The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 127

BRO 23, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2005 BROWARD PLUS AROUND SOUTH FLORIDA CORAL GABLES Seattle scholar named dean of UM college From Herald Staff and Wire Reports The University of Miami has named I Michael R. Halleran of the University of Washington in Seattle as the newest dean of the school's College of Arts and Sciences. Halleran will begin his new job as head of UM's largest college in July. Currently, he is the divisional dean of arts and humanities a and a classics professor at UW. He received his Ph.D.

from Harvard in 1981, and is an expert in Greek literature and Greek intellectual history, as well as a veteran administrator. "In addition to the social sciences and sciences, Dr. Halleran understands the complex needs of the rest of our institution," said Luis Glaser, UM's provost and executive vice president. NORTH MIAMI-DADE BOCA RATON GOLDEN GLADES FIREFIGHTERS TO HELP FLYOVER CLOSING ON ANTHRAX CLEANUP The High Occupancy Delray Beach firefighters Vehicle (HOV) flyover at might help complete the the Golden Glades inter- final stages of anthrax change in North Miami- decontamination at the forDade will be closed for mer American Media Inc. roadwork from 9 p.m.

today building. to 5:30 a.m. Thursday, the BioONE, the joint venFlorida Department of ture of former New York Transportation said Tues- City Mayor Rudolph Giuday. liani and Sabre Technical Workers will be installing Services, is recruiting offramp loops in the north- duty firefighters trained in bound lanes of Interstate 95 handling hazardous materiin the area. als to work at the site, DelFor more information call ray Beach Fire-Rescue Bat305-499-2391.

talion Chief Russ Accardi told The Palm Beach Post. MIAMI Recruitment comes sevTWO MEN HIT eral weeks after BioONE BY BB GUNFIRE said it reached an agreement with the building's owner, Two men in the Shenan- David Rustine, on what to doah area have been shot do with the contaminated with a BB or pellet gun in material inside, including recent weeks by someone AMI's collection of 4.5 milriding in a dark Ford Astro lion images. AMI publishes van, Miami police said Tues- The National Enquirer, day. National Examiner, Globe, On March 15, Jose Alfredo Sun and Weekly World Mejia, 40, who was getting News. out of his truck near South- Some Delray Beach firewest Third Avenue and 15th fighters have agreed to work Road was struck in the side with Sabre Technical Serof the head.

On Monday, vices, Accardi said. But he Eberto Santana, 44, was hit did not know what they in the back as he walked would be doing. Thirty-five home near Southwest Miami to 40 firefighters are trained Avenue and Coral Way. in dealing with hazardous It was not clear how materials, he said. many shooters are involved.

Boca Raton firefighters Police asked anyone with are not involved with the information to call Miami- work, said Deputy City Dade Crime Stoppers at Manager George Brown. 305-471-8477. Company officials Monday declined to discuss its HIALEAH plans for decontaminating POLICE SEARCHING FOR the remaining contents of RESTAURANT ROBBERS the building. "The contents have been boxed up, sealed Hialeah police were and stored, awaiting a decisearching for two armed sion on their disposition," a men who robbed a Piccacompany statement said. dilly restaurant manager The picture archive Tuesday The morning.

spawned an impasse manager was leaving between Rustine and the restaurant about 9 a.m. BioONE after BioONE fumito make a bank deposit when the armed men came gated the building in July. BioONE said it could not up to him in the parking lot destroy the pictures, includof the restaurant at the northwest corner of West 49th Street and Fourth Avenue, Hialeah police spokesman Frank Gonzalez said. The men demanded the money, and the manager handed it over. The men fled in a car that witnesses described as a maroon Grand Prix.

There was a third man in the getaway car, Gonzalez said. Police would not say how much was stolen from the manager. BOYNTON BEACH OFFICIAL PROPOSES HOUSING AT DUMP With scant space left for development, City Commissioner Muir C. "Mike" Ferguson is floating a proposal to build lower-priced "workforce" housing on the city's old garbage dump. Ferguson proposes a $90 million housing project on the former Boynton Beach landfill, a 40-acre tract located east of the city's golf course.

"Workforce housing is badly needed," Ferguson said. "The people going to work in the city are going home somewhere else." The proposal would involve reclamation of the dump site and construction of 500 condominium units dedicated to lower-priced housing. MIAMI Cuban dissidents call exiles From the island nation they chatted up two members of Congress and a group of Bay of Pigs veterans Tuesday night, and floated a message of hope to Miami's exile community. BY OSCAR CORRAL In a rare public telephone conversation, Cuban dissidents told two Miami-Dade County congressional representatives Tuesday night that the government of Fidel Castro "has never been as weak as it is now." The chat by speakerphone energized the crowd of Bay of Pigs veterans meeting in Little Havana to express support for a planned meeting of dissidents in Cuba on May 20. U.S.

Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart crowded around the phone emitting the voice of a man who identified himself as Felix Antonio Bonne Carcasses, one of the Cuban dissidents organizing the Assembly to Pro- POMPANO BEACH Chained corpse found in canal Investigators said the body had no signs of trauma, but a heavy chain was wrapped around the man's neck and arm. BY EVAN S. BENN Two men looking for a fishing spot in a Pompano Beach canal Tuesday instead found a man's body wrapped in chains. Investigators released few details about the body, saying more information would be available after the Broward Medical Examiner's Office performed an autopsy today.

Until then, the death was ruled suspicious, and investigators were seeking nearby residents' help to identify the body. The fishermen found the body floating in the canal about two blocks north of Cypress Creek Road, just east of Dixie Highway. The body, which members of the Broward Sheriff's Office Marine Unit recovered after getting a call from the fisher- mote Civil Society. "If it wasn't for the 53,000 barrels of oil that Hugo Chavez sends every day to Cuba, it would be over," Bonne Carcasses said. "You can be sure that we won't betray the confidence which Cubans have placed in us." Ros-Lehtinen yelled back at the phone: "Keep fighting.

We're here with you." "You are a tremendous leader and one of our heroes," she added. "You are fighting in favor of principles that are accepted worldwide, but are rejected in Cuba. Your cause is our cause." Ros-Lehtinen also told Bonne that Congress had begun a program to "adopt" political prisoners in Cuban prisons. Bonne Carcasses took a risk by speaking publicly to the group of 50, which included members of the news media. His declarations could land him in trouble with the Castro regime.

The Bay of Pigs Veterans, also known as Brigade 2506, declared their support for Bonne Carcasses and for the May 20 meeting. Saturday's gathering took place outside Brigade headquarters at SW Ninth Street and 18th Avenue. They are the latest exile organization to say that they plan to support the dissidents in Cuba that day. Last week, the Cuban American National Foundation announced that for the first time, it would encourage its directors to travel to Cuba to attend the May assembly. It was not clear whether the Cuban government would let CANF members attend.

Veteran Segundo Miranda said Brigade 2506 planned to help the dissidents financially, but said members had not determined how to do so. "We've put a lot of hope in this," Miranda said. The May 20 assembly has not been sanctioned by the Cuban government, and some believe Castro will not allow it to take place. But the assembly has received international attention, and stopping it abruptly would further tarnish Cuba's human rights record. Bonne Carcasses said the dissidents in Cuba today were merely an "extension" of the Bay of Pigs veterans, fighting for the same liberty and democracy.

"The only difference is that we have opted for the peaceful route," he said. Diaz-Balart told Bonne Carcasses that he strongly supported the May meeting and the dissident movement. "Cuban exiles are united in backing your cause," the Republican legislator said. "We know the risks you take every day. Thanks for all that you are doing for the cause of a free Cuba." After the meeting, Bay of Pigs veteran Jose Eugenio Miranda said the fight for a free Cuba was no longer a matter of weapons, as it was when he waded ashore under heavy fire on Playa Giron in 1961.

"The dissidents are a continuation of Brigade 2506," he said. "It's no longer a war to fight with weapons, but with ideas." SHERIFF R.C. THE HERALD CANAL MYSTERY: Deputies cover a body found in a Pompano Beach canal Tuesday. Investigators would not comment about the chains wrapped men about 8 a.m., was described as that of a black man in his mid- to late 20s, according to BSO spokeswoman Veda ColemanWright. The man was wearing a blue, long-sleeve sweater, black pants and black sneakers, and his body may have been in the water four or five days, Coleman-Wright said.

Although investigators said the body had no obvious signs of trauma, a heavy chain was seen wrapped around the body's neck and arm. BSO would not provide details about the chains. "We're not releasing any details about the body," Coleman-Wright said. BSO is asking anyone with information about the man's identity to call Detective Frank Ilarraza at 954-321-4210 or Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477. Pompano Site where two Beach fishermen found the body of a man McNAB RD.

canal SW 18 95 canal C-14 a CYPRESS CREEK RD. 0.3 miles M. RUIZ HERALD STAFF Funeral home may make way for offices bituary: Ahern-Plummer Funeral Home. Owner J.L. Plummer, 68, the former Miami city commissioner, sold the building at Southwest 60th Avenue and Bird Road and the parking lot across the way.

Buyer: Bruno Ramos, 44, an architect with BEA International. Price: near $1.7 million. TALK OF OUR TOWN Plummer says Ramos JOAN FLEISCHMAN told him he jfleischman plans to build office condos. Plummer's dad, Joseph L. "Joe" Plummer, a Key West native, went to work for the old Ahern Funeral Home in Miami in 1931.

He and mortician Francis Ahern became partners in 1945, and Plummer bought him out in '49. J.L. grew up in the business. "I washed hearses and limousines in the summer when I was 12. I painted the building, mowed the grass." He got his funeral director's license at 21.

Brother Larry, a former state senator and representative, came on board in 1970. Their the the for and in the of of a a was in a to ing the notorious shot of Elvis Presley resting in his coffin in Graceland, because lawyers for freelance photographers had contacted them and disputed that Rustine owned the images. The company feared legal liability in the event the picture archive was destroyed. RIVIERA BEACH CASINO BOAT COMING TO PALM BEACH PORT Sporting stem-to-stern Mardi Gras-purple paint and a casino twice the size of the Palm Beach Princess, the Big Easy Casino will drop anchor at the Port of Palm Beach this month. The Big Easy is equipped with a casino.

Both ships are owned by Palm Beach Cruise Line. Cruise Line said the Easy casino has 23 gaming tables to accommodate blackjack, roulette, cards and craps, The Palm Beach Post reported. The Big Easy and the Princess can carry about 28,000 passengers a week into international waters legal gambling territory. And at about $25 a head, boarding charges alone could reap weekly revenues in the high six figures. That's assuming the two ships can keep the customers coming.

father died in '79. Larry's death last September prompted the sale, Plummer says. "I was the only one left." Plummer must vacate by April 8. He donated 21 mahogany pews with kneelers to St. Jude Catholic Church.

He gave the Hammond organ to Our Lady of Lebanon. Plummer is not retiring. Donald Van Orsdel, 53, president of Van Orsdel Family Funeral Chapels with six locations from Pembroke Pines to Kendall brought him in as a funeral consultant. CROSSING OVER When WSCV-Telemundo 51 Spanish-language weatherman Fidel "Felipe" Ferro crosses over next month to English language WSVN-Fox 7, he'll be Phil Ferro, chief meteorologist. Why the name change? "Easier to roll off the tongue," says Ferro, 45, an 11-year Telemundo vet.

Ferro replaces Bill Kamal, 48, who got arrested for using an Internet chat room to solicit sex from a 14-year-old boy. No "boy" an undercover cop. Kamal is serving five years in prison. The Cuban-born Ferro came here at age 6. His folks are retired Rene as a welder, Olga as a seamstress at a Hialeah factory.

Brother Jorge is a Miami-based inflight services manager for Varig. Ferro and wife Sue, 43, have a son, 5, and daughter, 3. Ferro graduated from Miami Springs Senior High and studied broadcast meteorology online through Mississippi State University. He signs off on April 1, and debuts April 25 on Channel 7. MOTLEY CREW Ryan Crew, 28, and Russell Crew, 26, sons of MiamiDade Schools Superintendent Rudy Crew, 54, are set for trial April 25 on felony battery charges.

Miami police busted them in December after an incident at Coco Walk. Miami New Times first reported their arrest. The Brothers Crew allegedly punched Patrick Dorneval, 31, and beat him bloody after they had words on the dance floor of Fat Tuesday. Ryan is a Peace Corps volunteer who provides education to Swaziland indigents, says defense attorney Michelle Delancy. Russell, who lives in San Rafael, co-founded a nonprofit that helps disadvantaged student athletes transition from high school to college.

Prosecutor: Christopher Angell. Case is before MiamiDade Circuit Judge Kevin Emas. TRIAL RUN? On WFOR-CBS 4's earlymorning newscast, Miami criminal defense lawyer Mark Eiglarsh and Miami-Dade prosecutor Katie Phang verbally spar over the Michael Jackson trial during a segment dubbed The Insider's Edge. They analyze witnesses, evidence, jurors, Jackson's behavior and trial tactics. Eiglarsh, 36, may lose his sparring partner.

Phang, 29, got word from her bosses at the state attorney's office that she must quit the gig. A shame, Eiglarsh says. "She makes the segment better. The best part is the vigorous advocacy between us. Based on how heated things become on air, people have questioned whether we like each other.

We're actually dear friends." Stay tuned..