Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 10

1 0A DETROIT FREE PRESSTUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1989 Riding's effect unclear on state, Detroit laws Michigan set-aside law already in court HJ JOHN A. STANODetrolt Free Press Downriver industrialist Heinz Prechter, left, aide David Treadwell and Detroit Mayor Coleman Young announce Monday that a deal has been completed for the sale of the London Chop House restaurant. Group seals the deal for London Chop House BY TERESA BLOSSOM AND JACQUELYNN BOYLE Free Press Staff Writers After Andrew McLemore started his construction firm 20 years ago, he often had to compete with companies 10 times the size. As a result, it was hard to get city contracts, he recalled Monday. McLemore, owner of A-MAC Sales Builders on Detroit's west side, said a city minority-set aside program helped change that by "putting you in a category of like bidders." Government minority-set aside programs such as Detroit's, in which contracts worth more than $130 million were awarded to firms owned by minorities and women in the last fiscal year could be in jeopardy following a U.S.

Supreme Court ruling Monday that such a program in Richmond, is unconstitutional. State officials say it's too early to tell how the ruling will affect a Michigan law requiring that 7 percent of discretionary state spending such as construction projects and equipment purchases be done with minority-owned companies and 5 percent with businesses owned by women. The law Jias been challenged by the Michigan Road Builders Association. Detroit officials say they hope -the city program is safe from challenge because it was adopted after public hearings found unfair practices in awarding city contracts. "I think we are on solid ground," said Councilman Clyde Cleveland, an early advocate of such programs.

"We showed discrimination. Our ordinance has not been challenged by individuals, companies or agencies." Detroit's set-aside program requires major contractors to award at least 10 percent of subcontracted work to minority firms. It also creates a "sheltered market" for certain contracts, limiting bids to minority-owned firms. According to administration figures, the city awarded a record 2,135 contracts worth more than $130 mil The language of the city's law, which went into effect in 1984, was broadened to include Hispanics and other minorities as well as women and small businesses. Hispanic groups protested when the city at first limited the definition of minorities to "black Americans." i The Richmond case prompted Wayne County commissioners to act last year to repeal an ordinance that set a goal that 30 percent of contracts eventually go to small businesses or female- and minority-owned businesses.

Assistant County Executive Melvin Hollowell Jr. said the county, while currently pursuing its goals without the ordinance, plans to draft a new ordinance based on guidelines in the court ruling. "We have a commitment to make sure all groups blacks, women, small businesses are represented in county procurement," said Hollowell. In its suit against Michigan's law, the Road Builders Association says it was enacted without determining what level of discrimination, if any, existed. U.S.

District Judge Julian Cook upheld the law in 1983, but a federal appeals panel overturned it in 1987. Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court; until the high court rules, the state has continued to follow the law. John Weaver, a Detroit attorney representing the association, was encouraged by Monday's ruling. "The Supreme Court has indicated that the appropriate measure is how many minority and women-owned business are in the marketplace, and how many have been discriminated against.

That kind of analysis was never done in Michigan," Weaver said. Benny Napolean, chairman of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, was disappointed. "The long history of excluding minorities from government contracts in this country is one of the most pernicious effects of racial discrimination still with us. Efforts to include all racial and ethnic minorities in public contracting opportunities must remain one 1 of our highest priorities," Napolean said. Staff Writers John Gallagher and David McHugh contributed to this wide search for an executive manager.

Meantime, the staff and chef Grant Brown will be retained. The London Chop House was founded in 1938 at its present site in the basement of the Murphy Building in' downtown Detroit by Lester Gruber and his brother Sam. Lester Gruber later bought out his brother and was the guiding force behind the place until he sold it in 1982 to Max and Lanie Pincus. The Pincuses ran the restaurant together until Max Pincus died in 1987, after which Lanie Pincus became sole proprietor. In recent months, dwindling business and a spate of financial problems, including two lawsuits, had caused doubts that the restaurant would survive past its 50th Transpec a parts manufacturer for the bus industry; John Psaroutha-kis, chairman of JP Industries, Ann Arbor; John Rakolta, chairman of Walbridge Aldinger, a Livonia-based construction company, and his wife, Mary; John Rakolta president of Walbridge Aldinger, and his wife, Terry; Darlene Soave, and Ronald Weiser, chairman of McKinley Associates an Ann Arbor real estate firm.

A settlement Sunday of the $100,000 debt to the employee benefit fund paved the way for the sale, said pension fund attorney Duane Ice. The benefit fund had a court order restricting sale of the restaurant until the debt was satisfied. The investors make up a group called the Detroit Heritage Fund, which Prechter said a limited partnership that intends to take on other projects, including restoration of historic landmarks. He said that nothing further is on the burner at this time, however. After the announcement, the new owners stayed on to enjoy dinner composed of asparagus salad with bleu cheese terrine, dried fruits, nuts and sherry vinaigrette, followed by a choice of grilled veal chop with wild mushrooms, rack of lamb or salmon osso bucco.

Dessert was chosen from among the restaurant's famous gold brick sundae, white chocolate mousse, chocolate ravioli or fresh raspberries. The restaurant will be open for business as usual while the owners conduct what they called a nation judge taking cash, seeking more Chop House, from Page 1A Eleanor Ford House, and his wife Lynn; Eugene Applebaum, chairman of Arbor Drugs John Boll, president of Chateau Land Development Co. of Mt. Clemens; James Brock president of Motor City Electric; Edward Connelly, president of Connelly of Warren, an automotive sales representative company; Robert DeMattia, president of DeMattia a Plymouth development company; Burton Farbman, president of Farbman-Stein, a Troy-based industrial and commercial real estate company; Wilhelm Kast, president of DP Services a Livonia computer services company; Richard Kughn of Dearborn, developer and philanthropist; Ronald Lamparter, president of Tapes show 1 Jenkins, from Page 3A Jenkins, 35, is charged with taking $3,000 in cash, jewelry valued at $500, a gun, and other bribes, mainly from Dickow, to fix misdemeanors, traffic and ordinance cases. His attorney, Cornelius Pitts, has charged that the FBI investigation of the judge was racially motivated, and that Jenkins may have taken loans from Dickow and did adjourn some court dates at Dickow's request, but never took bribes to fix or dismiss cases.

In conversations taped in 1984 and 1985, Jenkins appears jovial and up- beat in Dickow's Detroit market, in a restaurant parking lot and in telephone Conversations. Throughout several tapes, Jenkins nags Dickow for a free lunch, either at Carl's Chop House or Joe Muer's restaurant, where the judge apparently had a weakness for crab. "Why don't you take me and my out to lunch tomorrow?" he asks Dickow in a taped conversation in January 1985. Other tapes reveal: A phone conversation in November 1984 during which Jenkins impatiently asks Dickow for a gun, and Dickow promises it as a Christmas present. I An FBI videotape shown in U.S.

District Court on Monday allegedly shows 36th District Judge Leon Jenkins, right, taking money from the prosecution's key witness, Sabah (Sam) Dickow, to fix a traffic ticket. lion to minority firms in fiscal year 1987-88, a 29 percent increase over the previous year. That compares to $20 million in contracts for minority firms in fiscal 1982-83 before the program took effect, according to city figures. High court affirmative QUOTAS, from Page 1A "They all need to be to determine whether the evidence supporting them meets the Supreme Court's strict standards, said Benna Ruth Solomon, chief counsel for several organizations of cities and counties. The court's three dissenters led by Thurgood Marshall, the only black justice accused the majority of having taken "a deliberate and giant step backward" from affirmative action rulings of the past.

"The majority's unnecessary pronouncements will inevitably discourage or prevent governmental entities, particularly states and localities, from acting to rectify the scourge of past discrimination," Marshall wrote. "This is the harsh reality of the majority's decision, but it is not the Constitution's command." But it remained unclear whether the ruling would affect affirmative action programs in public employment and education. Clyde Murphy, assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and several other civil rights lawyers said they believed it would not. The decision may signal the formation of a new conservative majority on affirmative action issues, one made possible by former President Ronald Reagan's appointments of Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy. Scalia and Kennedy joined Sandra Day O'Connor, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Byron White and John Paul Stevens in ruling the Richmond plan an unconstitutional form of reverse discrimination against white-owned businesses.

"Where injustice is the game, turnabout is not fair play," Scalia remarked in a concurring opinion. The court majority did not rule out race-based affirmative action plans-containing rigid quotas. But it indicated that such plans should be used only as a last resort to break down proven patterns of deliberate discrimination. For the first time, there was a court consensus for subjecting such programs to the most rigorous test of constitutionality. O'Connor, writing for the court majority, said the Richmond plan, enacted in 1983 by a city council with a 5-4 black majority, was based on "the unsupported assumption that white Suspect says he killed, but still heard victims scream Jenkins taking what Dickow said was $100 in August 1985.

A conversation follows in which Dickow asks the judge how much he should charge several people whose cases are before Jenkins. "I do it free, then if I need something you take care of me," Jenkins tells Dickow. Jenkins discussing the outcome of tickets with Dickow and asking Dickow to give him full names and birth dates of the ticket recipients in order to "take care of" the violations. "All I need is his name, full name and birth date and I can clear up his record," Jenkins tells Dickow about one ticket. On another occasion in March 1985 Jenkins tells Dickow at his store: "On this here man, you're cool.

That's dismissed. That's all." Jenkins, standing near the cash register, then takes a box of bullets that Dickow offers him and asks for a gun. "I need a .357 Magnum. Man, I lost my .357 Magnum," Jenkins tells Dickow. You know I just lost it and I feel lost without my big piece." The judge in that same tape is seen removing from an ankle holster a handgun that Jenkins acknowledges receiving earlier from Dickow.

On that date Jenkins appears to nell to bind the women to a post with pieces of a clothesline, then had Darnell tie his own feet to the post. After tying William Darnell's hands, Martin said that he tried to explain that it had been an accident. But, William Darnell, yelling that he was going to kill him, worked one hand free and grabbed Martin, according to, the statement. "When he grabbed me, I just lost' control," Martin told police. "I just started stabbing them, man.

They were yelling. Hollering. So I gagged them all." Community Police Benevolent Association, praised the arrest, saying, "Perhaps this will send a message to the community that the police department and the police officers are not out of control." Two prosecutors from the criminal section of the Justice Department's civil rights division have gone to Miami to conduct an investigation, spokesman Mark Weaver said Monday in Washington. The Justice Department's announcement came on the day about toughens action rules The court majority indicated that such plans should be used only as a last resort to break down proven patterns of deliberate discrimination. prime contractors simply will not hire minority firms." Richmond's investigation showed that, from 1978 to 1983, minorities received less than 1 percent of municipal construction contracts in a city that is half black.

But O'Connor said the city lacked "direct evidence of race discrimination on the part of the city." Richmond did not even know how many qualified minority-controlled businesses exist in its market or what percentage of city construction contracts they get, O'Connor noted. And, she said, the city produced no evidence that it had weighed such "race-neutral" alternatives as financial aid for disadvantaged firms, simplified bidding procedures, relaxed bonding requirements or laws to bar discrimination by banks and suppliers. Justice Harry Blackmun, who with Marshall and William Brennan Jr. dissented, said he "never thought that I would live to see the day when the city of Richmond, the cradle of the Old Confederacy, sought on its own to lessen the stark impact of persistent discrimination. Yet this court, the supposed bastion of equality, strikes down Richmond's efforts as though discrimination had never existed or was not demonstrated in this particular litigation." In other action, the court: Ruled in a case from Florida that police do not need court warrants before searching from helicopters for marijuana growing in fenced yards.

Refused to let a financially troubled utility company increase electric rates to help pay for a controversial nuclear power plant in Seaorook, N.H. from Page 3A liam Darnell but slashed the child instead. 4 "I wasn't really trying to hit him with it," Martin told police. "I didn't realize how close Stephanie was to me. I was swinging the knife so wildly, I hit her.

I don't know if I hit her in the throat or the neck. But it was in that area." William Darnell jumped on him and told Smith to call the police. But Martin said he broke free, pulled his gun and herded the adults into the basement. Martin said he forced William Dar have been aware of the FBI investigation of the courts. "There's a lot of going down in court," he tells Dickow.

That's why (William) Haley and (John) Cozart and a lot of them been sort of getting away from a lot of this Cozart is a judge at 36th District Court. Returning to the kitchen, Martin said he picked up the child, who investigators believe was already dead, and carried her to her room and placed her in bed. "I don't know what came over me, man," he said. "But I took the baby out of the bed. And then I laid her on the floor.

And even though I tried to hold back, I just got to stabbing her." He said he ran into the hallway and began to again hear the victims' cries. "For some reason I kept hearing their voices," he said. "So I looked at the baby. Then I ran back downstairs that sparked 150 relatives and friends gathered for Lloyd's funeral at the Bahman Avenue Church of God in Opa-Locka. The Justice Department investigators plan to impanel a grand jury this week to study possible criminal charges against Lozano, said a government source.

The Justice Department normally does not impanel a grand jury in a civil rights investigation unless it plans to seek a criminal indictment, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Haley, formerly a judge at 36th District Court, was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison for income tax evasion and for taking more than. $7,000 in bribes to fix tickets. Recorder's Court Judge Evelyn Cooper is scheduled to be tried on similar charges Feb. 6.

Dickow played a similar role in the cases against Haley and Cooper. to the basement. And you know, like I said, they weren't making no noise. (But) I could still hear them, yelling and screaming." Martin, who has spent most of the last 13 years' in prison and was on-parole when he was arrested for the slayings, said he ransacked the house and loaded the goods into the Darnells' van and fled. The next day, he returned to the Darnell home because he'd lost the ammunition clip to his 9 m.m.

pistol. He said he didn't find it in the house, but took the family's Ford Escort. Miami rioting An 11 -member independent review panel of police officers and black leaders, established by the city commission after two days of rioting and a third day marked by minor skirmishes, held its first working session Monday in the now-quiet Overtown neighborhood where Lloyd was killed. The review board is scheduled to make a preliminary report to the commission Thursday. Members said they want to look at underlying social problems in Overtown.

AP contributed to this report. Officer charged in shooting MIAMI, from Page 1A would face up to 60 years in prison. If he had been charged with two counts of simple manslaughter, the maximum penalty would have been 30 years. Some officers criticized the swift decision to charge Lozano. "This is only a political arrest just to satisfy certain individuals in our community," said officer Martin Garcia, the president of the 300-member Hispanic Officers' Association.

Officer Sam Harlan, the president of the blifck officers' union, the Miami i.