The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • 35

OPINION C6 Metropolitan SATURDAY December 14 1991 THE KANSAS JL CITY STAR Section KC Council is over allotted travel budget Las Vegas trip for 8 adds to expenses Some lack budget information By KEVIN MURPHY Staff Writer Dog survives fire JOHN SLEEZERThe Star Three youths escaped serious injury Friday afternoon in a two-alarm fire at an apartment complex in an unincorporated area of Platte County But a dog named Friskee was not so lucky South Platte Fire District firefighter Sabreena Hansel (left) gives Friskee some oxygen after it was rescued from an apartment The dog owned by Rodney Roundtree was taken to an animal hospital and was expected to survive Officials said they thought the fire at the 16-unit building at 11106 Lima Drive was intentionally set in a basement storage area The flames damaged some goods there and caused moderate damage to apartments officials said individual travel budgets or if the council had one as a whole Councilwoman Sally Johnson who oversees council administra-tive matters acknowledged Wednesday that no real effort has been made to keep the full council briefed on its travel spending will mention to council members that prudence is Johnson said Cofran said the council should get monthly updates comparing spending to the budget Eight council members were elected for the first time in April which Coe said should have warranted an orientation on the budget But experience has counted for little in the past In the previous four-year term a veteran council was consistently over budget on travel For the fiscal year ended April 30 1991 the council exceeded its $24000 budget by nearly $8000 When over budget the council takes money from other categories of its nearly $500000 office budget Councilman Chuck Weber See COUNCIL C-4 Col 1 Less than eight months into the fiscal year the Kansas City Council has exceeded its $24000 annual travel budget Eight of the 13 council members left this week for the National League of Cities yearly conference in Las Vegas bringing travel spending for the year to date to $2531 1 The status of the budget was news to council members had no said Council-woman Carol Coe who is the biggest travel spender this year at $5855 is the travel asked Councilman Dan Cofran chairman of the Finance Committee who has taken no city trips this year Councilman George Blackwood chairman of the Rules and Audit Committee know whether council members had Workshops smooth the path to college By TIM Education Writer Woman intruder trade shots She fakes death as the masked gunman threatens her husband By GLENN RICE Staff Writer PROJICT CHOICE Use only a No 2 pencil Do not turn the page until instructed to do so How you perform on this test may help determine what college you may attend Celeste Lopez wants to attend St Louis University Her palms probably are sweating right now Lopez a senior at Westport High School is scheduled to be at the University of Missouri-Kansas City this morning taking the ACT the American College Test for the first time The ACT like its counterpart the SAT or Scholastic Aptitude Test is considered by college admissions officers as they decide which students will attend their schools So Lopez was understandably nervous about the exam But unlike many of the 185000 other US high school students taking the ACT today she go into the test center completely cold Last week she and dozens of other Westport juniors and seniors spent a Saturday morning in school preparing for the ACT They got back a practice exam they had taken earlier then spent three hours reviewing English and math Her ACT workshop like the college education for which it is a prelude is being paid for by the Kauffman Foundation Lopez is enrolled in Project Choice Ewing program that promises a free college or trade school education to Westport students who graduate See WORKSHOPS C-8 Col 1 Josh Cavazos (center) reviews test results test Project Choice students receive a free recently with other Project Choice students at college education if they graduate and avoid Westport High during practice for a college entry drugs and parenthood Missing Missouri woman reportedly sighted The 56-year-old woman said she was just drifting off to sleep when she heard someone kick open a door in her split-level home on Kansas East Side By the time she was able to get fully awake the intruder was lurking in her bedroom doorway The woman said she tried to awaken her husband but She rolled out of bed In the next 60 seconds several shots rang out The woman fired the intruder returned fire and struck the woman in the arm She went down pretending to be dead The man who was wearing a ski mask and green army fatigue pants then held a gun to her head and stole money and jewelry before leaving just thank God still the woman said Friday morning The gunman and two other accomplices who broke into the Cheslea Avenue home about 2 am Friday remained at large police Sgt Richard Florea said Because the assailants have not been arrested the names of the woman and her husband are being withheld After the woman saw the man in the bedroom she quickly rolled out of bed grabbed a hidden handgun and crawled into the bathroom she said Peering around the doorway she fired three shots The intruder pulled out a handgun and returned the gunfire I was shot 1 just lay said the woman who helps her husband operate a concrete business move because I thought I would've panicked and See WOMAN C-2 Col 1 Angela Hammond disappeared in April Man says he saw her in Canada in September which is about 15 miles from Clinton Smith noticed a missing persons poster featuring Hammond and thought she looked familiar He later remembered he had seen a woman resembling Hammond leaving the Selkirk drugstore Smith then went to Clinton police Selkirk is near Winnipeg Manitoba about 850 miles north of Kansas City on Interstate 29 mother Marsha Cook said Friday that the possible sighting was encouraging but try to take it all with a grain of Police continue to look for possible links to at least three other apparent abductions that occurred this year within an 80-mile radius So far no connection has been established The three: Pattison said was good enough to alert the Canadian authorities but so far nothing has turned Sgt Bob MacQuarrie of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a telephone interview Friday that his officers followed up on the tip without success at a dead MacQuarrie said tried about everything we can do here" Hammond was four months pregnant when she vanished and would have already given birth when Smith believes he saw her Canadian police showed picture everywhere from hospitals to infant-clothing stores motels to social-service agencies but came up empty-handed Smith 41 said he stumbled into the case in October while visiting relatives in Urich Mo Trudy Darby 42 who disappeared from the Camden County Mo convenience store where she worked Moments earlier during a telephone conversation she had told her son of a suspicious-looking man outside body was found two days later She had been shot to death Cheryl Ann Kinney 30 who vanished after locking up a Nevada Mo convenience store where she worked Her car parked about 50 feel from the store appeared to be untouched She has not been found Karol Sullens 18 who was last seen sitting in a pickup with two men on the parking lot of a Galena Kan bar where she was a dancer Sullens left about $300 in cash and her street clothes in the bar saw Hammond know that I saw the Smith said know that for a fact I may not remember name but I never forget a Smith said he saw Hammond get into a green truck which had a white top and a mural in the rear window The description is nearly identical to one seen near Hammond minutes before she disappeared Authorities in Clinton and in Canada said Friday that they do not doubt sincerity but have been unable to confirm his sighting good or not who Clinton Police Chief Bob By LANE BEAUCHAMP Springfield Correspondent An unconfirmed sighting of a missing Missouri woman has sparked new but cautious hope that she may be alive A Canadian resident says he saw Angela Hammond leaving a drugstore in Selkirk Manitoba Canada in September She got into a pickup truck Hamifiond 20 has been missing since April 4 when she disappeared while talking to her fiance from an outdoor telephone in Ciinton Mo Russell Smith of Libau Manitoba said in a telephone interview Friday that he is positive that he I Clay County official gets circuit judgeship Call the Jane Pansing Brown will be the only woman on seven-member panel By GREG KUHL Staff Writer Helping Kansas City's needy is as simple as picking up the phone Locally based US Sprint joins the Project Warmth campaign this year by providing a toll-free telephone number for people who want to charge or be billed for their donations Visa and MasterCard are accepted The "Wtom Line- 1-800-800-WARM (9276) is open 24 hours a day through Jan 17 For every 10 calls the Plaza Merchants Association will donate one blanket In Its 10th year Project Warmth is sponsored by The Kansas City Star and KCTV Channel 5 woman named as a Clay County judge in recent years She said another woman served in the early 1900s Gov John Ashcroft selected Brown from among three candidates sub- Brown mined to replace Judge David Russell who was named a circuit judge recently Others in the running were Larry Harman a former Clay County prosecutor and Steven Wolcott would hope the governor would select me not because I was a woman but because I was a qualified Clay County Brown said Brown who was bom in Michigan graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law in 1982 look forward to serving the people of Clay County for many Brown said will do my utmost to be fair reasonable and a good listener to everyone that would come before me pleased that as a woman be able to provide representation for everyone on the bench" Brown said she will handle traffic cases small claims civil cases and some criminal cases She said she hopes to take the bench by late December or the first week in January Clay County Counselor Jane Pansing Brown was named Friday as an associate circuit judge becoming the only woman on the seven-member county bench Brown 33 of Gladstone said Friday she was also the only INSIDE Qtorg column will reaume Thursday A man aantancad to 23 years In prison for a racial attack against four black persons could be eligible for parole in two to three years C-2 QMrga McClain Missouri commissioner of higher education speaks in Kansas City C-2 A Kansas City lawyar who argued a landmark free speech case la appointed to the Mlaaourl Court of Appaala C-2 i irrv.