Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 16

2B DETROIT FREE PRESSFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1994 Child's death makes i busing, safety issued Police investigate drugging of teacher School officials say a 7th-grader admits putting pills in coffee cup; victim perplexed h-i 0 I in Oak Park vote 7. Yii GEORGE WALDMANDetroit Free Press Detroit math teacher Ellen Hechler says she will be less trusting. value. Two other Detroit-area districts have elections next week: i Van Dyke Public Schools: The student Warren district is askifig Voters for a 3-mill tax increase for( three years. The election is Mondajf.

fIJ The increase would raise about $1 million a year and allow the district to add 90 more hours of instruction dver three years. The measure lost; by 29 votes in June. Under school reform laws, passed this year, districts must increase their instruction hours from 900 to maintain full state funding next school year. By 1999-2000, districts' "must provide 1,080 hours of instructiori' annually. If the proposal passes in the' 'Van Dyke district, the total levy on home owners, including the debt levywould be 13.76 mills.

The owner of a hbme worth $40,000 would pay an additional $60 annually. The district's bjidget is by Stephen Henderson And Margaret Trimer-Hartley Free Press Education Writers Troy teacher Robert Heffernan can relate to what Ellen Hechler, a teacher at Detroit's Ruddiman Middle School, is feeling: betrayal, anxiety and a sense of vulnerability. Four years ago, Heffernan was the butt of a prank in which students at Troy Athens High School put LSD in his coffee, causing him to hallucinate. He says his life hasn't been the same. "It was a major event in my life, the kind of thing that you use as a sort of before-and-after reference point," he said Thursday.

"I feel like I never know what's around the next corner." After two trials, 18-year-old Linda Conflitti was convicted of having dropped the drug into the coffee. She was sentenced to six months in a jail work-release program. Three other students received probation. Hechler, who teaches mathematics at Ruddiman, believes she was the victim of a similar incident Sept. 21.

Hechler, 40, told police that one of her students, a 12-year-old girl, dropped sleeping pills or some other drug into her coffee cup. Hechler said she became violently ill that night, and has since been trying to figure out why the seventh-grader would do such a thing. "I just can't believe a student could do something as a prank and not think of someone else's welfare," said Hechler, noting that she had no previous trouble with the girl. "She didn't seem to know she had done anything wrong." The girl told school officials Sept. 23 that she had put sleeping pills in the coffee and was suspended Monday, said Detroit Public Schools spokesman Steve Wasko.

She faces possible transfer or expulsion. said. Neither police nor district officials could say for sure what was put in the coffee. Wasko said a school district hearing on the incident has been postponed until next week. Hechler, a 17-year veteran who next week is to receive a teacher-of-the-year award from the Detroit Area Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said the incident definitely will make her a different teacher.

"I'll be a lot less trustful of my students now, that's for sure," said Hechler, who has been off work since Monday. Police investigators said Thursday they would turn the case over to Wayne County Juvenile Court officials today. The girl remains with her parents, police said. Attempts to reach the family were unsuccessful. Hechler said she realized something was wrong the night of Sept.

21, when she experienced stomach pains and believed she was bleeding internally. She went to a doctor the next day and had planned to see a gynecologist that Friday to be checked for a bladder infection. After the girl talked to school officials, Hechler had blood tests. No abnormal substances were found, she $26 million. by Margaret Trimer-Hartley Free Press Education Writer To many parents in the Oak Park School District, this Monday's tax election is a matter of life or death.

If voters approve a 3-mill increase for three years, the district says it may restore busing, which was cut this year to help reduce a $l-million deficit. "A child shouldn't have to die crossing the street before we make this a priority," Joyce Wright, a mother of two children at Einstein Elementary School in Oak Park, said Thursday. "Young children should not be crossing Coolidge and Greenfield and busy streets like that. Especially since we don't even have crossing guards." Danyl Omar, 10, was struck and killed by a car Sept. 21 as she crossed Coolidge on her way to Roosevelt Elementary School.

"She wouldn't have been bused" because she lived too near the school, Wright said. "But the district could have made things safer for her." Wright and 50 to 60 other parents have complained about the dangers posed by eliminating busing. More than 40 parents kept their children out of class earlier this month in protest. Elementary art, music, gym and library programs also have been phased out over the past couple of years to ease the deficit. "What the community says it wants us to restore will be an absolute priority," said Audrey Walker, executive director of business and finance for the district.

But Walker said the Oak Park Public Schools board also will study its options if the millage passes. The same proposal failed in June by 21 votes. The tax increase would generate about $1.2 million a year and cost the owner of a home worth $65,000 an additional $97 annually. The district has a $21-million budget. If the proposal passes, the total tax levy for home owners would be 14.3 mills, including the debt levy.

One mill equals $1 for every $1,000 of assessed Ferguson to lead group challenging TV station purchase Utica Community Schools: offiqais-are seeking a 10-year renewal of the l8-mill tax on non-homestead property. The election is Tuesday. The current tax expires on 1995. Home owners in the district would not be affected by the renewal. They would continue to pay 9.5 mills.

If the measure fails, the district stands to lose about $20.6 rmjlioli for the 1995-96 school year. Th6 total budget is about $150 million. Joel Ferguson, left, says Channel 62 in Detroit should remain black-owned instead of being bought by CBS. t'-" I X. ft Lansing that's got state of the art equipment, and we're No.

2 in our market." Roberts is GM's highest-ranking black executive. Bing is a former star Detroit Pistons guard. Ferguson said a fourth group member is an insurance man, and he also has a fifth group member. Channel 62 has been an uncompetitive, independent station that features paid religious programming, syndicated reruns and local music and ethnic programs. Its shows include "Arab Voice of Detroit" and "The New Dance Show." It has been owned since its founding in 1975 by the International Free and Accepted Modern Masons, the national African-American fraternal society.

Television, from Page IB network has vowed to keep the station within the city limits as it builds multimillion-dollar studio facilities. But Ferguson said Thursday he could do the same and keep the station minority owned. "It's crazy," said Ferguson. "Naturally our contention is that we'll buy the station and I'll build the new facilities." "If there's only 19 minority-owned stations out of 1,200 nationally," he said, the community doesn't "want to see CBS make it 18," he said. He said that after submitting his offer, he responded to WGPR Prsident George Mathews' requests for more details, but said Mathews later claimed he "hadn't gotten back to him." Ferguson spokeswoman Cathy Nedd said Mathews "told me he didn't think Joel had the money to do it.

But if you have an offer for $10 million more on the table, why wouldn't you at least put a call in? I really don't understand it." "It was the first African-American-owned station in the nation, and it could Home delivery by 6 a.m. rN the METROPOLITAN DETROIT AREA. CALL 222-6500 deal is put on record with the FCC. He said he has hired a Washington law firm to challenge the transfer of the license. He said he may also seek an injunction against the station's temporary local management agreement with the r.I 1 0k I 1 current WGPR owners.

Ferguson said the FCC has always encouraged minority ownership. "Obviously the guys running Chan Illlll have remained that way." Neither Mathews, Bing nor Roberts could be reached late Thursday. Ferguson said his group has 30 days to file a comment on the sale after the nel 62 now aren't the kind of guys that CBS wants to keep their hands in the station. But I ve got an ABC station in Mt. Clemens blamed for pollution Everything for Your utrageous Home and Garden! "0 See The Latest Technology, Products Services Kitchens rashes.

Salisbury also offered a letter from the city's consultant, Harry S. Peterson Co. in Warren, citing several cracks in the basin in July 1993 that needed repair. Renando said the cracks were repaired as they have been every year since at least 1988. "This is an ongoing, annual process," Renando said.

"We have a 30-million-gallon cement swimming pool, and of course it is going to develop cracks. It is not leaking." Baths Doors Windows YardGardens Remodeling Arts Crafts Furniture Decorative Accessories Pets Heating Cooling Electronics Appliances irresponsible charges from a man who tries to make himself look good at the expense of the city.77 Warren Renando ML Clemens city manager Even if the basin were leaking, said Demonstrations on decorating, home repair and remodeling Kenando, we could not possibly not mathematically, not any way, have Gardens created by members of the Metropolitan Detroit Landscape Association Professional Allied Florist Association's fall and holiday entertaining floral arrangements Snecial Shnw Dkrnnnk from pYhihifnrc By robin fornoff Free Press Staff Writer Long before state investigators tagged Mt. Clemens and several other communities as the source of Lake St. Clair's pollution, a city official had been raising a red flag. Thursday, flamboyant Mt.

Clemens City Commissioner Neal Salisbury presented the Macomb County Board of Commissioners with the proof. He had soil and water samples from outside Mt. Clemens' retention basin that were saturated with millions of colonies of the same fecal coliform that shut Lake St. Clair beaches most of the summer. The bacteria are a by-product of human waste.

"The city's 30-million-gallon retention basin is leaking," Salisbury said. "It is leaking nothing but raw sewage, and it is running or leaching right into the Clinton River." Salisbury's charges were dismissed immediately by City Manager Warren Renando. "False," he said. "Outrageous irresponsible charges from a man who tries to make himself look good at the expense of the city." The samples were taken by a private group during a clandestine 2 a.m. boat ride up the Clinton River last July.

The river feeds into Lake St. Clair a few miles east of Mt. Clemens and near Metro Beach, one of three downstream beaches closed because of high fecal coliform counts. A DNR investigation concluded sewage discharges from Mt. Clemens, St.

Clair Shores and 14 southeastern Oakland County communities were the major source of lake pollution. All face an Oct. 1 deadline to pre- had the impact to cause the entire problem. We discharged 64,000 gallons of sewage one time. Oakland County discharged almost one billion gallons." County Commission Chairman Mark Steenbergh said he did not anticipate the county taking action on Salisbury's findings.

"His reputation precedes him," said Steenbergh, D-Warren. STOP BY OUR BOOTH FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN VALUABLE PRIZES Daily Treasure Chest Prizes Thousands of Ideas for your Home Garden Salisbury was kicked off the City sent plans to the state Department of Natural Resources to fix sewage treatment plants. Samples taken by Salisbury and a group calling itself the Macomb County Public Protection Association came from outside a combined storm water and sewage overflow basin on the shores of the Clinton River. The basin is designed to hold excess runoff during severe rainstorms, allowing the city time to treat water with chlorine before discharging it into the river. The chlorine kills fecal coliform.

Soil samples taken about 15 feet outside the wall of the basin contained three million colonies of fecal coliform per gram of dirt, Salisbury said. Water samples showed 1.6 million colonies of fecal coliform per 100 milliliters of water entering the basin. Concentrations of more than 200 colonies per 100 milliliters are considered a health risk to humans and can cause intestinal nH were DETROIT NEWSPAPERS commission last July for failing to vote on a motion. He was reinstated under a restraining order issued by Macomb County Circuit Judge Mary Chrzan-owski until the case can be heard later this year. "We certainly know some communities have problems," Steenbergh said.

"But it's time some of these people stop pointing fingers and offer solutions or be prepared to pay the piper when the bill comes in to fix these problems." MM EXPO CENTER asms SEPTEMBER 29 OCTOBER 2 1-96 and Novi Road Thurs. Friday 2:00 p.m. p.m. te Saturday 10:00 a.m. p.m.

Sunday 10:00 a.m.- 8:00 p.m. Remodelin Regular Admission: Adults Seniors and Children 6-12 Children under 6 admitted FREE Police say man may be responsible for five attacks Special Family Ticket, includes 2 adults and all the children, how gig) 8 Farmer Jack I.M.1. llll. II II mm RAPE, from Page IB The man arrested Thursday roughly matches a description given by the earlier victims, but police are not ruling out that the first four attacks may have been committed by another man. "In those cases there are very distinct similarities," said Hazel Park Police Sgt.

Terry Richardson. "We think were looking at the same person because there are too, too many simi larities." The first four assaults all occurred around midday roughly between 1 1 a.m. and 3 p.m. and in the victims' homes. Police said there are other similarities, but declined to reveal them.

And they warned that, despite Thursday's arrest, women should be extra cautious. "It's very simple. You don't open the door for anyone you don't know, and if someone is on the porch you don't know, call the police," Richardson said. "It's a shame, but that's the cold, hard reality." Royal Oak police were also investigating to see if the rapes were linked to a series of reports of window peeping in the Lincoln and Campbell street areas in recent weeks, and want residents to keep an eye out. "Our message is be wary of strangers," said Lt.

Don Novak of the Royal pak police. "Be cautious." mm.