Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 13

PITTSBURGH rOST-GAZETTE 2 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1998 II 4 STATE RIOSOri cry ft i) 1 erf-- -iJ John BealePost Gazette Officer, motorist injured Fellow Pittsburgh Housing Authority police officers comfort Deborah Jones after she was involved in an accident in her patrol car on the North Side yesterday. At right, a city paramedic checks her vital signs. According to a police report, a car driven by Charles Frauenholz of Glenshaw collided with Jones' car at about 9 a.m. at Tripoli Street and Madisdn Avenue. After the impact, the patrol car smashed into a bridge abutment and hit a plaque dedicated to John C.

Gontz, a 12-year-old East Allegheny boy who died in 1996 when he was struck by a private ambulance at the same intersection. Jones and Frauenholz suffered minor injuries. NEWS DIGEST where he underwent emergency surgery, a hospital spokeswoman said. Police said Gazza had been working near a machine that flattens steel rods when his gloved right hand got caught in the mechanism. The machinery pulled in much of Gazza's arm before other workers were able to shut it off.

Charges under review Peters officials are reviewing a charge that the township's public access director for cable television grabbed a 9-year-old boy by the throat and pushed him to the ground during the taping of a football game. Joe Sorce of Sutherland Drive is charged with a summary offense of harassment in the Sept. 18 incident during a football game at Peters Township High School, according to a complaint filed with District Magistrate James Ellis. Sorce, who's been director of Peters Township Community Television for about five years, was taping the game at the time. "I pled guilty on that.

I have no comment. Thanks anyway," Sorce said when contacted yesterday by telephone. Township Manager Michael Sil-vestri and police Chief Harry J. Fruecht said the case was a personnel matter and declined to comment. Sorce is currently on sick leave, which is not related to the incident, Silvestri said.

He said it was "my understanding he was planning to resign." Contractor walks off job Dormont council may have to find another contractor to convert the old Hillsdale school building into a municipal center because the company contracted to do the work abandoned the project. Borough Solicitor Tom Ayoob told residents Monday that borough officials had good reason to believe that CawkinsCSI Construction Co. would not complete the job. But he didn't say that earlier that day the company walked away from the $1.74 million project. Manager Deborah Grass confirmed that yesterday.

"We consider them to be in default of the contract," she said. "They walked off the job on Monday." Officials of Dawkins Construction Co. of Ohio and CSI of Pittsburgh, which formed a partnership for the contract, could not be reached for comment. Grass said the company pulled out after, but not necessarily because, the borough refused to pay a September invoice for $150,000. Grass said the architect and construction manager would not approve the payment and therefore, council wouldn't because no work had been done at that time.

Grass said officials had feared that something might go wrong because the company's base bid of $1.5 million was about $700,000 less than planners said was possible and about $1 million less than the next highest bidder. The company later complained that the amount of the contract should have been higher. Grass said the borough is cur-1 rently trying to contact the company's bid-bond agent, Great Western Water Co. of Tempe, Ariz. She said there are two bonds, each for $1.7 million.

"There's a good possibility the project will be re-bid," she said. Grass said it's almost a certainty that the building will not be finished by March, as planned. Contracts up to court A Westmoreland County court will rule next week on a request to block the award of construction contracts for a $21 million sewage treatment plant expansion. Hempfield officials asked for an Trailing badly in the polls, the Democratic challenger for governor tries to jump-start his campaign with a shocking charge. Ridge policies led to deaths at group homes, Itkin says injunction after the township sewer authority opened bids for the New Stanton project earlier this week and announced that it would award contracts Thursday.

Common Pleas Judge Gary P. Caruso listened to arguments from both sides during a hearing yesterday before he took the case under advisement. Township supervisors voted 3-2 last month to sell the sewer authority to the county water authority. Daniel P. Beisler, a township attorney, and Paul Reed, one of the supervisors who voted for the sale, told Caruso that they needed time to review the plans to determine whether the project could be done at less cost.

Beisler and Reed said that to allow the sewer authority to proceed with the project might cause the township irreparable harm and block the pending sale. But Leslie Mlakar, a sewer authority attorney, and Jed Yurt, one of the supervisors who voted against the sale, said they have an agreement with the state Department of Environmental Protection to award contracts by Nov. 2 and any delay could cause the township irreparable harm. The New Stanton plant serves much of the sprawling township and parts of five other municipalities. New sewer tap-ins have been restricted by the DEP since 1996 because the plant is over capacity.

Holiday closings set Most government offices will be closed Monday in observance of Columbus Day. State and federal offices and all county offices in Allegheny, Butler, Beaver, Washington and Westmoreland will be closed. Liquor stores and post offices will be closed, except for the post office retail store at Pittsburgh International Airport, Concourse which will be open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Pittsburgh's schools and city offices will be open.

Port Authority Transit will operate on its regular schedule. Driver sues Ambridge A Beaver County motorist who said he was beaten by an Ambridge police officer has filed a federal lawsuit against the officer, the borough and the police department. In the lawsuit, Thomas Graziani, 26, of Conway, said he was driving on Route 65 at 2:30 a.m. Nov. 30, 1996, when he approached the scene of an accident.

Graziani said when he was waved through the accident scene by Ambridge police Officer Richard Heitzenrater the sideview mirror of Graziani's truck hit the officer's flashlight and possibly his hand. Graziani said he stopped his truck, and Heitzenrater approached him, opened the truck door, grabbed his head and started punching him in the face. The officer then ordered the driver to hand over his license and registration, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday. Graziani was not given a citation, and his license and registration were not returned to him, the suit says. Graziani is suing on the grounds that his civil rights were violated.

He is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages. Borough officials could not be reached for comment. Official admits fraud The former secretaryborough manager of Centreville, Washington County, pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to one count of mail fraud. Kathleen Palo, 52, of Brier Hill, Fayette County, managed the payroll in Centreville from 1991 to 1995. Beginning in 1991, Palo issued borough checks to her accounts for about $39,000.

She will be sentenced Dec. 21. Internet miscues link to racists Internet users who mistakenly use the wrong Internet address to access the Web sites of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and several other newspapers may find themselves linked to the Web site of a white supremacist group. Someone registered Internet addresses that included part or all of the newspapers' names, then linked those addresses to the "Stormfront" Internet site. That site features the words "White Pride World Wide" and includes racist articles and link to other racist sites.

For example, someone who tried to access the Post-Gazette's Web sit? by typing www.pittsburghpost-.com would have been connected to the racist site. The correct address for the Post-Gazette is www.post-gazettexbm Tracey DeAngelo, the Post-Gazette director of marketing, said she Wasmade aware of the problem yesterday. unfortunate, but it's a common occurrence with today's tech-nology "she said. "We've contacted the appropriate legal parties," she added. Fritz Byers, general counsel for Blade Communications, which owns the Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade of Ohio, said he would present arguments in court Monday to stop Stormfront from using the "Pittsburgh post" address.

He said the group's actions met the test for trademark infringement, which he defined as "usage that is so similar that it creates confusion." Other affected newspapers include TJie Philadelphia Inquirer, the London Telegraph and at least eight others in the United States. said lawyers for the Sun-Times took their case to federal court Wednesday. On Thursday, a judge ordered a temporary restraining order barring Stormfront from using that address for lO days while each side prepared jts case. Don Black, the owner of Stormfront, denied any involvement in the incidents but said he knew who was behind them. That man, from California, was not identified.

"I've requested that it be stopped," Black, 45, of West Palm Beach, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. Credit fraud charged A Crafton woman faces a preliminary hearing Thursday on charges that she went on a $22,000 shopping spree Using credit cards that she obtained in the name of her mother-Maw, who died two years ago. Marilyn A. Stewart, 49, was ar- raigned Thursday on four counts of credit card fraud. She remained free ori bond, pending a hearing at 9 a.m.

Thursday before District Justice Dennis R. Joyce in Crafton. Stewart's mother-in-law, Rose Stewart, died Nov. 9, 1996, about a year after the death of her hus- band, John E. Stewart Sr.

Charges began to appear in February 1997 on new and existing credit card accounts in the deceased couple's names, according to an affidavit that supports Mari- lyn Stewart's arrest. Detective J. Todd Moses, an in- i vestigator for District Attorney Ste- phen Zappala, said Marilyn Stewart used her personal checks to make small payments on each account, paying just enough to keep them Worker's arm mangled A Leetsdale man was critically injured yesterday when his arm was seriously damaged at a factory in Leetsdale Industrial Park. Leonard Gazza, 47, a Turret Steel Corp. employee, was in critical condition in Mercy Hospital, Center.

The momentum toward community-based housing, often in group homes, predates the Ridge administration, but Itkin contends that his Republican rival has accelerated discharges to the point of recklessness. Itkin claimed that as many as 24 deaths could be attributed to administration policies, but the Democrat's campaign could not fully document their candidate's figures. In his speeches, Itkin asserted that Auditor General Robert P. Casey Jr. was investigating 10 more deaths involving patients released from Western Center.

But Casey spokeswoman Karen Walsh said that while the auditor general's office was aware of complaints about the shifting of Western Pennsylvania patients, it had not substantiated those allegations. Nor could the office vouch for the accuracy of the 10-death figure cited by Itkin. Asked to document its claim about the 10 Western Pennsylvania deaths, the Itkin campaign supplied a list of 10 unnamed cases that could not immediately be independently verified. And only four of them listed a discharge date during the Ridge administration. When asked about the incomplete documentation, an Itkin aide, who asked not to be identified, said: "These are allegations coming from union people, from parents; we're getting this out the best way we can with the pressure of a campaign." In his speech last weekend, and again Thursday night, Itkin "Tom Ridge is quickly becoming the Governor Kevorkian of the United States, imposing a virtual death sentence on defenseless people." His reference was to the Michigan former pathologist who has become a national crusader for assisted suicide.

After his second group home speech, Itkin, a former nuclear engineer who has spent 26 years in the state House, told the Associated Press: "We are closing the gap. The election is going to be a lot closer than most political pundits realize and the governor realizes." Campaign manager Marc Weinstein said the Itkin camp planned to air its first television commercial of the general election campaign in Western Pennsylvania last night. "We know that going on TV will help close this race and make it a horse race," he said. By James O'Toole Politics Editor, Post-Gazette In the harshest attacks of his campaign, Democrat Ivan Itkin has accused Republican Gov. Ridge of promoting "government sanctioned manslaughter" through his administration's policies regarding care of mentally disabled patients.

"It has been such a disaster that the Ridge administration may hold the American record for most innocent deaths caused by an official state policy," Itkin charged. Itkin blamed Ridge's policies for two separate fatal fires set by mentally retarded residents of group homes. Hoping to draw attention to the issue and to his lagging campaign Itkin flayed the administration in separate speeches this week at the sites of each of the fires. One, in May 1997, resulted in the deaths of 10 residents of a group home in Harveys Lake, Luzerne County. The other, a few weeks later, led to four deaths in a group home outside Philadelphia.

"The common thread linking these two fires is that both were started by severely mentally retarded people that never should have been released from institutions called state centers, which serve mentally retarded persons," Itkin said. The Ridge campaign said the attacks were baseless and evidence of a desperate candidate trailing badly in the polls. "He has just gone beyond the point of desperation," campaign press secretary Lynn Lawson said after the first of Itkin's two, nearly identical speeches. "I find it appalling that Mr. Itkin would go to the site of a personal tragedy and use that to try to jump-start his campaign." The shifting of mentally disabled patients from larger institutions to less-restrictive, community-based settings has been a national trend, generally supported by patients' advocates.

But in some cases particularly those involving the most seriously disabled individuals parents and other advocates have championed the larger, more traditional institutions, arguing that they are better-equipped to deal with some patients' special needs. That controversy has played out in Western Pennsylvania with continuing controversy and litigation over movement of patients out of Western blunteers work Hill District one street at a time to assess area i iX i Jit AT Ross officers say victim forced them to open fire By Jonathan D. Silver Post-Gazette Staff Writer Five Ross policemen involved in an Aug. 5 shootout with a man who had shot at his girlfriend and set her house on fire testified yesterday at a coroners inquest that their use of deadly force was justified. But witness to the shooting, which led to Ralph Hale death eight days later, contradicted some key aspects of the officers' testimony regarding the shooting.

The inquest will continue at a later, unspecified date after county Coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht reviews a transcript of the daylong testimony and the evidence presented by county Deputy District Attorney Edward Borkowski. -73, led Ross police on a shortxhase after shooting at Nancy McCoy, 53, and setting fire to her house on Jefferson Drive in Ross, where they lived. After Hale stopped his car around 1 a.m.

along the 800 block of Perry Highway, police ordered him to eit with his hands up. Police said other groups, including the Coalition for a Healthy Human Habitat. coalition formed last year as a result of Mindy and Robert Fullilove's work with Hill District residents. Both' Fulliloves are professors of public health at Columbia University and, as Falk fellows, have been visiting here monthly over the past year to help people in the neighborhood develop a vocabulary with which they can better communicate with city officials about housing needs. About 150 residents of the Hill's Addison Terrace high rise will be relocated, at least temporarily, when it is demolished and replaced with a new, smaller building in the neighborhood, some time in the next three to five years.

The mapping exercise also was a chance for people who don't live in the Hill District to learn more about the neighborhood and its buildings, and what it meant to residents to lose so many of them. Most of the volunteers were from other neighborhoods. "It seems there's a lot of mistrust between government and the community," said volunteer Lily Chang, a documentary photographer who lives in Squirrel Hill and whose subject is the Hill's Allequippa Terrace housing development. "Why wouldn't there be? Look at the community," Cain said, gesturing at the empty spaces where houses once stood. City officials "wouldn't do this in Bloomfield or Lawrenceville." In addition to mapping about 20 noncontiguous blocks, the groups also were asked to talk to residents and take photographs of buildings.

"It's a way to capture some of the community's history," said coalition coordinator Terri Baltimore. "Unless we capture it, the essence of the Hill's physical life will be lost." The mapping project was part of a day-long conference By Patricia Lowry Post-Gazette Staff Writer "This is getting sad," said Lois Cain, after recording yef another abandoned house on the map on her clipboard. "I played on this street as a kid." Cain was one of more than 100 volunteers who took to tlie streets of the Hill District yesterday afternoon to learn the condition of lots, as well as houses, churches, shops and other buildings. The information will be used to help residents plan future development in the neighborhood. At least the Horrace Street row-house Cain passed by was still standing and flanked by occupied homes.

Many other lots in the blocks Cain's group mapped were vacant. Some sprouted low grass; others bore fledgling forests, a tangle of sumac, mulberry and maple trees. Using a small map on which building lots already had been drawn, Cain and three other women recorded whether vacant lots were clean or posed a danger, and whether houses were occupied or abandoned, new or "oldies but goodies," severely deteriorated or showing signs of wear. Cain paused in front of a two-story, red brick rowhouse, this one in good shape. "This is where my godmother lived," she said.

"Boy, did I have good times in that house. I thought that was the most beautiful house in the world." The mapping project was part of a day-long conference called "The Power of Place: What Makes a Neighborhood Home," convened and funded by the Maurice Falk Medical Fund and sponsored by four Darrell SappPost-Gazette Nancy McCoy testifies at coroner's inquest yesterday. Hale refused to come all the way out of the car, instead, shooting once with a handgun retrieved from inside his car and provoking the officers' fire. Hale was hit by five of the 22 bullets fired at him by Sgt. Robert Martin and officers Robert Bellan, Thomas Koedel and David Syska.

Officer Matthew Ramaly, who was on the scene, said he did not fire any David London, 26, said he saw the shootout from his third-floor apartment. He testified that Hale came all the way out of his car despite two officers on the scene yelling for him to stay in his car. London said he did not see anything in Hale's hands. McCoy, who calmly sat in the courtroom alongside Hale's son, Ralph Hale III, 42, of Franklin Park, said Hale was distraught over an imminent breakup..