Banner Graphic, Volume 14, Number 182, Greencastle, Putnam County, 7 April 1984 — Page 2

A2

The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, April 7,1984

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Councilman Larry Clapp, standing near a row of natural gas meters, is leading a movement to have the city of Casper, Wyo., take over the local utility. At issue,

Wyoming cities answer gas rate hikes with talk of utility takeovers

By IVER PETERSON c. 1984 N.Y. Times News Service CASPER, Wyo. bers wondering if the local gas company would give Casper a break on its municipal gas purchases, and it may end in a consumer revolt against high natural gas prices across one of the country’s biggest gas-producing states. Casper and a handful of other Wyoming cities are considering taking over local gas utilities through condemnation and setting up municipal systems.. The issue is whether consumers must continue to pay high prices when far cheaper supplies lie bottled up in capped wells for lack of any takers. “Wyoming is an energy colony for the rest of the country,” said Larry Clapp, a Casper city councilman who is leading the cause, “and I think that in some small way we’re attempting to declare our independence.” “We pay for everybody else’s natural gas in the boom-and-bust cycle of the energy business,”he went on. “When the schools need new classrooms for the kids of all the new workers who come in here. We pay for it in the additional costs for police and fire protection and for increased demands on water and sewer. And then we’re supposed to pay for it again when we buy our own gas back to use.” The “feud for fuel” in this city of 51,000 people illustrates one of the seemingly contradictory effects of the partial federal deregulation of the gas industry. It also points up the difficult question of who must pay when a regulated utility makes a costly decision. In this case, the Casper gas utility signed a gas purchase contract with its supplier that allows unlimited price escalation but excludes competition from cheap gas when there is an oversupply. Similar questions dog other gas utilities around the country in a time of energy surfeit, as well as electric utilities that have built too much generating capacity or that are committed to expensive, long-term coal contracts that force them to buy the fuel whether there is demand for it or not. The conflict here began when Casper’s franchise with Northern Utilities Division, its gas supplier, expired in July after 25 years. Gas prices in Casper and other cities served by Northern had been rising steadily, increases the utility blamed on a contract committing it to buy its gas from the Amoco Production Company at the highest price allowed for gas sold in interstate commerce under the Federal Natural Gas Policy Act. A result is that Northern Utilities and other divisions of the Kansas Nebraska Energy Co. charge Casper, Laramie and other Wyoming cities $5.29 per thousand cubic feet of gas from Amoco, while other Wyoming municipalities, served by pipeline utilities with more favorable supplier contracts, charge as much as $2 less.

i Banner-Graphic ? "It Waves For All" * USPSI42-020 Consolidation ot The Daily Banner Established 1850 i The Herald The Dally Graphic Established 1883 jy Telephone 653-5151 Published dally except Sundays and holidays by LuMar Newspapers, Inc. at 100 North Jackson St., Greencastle, Indiana 48135. Entered In the Post Office at Greencastle, Indiana, as 2nd class mall matter under Act of March 7,1878. Subscription Rates Per Week, by carrier *10“ PefMonth, by motor route 4 55 Mall Subscription Rates R.fi.in Rest of Restol Putnam County Indiana U.S.A. 3 Months *13.80 *14.15 M 7.25 6 Month. *27 80 *28.30 34.50 t Year *55.20 *56.60 69.00 Mail subscriptions paysble In advance . not accepted In town and where motor route service is available ' Member of the Associated Press lT h, Associated Prea. I. entitled exclusively to Jhe use lor republlcatlon ol all tha local newa printed In this newspaper

$56,049 home phone bill Fraudulent calls billed to credit card of Merrillville woman averaged 147 a day

MERRILLVILLE, Ind. (AP) - When Eleanor McAnally of Merrillville received her April telephone bill, it didn’t come in an envelope. It came in a box all 5,044 pages of it. Grand total: $56,049.85. The month before, she found a bill totaling $4,158.96 awaiting her attention. “My phone bills average SSO a month,” said a surprisingly calm Ms. McAnally. “I didn’t faint or get hysterical. I knew something was wrong.” In checking with Indiana Bell officials Thursday, Ms. McAnally found she was not the vicitm of a computer miscue, but of credit calling-card fraud “I never even received my credit card in

he says, is whether consumers must continue to pay high prices when far cheaper supplies lie bottled up in capped wells. (N.Y. Times photo)

By comparison, New York City residents pay the Consolidated Edison Company about $7.84 per thousand cubic feet of gas. The New York gas, however, contains about 12 percent more heat by volume. What seems most galling to the people in Casper is the effect of the government’s partial deregulation: Huge supplies of federally regulated gas with prices of 70 cents per thousand cubic feet or less lie in wells that have been capped as producers concentrate on selling gas from newer wells whose price is not regulated. Harlan Hansen, a vice president of Kansas Nebraska Energy, agrees that people’s objections to paying relatively high meter prices in a state all but awash in natural gas are causing problems for his company. “That’s the feeling in any producing state,” he said. “Some of those folks can just feel the gas coming out of their ground, and they don’t like those prices.” Kansas Nebraska tried to break its contract with Amoco, which runs through the rest of the decade, when the gas glut began forcing prices down. The utility argued in Federal court that the prices called for by its Amoco contract were “unconscionable.” But the utility lost, and it continued to pass the high prices paid to Amoco on to 250,000 Wyoming consumers, about half the state’s population. With the expiration of the franchise agreement, the Casper City Council began exploring its options. “At first,” said Clapp, “we were only interested in finding out if Northern could give us a better price for the gas the city buys. We were just looking for a way to save some money and to avoid a tax increase.” The company replied that, by law, it could not discriminate among its clients. The Council asked if Northern could buy some of its gas from cheaper sources elsewhere, but the utility said it could not. Northern also rejected a proposal by which it would agree that if future price increases rose beyond a certain level, known as an “upset limit,” the Casper franchise would be voided. Now the Citz Council has unanimously voted to hire a consultant to advise Casper on the possibility of finding another supplier for its gas if the city should take over the utility’s citywide distribution system, as allowed by a Depression-era law. Newcastle, on the South Dakota border, has vowed to do likewise, and a dozen smaller cities supplied by Northern are watching for clues to their own options. There are nearly 1,000 municipally owned, nonprofit gas utilities across the country, where an absence of federal and state income taxes and minimal debts on long-completed delivery systems, but not necessarily cheaper contracts with providers, have helped keep rates down. Clapp, however, said he had not been able to find any city that has, in recent times, thrown out an existing private utility and taken over its operation.

1984,” she said. “I use Sprint for my long distance calls.” She was billed for calls to such places as Kansas City, Mo.; Pottstown, Pa.; Baton Rouge, La.; and even Nigeria. The calls were made during the day, night and even some simultaneously. “One Saturday morning. Sarah (her daughter) was home and received a call from an operator asking if it was okay to call Greece,” she added. “I kept getting strange long distance calls asking for Helen or if this was an Ohio number.” Ms. McAnally contacted Roger Southard, indiana Bell’s billing manager in Kokomo. He told her that an average of 147 calls a day were made with her credit card.

Challenger maneuvers toward crippled satellite

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) Challenger’s astronauts, hauling a bus-sized package of experiments to be parked in space, moved closer today to a crippled satellite they hope to recapture and repair. At midday, astronaut Terry Hart planned to grab the 11-ton experiment package with the ship’s 50-foot robot arm and deposit it overboard, where it will stay in orbit until a shuttle crew brings it back to Earth next February. Meanwhile, Commander Robert Crippen and pilot Dick Scobee scheduled three more gap-closing engine firings for today as Challenger pursued the disabled sun-studying satellite Solar Max. When the astronauts departed

Democrats reject blame for Lebanon

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats are saying President Reagan’s attacks on congressional “second guessing” about Lebanon and Central America are an elec-tion-year effort to shift the blame for his foreign policy failures, but a key Republican lawmaker agrees that the fault lies partly with Congress. “This is election year rhetoric and you are going to continue to see him try to place the blame on somebody else for the flawed foreign policy of this administration,” Senate Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd, DW.Va., said after Reagan renewed his criticism of congressional fault-finding in a speech Friday. “It’s that time of year and I suppose it’s one of those years,” said Rep. Dante B. Fascell, DFla., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “A lot of presidents have run against Congress.” “I would hope he could rise above things lije that,” Fascell added. “Congress gave the president what he wanted in Lebanon.” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, DMass., called the president’s speech “an outrageous attempt

Judge revokes bail of preschool teachers

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A judge revoked bail Friday for five preschool teachers charged with a decade of sexual abuse against pupils, saying the children’s testimony and new allegations by prosecutors indicated a “vast conspiracy” against the youngsters and their parents. Deputy District Attorney Lael Rubin displayed a chart outlining 397 new allegations of molestations, photo sessions and threats by the seven defendants, saying the new claims of abuse came from children interviewed as recently as March 26. Only Virginia McMartin, 76, founder of the Virginia McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach and teacher Mary Ann Jackson, 56, were allowed to remain free on bond they already had posted. “If there’s any case where there is to be no bail in a noncapital case, this is that case,”

The phone company then issued a nationwide order to stop accepting that calling card number March 5. That word took a few more days to reach independent telephone companies. He told her the phone company will now manually shift through the calls and bill her only for direct-dial long distance calls, local services and taxes. “I can see it was a real sophisticated network,” she said. “He said (stolen) credit cards are very valuable and people pay a high price for them.” Ms. McAnally, an advertising sales representative for The Post-Tribune, is not alone. Fraudulent calls are on the rise throughout the country.

Cape Canaveral on Friday, Solar Max was half a world away, orbiting 11,500 miles ahead of the space shuttle. By early today, they had cut that distance to 5,700 miles and were narrowing it at a rate of about 450 miles an hour. Crippen and Scobee were then to execute precision maneuvers to bring Challenger to within 200 feet of the target Sunday morning. They will adjust their speed to match that of Solar Max and the two craft will fly in formation at 17,400 mph. At that point, astronaut George Nelson is to use a rocket-powered backpack to dock with the satellite so it can be brought into the cargo bay, where he and James van Hoften

... to blame the Congress of the United States for the failures of this administration in foreign policy.” But Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, RMinn., chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Middle East, said the collapse of administration efforts in that part of the world were “certainly to a degree Congress’ fault.” “The equivocation on Lebanon was clearly reported in all the Middle East newspapers,” Boschwitz told reporters. “They watched us ... and as a result they played us. There is no question about that.” Reagan, in a speech at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “Unfortunately, many in the Congress seem to believe they are still in the troubled Vietnam era, with their only task to be vocal critics, not responsible partners in developing positive, practical programs to solve real problems.” In his remarks, Reagan said military force, or at least the threat to use it, “must remain an available part of America’s foreign policy.

Superior Court Judge Ronald George said. His ruling came after Ms. Rubin presented the new evidence of additional molestations by Mrs. McMartin, her daughter, grandson and granddaughter, and three teachers. Ms. Rubin quoted Kee McFarlane, a therapist at the Children’s Institute International who is interviewing the children for prosecutors, as saying she found “sheer terror in the children she has talked to to this date.” She said she believed the children and their parents are under a serious threat. Ms. Rubin said the community’s “psychological trauma" would increase unless George revoked bail for Peggy McMartin Buckey, 57, her son Raymond Buckey, 25, her daughter Peggy Ann Buckey, 28, and teachers Betty Raidor, 64, and Babette Spitler, 36.

Marvin Sacks, a public relations officer with Indiana Bell in Indianapolis, said phone calling cards are as valuable as credit cards and should be protected as such. “Like any other credit card, it has a certain value to it in terms of purchasing power,” he said. “It shouldn’t be taken for granted.” He offered the following advice to card users: —Memorize your card number. —Don’t write it down. —Make sure no one is looking over your shoulder when you punch your number into a pay phone. —Avoid saying your number too loudly when using a public phone.,

will work on it during two sixhour space walks. On Sunday they are to replace a control system which failed three years ago and prevented Solar Max from pointing its instruments precisely to study solar flares and other mysteries of the sun. They will be outside again Tuesday to replace a failed electronics box on one of seven scientific instruments. If the repairs work, the arm will return the satellite to a useful orbit on Wednesday, and Challenger will land back at Cape Canaveral on Thursday after six days aloft. If the satellite cannot be fixed, it will be brought to Earth for repair and taken back into space on a later flight. The experiment package is 30

Ready with paddle? Ping-pong robot serves 90 balls a minute Daily Telegraph, London PEKING A ping-pong robot has been developed in China to help the country’s already accomplished table tennis players to achieve even greater renown. Known as B-83, the machine can shoot up to 90 balls a minute over the net. Its inventors, from a machinery firm at Shenyang in northeast China, say the robot specializes is high loops and drop shots, together with a rather mean lob. Xie Saike and Wang Huiyuan, two of China’s leading players, took the robot on in an exhibition match in Peking this week. Xie said afterwards that he was most impressed by the variety of the robot’s strokes. He added: “The balls carry more spin than those served by such famed European players as Tobor Klampar and Istvan Jonyer.’

hiked to 9 per cent

c. 1984 N.Y. Times WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve Board, in its first overt move to tighten credit during the current economic recovery, Friday raised its discount rate by Vfc point, to 9 percent. The White House, in still another disapproving comment about the central bank, said President Reagan was disappointed by the action and expressed the hope that “this will not result in a further increase in the prime interest rate” charged by banks. Within the White House and the Treasury, officials have expressed the fear that higher interest rates will choke off economic expansion and harm Reagan’s chances for re-election. The Federal Reserve issued a brief statement asserting that it was simply following other interest rates upward and was not aggressively seeking to drive up interest rates to head off a possible resurgence of inflation. “The change the first since late 1982 was undertaken in the light of the relatively wide spread that has developed in recent weeks between shortterm market rates and the discount rate,” the Fed said. “As the board’s statement indicated,” declared spokesman Frank O’Brien, “this is clearly a following move.” The discount rate is the charge the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks make on loans to commercial banks. Those loans are a small part of the commercial banking systems pool of lendable money and so

Report all monthly billing errors immediately, using the telephone number supplied on the front page of the phone bill. If your card is lost or stolen, report it immediately to the phone company. Recently there has been an increase in credit-card fraud nationwide and that is being attributed to organized rings of card frauds,” he said. “They try to steal these numbers when people are using them in public pay phones.” Indiana law makes telephone calling-card fraud a felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a SI,OOO fine. Using a stolen calling card to call across state lines is a federal violation punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

feet long, 15 feet in diamater and weighs 21,800 pounds, the largest payload carried up on a shuttle mission. During the 10 months in space, it will be pounded by meteorites, blasted by cosmic rays and corroded by atomic oxygen all of these effects of great interest to scientists as they plan permanent space stations to be orbited in the next decade. Officials were pleased with the flawless performance of Challenger during its pictureperfect launch on Friday. It was the llth shuttle launching, the fifth for Challenger and the third for Crippen, the veteran who told Mission Control: “The view from here is as spectacular as ever.”

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PAULVOLCKER FED Chairman the discount rate is more important symbolically than as a cost of money to the banks. The Vz point increase to 9 percent, effective Monday, was proposed by eight of the regional banks, including New York, and was approved by the four Federal Reserve Board members who voted, including the chairman, Paul A. Volcker. The other four Fed banks are expected to propose the same increase soon. The White House, said in a statement that while it anticipated a rise because of the recent market increases, “that does rot lessen our disappointment over this increase in the discount rate by the Federal Reserve Board.” The statement by Marlin Fitzwater, a deputy press secretary, added, “But we are hopeful this will not result in a further increase in the prime interest rate.”