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23 )‘_ '
& 3
NEW ORLEANS JAZZ &
CITY FINANCES
Cash woes
spark talk
&
of tax hike
M City Finance Subcommitte
ponders whether raising
taxes would prevent future
cash flow problems that
have caused a rash of city
bank overdrafts.
By Rhonda Y. Maree
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
AUGUSTA
Inthe midst of what some see as a potential
financial catastrophe, Augusta faces a possi
bletaxincrease,an «
option that some w_e need !'O
membersof Augus- Uit bragging
ta City Council said about not
they will not elimi- .
nrfie. ‘o having a tax
committes of INCrease when
Council's Finance we’re in the
Committee that ”
met Wednesday hole.
called for a depart- —=Rev. J.R. Hatney
ment-specific audit
to get to the bottom of the city’s financial
woes, which include a $1.89 million over
drawn checking account at the end of Janu-
My
Councilman Gerald Woods, who heads the
subcommittee, said all options to boost the
city’s budget should be considered.
Councilman J.R. Hatney agreed, despite
Mayor Charles DeVaney’s pride in not hav
ing raised taxes.
“Weneed to quit bragging about not having
a tax increase when we're in the hole,” the
Rev. Hatney said.
This meeting came just days after Council
man Lee Beard moved to have a Grand Jury
investigation of Council finances. The mo
tion failed.
“Based on what Council said in an earlier
meeting, I thought my motion would have
passed,” Mr. Beard said. “I think a Grand
Jury investigation would eradicate whatev-
See TAX HIKE, page 3
INSIDE
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March 9 - 15, 1995 VOL. XIV NO. 690
Metro Augusta's Finest Weekly Newspaper
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bringing “F N
the WRITE Il
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jinner-City Jig ‘ £ fl
By Rhonda Jones
“How many of you don’t like to write?” asked
Margaret Carden of the fifth-grade class she is
helping to teach. Several hands shot up. ..
Ms. Carden is an Augusta College history
major and an intern in AC’s new Writers in
the Classroom program. For two hours once a
week, Jacqueline Fason of Joseph R. Lamar,
an “adopted” school of AC’s, turns her class
over to Ms. Carden so that she can share with
the kids her love of writing.
Now, according to Ms. Fason, the kids have
a completely different attitude toward writ
ing. “They love it,” she said. “They will remind
me it’s the day for her to come.”
Ms. Fason said that she has also benefited
from her exposure to Ms. Carden’s methods of
teaching writing. One thing Ms. Carden does
is have the students write different drafts of
their work on different colors of paper, to
emphasize the “process approach” to writing.
The process approach takes students
through every step of the writing experience,
first having them generate ideas through a
technique called “mapping.” In mapping out
his ideas, a student will write the main topic
in the middle of the page and physically sur
MEDIA & THE LAW
Youth worker’s ’93 suit against
USA TODAY headed for the judge
By Walter Cole
Special to AUGUSTA FOCUS
“I did not sleep for 7 1/2
weeks,” recounts CaShears, a
community activist in South
Central Los Angeles. “There
was a contract placed on my
life. I swear I knew that I was
dead,” he says after an attempt
to help gangbangers end their
lethal ways was destroyed by
an article and photo printed in
the USA Today. Now, with the
support of African-Americans,
helooks toward the justice sys
tem to rectify the damage done
to his name and reputation in
his community.
CaShears, a former Phila
delphia Phillie and entertain
er, who has performed with
such talents as Tina Turner
and Joan Rivers, left his ex
traordinary career in the late
1980 s and relocated to the vio
lence-plagued and economical
ly depressed Watts area of Los
Angeles. There, he hoped to
bring back the dream that he
believes the late Dr. Martin
Your local new.sfiaper sponsored by your local grocer.
Margaret Carden at work with LaMar students.
round the main idea with subtopics, surround
ing those with whatever details pop into his
mind. Students express relationships between
ideas with lines and arrows.
After the students map out their ideas, Ms.
Carden said, they work through two drafts and
a final proofreading. This method works with
every type of writing, but Ms. Carden said she
mainly has the students create essays. Though
the other two interns, Jay Chambley and Ben
McCorkle, use similar teaching techniques,
they’ve put them to work in different ways.
Both Mr. Chambley and Mr. McCorkle as
signed projects that deal with black history. Mr.
McCorkle had his group, Levetta Lampkin’s
class, write first-person narratives from the
point of view of a favorite historical figure.
He also assigned them what he calls an “exer
cisein audience,” having them pretend he was a
student their age, who had invited them to a
party. They were to write two thank-you letters:
one to him, in which they could use the everyday
sangs put L.A. on edge
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The above photo ran with a
story about impending gang
violence in L.A. In actuaiity,
the above youths were
engaged in a program to
turn their weapons in. The
worker who arranged the
photo session is suing USA
TODAY.
Luther King Jr. took with him.
Inaspanof6 1/2 years he gained
the trust and friendship of area
gangs.:
See WRITERS, page 7
“I have organized six two-day
truces, raised money tobury eight
young Blacks killed by acts of
violence, passed out anti-drug
information, and worked with
Hispanics and Asians to ease ra
cial tensions,” he says of his life’s
work. “There are only two men
whom I have loved — Dr. King
and Nelson Mandela. Mandela is
loved by his people because they
' can see him working for them.”
Thisis alsothe basis of CaShears’
philosophy — tangible results.
In 1993, he met several young
gang members at an area super
market who wanted out of the
senseless cycle of violence. Prom
ising to help them “take the first
step” if they would surrender
their guns, CaShears became the
first to implement such a gun
swap program. Similar programs
have been duplicated through
out the nation.
Through his contacts,
CaShears was able to get pledges
from entertainment entrepre
neur Leon Haywood and others
to employ the young men in legit-
See GUNS, page 5
MR. 808 HENNEBERGER
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PEOPLE
Ex-Va. governor:
k J
| was assaulted
M Doug Wilder lodges complaint
against Virginia security guard for
rough treatment in airport.
(AP) Former Gov. L. Dou
glas Wilder says he was
grabbed around the neck by
an airport security guard
Tuesday when he was re
turning from a speech in
North Carolina. The airport
confirmed his charge and
said the guard was fired.
Wilder said on his radio
talk show that he was at a
security station at the Ra
leigh-Durham Internation
al Airport, preparing toboard
a flight back to Richmond,
whenthe guard grabbed him.
Wilder, the nation’s first
black elected governor, said
the guard “charged me and choked me with both hands
around my neck and said, ‘I don’t like you. Don’t try to get
my name.” Whereupon his co-workers grabbed him and
sent him off someplace.”
Glenn Davidson, an aide to Wilder, said the former
governor was not injured. Wilder had visited North Caro
lina for a speech Monday night at Duke University.
Airport spokesman Rick Martinez said the incident
began when Wilder set off a metal detector while heading
for his plane. He said Wilder attributed the metal alarm
to a buckle, got a routine check by a hand metal detector
and went on to his gate. But then he returned to complain
about how he had been treated.
The former governor reached for the employee’s badge
to find out his identification and the guard “put his hands
around his (Wilder’s) neck,” Martinez said.
Martinez said he did not know what happened earlier
at the metal detector or why Wilder was dissatisfied with
his treatment then.
Wilder reported the incident to airline authorities. The
guard’s employer, Globe Security, declined to comment.
“The airport has made it perfectly clear to everybody, but
in particular, the security people, that type of treatment,
any type of rude treatment of a passenger, isn’t going to
be tolerated,” Martinez said.
15-year-old charged
with killing parents
B Police say the
youth wanted to
emulate the movie,
“Natural Born
Killers.”
NEWNAN, Ga.
(AP) A 15-year-old who
wrote his friends that he’'d
like to live the story of “Nat
ural Born Killers” was
charged withkilling his par
ents as they sat watching
television.
Coweta County District
Attorney Pete Skandalakis
said Monday that investiga
tors found a series of letters
between Jason Lewis and
three other juveniles about
the movie, in which a couple
kills 52 people in three
weeks.
“Forsomereason, he want
ed toemulate ‘Natural Born
Killers,” Skandalakis said.
Lewis was charged with
malice murder in the Sun
day night deaths of James
Donald Lewis, 38, and his
wife, Lillian Ann, 35, said
Sheriff Mike Yeager. He said
the youth was later taken to
the youth detention center
in Griffin. He will be tried as
an adult.
Authorities said the two
were killed with several
blasts from a 12-gauge shot
gun as they watched televi
sion in their single-wide
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WILDER: “(The guard)
charged me and
choked me with both
hands.”
mobile home.
Their son is a freshman
at suburban East Coweta
High School, 40 miles
southwest of Atlanta. Prin
cipal Eddie Lovett said
Lewis had been in no trou
ble there. But a neighbor,
Regina Warren, said Lewis
suddenly changed about a
yearago, bleaching his hair
blond and letting it grow
long and disheveled.
“He didn’t care what he
looked like and he always
stayed in the house,” said
Mrs. Warren. “He didn’t
allow anyone to get close to
him and stayed to himself.”
Mrs. Warren’s son, also
a freshman, spent time
with Lewis until about a
year ago, she said.
“I'don’t know what made
him snap,” Mrs. Warren
said as she gazed across
the muddy, red clay road
at thecrime scene 50 yards
from her front porch. The
Lewis home’s yard was lit
tered with trash and sev
eral abandoned vehicles on
Monday. A mixed-breed
shepherd, the family pet,
lay howling near the front
door.
Lewis has an older sis
ter, but she did not live
with her parents. “Our in
vestigation shows that this
wasnotjustasudden, spur-
See ‘NATURAL', page 20