmer in arctic Greenland than in much of Europe this week as the death toll from the continent's deepest freeze in a decade rose to 228. In the French Alps north of Nice, heavy rain and snow dislodged a 220-pound rock that fell on a car, crushing a 23-year-old woman to death as her parents watched in horror from a following car.

Police in Darmstadt, Germany, said a homeless 34-year-old con man wanted for months on fraud charges turned himself in Thursday night just so he could warm up in jail. He got his wish, they said. In England, animal activists worked to rescue scores of swans frozen fast by their feet to icy ponds. "We have been inundated with swans with hypothermia and birds which have ripped their toenails out trying to get out," said Dot Beeson, director of the National Swan Sanctuary in Egham, Surrey. At least 22 new deaths were reported by the end of the day Friday, bringing the death toll to 228 since the cold wave began.

Meanwhile, in capital of arctic Greenland, Nuuk, it was 34 degrees on Friday; a day earlier, it was a springlike 55. tent In addition to the information gathered from the automated Snotel sites, NRCS crews checked two stations in Lamoille Canyon and reported snow depths of 32 inches at the level and 91 inches at the level. average for the first of the year, the Natural Resources Conservation Service reports, with the driest the Upper Humboldt River Basin coming in at 168 percent of average for water con RENO (AP) Some casinos removed sandbags and reopened, scores of residents shoveled mud from homes and thousands continued looking for a way out of here today following the city's worst flooding in more than 40 years. President Clinton declared northern Nevada a major disaster area Friday following days of rain that sent rivers over their banks in the Reno-Carson City area One person was missing after the backhoe he was driving was swept away in a river. Reno-Tahoe International Airport reopened Friday afternoon after a two-day closure stranded thousands, but airline officials said it could take a couple of days for all to catch flights home.

At least three Reno casinos remained closed. To the south, residents of the Carson Valley were mopping up after floods damaged at least 100 homes and turned what's known as Nevada's "garden spot" into a vast lake. The Carson River spilled over its banks between Carson City and Fallon and the Walker River poured into agricultural land in the Mason Valley and Yerington area. In Reno, Fred Altmann cut short a ski vacation to Sun Valley, Idaho, to return to his flood-damaged house across the street from the Truckee River, which reached record flows Thursday befofc subsiding Friday. "The damage was a lot worse than I thought it would be," he said.

"The amount of mud is incredible. It has to be a couple of feet deep in places. I We ended up with 8 feet of water in the basement and 3 feet on the main floor. We have our work cut out for us the next couple of weeks." The Reno airport shut down Thursday after an artificial lake at the nearby Reno Hilton overflowed, i sending torrents of water onto the I airport's runways and creating a huge lake. The airport reopened Friday noon after the removal of up to 4 feet i of water from the runways, but air- Flood strands 115,000 Northern Californians LINCOLN, Calif.

(AP) About 115,000 Northern California residents are being kept away from their line officials warned it could take until Sunday to accommodate all stranded travelers. Passengers whose flights were canceled during the airport closure will be placed on standby for the next available flight, officials said. "It's quite possible there will be a crush at the airport," Reno Air spokeswoman Sue Putnam said. "The problem is there is only limited space on those planes. Local and federal officials still were trying to assess the extent of the flood damage Friday.

After taking a helicopter tour over the flood-ravaged region, Gov. Bob Miller said at least several hundred homes and businesses were flooded, causing more than $33 million in damages. In declaring Nevada a major disaster area, Clinton ordered federal emergency assistance to help meet the needs of people hit hard by the floods in Carson City and Washoe, Storey, Douglas and Lyon counties. the West Coast states with drier weather next week, the National Weather Service said. No significant rainfall was reported overnight in northern California.

Governors of five Western states have declared a state of emergency in more than 80 counties since being deluged with snow and rain in a series of nonstop storms that began on Dec. 26. At least 23 deaths have been blamed on the storms. The Western storms blocked major highways in California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Boulders the size of a house crashed onto a Sierra Nevada highway.

California's scenic coastal Highway 1 was cut in at least four places. And early today, a levee broke in a homes today, many stuck in shelters set up in schools, churches and Army bases as flooding devastates large areas of the West Helicopters rescued marooned motorists and plucked stranded farmers from rooftops, sometimes under hazardous flying conditions. "There were wires at the tops of the trees when we rescued one man and an older woman from a car," said U.S. Coast Guard petty officer Dan Sweetser, who was in a helicopter that rescued five people in Olive-hurst 'They were up to their necks in water." Only scattered light showers were forecast this weekend over most of Libya executions coimcM Jim Our aJlkiffiDg over 1-80 development park and 1-80 if there is more development in that area, Beck said. It wont be necessary to build a four-lane highway there, unless the traffic count per hour reaches 2,800 vehicles, he said.

The last traffic count showed 3,035 vehicles per day used the road, with the peak traffic of 428 vehicles in one hour. Beck cited his authority under Nevada Revised Statute 408.423 in which no state highway or right-of-way may be crossed, encroached upon or dug up without written permission of the highway department director, under the director's conditions and regulations. He said NRS 408.210 gives him authority to divide or separate any highway into separate roadways whenever there is a particular danger of collisions. The Carlin City Council will also discuss the city's solid waste collection franchise with Elko Sanitation Co. A review of the capital improvement plan is scheduled, including a pavement management program.

The length of time a dog could be impounded after a biting incident would be reduced from 14 days to 10 under another ordinance up for consideration. The position of city manager will be created in the city ordinances under another agenda item. Developments along the south side of Interstate 80 are back in front of the Carlin City Council for a 7 p.m. Wednesday meeting. Leonard and Maria Smith submitted a request to divide 2.55 acres into two separate parcels at 10th and Fir Streets.

They also requested a special use permit to construct a Texaco service station at the site. A traffic impact analysis study on 10th Street is up for consideration. North of the freeway, Frank Caf-faratti, a Reno dentist still has plans to develop a mini-storage facility off Newmont Mine Road, and later a mobile home park, said Ferron Konakis, project manager for Westec. A deadline for landowner Bob Goodsen to close the real estate deal with Caf-faratti has been extended to Jan. 10, he said.

Konakis said there are two issues that need to be resolved first: a letter from Carlin's contracted engineer Tom Bellew of High Desert Engineering, in which the city of Carlin agrees to serve the site with water and sewer services; and copies of the minutes of a Dec. 9 meeting between Carlin officials and the Nevada Department of Transportation. Konakis said developers are looking for proof from that meeting they wont have to build improvements to Newmont Mine Road up front before starting work on the mini-storage units. But NDOT District Engineer Chris Beck said yesterday the developer will have to show all his plans up front in commissioning a traffic study. The developer will then be asked to widen the road seven feet on each side in front of the property to provide room for a left-turn lane before building the mini-storage.

Since the speed limit is 35 mph, the improvements would be required for 490 feet Beck said. Konakis said the developers would have more money to build the road improvements after the mobile home park is built Another developer farther north, Fleischli Oil isnt required to construct a left-turn lane since the owner said Fleischli trucks will only be making five trips from Newmont Mine Road to their access road each day, Beck said. Other developers, such as Wal-Mart and Builders Mart, had to widen Mountain City Highway in Elko when those shopping stores were constructed, he said. The City of Carlin will have to build a left-turn lane also between the proposed mini-storage and RV rural area west of Modesto, 78 miles east of San Francisco in the state's central valley, the Stanislaus County Office j)f Emergency Services reported. Details were sketchy, but an evacuation center was set up at a fire station in Westley.

Modesto itself was having its worst flooding in 40 years after the Tuolumne River, gorged by water rushing out of the Sierra Nevada, washed into the southern edge of the city 15 feet above flood stage. Evacuations were ordered for some 3,000 Modesto residents and the sewage treatment plant was knocked out of service, city officials said. Getting trapped for three days in a Yosemite National Park lodge with sporadic power and no running water has given screenwriter Brian Strasmann plenty of ideas for his latest project Even before he got stranded in the park due to massive flooding, he was working on a movie script about a machine that creates natural disasters. "It will have a lot of good stuff straight from Yosemite," said Strasmann, among the 900 tourists who snaked out of the Yosemite Valley in a car convoy on Friday. In Sutter County, north of Sacramento, mandatory evacuations were ordered for all but a northern quarter of the county, forcing more than 60,000 residents from their homes.

Tamara Null of Yuba City and 12 of her family members were among hundreds evacuated to a shelter at Yolo County Fairgrounds in Woodland. "Our house burned down in August We were just starting to get it rebuilt and now we're flooded," she said. "I'm getting used to this." Flood waters spilled over a levee on the north fork of the Mokelumne River 20 miles south of Sacramento and swept a marina and 20 boats downstream, ramming them into a bridge. City planners to pick officers Members of Elko City Planning Commission will begin their first meeting of 1997 at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at city hall with election of a chairman and vice-chairman.

Ester Quilici currently serves as chairman while Jim Conner is vice-chairman. The board also is scheduled to consider the final plat for Heritage Estates Subdivision phase one and hear public comment on the proposed housing component of the city master plan. CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -r-Eight men executed by Libya had taken part in a 1993 failed army coup against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafl but they were not spies, a Libyan opposition group said today. The six military officers and two civilians were executed Thursday, a day after the government announced they had been found guilty of spying for foreign governments. The ruling by a High Military Court said nothing of the 1993 coup attempt, which Libya has never acknowledged.

Today's statement was faxed to the Associated Press by the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. "The Front condemns this crime the executions," the statement said. "These men were honorable stragglers (continued on back page) Nevada news summary: State plans to sue consulting firm CARSON CITY (AP) The state of Nevada is getting ready to sue a consulting firm for unsatisfactory performance after awarding the company lucrative contracts. The state Board of Examiners, chaired by Gov. Bob Miller, voted in December to approve a contract for Best Consulting to do up to $1 million in business with agencies.

This week, the state Taxation Department informed Miller's office it's suing Best Consulting on grounds that the firm installed a defective computer system at a cost of nearly $1 million. Marlene Lockard, director of the state Department of Information Services, which handles most of the state's computer business, had second thoughts about awarding the $1 million contract to Best It was through her agency that the contract was processed. Lockard has been one of the loudest critics of the way "Best has performed in its contract with the Taxation Department. "I sought legal guidance (regarding the new contract) because of a question in my mind whether it was appropriate, given the difficulties with the prior contract with the Taxation Department," Lockard said. "I was advised by the attorney general's office I must sign the pending contract with Best Consulting." She said she was told that Best met all the requirements to qualify for the $1 million master service contract, even though its job at Taxation was under question.

Best Consulting was hired in 1992 for about $800,000 to install a new computer system for Taxation for the collection of sales and business tax revenues. But taxation officials said the system never worked the way it was designed. The Taxation Department had to get another $440,000 to fix the system. Talks have been going on for one year with Best in an effort to resolve the problem. Chad Killpack, general manager for Best Consulting, said he was unaware of the state's lawsuit plans.

He said the company has worked with state agencies for three years and "we've done great work for them." Asked about the dispute with Taxation, Killpack said, "We're willing to work with them in trying to ameliorate any difference they have." The state Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety, without knowing about the problems at Taxation, signed a contract earlier this year with Best Consulting (continued on back page) if 1 'j, K7 V4 Ml Correction A Dhoto caDtion for tndav's Paoo 11 A neighborhood in Olivehurst, was lost in a muddy annex of the FeOtheTRayar SSWWpSoSSS a section of levee broke Thursday night. major. The Free Press regrets the error. .1 Ski.