The Journal News du lieu suivant : White Plains, New York • 9

WHITE PLAINS GREENBURGH PORT CHESTER a MOUNT PLEASANT HARRISON I MAMARONECK LARCHMONT SCARSDALE RYE Westchester Saturday, January 22, 2000 The Journal News 1B THE MORNING BRIEFING WESTCHESTER U.N. SECRETARY'S WIFE SPEAKS TO AREA AGENCY Nana Annan, right, wife of United Nations SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan of Ghana, visits a Yonkers foster care agency to learn of more effective ways to care for the millions of African children and families orphaned or ravaged by HIV and AIDS. 10B FAMILIES SUING OVER HOUSE MATERIALS: Twenty-two families in Westchester filed or are planning to file lawsuits against companies such as Parex Inc. and Dryvits Systems that manufacture synthetic stucco, saying the exterior coverings trap water, causing structural damage. 3B TEENS ARRAIGNED IN BEATING: Three 15-year-olds are arraigned on robbery and assault charges in 1 the beating last month of a Greenburgh man who lost an eye in the attack.

3B DECISION DUE ON LOBSTER AID: The U.S. Commerce Secretary will decide next week if local fishermen hit hard by a lobster die-off in Long Island Sound will receive disaster aid. 3B MOUNT VERNON EX-JUDGE KENDALL DIES: Irving B. Kendall, a former Mount Vernon judge and councilman who rekindled a Mount Vernon social day in Florida for former and current residents, dies at age 87. 10B OPINION WORK TOGETHER: While rejecting a a county-offered site for day laborers to gather in the village, Brewster trustees appear ready to consult with Putnam officials to come up with a different plan.

8B LOOKING ELSEWHERE: The Ossining school board can be grateful that Sprint PCS has agreed to examine alternative sites for a cell tower after the board's deal for a tower atop the high school aroused furious opposition. 8B COMING TOMORROW WOMAN ADVOCATES VITAMINS, RIGHT FOOD FOR MENTAL HEALTH: Elizabeth Plante, director of the Huxley Institute for Biosocial Research, which she runs out of her Eastchester home, has a single-minded mission in life to advocate use of vitamins and eating right for the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental disorders. INSIDE BEST BET AUTHOR TO SIGN BOOKS: Joseph 3B Hickey, author of "Cholesterol Central Phobia," a Sound Shore 3B handbook on obesity, hypertension, heart disease and diabetes, will explain what he Hudson River 10B says are misconceptions surrounding the Obituaries 5B treatments of cholesterol and share ways he advocates using food to alter metaboTowns lism and promote good health. He 7B appears Opinion 8B at 2 p.m. today at Barnes Noble, Cortlandt Town Center, 3105 E.

Main Street, Route 6, Mohegan Lake. Group wants organ SHAWN COHEN The Journal News Jeff Graham, his liver failing, was given just 48 hours to live in November 1996, but it was another tragedy that saved his life a New York City man collapsed while jogging and was rendered brain dead. "I had two alternatives. Either I got an immediate transplant or I died," said Graham, 54, a New Rochelle resident who survived after receiving the jogger's healthy liver. The new Share Your Life school project, spearheaded by the Greater New York Coalition on Organ Donation, is trying to recruit speakers like Graham to share their transplant experiences with high school students across the region.

The hope is to drive home the necessity for people to sign up as organ and tissue donors. Find mosquitoes now, experts say Scientists urge local action be taken to find those insects carrying the West Nile virus BRIAN KOHN The Journal News TARRYTOWN Scientists from across the country urged local leaders yesterday to search sewers and catch basins for over wintering mosquitoes that might be carrying the deadly West Nile virus. The recommendation, one of several offered at the end of three-day conference on the virus, conflicted sharply with plans announced a day earlier by Westchester County officials. On Thursday, Health Commissioner Harold Adel said the county would get rid of the stagnant pools of water where mosquitoes breed beginning on the first day of spring. Several scientists and organizers of the conference, held at the Tarrytown Hilton, said action must be taken now.

"We know they are out there," said Durland Fish, a Yale University epidemiologist. "We just don't know where they are or if they're controllable. But we should try to find out. It would seem BRAVING WINTER'S COLD prudent rather than doing nothing now." Scientists also suggested officials begin searching for the mosquitoes' larval breeding sites, also present in sewers and other pools of stagnant water. They said the search should focus on Yonkers and other more heavily populated areas because the mosquitoes that spread West Nile are generally considered city dwellers.

Efforts such as these, experts said, could eliminate the necessity of spraying pesticides across the county, as officials in New York City, Westchester, Rockland and a Seth guard Paul Catalano is bundled up for the cold yesterday as he stops traffic to let 9, cross the intersection of Midland Avenue and Grace Church Street in Port Chester. Cold, wind whip region Home improvement and hardware businesses heat up as weather turns severe Crossing Cueva, BILL VARNER The Journal News Winter's latest wicked attack burst water pipes and overtaxed heating systems throughout the region yesterday, producing headaches for homeowners and profits for companies that race to their rescue. As the wind chill fell to 25 below zero, hardware stores strug- recipients HEALTH STOP TO BE A DONOR If you want to become an organ donor, you must be at least 18 or obtain consent from an adult legally responsible for you. You indicate your willingness to become a donor by signing a uniform donor card. It is important, however, to notify relatives of your decision so your wish to donate will be honored at death.

For information about organ donations, call the New York Organ Donor Network at 1-800-GIFT-4-NY. including more than 6,500 New Yorkers are awaiting a lifesaving transplant. Each day, an average of 13 people in need of a transplant die because of the growing shortage in donors. southeastern Connecticut did last fall. The virus infected 59 people and killed seven last year before the cold sent mosquitoes into hibernation.

Most scientists said the virus will return during the spring. "Any government which is going to spray its people in the spring ought to be able to say they took steps in the winter to avoid the spraying," said state Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Greenburgh. Assembly Democrats organized the conference, along with the Wildlife Conservation Society. Earlier this week, New York City and federal health officials collected about 2,500 over-wintering mosquitoes in Queens. Test results on those specimens won't be ready for several weeks, Fish said.

Adel said that approach wouldn't be feasible in Westchester. "There is no practical reality of us climbing down every catch basin looking for mosquitoes," he said. "It's an enormous expenditure of time and money that would be required to go into our storm drains. Until we have definitive evidence, we don't think it is an effective or efficient way to deal with this issue." Playland to go thrill for thrill with New Roc Rye park's spring plan for Double Shot attraction would compete with New Rochelle's Space Shot LYNNE CASCIO The Journal News Brewing on the Sound shore is the battle of the hairraising, goose-pimply thrill rides. Playland Amusement Park in Rye aims to go scream to scream with New Rochelle's New Roe City by May with Double Shot, a smaller, bouncier, less costly cousin of New Roc's towering Space Shot.

Both catapult passengers skyward up a tower at 45 mph. Representatives of Sports Plus, which operates the Space Shot, say they're not worried. "I'm glad we're paving the way," general manager John Jarvie said. "We're honored that Playland feels like i it wants to compete with us." Jarvie noted that the 185- foot-tall Space Shot is so high that riders can see Long Island Sound from the top. "I'm sure from the right angle you can even see Playland," he said.

There's plenty of business to go around, Jarvie said. The Double Shot ride being sought for Westchester County's Playland is only 80 feet high but travels at roughly the same speed as the Space Shot. It also takes about 30 seconds. Both are powered by compressed air and manufactured by the same company, Power in Logan, Utah. Playland would give its tower a theme and paint it accordingly.

Rides would probably cost a dollar or two less than the $5 Space Shot. DOUBLE Playland Amusement Park in Rye plans to install a ride called the Double Shot, above, this spring. It's a shorter version of the Journal News Aaron gled to keep up with the demand for space heaters. Companies that specialize in fire and water damage restoration called in every available worker to provide emergency services. system just can't handle this cold," Jerry Buchanan of White Plains said as he left Hecht Hardware in White Plains with a new electric space heater.

"My kids are complaining that the house is too cold, so we'll see if this helps." It's not going to be much better over the weekend, Skywatch weather service said. After a night that saw the temperature fall to near zero, today's forecast calls for a high of about 20 degrees. It may get to the upper 20s tomorrow, but another inch of snow is expected in the area. "You get tremendously busy," said Tom Avezzamo, owner of All Pro Restoration Services Inc. in Elmsford.

"What happens is that insurance compa- Please see COLD, 5B to share stories Carmen Journal News Jim Dowd, a transplant recipient, and his wife, Carol, center, talk with Helen Bellhouse, co-president of Transplant Recipients International Organization, at the group's recent meeting about organ and tissue donation awareness. Francis Margaret Olivier, her donation finally came 37, a dental assistant from through. Nyack attending the work- "I signed the back of my lishop, was on a waiting list cense to become a donor, for nearly three years to get but never in my wildest a heart transplant. She was facing death in July, when Please see CLOSE-UP, 5B Space Shot at New Roc City. "The construction looks similar, but when all is said and done, they won't look too much the same," said Joe Montalto, Playland's director.

The Space Shot, which was winterized last month and closed until April, sits atop the $190 million family enter: tainment center that opened Please see RIDES, 5B Police: Husband had role in wife's death CLOSE-UP: "We can help this problem by getting more people aware of the need," Graham told an audience of mostly transplant recipients during a speaker's workshop Wednesday at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla. Graham is co-president of the Westchester chapter of the Transplant Recipients International Organization, which, along with the Rockland chapter, plans to start the speakers program locally in coming months. By training lecturers and setting up presentations for students, they hope to persuade more people to sign donor cards. The message is more crucial now than ever, donor activists say. Despite medical advances that make transplants increasingly viable, nearly 70,000 Americans RICHARD LEBSON The Journal News TARRYTOWN The husband of a pregnant village woman found slain in her home four years ago was involved in her killing, police said this week.

"We know he's not the killer, but we know he was Lt. William Herguth said of Lamartine D'Sa, whose wife, Magdalena D'Sa, was found bludgeoned and strangled days before she was to give birth to her second child. "We're not ready to make an arrest at this Officers would not elaborate but said they gathered additional information during an October interview with D'Sa by Tarrytown police and the state police major crimes unit. Herguth said the meeting took place after "Mr. D'Sa ducked us for months, coming up with excuse after excuse." Police are making their suspicions public because they hope someone will come forward with information, Herguth said.

"I can only believet that if they had a case against Mr. D'Sa, they would have contacted me or arrested Mr. D'Sa." said Jeanne Mettler, D'Sa's Legal Aid attorney. D'Sa, who moved to Long Island with his son after the killing, could not be reached yesterday for comment. He left his job in Manhattan early on Oct.

9, 1995, and had a co-worker with him when he found his wife's body at 3:45 p.m. in their 144 S. Broadway apartment. Police found evidence of a possible burglary but later said it appeared to have been staged. D'Sa had never brought a coworker home before, police said.

Detective Sgt. Eugene Buo- Please see HUSBAND, 5B.