The San Bernardino County Sun from San Bernardino, California • Page 28

JlJ B4 1 CALIFORNIA The Sun THURSDAY, December 1, 1988 Other than cigarettes, tobacco products tax to increase 42 percent tobacco at retail outlets will therefore pay at least 42 cents more per dollar of product, said E.V. Anderson, the state Board of Equalization's administrator of excise taxes. But Anderson said he could not determine just how much more consumers would pay since the tax will be imposed at the wholesale level before products are marked up for retail Tobacco industry officials and board member Ernest Dronen-burg, delving into the highly complicated issue, argued in support of tax formulas that would have produced lower rates. Board member Conway Collis argued in support of the rate that was later adopted, saying, "To do anything else would be a sham." Proposition 99 proponents agreed. Proposition 99, approved by tax on tobacco products other than cigarettes.

The board, in a 3-1 decision with Dronenburg providing the dissenting vote, adopted a staff-proposed formula that officials said employed the tax rate on one cigarette, $.0175, divided by the average wholesale cost of a cigarette, $.042. That figures out to a tax rate of 41.67 percent, or about 42 cents per wholesale dollar. The rate is roughly equivalent voters Nov. 8, increased the cigarette tax per pack from 10 cents to 35 cents and called for a tax on other tobacco products equal to the overall rate at which cigarettes will be taxed. However, it did not specify the amount of increase on other products, instead leaving the job of embracing a tax increase formula to the Board of Equalization.

Previously, there was no state By STEVE GEISSINGER Associated Press SACRAMENTO A state board, acting to implement voter-passed Proposition 99, decided Wednesday to tax the wholesale cost of tobacco products other than cigarettes at about 42 cents on the dollar. Consumers buying cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, and chewing Protesting Vernon waste site Governor may reconsider steed -1 'I--. XV Ik bling groups said they opposed any expansion of gambling because it would only encourage those who can least afford to lose money. "It's an anti-family proposal," said Art Croney, a lobbyist for the Committee on Moral Concern. "The horse racing industry is scrambling.

They're having (financial) trouble and they're trying to market their product," he said. Floyd's comments came during a special hearing of his committee to review the performance of satellite wagering. Members of Greenpeace hold a mock funeral on the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento on Wednesday to protest Gov. George Deukmejian's veto of legislation that would have required preparation of an Environmental APWIREPHOTO Impact Report for the proposed Vernon hazardous waste incinerator in East Los Angeles. Four of the group were later arrested for blocking the entrance to the governor's office.

They were released after being cited. to the 35-cent per pack tax on distribution of cigarettes since the average wholesale cost of a pack of cigarettes is about 84 cents, officials said. Proposition 99 will go into effect Jan. 1. State officials estimate the new tax on tobacco products other than cigarettes will generate less than 5 percent of the total tax revenue collected from all tobacco products.

Gov. George Deukmejian Rethinking Gann initiative ey raised from spending limits. "So we've now got two major exemptions to the spending limit that did not exist before," Frost said. "And I think it's now time to take a serious look at whether the Gann limit still has any usefulness. I'm not concluding that it doesn't, but I think it certainly is a changed situation now." Frost said he is not certain voters understood the implications for the spending limit, which were largely buried in the fine print of the two initiatives.

He noted voters rejected two June ballot measures that directly called for easing the limit, allowing the state to spend more on such services as education and roads. Deukmejian himself has long argued it would be shortsighted to change the limit before it had a chance to work. But if the governor decides a change is needed now, Frost said the administration would announce its own proposal next year. He said any change in the limit would have to wait until the plan could be submitted to voters in 1990. Proposition 98's emphasis on education already has launched lobbying efforts by supporters of other programs, who must now compete for a smaller portion of the budget pie.

Frost said the administration is hearing from many of them as it begins work on the proposed 1989-90 budget that Deukmejian will release in January. earlier this month. A lawyer for Louise Childs, Morrison's daughter and conservator, was dissatisfied with Wednesday's ruling. "She's standing her ground on the basis of her belief that Laguna Honda should follow her mother's wishes that she didn't want to be kept alive artificially," said the lawyer, John Weinstein. Weinstein described Morrison as "an independent woman all her life.

Over the years, she made some general statements to her daughter and others that "she didn't want to be kept alive after it was her time to go," Weinstein said. Though Morrison had not expressed those wishes in writing, then-Superior Court Judge William Stein accepted the testimony of Childs and others she would not have wanted her life prolonged. So far, more than 1,500 people have been summoned to Tynan's courtroom. Hundreds were excused because they could not afford to spend an estimated two years in court. More were dismissed because they believed Ramirez was guilty of the brutal "Night Stalker" slayings.

On Dec. 12, some 145 jury finalists will return for further questioning on more general sub-, jects. From that pool, 12 jurors and 12 alternates will be chosen. Tynan hopes to seat a jury by mid-January. wmm cap 37 ii tt KfittC tfi fr-" Proposal would link horse racing, lottery on spe: By AMY CHANCE McClatchy News Service SACRAMENTO Gov.

George Deukmejian, a staunch supporter of the state's constitutional spending cap, is reconsidering his position now that voters have approved two initiatives creating major exceptions to the limit, a top aide said Wednesday. Following passage of propositions to improve school funding and raise the state cigarette tax, Deukmejian's chief of staff, Michael Frost, said the governor is debating whether to propose a change in the spending restraints successfully promoted by anti-tax crusader Paul Gann in 1979. Frost said administration officials, questioning whether the limit can continue to work in its current form, are likely to discuss the matter with Republican legislative leaders within the next few weeks. "I think the Gann limit has been seriously compromised by both Proposition 98 and Proposition 99," Frost said in an interview. "The governor has always said he would support the Gann limit as long as he felt it was workable.

And I think now we have to look seriously to see whether it still is workable in view of the changes that have been made by the propositions." Proposition 98, an initiative pushed by state schools chief Bill Honig, requires the state budget to set aside a minimum amount of money for schools and community colleges. If the state collects more money than it can spend under the limit, the initiative also requires most of that surplus money go to schools not the tax rebates voters may have expected when they enacted the spending limit nine years ago. "Technically, the rebate is still on the books," Frost said. "But I don't think that there's much chance, for at least the first couple of years, there will be any rebate money. To a large extent any more, it's not a spending limit.

We are spending virtually all, if not all, of the surplus." Proposition 99, which raised the state cigarette tax 25 cents and imposed a new tax on other tobacco products, also frees mon- moral objections and remove a tube from Thelma Morrison, a 90-year-old San Francisco woman who has been unconscious with no mental functions for several years. The court said hospital officials had testified Morrison could be transferred to another local facility within two weeks, at no expense to the family. "The time for judicial intervention in this case has not yet arrived," said Justice Donald King. In upholding the conservator's right to order life-support withdrawn, the court relied on a recent precedent-setting decision by an appeals court in San Jose, which approved a similar order to remove a feeding tube from a man who has been unconscious without hope of recovery since a 1983 auto accident. The U.S.

Supreme Court let that ruling stand that end, next month I will propose a combined lottery-horse racing game called 'The California In addition, Floyd said many existing satellite wagering facilities, or betting parlors, located at 22 county fairgrounds and race tracks not already sponsoring live races, are "filthy, substandard" operations and should be remodeled or replaced. A spokesman for a European betting-parlor branching out in the United States suggested gambling on horse races could eventually be at private parlors or at Court supports right-to-die, 3-0 Doctor granted right to refuse on moral grounds ByRAYSOTERO McClatchy News Service SACRAMENTO The head of a key Assembly committee called Wednesday for the state's horse-racing industry and the California Lottery to join forces to expand gambling opportunities and increase state income. "Instead of opposing the lottery, horse racing should form a partnership with the lottery," said Assemblyman Richard Floyd, D-Hawthorne, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Governmental Organization. "To Two face charges of extortion Both suspects waive extradition in Vegas LAS VEGAS (AP) Two men arrested for allegedly threatening Antelope Valley residents with death if extortion-letter demands were not met have waived extradition and will be returned to California. Richard Faroni and Roman Makuch waived extradition Wednesday in a brief appearance before District Judge Myron Leavitt.

Faroni contends he and Makuch were in Connecticut visiting Faroni's parents at the time the extortion letters were mailed. "We didn't do it we weren't even in the area," Faroni said in a telephone interview from the Clark County Detention Center here. California authorities discounted Faroni's alibi. Faroni, 26, and Makuch, 27, are both former B-1B bomber production workers, authorities said. Both were also volunteers with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, assigned to the department's media resources section, the sheriffs office said.

The two moved from the Antelope Valley to Las Vegas after allegedly sending the threatening letters. They were arrested in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving Day and booked for investigation of the thousands of lottery outlets statewide. "As such it could be a win-win operation," said Paul Silvergleid of the Ladbroke Racing Corp. Leonard Foote, executive director of the California Horse Racing Board, said he was open to Floyd's suggestions and described them as "reasonable." Lottery representatives did not testify at the afternoon hearing of Floyd's committee and did not response to telephone calls from a reporter. Representatives for anti-gam Roman Makuch Lived in Antelope Valley work as security guards, and wanted to eventually become casino dealers.

At least 265 residents of the Antelope Valley, a desert area 60 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, began receiving computer-generated letters on Nov. 1. The letters, including personal information on recipients, demanded amounts up to $600,000. The scheme generally targeted prominent citizens such as doctors, dentists and lawyers. Deputies found various "computer stuff, a printer, lots of paper work" in weekend searches in Las Vegas, said Capt.

Gary Vance. "We don't know the full motivation," he said. But if the extortionists got only a fraction of the money they demanded be sent to various persons and various locations, it would be a sizeable amount, he said. Detective John Hall said both men were former flight-line technicians on the B-1B bomber program in Palmdale. I By BOB EGELKO Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO A relative of a comatose, hopelessly vegetative patient can order withdrawal of life-support, but a doctor who has moral objections can refuse and offer to transfer the patient, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 3-0 ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal upheld the right of a conservator a court-appointed relative or other person designated to manage the affairs of someone who is mentally incompetent to order removal of a nasal feeding tube if a judge is satisfied the patient would not have wanted to be kept alive. But the court refused to order doctors at city-run Laguna Honda Hospital to override their own Night Stalker LOS ANGELES (AP) Officially, the trial of Night Stalker defendant Richard Ramirez began four months ago, but not a single juror has been seated as the notorious case stretches into its fourth year. Attorneys finished asking questions Wednesday in the second of three phases of jury selection an intensive inquiry into the views of prospective jurors about the death penalty. "I believe that does it," said Superior Court Judge Michael to attorneys still seek jury Richard Faroni "We didn't do it" felony extortion. The two are being held without bail while detectives prepare the case for presentation to the district attorney's office, said Sgt.

Bob Riley. In the telephone interview, Faroni told the Daily News of Los Angeles that the two could prove they were not in Southern California when the letters were mailed. "We have phone records that prove we were in Connecticut when the letters were sent," he said. "The person who did this is working with a neighbor of mine that I never have gotten along with." Faroni said he and Makuch moved to Las Vegas in mid-October after receiving death threats in the Antelope Valley area. Faroni said he and Makuch moved to Nevada because it had no income tax and was close to California.

He said the two hoped to get 6 Tynan as he concluded an interview of the last prospective juror be quizzed. The judge recessed the trial until Dec. 12 when the third phase of jury questioning begins. Ramirez, who was said to have dabbled in Satanism and once shouted, "Hail Satan!" in court, faces 13 counts of murder in the string of nighttime attacks, mostly in 1985. He also is charged with 30 other felonies including rape, robbery and attempted murder..