The Day from New London, Connecticut • 24

Page 24 The Day New London Conn Tuesday June 23 1981 Around the state TV station sale advances WASHINGTON (AP) A group of Connecticut residents has agreed to drop its opposition to the proposed sale of WHCT TV Channel 18 in Hartford to a Virginia based minor ity firm in return for an unusually broad agreement requiring special attention to local programming The agreement unveiled Monday if approved by the ederal Com munications Commission will place Connecticut's only independent corn tv mercial TV station in the hands of a minority company and resolve one 1 1 part of a complicated disciplinary proceeding against the current owner of the Hartford station aith Center Inc According to CC records aith Center is an Church founded in 1947 with headquarters in Glendale Calif The center and an affiliated church are headed by Dr Eugene 'Scott an evangelist known for his flamboyant unorthodox television aith Center owns two other TV stations KHO TV in San Bernar dino Calif and KVO TV in San rancisco Last fall the CC ruled that aith Center had deliberately engaged in "obstructive and bad faith tactics" to short circuit an CC probe of the fund raising practices on KHO TV The agency then declined to renew aith license for KHO TV ordered the start of hearings to compare aith qualifica tions with those of three competing applicants for the San rancisco sta tion and ordered a probe of fund raising practices While continuing to fight the com mission decisions involving KHO TV and KVO TV aith Center ex ercised its right to cut short the probe of WHCT by proposing to sell the station at a below market price to a minority controlled company Television Corporation of Hartford (TCH) Such a procedure is known as a distress sale and is designed to avoid long hearings while increasing mi nority ownership in the broadcast in dustry The Hartford group led by the Capitol Region Conference of Churches and the Christian Con frence of Connecticut then asked the CC to block the proposed sale on grounds the CC should have ac cepted applications from any inter ested party The Hartford group also expressed concern about commitment to serve the local com munity Based in Norfolk Va TCH is 39 percent owned by Telacu Industries Inc a subsidiary of The East Los Angeles Community Union (TELACU) an Hispanic community development corporation chairman is Herman Valentine a black resident of Virginia identified as the vice president and a director of the Television Corporation of Vir ginia which owns WTVZ TV in Nor folk Thanks to the new agreement the Hartford has promised to withdraw its opposition to the dis tress sale of WHCT TV for $4 mil lion improving the likelihood that the transaction will gain CC ap proval Conrail amendment filed WASHINGTON (AP) Rep Stewart McKinney Conn says the Republican substitute to the bud get reconcilation measure should re quire the transportation secretary to seek proposals from private railroads to acquire Conrail lines in Connecticut and Rhode Island McKinney told Rep Norman Lent NY the minority spokesman on the House Commerce subcommittee on transportation that the Conrail proposal should be included in the Republican substitute administration has made clear its desire to see Conrail sold off to private industry Before the brea kup occurs however I believe the concept of a controlled transfer of Conrail lines should be tested in one McKinney wrote Lent on Monday McKinney said Connecticut and Rhode Island would provide ideal location for such a test case" proposal is similar to the amendment put forth by Rep Toby Moffett Conn in the Demo cratic version of the budget reconcil iation bill The Moffett amendment would re quire the transportation secretary to seek new proposals from private railroads to acquire Conrail lines in both states within a certain number of days after passage of the bill The reason McKinney raised the issue is that the Republican version of the budget reconcilation measure does not contain the provision con cerning Conrail in Connecticut and Rhode Island If both the Democratic and Repub lican versions include the proposal the chances for its approval by Con gress will be much greater Conrail with about 17000 miles of track in the Northeast and Mid west primarily carries freight al though it also has some commuter lines including the New Haven line to New York City Unemployment bill vetoed HARTORD (AP) Gov Wil liam A O'Neill Monday vetoed the controversial unemployment com pensation bill that would have in crease jobless benefits over the next four years also vetoed four other measures Monday bringing to 14 the total number of bills he has vetoed from the 1981 legislative session action on the jobless ben efits bill was viewed as a peace of fering to business interests which would have been forced to contribute millions more to the unem ployment compensation fund The 1981 General Assembly approved various business tax increases and also passed a new tax on unincor porated businesses bill raises the level of the maximum benefit but fails to ad dress a corresponding increase in the funding said in his veto message The measure had been pushed by Connecticut labor organizations but had been strongly criticized by the Connecticut Busniess and Industry Association Under present law the annual in crease in the maximum benefit rate for unemployment compensation is capped at $6 This bill would have re moved that cap instituted a $16 per year increase as of Oct 1 continuing through September 1985 The $6 cap would have been reinstituted Oct 1 1985 Also Monday O'Neill vetoed a bill that would have increased the state sales tax to 8 percent from the current Vh percent on hotel rooms and would have enabled cer tain towns to receive rebates on hotel sales taxes by virtue of their geographic location adjacent to cities with established convention and visitors commissions said only the Hartford and New Haven areas would have bene fited from the bill He said the higher sales tax also "could discourage also vetoed a bill that would have established a pilot pro gram for one way tolls on Connecti cut highways He said that while benefits from reduced congestion and pollution were possible bill presents significant poublic safety problems" said there is already a high accident rate at most toll booths and that removal of the toll in one direction without the removal of the booths could create the potential for further increasing accident fre quency and severity" UTC cited by labor board HARTORD (AP) United Tech nologies Corp illegally interfered with union negotiations at two of its Connecticut plants according to a complaint filed by a National Labor Relations Board officer The complaint is based on charges filed in May by the International As sociation of Machinists and an NLRB investigation It alleges that supervisors at Ha milton Standard Division in Windsor Locks and its Pratt and Whitney Air craft plant in North Haven violatedfederal law by bypassing the unionand dealing directly with em ployees The complaint was signed by Peter Hoffman of the Hartford office According to the NLRB com plaint: UTC bypassed the union during Hamilton Standard contract negoti ations this year by distributing inter nal correspondence to employees mailing letters to their homes and calling employee meetings at the plant The company refused to furnish the union at Hamilton Standard with a list of employees who had revoked union dues check off authorization between April 10 and April 20 pre venting the union from knowing how many dues paying members it had UTC solicited employees at its North Haven plant through letters and notices to revoke authori zations for the check off of union dues from their wages Joseph Wells an attorney who has handled similar complaints for UTC declined to comment on the al legations He claimed his innocence to the end SOMERS (AP) Convicted killer John Palm who refused a 1979 pardon because he insisted he was innocent and would not myself out" died Monday after serving 44 years in Connecticut prisons Palm 70 died of an apparent heart attack at about 1:35 pm re ported Carl Robinson the warden of the maximum security Somers State Prison Palm had served more unin terrupted time in prison than any other person currently held in Con necticut The state Board of Pardons re viewed case and ordered on Oct 15 1979 that his sentence be re duced to the time he had served and granted his release as of April 1 1980 Palm maintained to the end how ever that he was innocent and spurned the pardon saying that if he accepted it he would be in effect ad mitting he was guilty of the 1936 shooting death of a deputy sheriff in New Milford After Palm was granted the par don in 1979 we wrote to The Hart ford Courant saying am not tak ing that sort of pardon I am innocent and not going to sell myself out after suffering all these The Pardons Board conducted a special meeting by telephone on April 1 1980 to decide whether it could somehow modify the pardon to satisfy Palm but concluded that it had authority only to allow release of prisoners not to void convic tions Seven days later Palm appeared before the board asking that he re ceive a full pardon and be allowed to foam free The board wanted to re lease him on the condition that he live in a convalescent horiie want to be free on the outside like (former President Richard M) Nixon or anybody the frail Palm told the board in a barely aud ible voice Describing Palm as a model pris oner didn't really do him justice Ro binson said his entire history in the institu tion he never picked up a disci plinary report extremely un said Robinson just gave him a room in the hospital and let him live there for the past nine years or so He sick but because of his age and some trouble he had moving around we just let him stay there afterenoon at one or so he was seen mopping his room out in the hospital and a short time later he was seen lying on the bed and look very good We called the doctors and they diagnosed it as a coronary and he died a little while Robinson said Palm might have been released from prison more than 25 years ago but he never applied for a pareon in sisting instead that he was innocent of the murder He at first faced death in the electric chair but his sentence was commuted to life by the late Gov Wilbur Cross An attempt in the late 1970s by The Hartford Courant to locate witnesses who testified in trial failed and the paper reported all had died or could not be found only God and I know that I am innocent of this Palm commented when told by the news paper that none of the witnesses could be found Palm was convicted on the testi mony of two young women who were with Deputy Sheriff Peter Ka minski of Beacon alls when he was shot by a fleeing robber in 1936 The face was covered with a mask and no one could testify to what his face looked like but the women identified Palm as the rob ber because of "his staring eyes and sloping right SELECTION SERVICE DEPENDABILITY SATISACTION Hava Mod Modern tlectrlc 1V theAree'i Lorjert oHV Moytog Dealer The dependable people A Direct actory Dealer or MAYTAG Our Mott Important Product It SERVICE Caterpillar eradication methods are questioned NEW HAVEN (AP) Although remedy often does as well as a store bought product sci entists say that notion neces sarily apply to killing gypsy moth caterpillars A specialist at the Connecticut Ag ricultural Experiment Station rec ommends against an eradication ap proach using household detergent which had been rumored as a cure all for caterpillar infestation Tests showed that a spray contain ing 10 ounces of dish detergent per gallon of water killed about 50 per cent of the gypsy moth caterpillars if sprayed directly on them But it also damaged leaves of trees it was de signed to protect said scientist Rob ert Moore of the Windsor laboratory In contrast a chemical insecticide called carbaryl or Sevin killed 90 percent of the caterpillars on direct contact more the detergent solu tion had no effect when sprayed on leaves that the voracious insects ate while carbaryl on leaves had a 75 percent kill rate and a bacterial in secticide commonly known as BT had about a 50 percent rate in in terim tests scientists said Moore found that detergent spray burned maple leaves and caused spots on oak leaves signs of possible damage to the leaves BT or Bacillus thuringiensis is preferred by many users although its retail cost is about 20 percent more than carbaryl because it at tacks only the digestive system and harm other liv ing things scientists say Aerial test spraying is being con ducted on forests in Harwinton and the Cockaponset State orest from Haddam East Haddam and Deep River to Chester by the experiment station US orest Service and state Department of Environmental Protection Three strains of BT sprayed in Harwinton on May 21 and May 28 re duced the number of observed gypsy moth caterpillars about 80 percent Theodore Andreadis of the experi ment station said However the surviving caterpil lars were larger than those in uns prayed plots he added Caterpillars had eaten from half to three quarters of the leaves in the unsprayed plots compared to less than one fifth of the sprayed plots he added Meanwhile an experimental virus believed to be deadly only to the cat erpillars has been sprayed over part of the Cockaponset State orest Observation will continue in all spraying areas until the feeding sea son ends near the end of June An dreadis said At least two brands of gypsy moth traps are on the market but scien tists question their effectiveness Paul Kruger an insect control specialist with one of the manufac turers said tests showed that the traps reduced the number of eggs laid feel by using the spray and the traps it will reduce the number (of caterpillars) in the said Kruger manager of biological re search for the JT Baker Chemical Co But Andreadis said the infestation is so concentrated this year that spraying will only protect foliage where it applied but neither spray ing nor traps will reduce future po pulations Lucky you making great deals ONLY $6798 "Sts? 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