Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 73

Thursday, Dec. 13, 1984 OC BERKLEY BEVERLY HILLS BINGHAM FARMS BIRMINGHAM BLOOMFIELO HILLS BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP CLAWSON COMMERCE TOWNSHIP FARMINGTON FARMINGTON HILLS FRANKLIN HUNTINGTON WOODS KEEGO HARBOR ORCHARD LAKE ROYAL OAK SYLVAN LAKE WALLED LAKE WATERFORD TOWNSHIP WEST BLOOMFIELD WOLVERINE LAKE Detroit 4free Stress Clarkston's underground news revives the activist spirit of the '60s. Page 3A Village club cooks up a way to raise funds to landscape Southf ield Road. Page 1B Retailers of kids' stuff are knocking themselves out this holiday season.Page 6B Dateline: Oakland New tactics in the fight to curb drunk drivers ij Iqlnnnnnn Deverly mils By BILL LAITNER Free Press Staff Writer cover story No group home on Leemoor A protest over a proposed group home on Leemoor Drive fizzled last week when the sponsoring agency, Focus Care Residential Centers withdrew its license application. South Berkshire Civic Association members had argued that the Leemoor house was too close to another group home on Norman-dale.

The village council promised to draft a letter supporting the association's protest, but by Friday William Israel, village manager, had confirmed that the application for the home had been withdrawn. "We don't know why it was withdrawn," Israel said. mm Joan Monforton of Waterford Township shivered and wept Monday night on the steps of a Farming-ton church, as members of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) tolled bells for the dead. 1 One was Monforton's 17-year-old son, Jjm, killed last March by a drunk driver on what is rapidly becoming Oakland's bloodiest highway M-59 in Waterford. A few hours earlier in West Bloomfield, traffic safety expert Bruce Madsen scanned morbid statistics in his offices over a bank building.

Madsen administers a widely hailed, five-year-old experiment in Oakland County, aimed at curbing drunk-driving deaths. His program the Oakland County Alcohol Enforcement Team is a success, say state and national safety experts. It upped drunk-driving arrests nearly 300 percent in some areas of Oakland. Yet, a University of Michigan study issued in July found the millions of dollars spent here on special police patrols have had little or no effect on the local death toll. U-M's verdict, contested though See DRUNK DRIVERS, Page 10A II i 1 Hi Dloomfield Hills Waterford gets tough oh 1 By BILL LAITNER Free Press Staff Writer Andover student suspended An Andover High School student who faces criminal charges for allegedly spraying a woman in the face with a fire extinguisher has been suspended for the remainder of the semester and put on probation for the year, officials said.

Jeffrey Margolis, 17, of West Bloomfield, was charged with felonious assault after a prank on parents and students working on the school's sophomore class float at a home in Bloomfield Township. Police said three youths wearing ski masks disrupted the float-building about 11 p.m. on Oct. 18. The Bloomfield Hills school board last week voted 6-1 to suspend Margolis from all classes and school activities through the semester, which ends in January.

He will be readmitted on probation in the second semester, Principal John Toma said. j' -r Drunk driving deaths have increased more than 200 percent this year in Waterford Township, prompting tough new tactics from police. Local undercover officers have caught merchants selling liquor to minors in more than 20 "covert buys," says Officer John McLain, in which a police cadet approached unwitting store clerks. "The scary part is the majority of stores we checked unfortunately were selling without checking identification," McLain says. The See WATERFORD, Page 11A Free Press Photo by DAYAAON J.

HARTLEY Bartender Al Karr lines up the drinks during the two-for-one happy hour at the Mill Street Inn in Pontiac. The joint rules committee of the state Legislature has voted to ban the two-for-one discounts. Pleasant Ridge l2t Ji School board is interfering, says superintendent Thirty years is enough Pleasant Ridge City Manager Louis G. Barry is calling it quits after 30 years in city government. He plans to retire Feb.

8. Barry, 64, has held the post for 15 years, the latest of which have been marked by debate over entry to the 1-696 freeway and the city's fire protection pact with neighboring Ferndale. He said he had planned to retire earlier, but agreed to stay on at the request of Mayor Richard Perkins, whose term expires in April. Barry moved from the city last summer to Waterford, where he served six years as township supervisor in the 1950s. He also was city manager for two years at Sylvan Lake and 13 years at Essexville.

By KEITH GAVE Free Press Staff Writer These girls are tops in the county Meet the Free Press Oakland All-County girls basketball team (clockwise, from top right): Coach Patti Adams; Allans Cum-mings of Troy Athens; Annette Ruggiero of Farmington Mercy; Margaret Flynn of Ferndale; Val Hall of Walled Lake Western; and Mary Rosowski of Farmington Mercy. A story about the team is on Page 7B. -awTMP7 Ufx ') 'll Royal Oak Bloomfield Hills Schools Superintendent Fred Thorin, whose 15-year tenure has been marked by the district's rise to national prominence, is warning of serious trouble caused by what he charges is an interfering school board. "The people in this community have got to take some corrective action before we get into too deep a problem before it has a very negative impact on the instructional programs," Thorin said in an interview Friday. "I'm just hopeful that the community will come awake before it's too late." Thorin unleashed his attack on the board, which consists of several new members and voted not to extend the superintendent's contract.

The contract expires in June, although Thorin, 57, had hoped to extend it six months before retiring. "There's no question that I had been thinking about retiring," said Thorin, "but I didn't think it was the highest priority on the board's agenda." Thorin, who often has criticized the new board for its See THORIN, Page 8A Free Press Photo by WARY SCHROEDER A theater divided The fate of the Washington Theatre is decided well, almost. Richard Beltz, deputy director of community development, said the city is close to closing a deal that would divide the theater into a home for Stagecrafters, a local theater group and commercial and office space. "The theater itself will be used by Stagecrafters, which will reduce the seating from 750 to 350, convert the balcony to a children's theater and do extensive renovations to the heating and air conditioning systems," Beltz said. "The long mezzanine that extends to Washington Street will be removed and replaced by a furniture store and office space.

The entrance to the theater will be relocated onto the Fifth Street mall." I II IIIUIIIIMWIUBIMI I Mill l. OAKLAND STATS Black judge for Oakland? Royal Oak By LONA O'CONNOR Free Press Staff Writer A 'Si. 7ml Some like it not You winter-haters feel like it's below zero three months a year. And the summer sweat hogs swear it's 90-plus degrees from July through Labor Day. But it ain't so.

Here are a few Oakland weather facts: Days over 90 degrees fewer than 12 per year. Days below zero fewer than seven a year. Average precipitation 32 inches a year. Average January high 32, low 19. Average July high 83, low 63.

firmed, he couid be a federal judge by mid-February, says Duke Short, chief investigator for the Senate Judiciary Committee. Short says LaPlata easily passed his confirmation hearing and "should be an excellent man" for the federal job. Gov. James Blanchard will appoint LaPlata's replacement on the Oakland bench, which has never had a black judge. The governor has already received 10 or 12 letters from potential candidates for LaPlata's post.

Greg Morris, Blanchard's personnel director, said he doesn't know if any of the applicants is black. "There hav been black leaders who have expressed an interest in a black appointment," Morris said. EVEN IF Blanchard were to appoint Roasting beef caused fire The Sign of the Beefcarver restaurant on Woodward Avenue was done in Sunday night by a beef roast, fire officials say. The restaurant, built in 1957, was extensively damaged by a blaze that started in an oven after the restaurant had closed. "We've determined that the fire started in an oven that was left on overnight to roast beef," said Fire Marshall Roy Pingilley.

"The grease from the roast spattered out of the oven and caught an adjacent wall on fire." Pingilley said the south half of the building was destroyed and that the north half was extensively damaged. Twenty-six fire fighters fought the blaze for six hours before it was extinguished. The fire marshal said the building's owner Jack Joliat was very upset by the fire. "He took it more to heart because it was the original building," Pingilley said. "He had helped build that building." Oakland County needs a black circuit court judge, and local black leaders say now is the perfect time to appoint one.

With a vacancy almost sure to be created by the pending appointment of George LaPlata to a federal judgeship, three names turn up again and again in conversations about qualified black candidates federal magistrate Lynn Hooe; Legal Aid Society director Dorothy Cottrell and Pontiac District Judge Christopher Brown. LaPlata was nominated in September for one of 61 newly created federal judgeships. He is expected to be confirmed shortly after the U.S. Senate reconvenes in January. If LaPlata's nomination is con Free Press Photo by DAYMON J.

HARTLEY Oakland County is "very racist," says NAACP county president Jimmie Randolph. Source Oakland County Profile '84. I See JUDGE, Page 7A.