Wednesday, September 14, 1988rrhe Battalion/Page 5
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WHAT'S GOIHG OH HERE?
WHAT ARE *>U G[>1S
DOItiG?
by Scott McCullar Lawmakers
re-examine
child abuse
ianer.-
sat 7^
dder.
/aldo
by Kevin Thomas
M0NSEN5E.' WE'RE ON
THE VERGE OF A
GREAT SCIENTIFIC
DISCOVERY!
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wipei!
6 pj. (
Jou, Ir
ms in l
Senate: mental health care
cheats patients, taxpayers
mrt AUSTIN (AP) — Something has
leberg tom: very wrong” in the Texas sys-
n inf: sm of caring for the mentally re-
rded, the head of a special Senate
^^Bmmittee said Tuesday, calling
' tes)stem near failure.
“In short, it almost looks like
. undone set out to design a system
m v ’|at short-changes both the mentally
K^Wecl and the taxpayers,” Sen.
arlo Truan, D-Corpus Christi,
.id at a meeting of the Senate
ealt i Services subcommittee.
a He state for decades has battled
pi pith inadequate funding, outdated
i Ij^Bnent. tom i orders, controversy
I^H^Hiostility over the best way to
ire lor the retarded, Truan said.
5 “Not one of those issues has gone
vay.” he said. “They have multi-
■§. From where I stand, I see a
stei i that is on the verge of fail-
udfr :e- ''
The subcommittee, which is
ud\ing the financing, of commu-
ty facilities for mentally retarded
1,1,, :ople, heard from Department of
ental Health and Mental Retarda-
jn officials about state funds given
help start up private community
)mcs and about contracts between
fotmer state employee and the
[hen ate ‘
The department, through the
Prospective Payment Program, has
provided $1.46 million in start-up
costs to community facilities since
1985, auditor William Montalvo
said. Montalvo, internal audit direc
tor for the MHMR department, said
just $96,845 has been repaid.
The program was designed to
comply with a federal lawsuit set
tlement that included moving re
tarded people from state institutions
to community homes. State funds
are provided through the program
to mental retardation authorities,
which contract for community serv
ices.
Start-up costs are one-time fund
ing needs associated with beginning
a program, such as facilities and
equipment.
Truan questioned whether it is
constitutional for the state to pro
vide such start-up funding to private
businesses, and he questioned con
tracts between the agency and for
mer employees. He cited the exam
ple of Donald Taft, former director
of outreach services for the Corpus
Christi State School.
The day after Taft resigned his
state job in 1985, he signed contracts
with the school to provide services,
Truan said. In 1986, Taft’s company
also signed a contract with Fort
Worth State School, Montalvo said.
In the contracts, Taft was ad
vanced a total of $347,827 in start
up funds without a payback provi
sion, Montalvo said.
Jane Rowley, a spokesperson for
Taft, said he had no immediate com
ment. She said Taft was out of his
Corpus Christi office working on
preparations for the possibility that
Hurricane Gilbert would affect
Texas.
MHMR officials said nothing ille
gal was found in the contract.
Department Commissioner Den
nis Jones also outlined planned ad
ministrative changes that could in
clude prohibiting contracts between
mental health or mental retardation
authorities and former employees
for a period of time.
ABILENE (AP) — A Texas law
maker who said he was only partly
joking when he suggested branding
convicted child abusers claimed that
Texas was not correctly handling
punishment for child abusers and
molesters.
“If there was any way to stick a
branding iron in the middle of their
head that said ‘child abuser,’ I’d go
for that,” Rep. Doyle Willis said at a
meeting of a delegation from the
House Select Committee on Child
Abuse and Pornography.
Willis of Fort Worth said Monday
that punishment for molesters
should be somewhere between what
the penalty is now and “doing what
the Arabs do and cut off their
hands.”
“In order to get to these people
who abuse children we’ve got to
change our method of punishment,”
Willis said. “It’s just not getting it
across.”
A delegation met at Abilene to
hear concerns of local citizens and
service agencies and take their sug
gestions for legislation to help com
bat child abuse and molestation.
Willis said he has just celebrated
his 80th birthday. Some of the 12
speakers made recommendations
that committee members indicated
may someday find their way into the
law.
Pamela Sites, a representative of
People Against Child Abuse of Abi
lene Inc., asked the committee to
consider a change in the law to disal
low unadjudicated probation for
convicted child abusers.
A probation term, when not adju
dicated, allows an offender’s crimi
nal record to be wiped clean if the
term of probation is successfully
completed.
A person convicted of child abuse
or molestation should be required to
retain the criminal record.
“I can assure you, the child they
abuse will carry the scars,” said Sites.
But Steve Chaney, a senior staff
attorney with the Tarrant County
Criminal District Attorney’s office
and a member of the committee,
said disallowing unadjudicated pro
bation would limit the discretion of
prosecutors.
A judge, if an offender on regular
probation violates the terms of that
probation, may impose a prison sen
tence of only up to 10 years, Chaney
said. When unadjudicated probation
is violated, however, the entire range
of punishment is available, including
life in prison, he said.
September storms
have lethal history
frequec
private (I
is ilia'
ii pro
fexas unemployment
jrops to 6.6 percent
11 j 1 : DALLAS (AP) — Texas employ-
m ' li lent improved in part during the
se '^ ast vear because jobless workers left
fins | ie Btate, while continued high un-
1 tnployment in the Rio Grande Val-
s ninii'‘M k , as influenced by Mexico’s eco-
Hie woes, analysts said Tuesday,
n WdUmhiie q ie joi)l ess ra te nationwide
1 eclined 0.6 percentage point over
mayofyiear, it dropped much more dra-
a®eally in Texas and several other
H Hs, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Sta-
veP sties said.
i a nu® Along with the Lone Star State,
ied nlf Iiftssippi, Wyoming and Idaho
bell si'Kunemployment rates decline by
ingle':lore t h an 2 full percentage points
Id SC! i the 12 months ending in July, the
idate ederal government said.
1 not if “T here has been movement in the
lireetion of recovery. But some peo-
ile, rather than wait around, just left
state,” said John Kruse, labor
market analyst for the Texas Em
ployment Commission in Austin.
The state’s unemployment rate in
July was 6.6 percent, compared with
8 percent the previous month and
8.7 percent in July 1987, the federal
government said.
“To some extent, we were just so
far down that we did not have any
where to go but up,” said Kruse, “al
though I suppose we could have had
an out-and-out depression. We were
close to the bottom, I guess, in terms
of where we could go, unless there
was a major depression.”
An economic slump continued in
the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission area
of South Texas, with 14.8 percent
unemployment, the federal labor
bureau said. That was preceded only
by Flint, Mich., with 14.9 percent.
The lowest unemployment was at
Burlington, Vt., at 1.8 percent.
Associated Press
No hurricane with a “G” name has
ever visited Texas but September
storms have a history of being
deadly.
Coastal residents are keeping a
wary eye on Hurricane Gilbert as it
blasts westward through the Carib
bean toward the Gulf of Mexico,
forcing cancellations of plane flights
and stranding tourists.
“We’re pulling out all our genera
tors, reviewing our plans and urging
everyone else to do the same,” Gal
veston City Manager Doug Mat
thews said Monday.
Packing winds of up to 130 mph,
the hurricane tore off rooftops, dis
rupted communications and poured
up to 10 inches of rain on Jamaica,
where reports said at least 30 people
died. The storm Tuesday was lash
ing the Cayman Islands.
“We have to go back to 1980 and
Hurricane Allen to see any hurri
cane that’s as large as this one,” di
rector Bob Sheets of the National
Hurricane Center in Miami, said.
Allen, called “the storm of the
century,” developed winds of 185
mph before storming the South
lonvicted killer’s plea for reprieve
lenied by State Court of Appeals
ie
nts
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The Texas Court of
Hinal Appeals on Tuesday refused to halt the exe-
tio^i later this week of a death row inmate convicted
killing a Galveston convenience store clerk in 1980.
Attorneys for Warren Eugene Bridge, who faces le
al injection before dawn Thursday, took their case to
Kederal courts to seek a reprieve.
Bridge, 28, was convicted of the Feb. 10, 1980, rob-
fylshooting of Walter Rose, 62.
Attorney Anthony Griffin contends in his appeal that
rors in Bridge’s capital murder trial were not allowed
'consider mitigating circumstances during the pun-
tment phase of Bridge’s trial.
In his appeal, Griffin is citing arguments used in an-
|er appeal filed on behalf of Texas death row inmate
'hriny Penry, whose case the U.S. Supreme Court has
Hd to hear.
■“Penry basically questions the Texas statute and the
Bute not allowing mitigating circumstances,” Griffin
id [Tuesday. “We’re saying the statute on its face has
foblems.”
(Tlte Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, however, said
ie issue in the Bridge case should have been raised af-
|the convict’s 1980 trial.
‘‘He shouldn’t be allowed to raise it at this late date,”
te appeals court said.
Griffin said his appeal would be filed before U.S. Dis
trict Judge Hugh Gibson in Galveston.
The Bridge case is making its second trip through
the federal courts, according to Griffin.
Earlier this week, State District Judge Roy Engelke of
Galveston refused to grant Bridge a reprieve.
Rose was shot four times with a .38-caliber pistol as
Bridge and his co-defendant, Robert Joseph Costa,
robbed the convenience store of $24. Rose died of his
wounds on Feb. 24, 1980, four days following the arrest
of Bridge and Costa.
Costa was convicted of aggravated robbery and sen
tenced to 13 years in prison. He was released under
mandatory supervision in October 1986 after serving
five years and eight months in prison.
Bridge has said he is sorry that Rose died, but com
plained in a recent interview that his life on death row is
worse.
“He didn’t know he was going to die when he went to
work that day,” Bridge said. “I sit here on death row for
7'/2 years and think about dying, and I believe Mr. Rose
got a better deal.”
If Bridge is executed, he would be the 28th Texas in
mate to die since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1976
that capital punishment was constitutional.
Although the Texas total is the highest in the nation
among states with capital punishment, he would be only
the second in the state this year.
Texas coast on Aug. 9, 1980. Two
people were killed in Corpus Christi.
The only two Gulf hurricanes this
year were September storms. Debby
drenched Mexico, killing at least 39
people and leaving thousands home
less. Florence later flooded parts of
Louisiana as it sloshed ashore.
The worst natural disaster in U.S.
history took place in September of
1900 when a hurricane pushed a
wall of water across Galveston Is
land. It killed 6,000 to 8,000 resi
dents and caused $30 million to $40
million damage.
One-quarter century earlier, most
of the town of Indianola, in the
coastal bend between Galveston and
Corpus Christi, was swept away by a
hurricane that claimed 176 lives.
In more recent times, Hurricane
Carla pounded the Port O’Connor
area in September of 1961, leaving
34 people dead and causing damage
estimated at $300 million. Wind
gusts were estimated at 175 mph. In
dianola is just 5 miles north of Port
O’Connor.
In 1967, Hurricane Beulah
claimed the lives of 13 South Texas
residents when it hit the Brownsville
area in September.
Here is a list of major September
hurricanes that have affected the
Texas Gulf Coast:
Sept. 3-12, 1971; Hurricane Fern;
Middle Coast; 2 dead, $30.2 million
damage.
Sept. 18-23, 1967; Hurricane
Beulah; Brownsville; extreme inten
sity; 13 dead, $150 million damage.
Sept. 16-20, 1963; Hurricane
Cindy; Port Arthur; no deaths;
$11.6 million damage; 24 inches of
rain in Jefferson, Orange and New
ton counties.
Sept. 11-13, 1961; Hurricane
Carla; Port O’Connor; extreme in
tensity; 34 dead. $300 million dam
age; wind gusts estimated at 175
mph, storm tide 18.5 feet at Port La
vaca.
Sept. 23, 1941; Texas City; 4
dead, $6.5 million damage.
Sept. 4-5, 1933; Brownsville; 40
dead, $16.9 million damage.
Sept. 14, 1919; south of Corpus
Christi; extreme intensity; 284 dead,
$20.3 million damage; winds 110
mph, storm tide 16 feet. Aug. 13-14.
1932; Velasco (Freeport); 40 dead:
$7.5 million damage.
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