Wichita Falls Times from Wichita Falls, Texas (2024)

July 6, 1984

Publication:

Wichita Falls Timesi

Location:

Wichita Falls, Texas

Issue Date:

Friday, July 6, 1984

Page:

2

Extracted Article Text (OCR)

Pog 2A WtehMa Pall Tax at Friday ivenlnf July lfM Mondale continues search for running mate NORTH OAKS Minn (AP) -Walter Mondale 'a parade of vice presidential prospects lenfthened today even as New York Gov Mario Cuomo publicly advised the apparent Democratic presidential nominee to bring the procession to a halt and pick his running mate Meanwhile presidential rival Gary Hart ridiculed the process as something resembling a melodramatic movie Undeterred Mondale met today with Kentucky Gov Martha Layne Collins the seventh person and the third woman that Mondale has interviewed at his Minnesota home The others include two black men a Hispanic man and one white man Mrs Collins' visit followed the pattern set by the previous six potential running mates Mondale has interviewed Mondale walked down the driveway of his home and then escorted Mrs Collins and her husband Bill back to the house for an approximately two-hour meeting pausing briefly for photographs Mondale aides said no other interviews are scheduled But Mondale has left the door open to name someone such as Hart who has hot come to Minnesota for an interview Cuomo said Thursday that the well-publicised search for a vice presidential candidate and the resulting pressures from various interest groups is distracting the Democratic Party at a time when it should be uniting for the fall campaign against President Reagan Meanwhile Hart said in an interview in editions of The Denver Post that meetings reminded him of a movie with "one of everything in a lifeboat Including a kid who played the "The tradition has been to do this more behind closed doors" the Colorado senator aald Hart stressed he does not seek the vice presidential nomination but said it would be difficult" to say no if it were offered Cuomo delivered his opinion in person in a meeting with Mondale in Boston "My instinct and judgement Is that it would be best to make an early commitment to a vice presidential selection before the convention" Cuomo said as Mondale looked on after the two Firm specializes in finding back fax AP Photo UNHAPPY ENDING The Sloop Lohwfng lies on the rocks off Pt Judith RI six miles from the finish line In the singlehanded transatlantic race to Newport Solo sailor Rachael Hayward of England was unharmed when the sloop came to grief In heavy seas last night She hoped to refloat the craft and finish the race today emerged from a more than one-hour closed meeting at Logan Airport Mondale had flown east for the day to attend a fund-raiser which brought his campaign $228000 aides deflect criticism of the vice presidential selection process saying the exercise reflects desire to expand the party In addition Mondale simply is commlted to the process of interviews Reform law confusing for districts From page one mal or no fiscal on districts she said She also said the superintendents misinterpreted the bill and said "districts need to remain The Iowa Park Independent School District will receive $168597 without being required to raise property taxes she said Superintendent Harold Cowley said he is relieved on he said "The way I understand it now is (property taxes will have to be raised) to get the maximum entitled equalization for whatever that elusive figure Holliday Independent School District is slated to receive $170000 without raising property taxes but Superintendent Dan Owen is still not sure if his district can afford the reform measures without raising taxes "They tell me I have to raise (property taxes) 8 cents to receive maximum Owen said Iowa Park and Holliday are being penalized for having low tax rates as compared to other Texas school districts the spokeswoman said "We assume the majority or 70 percent of the funds will be used for teacher she said She also said office "would look dimly those who use reforms as excuses to raise taxes "Someone needs to hold a meeting and explain some of these things" Don Shearmire Archer City Independent School District superintendent said Archer City is slated to receive an extra $48000 under the new plan but said "my is that recent reforms may have to come out of higher property taxes certainly a whole new way of doing he said The Texas Education Agency will host workshops on the legislation the Farabee spokesperson said But no dates have been set for the seminars Photojoumalist Jane Slater keeps her eye trained on the city Snake infestation driving family to bum down home PCB cleanup reveals dioxin said he wants to ensure local governments are doing all they can to collect taxes particularly since he is called upon to pass laws increasing taxes already cm the books The study Gibson wants will begin in the fall If the amount of delinquent taxes owed local governments is debatable the adequacy of the effort made by local governments to collect back taxes is not officials said Fewer and fewer local governments collect their own back taxes Most instead depend on firms such as Perdue Brandon and Blair Wichita County is an exception Miles Graham tax collector said He said though he will ask county commissioners this year to hire an outside firm to collect back taxes For their services members of the firm receive 15 percent of each dollar collected The amount is paid in addition to the delinquent tax total thanks to a a law passed four years ago requiring deliquent taxpayers to pay for the collection of their own debts That is one advantage of hiring a firm to collect the back taxes Procknow said But another advantage is that use of the firm cuts down on overhead and work for the local tax office we got them to work we deleted two staff members" she said "That's a 25 percent decrease in personnel" And yet another advantage is that the firm works full-time to make the collections Howard Perdue another partner in the firm said the use of a sophisticated computer program allows the lawyers to send two warning letters to delinquent tAvnavpn After that the firm files suit "We never settle for 50 cents on the Blair said In fact the firm sometimes circumvents the formality of a lawsuit and obtains a tax warrant which allows the firm to confiscate property in lieu of taxes Perdue said that tactic works well in Wichita Falls especially on taxpayers who owe a large sum "Our success rate is good because they realise we are Perdue said He said about 90 percent of delinquent taxpayers contacted by the firm usually pay what they owe Blair said the firm has of lawsuits pending before courts across Texas right now From poge one taxes owed local governments would amount to "multimillions" His firm has contracted to collect $60 million in back taxes for the Houston Independent School District alone Dolores Cook of the Texas Property Tax Board said her agency will not begin accumulating figures until the fall The Texas Comptroller's Office keeps no figures either said John Moore The only solid number available is an estimate widely quoted by officials in Austin The estimate made by Dick Brown of the Texas Municipal League places the total at about $350 million Brown said he bases his estimate on projections of data from the office No state or federal agency has any information on what percentage of total tax rolls compiled by local governments are not collected each year "There is just no way of knowing" Brown said "But it's definitely above 85 "The collection rate depends on the unit of Ms Cook said Houston's collection rate is less than 90 percent for example In Wichita Falls the collection rate is consistently 95 percent or better Cynthia Procknow tax collector for the joint city-school -district tax office said But that means anywhere from 10 percent to 4 percent of each year's tax rolls goes uncollected And the amount of money that represents can be large as much as $45-160 million for governments in Houston Back taxes total about $15 million each for the school district and city rolls Procknow said The lack of concrete information on who owes how much in delinquent taxes to local governments became a key concern for some legislators during the special session which ended this week in Austin Rep Bruce Gibson pushed for a resolution asking the state property tax board to launch a study of delinquent taxes owed local governments Gibson said he wants to know how much is owed because legislators are asked almost every session to provide new funds for local government projects "The cities say they need a new revenue source but we need to know how much they collect and are they adequate-in collecting their he said Gibson car that week but after the fourth snake was killed the family began looking for other places to live Now she said she believes the only way to rid the house of the slithering creatures is to burn it down Although there are ways of flushing the snakes out of the house Ms Freeman said there is no guarantee the snakes come back "There's no way I would let my mother back in that house she said The wooden) house was built in 1922 and Ms Freeman's family has lived init for 38 years Two ponds are close to the house and that may be where the snakes are coming from Dr Harry Klauser a Tupelo veterinarian said the snakes may have gone to the house to find a dark cool place to live and hatch babies He said he has never heard of a house in the area being infested by snakes Ms Freeman said she has no insurance to cover the house which has been previously valued at $40000 along with 229 acres of land She said she intends to sell 19 acres and use the money to cap the rest with concrete so she can move in a trailer for her mother and herself PONTOTOC Miss (AP) -Burning furniture and sleeping in the car do the trick so a family whose house is infested with snakes plans to move out and torch the place Janice Freeman saw the first snake on June 17 a Sunday afternoon as she and her 80-year-old mother were sitting in the living room of the five-room house located 10 miles south of Pontotoc The black snake with a yellow belly was crawling toward her rediner but by the time Ms Freeman got a shovel to kill it it had disappeared A day or two later Ms son-in-law Randy Clair found a baby ground rattler behind the kitchen door and killed it Later that day a large ground rattler was found dead in a closet It had been killed when someone dosed' a closet door on it without knowing it was there The next day another baby rattlesnake was found in a love seat and was killed And around midnight that night Clair shot a fourth snake off the eave of the house He said that one had poison bags in its mouth Ms Freeman her mother daughter and son-in-law already had stayed a few nights in their SWISSVALE Pa (AP) -Workers were cleaning up PCBs from a scrap yard and nearby houses when they found a more serious problem contamination by the hazardous chemical dioxin federal officials say "The situation is worse now than it was Harold Yates spokesman for the US Environmental' Protection Agency told about 50 Swissvale residents during a hastily called public meeting Thursday night "Everything stops for the dioxin study because it is regarded as more toxic than PCBs (polychlorinated said EPA coordinator Jack Downie "There will be no PCBs cleanup until the dioxin situation is out of the EPA agents were preparing to remove PCBs from the grounds of the scrap yard and from soil around three neighboring homes when they discovered the dioxin in concentrations reaching 2V4 times the federal limit The testing was done as part of the PCB cleanup and the results were announced Thursday Tass charges diplomats in NEW BELTONE ODE CUSTOM MADE CANAL AID The new custom-made ZHUmtODE -i i comfortable JJJ A XX "conspicuous end fits entirely within your ear! Xfeuone HEARING AID CENTER We help people hear bitter 322-3541 2215 Kemp Herb Schlier Certified Hearing Aid Audkkgist strike comes to end with the impermissible actions of its On Wednesday a US Embassy spokesman said Jon Purnell and George Glass had been detained for two hours after meeting with a Soviet citizen on a Moscow street He denied Soviet allegations that the two men engaged in activities "inconsistent with their diplomat In Washington the State Department said the United States had protested what it called "an unjustified MOSCOW (AP) The official news agency Tass charged today that two US diplomats detained by Soviet officials were caught during a "clandestine with a Soviet woman who was collecting intelligence The Tass report said the Soviet identified as LB Tumanova was to responsibility in accordance with Soviet indicating she had been arrested The news agency report said the Soviet Union had made "appropriate to the US Embassy connection MINI JUMBO ACCOUNT 926000 RATI 90 DAYS 1178 MONEY MANAGEMENT DEPOSIT ACCOUNT $2500 Minimum Balanca 31 DAYS not released Picketing will continue until the contract is approved "I think the vote will be about 6000 to 1 for said Wiesner who was elated always be one person who won't understand and will vote against Negotiators for the hospitals also were "very very pleased" with both the contract and the back-to-work agreement said Mike Phillips of Health Employers Inc which negotiated for the hospitals "We feel that it was basically a fair settlement for both The session with federal mediator Edward Larson began at 1 pm Thursday and continued until the mid-morning settlement was reached Larson said he kept the two sides at the bargaining table all night because "When the fish are biting you keep 1140 MINNEAPOLIS (AP) Negotiators for 6300 nurses on strike at 16 hospitals reached agreement today on a back-to-work schedule following a 19-hour bargaining session "Our going to be able to unanimously recommend the contract said Bob Wiesner labor relations representative for the Minnesota Nurses Association A ratification vote to end the largest strike by registered nurses will be taken Monday: he said and nurses who walked out early last month could begin returning to work in Minneapolls-St Paul hospitals as early 'as Monday night or Tuesday The callback procedure was the final issue blocking a ratification vote on the tentative contract agreement reached Sunday Details of the agreement were Customer service Times Record News Circulation Department 767-8346 If you miss your paper call mornings before 10 am evenings before 8 pm Saturday Sunday or holidays before 10 am No papers will be delivered after the above hours Weekdays for Information call between 8 ary and 8 pmH waakende between 8 am and 10 am JUMBO ACCOUNTS 9100000 3QA9 DAY8 12J6 60-179 PAYS 1260 160-366 PAYS 1276 CERTIFICATES OF DEPOSIT $1000 Minimum Balanca HAM SAT! 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