Banner Graphic, Volume 18, Number 150, Greencastle, Putnam County, 3 March 1988 — Page 2

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THE BANNERGRAPHIC March 3,1988

GM folding Fiero line; no more Pontiacs in Pontiac

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) General Motors Corp.’s plasticbody, mid-engine Pontiac Fiero and the workers who make it have become the first victims of the slumping popularity of sporty two-seaters. Michael Losh, Pontiac’s general manager, said Tuesday that GM will stop making the Fiero after the 1988 model year and will close indefinitely the single Fiero plant here sometime this summer, idling 1,109 workers. “THE WHOLE MARKET’S dead,” said industry analyst Chris Cedergren of J.D. Power and Associates, blaming high insurance rates for a 30 percent drop in overall two-seater sales during 1987. The slump has not spared Japanese automakers, who report slow sales of two-seat cars such as the sporty Toyota MR2 and the Mazda RX7, or Europeans, whose victims include four-cylin-der Porsches. Fiero also suffered problems that included frequent engine fires, which prompted GM to recall the entire 1984 model production run late last year. But analysts suggested the market killed the Fiero. Fiero sales peaked at 101,720

19 lawyers seeking to fill vacant commission seat

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) A vacancy on the Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission will be filled during a May 2 special election. Daniel R. Heiser, clerk of the Indiana Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, said Wednesday 19 attorneys are seeking the position left vacant by the retirement of Howard S. Young. The successful candidate will

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cars in 1984 and fell to 47,156 last year. UNION AND CITY officials said they were surprised by the Fiero decision despite the car’s poor sales. When the Fiero is gone, no Pontiacs will be built in Pontiac. UAW Local 653 President Harold Cox said his plant was one of the first at GM to accept Japanese-style team organization of workers under a contract that allowed the previously closed plant to reopen in 1983 to make the Fiero. GM already closed a foundry, another car assembly plant, a heavy truck plant and a bus plant in this town of 77,000 and cut production at the Fiero plant several times, laying off more than 1,200 other Fiero workers on layoff. GM’s contract with the UAW union forbids permanent plant closings that were not announced before the contract was signed last fall, but permits laying off workers if sales slow. The Fiero plant is the third GM has decided to idle since then. The first, in Framingham, Mass., will return to production in May. The second, in Kansas City, Mo., will shut down April 15, idling 1,600 workers.

complete Young’s term, which expires Dec. 31,1989. The opening is in the Indiana Court of Appeals 2nd District, and attorneys living in that area should receive their ballots by the middle of April, Heiser said. Heiser identified the candidates as: Gil I. Berry Jr., Janet Maria Coney, Rich D. Hailey, John W. Hammel, Robert W. Hammcrle, Timothy J. Kennedy, Kevin M. McShane, Alex R. Murphy, Bradley W. Skolnik, Earl C. Townsend Jr., Richard D. Wagner, Allan L. Yackey and Fredrick J. Zusy, all of Indianapolis; E. Davis Coots and F. Boyd Hovde, both of Carmel; Stephen H. Free, Noblesville; Henry R Schrenker and Theodore F. Smith Jr., both of Anderson; and Polly A. Stephenson, Marion.

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Dole hints at Bush-Noriega link as Gephardt becomes Demo target

George Bush rebuked Republican presidential rival Bob Dole for implying that Bush, as CIA chief, may have had dealings with Panamanian strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega. And Rep. Richard Gephardt was the target of stinging attacks by two Democratic opponents. With Southern exposure at a premium in the final five days of Super Tuesday campaigning, the candidates are saturating the airwaves with attacks and appeals, and barnstorming their way from Lubbock to Little Rock. TUESDAY’S 20-STATE round of primaries and caucuses is concentrated in the South. For both parties, more than half the delegates needed to clinch the nomination are at stake. Dole and Bush traded jabs as the two campaigned in Louisiana. The Kansas senator, in New Orleans, hinted at a Bush-Noriega connection. “There’s some evidence (Noriega) was on the CIA payroll as far back as 1966. That’s all I know,” he said. Bush headed the Central Intelligence Agency during 1976 and 1977. Dole offered no evidence that Bush was aware of Noriega’s alleged drug dealing, but suggested that a lack of knowledge would be almost as damning. “HE SAYS HE made all these decisions at the CIA,” Dole said. “What were they? Was Noriega on the payroll when he was CIA director?” The vice president fired back from Baton Rouge: “I find it amazing that a United States senator will talk about CIA matters.” “I took an oath of office to protect sources and methods of intelligence and I would never discuss anything I was doing at the CIA that would affect the national security,” Bush said, adding: “I would point out that it’s the Reagan-Bush administration under which Mr. Noriega is being indicted in Florida for drugs.”

Fair board firing Questionable purchases lead to secretary’s dismissal

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) An audit describing several questionable purchases triggered the firing of the secretary-manager of the Indiana State Fair, according to its directors. Sidney E. Hutchcraft was fired Wednesday three days after he was suspended without pay while fair officials looked into a report that a State Fair mechanic was performing work on Hutchcraft’s pickup truck. HUTCHCRAFT IS the second fair employee within a year to be fired for questionable financial practices. The action came in a widening investigation by state

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Noriega is under federal indictment in Miami on drug-trafficking charges. Dole, acknowledging he’s “got a lot of catching up to do” in the South, is running a commercial that ridicules Bush for using the French phrase “e’est la vie” that’s life in connection with textile imports that have hurt the economy in the Carolinas. THE AD TOUTS an endorsement from South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, pointedly noting that Thurmond’s Southern-accented praise of Dole is delivered in English. Dukakis weighed in with an ad attacking Gephardt, mocking the Missouri congressman’s populist slogan, “It’s your fight too.” After charging that Gephardt is taking campaign contributions from “big establishment power brokers,” the commercial concludes: “Kinda makes you wonder, is Dick Gephardt fighting your fight or theirs?” Gephardt also came under fire from Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr., who accused him of flip-flop-

police of the fair’s financial dealings. On the advice of his attorney, Hutchcraft, secretary-manager for three years, declined to comment. Just last month, his salary had been increased by SI,OOO to $60,000. The results of the internal audit will be given to state police investigators, said John E. Ward, president of the fair board. Ward said the audit turned up several questionable purchase orders authorized by Hutchcraft, but he declined to reveal details. Hutchcraft owns six horses he has stabled at the fairgrounds. Last month, as part of his salary increase, directors gave him free

ping on issues. “Where he stands can change very quickly from day to day,” said Gore as he campaigned in Wyoming, which holds presidential caucuses Saturday. Gore took issue with Gephardt ads attacking him, calling them “the mark of a failing campaign.” GEPHARDT TOOK a cam-paign-trail detour down memory lane, returning to his hometown of St. Louis. Speaking at City Hall, Gephardt, who got his political start on the board of alderman, pointed to his former desk and said: “It’s great to be back on home turf.” More to the point, he raised $25,000 at a Springfield campaign reception and told supporters he’d pour the money into his Super Tuesday effort. Democrat Paul Simon was staying above the campaign-commer-cial fray. Simon, citing a lack of funds, has bypassed active campaigning in the- South to concentrate on his home state of Illinois, which holds its primary March 15. Even there, he’s eschewing advertising. Jesse Jackson was kicking off his

space in the horse bams for his horses. He had been paying the same rent charged others. WARD ALSO announced that steps would be taken to improve the fair’s business operations. Hutchcraft was suspended without pay at an emergency meeting of the board’s executive committee Sunday. Directors had learned from state police a fair mechanic had performed work on Hutchcraft’s pickup truck, and that Hutchcraft had ordered a new engine block for the vehicle with a State Fair purchasing order. After being asked about the engine block purchase by a state police detective last Friday, Hutchcraft wrote a check payable to the fair to cover the part’s $612 cost. Hutchcraft said that was his intention and the invoice for the order arrived at the fair office after he was questioned by police. He and the mechanic also maintained that the work was performed on nonfair time. BEFORE WEDNESDAY’S board meeting, Ward said the internal audit also discovered Hutchcraft had been charging per-

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first big media buy of the campaign season. His manager, Gerald Austin, said Jackson had purchased SIOO,OOO in air lime in several Super Tuesday states. JACKSON PAID tribute to a generation of civil rights activists with an appearance in Selma, Ala. on Wednesday, at the spot where state troopers routed a voting rights march with billy clubs 23 years ago. Republican Pat Robertson, meanwhile, sought to score some political points by repeatedly invoking Jackson’s name. “I see some signs here of my friend Jesse Jackson,” the former television evangelist told a predominantly black crowd at the Orangeburg campus of South * Carolina Stale College. “What Jesse has been saying is what I’m saying to you.” Rep. Jack Kemp, whose GOP campaign has been faltering, was also in South Carolina, predicting a strong showing in the state’s Republican primary on Saturday. “We’re going to surprise a lot of folks,” he said.

sonal expenses to his fair-owned American Express credit card, but each month Hutchcraft had reimbursed the fair for those expenses. In moving for the firing, Director Howard M. Unger said, “It is with a great deal of reluctance and regret, but because of the integrity and reputation of the Indiana Stale Fair being of the utmost importance, I would move that we terminate Sid Hutchcraft as secretarymanager. “The reason for this motion is a lack of trust in his ability to continue to make good judgment in the best interest of the State Fair.” The vole was 15-1. Three of the 19 directors were absent. Ward announced the appointment of a committee of five directors whose purpose will be to review and tighten purchasing procedures. The committee also will develop an improved inventory control system, Ward said. Ward also has prohibited further use of fair-owned credit cards for personal purchases and work by employees even on their own time on non-fair vehicles at the fairgrounds.