The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 25

LORIDA LEGISLATURE 5B DEATHS 3B A SECTION SATURDAY FEBRUARY 291992 Sbc itf iami Herald Judge axes tax on political donations LIZ BALMASEDA no guarantee the tax they paid would go to GOP candidates "We didn't want the money to go to some pinhead we didn't like" said Republican lawyer Richard McFarlain A decision on whether to appeal will be made next week said Joe Bizzaro a spokesman for Attorney General Bob Butter-worth Lawyers from Butterworth's office plan to meet with representatives from the Department of TALLAHASSEE (AP) A judge has struck down a tax on contributions to political parties and political action committees to pay for public financing of gubernatorial and Cabinet races Circuit Judge FE Steinmeyer III of Tallahassee ruled Thursday that the 15 percent assessment was an unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment right of free speech in a suit by the Florida Republican Party Republicans argued there was State the governor's office and legislators before making that decision Democratic Gov Lawton Chiles had pushed for public financing of statewide campaigns as part of his efforts to reduce the influence of special interests on elections It was part of a reform package enacted last year which also included limits on how much money gubernatorial and Cabinet candidates can collect if they accept public money Courts have ruled such limits'cannot be imposed without some form of public financing Presidential campaigns are Financed through a voluntary checkoff on income tax forms Florida however has no personal income tax so the Legislature passed the contribution assessment "We thought that it was very poor public policy because you give money to the Republican Party and you expect it to go to Republicans not to liberal Democrats" said GOP spokesman Stan Smith State officials were unable to say immediately how much the state has collected for its public financing fund since the tax went on the books last Oct 1 "I assume when this thing runs its course we'll get it refunded" McFarlain said Steinmeyer ruled the state had other ways it could raise the money that wouldn't infringe on constitutional rights Everglades cleanup is taking root $400 million plan has fighting chance ACCEPTING AWARDS: Lead U2 singer Bono holds up one of two Grammys the group received in March 1988 in New Yort City U2's arrival has Lakeland in awe By MICHAEL CROOK Herald Staff Writer Without much help from scientists and water experts natural wetland plants and wildlife have quickly reclaimed what used to be a sugar cane farm in western Palm Beach County "We've got nature taking its course" said JB Jackson project manager for South Florida's first Everglades pollution-filtering marsh "While we sleep at night it's turning it into a wetland" Where farm trucks used to rumble from field to factory a fat healthy otter scampers across the road and into a canal joining a great blue heron and a snowy egret Where workers put 3700 acres of cane to the torch once a year and chopped it down with machetes a flock of 28 roseate spoonbills an endangered species fishes contentedly in shallow pools They explode in a pink cloud as biologists pass by on a tour of the first pollution-filtering marsh in South Florida wheeling overhead waiting for the intruders to leave "I love to see how the environment is transforming from sugar cane to natural wetlands and wildlife habitat" said Pete Rhoads the water district's Everglades restoration director Rhoads and Jackson hailed this natural takeover Friday as a good sign that a S400 million Everglades cleanup plan has a fighting chance for success The plan involves buying about 35000 acres of sugar fields and creating natural filters to clean farm waste water before it is pumped into the remaining native Everglades When the 3700-acre experiment in using wetlands to remove pollutants from farm drainage was approved almost four years ago water experts figured on planting hand-picked nursery-grown marsh plants like bulrushes and pickerelweed on the former sugar farm Within a week of clearing off the last sugar crop exposing the rich black soil and flooding it with canal water though the scientists were stunned to see marsh plants taking root and algae reproducing "The cattail comes on like gangbusters" Rhoads told the group of scientists he was leading They will offer technical advice to the water district as the cleanup progresses Another year will pass before the water district can see whether Speaking out for someone who cannot Maria Rosa Arcos speaks at a recent press conference with a clarity that thickens her tinny voice She's not comfortable before cameras and microphones But she must do this She is in exile her father's voice The 29-year-old daughter of Cuban human rights activist Sebastian Arcos Bergnes Maria Rosa has spent the past few weeks denouncing his arbitrary detention State security agents arrested him on Jan 15 after an exile raider testified that his clandestine mission involved contacting human rights groups Vice president of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights Arcos' supposed crime is "rebellion" Maria Rosa calls the case against her father "a legal farce" The evidence has been fabricated The defense lawyer has seen him only twice both times before an Interior Ministry officer As have many before him Arcos languishes in a limbo reserved for the foes of Castro As have many before her Maria Rosa finds herself under an awkward spotlight speaking for a man who cannot speak She and her mother Maria Juana Cazabon follow the tradition of exile women who have championed the causes of their loved ones in prison An urgent appeal Now it is Maria Rosa and her mother Sebastian's ex-wife who distribute an "urgent appeal to world public opinion" a litany of denunciations carefully typed on legal-sized pages Their charges take on a momentous tone as Cuba braces for an international reprimand at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva next week It was exactly two years ago after the UN commission expressed concern for Cuba's human rights record that government-organized mobs hounded her family's home leaving their threats in red paint: Socialism or death! The repression has bolstered Maria Rosa's pride in her family's tradition of clinging to ideals Her uncle Luis an expeditionary on Castro's rebel boat Granma was killed during the 1956 landing Another uncle Gustavo participated in the attack on the Moncada barracks the event that sparked the revolution in 1953 Resisting the wayward path of Castro's regime he landed in jail Today the dignified gentle Gustavo Arcos Bergnes is perhaps Castro's most formidable critic Maria Rosa's father was imprisoned by the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in the late 1950s When he protested the arbitrary treatment of his brother he became an outcast Within the mainstream A child of the revolution Maria Rosa grew up largely oblivious to her parents' dissident politics They had assessed their slim chances of leaving the island as a family and decided to raise their daughter within the mainstream One day they hoped she would see for herself that Fidel Castro's Cuba was not the Utopian society she learned about in school Maria Rosa did see for herself as mobs attacked those who intended to leave the island on the Maricl boatlift in 1980 The following year when she and her family attempted to flee police arrested her father her uncle and her brother In prison they joined the island's oldest human rights group and continued to work after their release Maria Rosa and her mother were allowed to leave for France in 1983 Her father urged her to be a voice for the human rights cause Sometimes she wishes she had spent more time with him to make up for the childhood years she lived in the dark But then she realizes she has come to understand him better from afar And in the process she ha found her own oice By SUSAN BLOODWORTH Special to The Herald LAKELAND U2 has landed With a resonating thud This Florida heartland town long the epicenter of the state's phosphate and citrus industries the winter home of the Detroit Tigers and a place where people readily recall that hour in the national spotlight when Lakeland hosted the 1985 Miss USA pageant has for a week been the temporary headquarters of one of the hottest bands on the international rock music scene U2's presence has had a mighty effect on the Polk County community of 70000 Never mind all the other big stuff happening here that tornado that passed through town this week that lineup of country greats singing at the nearby Plant City Strawberry Festival and that recent visit by presidential candidate Bill Clinton U2 is the rage The local newspaper is full of U2 stories it is Topic No 1 on local radio and the talk of the town "I've heard from people that I haven't heard from since I was born who want tickets" said Allen Johnson 32 Civic Center executive director "The mania is definitely there" U2 an Irish rock band that has been at the top of the music industry in recent years is opening a concert tour tonight in Lakeland Sunday the band comes to South Florida The group is so popular that the 14000 seats in the Miami Arena sold out in 1 2 minutes The Edge the group's guitarist on the back of his long-sleeved blue denim shirt Wednesday night 200 people waited at the backstage door Word had leaked out that the band had allowed the 30 or so who waited in the rain the night before to come inside to watch rehearsal "It was great" said Anthony Quartar-aro 16 of Tampa "I got some autographs and took some pictures" It mattered not that on Wednesday evening Bono appeared at 8:05 pm waved to a crowd silent with awe and sped away to his Orlando hotel to rest his sore throat "Bono said at dinner he was feeling weak and needed to take it easy" said crew member John Varney 34 who operates a spotlight during the show Lisa Phelps 20 of Lakeland has been hanging around the auditorium until midnight most nights trying for autographs She got them from bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr but nothing from the group's leader "I'm kind of mad because Bono promised on Monday to sign autographs and he hasn't but it's been worth it to see them" she said Phelps isn't the only one who's disappointed Take Lakeland's longtime mayor Frank O'Reilly an Irishman from the south side of Chicago "I haven't gotten to meet them yet and I'm so mad I could die" said the silver-haired O'Reilly 56 was going to give them a kev to the city" The band chose to practice in the Lakeland Civic Center because of convenience "It's sunny and it's warm and you can rent the facility for an extended period of time" said the band's Los Angeles publicist Paul Wasserman Despite the sensation its presence has created the band has been rarely seen Fans camp out at the Civic Center hoping for a glance or an autograph Dan Donoghue is one The 22-year-old from Clearwater has made the 90-mile trip to the auditorium each day for a week hoping for a glimpse of lead singer Bono Vox or any of the others He wound up losing his shirt Gladly "Bono turned around and said to me 'Cool T-shirt' said Donoghue "It was a Bob Marley shirt So I took it off and gave it to him" The group hasn't played in the United States since 1987 After that tour it took a lengthy vacation and in 1991 released its sixth studio album Achtung Baby which has sold seven million copies and raced to the top of Billboard's pop chart Many U2 groupies plan to hit both shows Lakeland and Miami "I've got tickets to both concerts" said Dave Mitchell 21 a mechanical engineering major at Florida University in Tallahassee Wednesday night was Mitchell's third night hanging'out in Lakeland about a 400-mile round-trip from Tallahassee which he has made daily Mitchell's reward: an autograph from ment END OF THE LINE What was the of Florida in 1850? A 87445 M3ID SERVICE: Less costs more for custom-W ers who hire the Bot tom Line Bikini Clean the marsh they saw Friday will make farm water clean enough for the Everglades The S12 million project the group toured was made possible bv then-Gov Bob Martinez and the state Cabinet who turned the 3700 acres over to the water district The state had leased the land to sugar growers for years Also sugar growers such as the Fanjul companies have been funding the experiment through a tax they collect among themselves "They are wonderful people to work with" Jackson said Because the results of the 3700-acre experiment could prove or disprove the assumption that wetlands can make farm water cleaner the sugar industry and the environmental movement support it "This is one of the few components of our Ev erglades cleanup plan that just about everybody agrees with" ihoads said term and if re-elected renew his anti-pornography campaign TEACHER SUSPENDED: caiia- han elementary schoolteacher charged with stealing 25375 prescription pain killers was suspended without pay by the Nassau County School Board GULF COAST CHIEF FIRED: Embat-tied St Petersburg Police Chief Curt Curtsinger was fired after months of controversy over racial issues that included charges by senior black officers and civil rights leaders that he pulled a successful patrol unit out of a high-crime black area and excluded blacks from powen within the depart SOUTH FLORIDA BUSH COMING: Next week President Bush will play to a crowd that loves him Hialeah Where 63 percent of the registered voters are Republican Where 74 percent of the city's 36820 voters cast ballots for Bush in 1988 On Wednesday Bush plans to attend a 90-minute rally at 4 pm at Milander Auditorium CENTRAL FLORIDA NEWBORN ABANDONED: a woman charged with abandoning her newborn in a ditch in Orange County had another baby as a teenager and put it up for adoption without her family knowing about it i says the children's ing Service based in Navarre "Our employees are the same as maids only their uniforms are different" says the boss Trudy Finnell Ten employees working from Pensacola to Destin vacuum dust sweep change linen and perform other household tasks in skimpy thong bikinis "This is an entertainment service It's for looking only" she said "With the beaches it just fits with bikinis You see them anywhere you go around here during the summer" father NORTH FLORIDA YEAR IN JAIL: Jacksonville prostitute who helped a man fulfill his fantasy of dying during the sex act will spend a year in jail for contributing to his death RE-ELECTION BID: John Tan-ner state attorney for the Seventh Judicial District announced he'll run for a second I i.