The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 86

IS Section ttc WEDNESDAY AUGUST 6 199 Watch your wattage Use correct bulbs in fixtures fire officials say apartment blaze blamed on a bulb that was too big Page 4C Sudden storm Powerful storm knocks down trees power lines causing outages in western Piedmont Page 3C Transit tax referendum endorsed Tommy Tomlinson Sales tax hike would first expand bus system western part of the county near Lake Wylie difficulty is if you want to get from one point in the suburbs to another you have to go uptown and then back out no cross-town route one reason why people in the suburbs tend not to use the mass transit Mecklenburg County commissioners would be allowed to put the sales tax increase before voters in 1998 Commissioners Chairman Parks Helms said confident the board will let voters make the choice By TAYLOR BATTEN Raleigh Bureau RALEIGH Barring any major reversals Mecklenburg County voters will decide next year whether to raise local taxes by about $50 million a year to pay for more buses bus routes and eventually commuter trains The proposal aimed at getting people out of their cars and onto mass transit cleared its last major legislative hurdle Tuesday when the NC Senate voted 40-8 in favor of the plan The Senate will take a final vote today The House which already passed a similar version is expected to cast a final vote next week sales tax would increase one-half percent to 6 'A percent if voters approve Residents of any NC city or town that has public transportation could also be hit with a new annual $5 tax on each vehicle Under the Mecklenburg tax consumers would pay a nickel extra for every $10 they spend and the $50 million it raises could be used only on public transportation The new half-percent sales tax would not apply to food would use the bus system almost exclusively if I said Michael Jones who lives in the ORTEGA GAINES Staff Patrons line up to board a Charlotte Transit bus at the Transit Center on East Trade Street in Charlotte Warren Grace (foreground) naps during his lunch break at the RB Alexander shoe warehouse on Tuesday He and several others are helping clean up the warehouse after the storm two weeks ago caused more than $2 million damage The Charlotte area does not qualify for federal emergency aid despite millions of dollars in losses Victim too deserving of due process an awfully hard thing to do right by the dead Especially when the death is as messy and troubling as the death of Carolyn Boetticher You know that police officers never want to come down against one of their own But a Charlotte-Mecklenburg internal affairs review board made up mostly of police has looked at the evidence surrounding death and decided that two of their officers should pay a price If the review decisions hold Officer Shannon Jordan will be fired and Officer Donn Belz will be suspended for 30 days It could get worse than that for them They might also face criminal charges from the district office and the US Justice Department All this stems from a few seconds late one April night down on State Street Police had a checkpoint down there A Chevrolet hesitated then sped through Jordan and Belz fired 22 shots Fourteen hit the back of the car Boetticher died from a shot to the back of the neck She driving the car That was a guy named Robert Lundy He had been arrested before for cocaine possession among other things and had spent time behind bars Police say he swallowed a bag of cocaine somewhere around the time he drove through the checkpoint This loser escaped from the chase without a scratch If any of those 22 bullets deserved to hit anyone it was him Maybe he realizes this Two weeks ago he tried to kill himself in jail If he had taken a bullet that 1 night on State Street all this would be easier to deal with The officers might still be punished but at least it would feel like they got the bad guy But instead the bullet found Carolyn Boetticher who was the passenger in the car and had a steady job and let her brother sleep on her couch Old high-school classmates came to speak fondly at her funeral over at Cedar Grove AME Zion Church in Concord building was full to says the Rev Mary Kendall who presided over the service was a very loved And of course none of that explains why she ended up in a car late at night with an ex-con who might have had drugs in him if not on him tempting to just bang the gavel and find her guilty by association She was a 48-year-old woman for sake and either she was a willing bystander or she was a part of what was going on right? Got too close to trouble and so trouble just reached over and hauled her in a symbol that way a ready-made lesson for people who preach about staying away from the wrong place at the wrong time But a symbol another way too a symbol for some people especially black people who believe that police pull the trigger faster in poor black neighborhoods Just figures some folks say that the black woman on the passenger side got killed while the white guy driving the car even get grazed Not that it happened that way on purpose Just the way life is But before we completely turn Carolyn Boetticher into a symbol before we pick her for our team or send her to the other try to remember that it is always more complicated than that No matter what kind of person she was she was a person Not a symbol Innocent until proven guilty should extend to everyone even someone who is not around to tell her side of the story And no matter how painful it plays out for the living we owe it to Carolyn Boetticher to do right by the dead Please see BUS page 7C still digging mud out of her basement and trying to figure out how pay to fix more than $4000 in damages to her floors and carpets going to hurt us to have to take out a loan Keilty excited very accomplished and a very smart said Keilty be told after watching her on tape and knowing this was her home we moved very may be a bit of an overstatement Gantt first came to Charlotte to audition in early June and there was some persistent safety new NC priority Bill takes emphasis from family unity By STEPHANIE GIBBS Raleigh Bureau RALEIGH A safety is more important than whether he lives with his natural parents state lawmakers decided Tuesday In an 88-20 vote the House gave final approval to a bill aimed at speeding up the process for taking children away from abusive or neglectful parents if attempts to bring the family safely back together fail The legislation was widely viewed as a response to the deaths of four children in Rowan County this year especially that of De-Mallon Krider He was taken from his foster home to live with his mother who is accused of killing him Gov Jim Hunt who called for a reversal of the way the federal law is interpreted to make family reunification the No 1 goal of caseworkers is expected to sign the bill into law in the next several days Under the new law judges may decide if attempts to reunite a family are futile If so the judge may begin the process to free the child for adoption In the past such cases have dragged through the Please see NEGLECT page 3C 6th Circuit drops 54 of cases By JONATHAN DUBE Staff Writer LANCASTER SC If going to court in Lancaster or Chester counties you have the best odds in South Carolina that the charges will be dropped Solicitor John Justice and his staff dismissed more than half their cases dunng the past four years a far greater share than any other office in the state Fifty-four percent of the 6th Judicial Circuit cases disposed of during those years were dismissed as compared with the state average of 36 percent according to an analysis of SC Court Administration figures The dismissal rate has increased steadily over the past four years In 1996 when the state average was 35 percent the Sixth Circuit which includes Lancaster Chester and Fair-field dismissed 63 percent of its Roberts cases the highest in the state seems extremely extremely out of said Don Rushing who was the resident Loans likely only option Damage reach disaster relief threshold By ANNA GRIFFIN than $12 million So a damage- Staff Writer related loan program could Flood damage in the Char- prove popular even though lotte area widespread many people had been hoping enough to warrant federal di- for relief they have to saster aid but property owners repay probably will get some relief take what I can get just have to repay the because I have said John federal government for it Lowe whose Freedom Drive Although 33 counties suf- business sustained severe dam-fered more than $25 million in age a business puts damage when the remnants of you in debt in the first place but Hurricane Danny rolled we have to do what it takes to through last month Gov Jim get open Hunt has decided not to ask But many residents had been President Clinton to grant fed- hoping for unconditional federal funding for the cleanup eral relief they have to North Carolina is expected to repay And the loans help qualify for low-interest Small pay to repair roads storm Business Administration loans drains and water and sewer that could help property owners lines that may have been dam-rebuild homes and businesses aged in the flood In Mecklenburg County 72 family needs some-businesses and 304 homes suf- said Sharon Deele a fered damages totaling more south Charlotte resident who is Photos by RICHARD BROOKSStaff (Above) RB Alexander shoe warehouse manager Charlene Simpson conducts what business she can on the telephone in a makeshift office near a trash bin filled with soggy muddy shoes The flooding from the summer storm two weeks ago destroyed nearly everything in the offices (Left) A lone pair of shoes sits on a muddy rack at the warehouse with anybody the government or a bank to fix this But we have to do See DAMAGE page 4C wooing before she succumbed Hers is the first major on-air recruitment by WCNC under Dallas-based AH Belo Corp which acquired the station in February Gantt who is married and has an 18-month-old daughter proclaimed her delight at returning Please see GANTT page 7C WCNC lures Souja Gantt back from Chicago as anchor Chicago She will leave there in mid-September and take her post alongside WCNC (Channel 36) anchor Allen Denton in early October tfrjr said station presi- VJfv Jk dent and general manager Richard 6antt By KAY McFADDEN TVRadio Writer WCNC-TV concluded one search for marquee-quality talent Tuesday with the hiring of broadcaster Sonja Gantt to co-anchor its 5 6 and 1 1 pm news Gantt the daughter of former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt is a morning news anchor and reporter at superstation WGN-TV in phone: 358-5227 Fax: 358-5037 Address: PO Box 30308 Charlotte NC 28230 E-mail toMj2ckarlotticoa Please see DROP page 7C TJA UBJ Av A.