Casa Grande Dispatch (Newspaper) - November 26, 1994, Casa Grande, Arizona and State USA Weekend Sports Final Countys Daily Newspaper GRAN 8888 43004434110 INC MICROPROCESSING UIV 2o27 E DJ EL PASO TX 79903 CH 83rd Year CASA GRANDE ARIZONA 85222 SATURDAY NOVEMBER 26 1994 NO 278 VOL 83 per copy ran Hatch Doors Scrutinized WASHINGTON AP Rear in Chrysler minivans have popped open in 51 accidents wth 74 passengers thrown out and 25 deaths reported the govern ment said Friday The new numbers were much higher than the 13 such accidents and eight fatalities involving 1964 94 Voyager Caravan and Town and Country minivans that the National Highway and Transpor tation Safety Administration re ported in March In response to the disclosure Friday Chrysler Corp spokes man Rick Deneau said the mini vans are the safest minivans in the world We have the utmost confidence in their safety and About 4 million of the minivans are on the road that it was investigating whether the al defect warrants a recall The Detroit News reported Friday that regulators are leaning to ward asking Chrysler to recall the minivans to replace the rear door latches and that NHTSA officials have Chrysler officials evi dence they believe justifies a recall NHTSA declined to comment Deneau said Chrysler was work ing with NHTSA arid theyve made no decision as far as I The government has no stan dard for the strength of rear latch es in minivans and secondary safety latches like those on side doors are not required on rear doors The insurance Institute for 1996petitioned NHTSA to extend its latch re for side doors to the rear doors of vans station wagons and sports utility vehicles In August 1994 NHTSA pro the latch require ments to reduce the likelihood of people being ejected from rear doors Each year there are up to 150 fatalities associated with rear door the government wrote It is important to note that 95 percent of the people killed were not using their safety Ralph Hoar Associates a Vir ginia consulting firm that re searches auto safety contends the latches on the rear door of the minivans fail in crashes be cause they are not strong enough The firm provided The Associated Press with an internal Chrysler memo that said a cursory analy sis showed rear latch strength on the vans was a mini mum of 750 pounds of pressure against the door Thats about half General Mo tors minimum require ment of pounds and far be low Fords minimum standard of pounds However Deneau said the 750 pounds in the memo was a minimum and that Chrysler minivans in tests on average with stood twice that amount of pres sure He said in some tests the latch held at pounds preliminary proposal to create a government standard for the rear latches suggests rear gate latch strength of at least pounds but is likely not to go into effect for at least two years according to government documents NHTSA also is reviewing re quiring a secondary catch latch for the rear hatch as is required on side doors GM Ford Nissan and Toyota all have such latches Inside Staff Photos by Oscar Peres Fatal Accident Investigated A Border Patrol drug sniffing dog was called in to search the area near a fatal accident at Final Avenue and Kortsen Road Friday According to early re ports a Chrysler New Yorker heading east on Kortsen Road was struck by a southbound Ford Bronco on Pinal Avenue at about The driver of the Chrysler a 74yearold man was killed An elderly woman in the car with him was taken to Casa Grande Regional Medical Center The two men in the Bronco were arrested after witnesses said one of the men ran to some nearby bushes and hid some thing Police later retrieved a baggie of grams of co caine believed to have been stashed there by one of the men Mexican National Mar cos 27 and Jose Pena 30 of Stanfield were booked into Pinal Coun ty Jail on three narcotics charges each MATO Buzze Safe Haven SARAJEVO na AP NATO warplanes buzzed the besieged safe haven of Bihac on Friday and only dark ness and failure to find their tar gets prevented airstrikes intended to silence Serb shelling of the area Paying no heed the Serb rebels were on the outskirts of the town of Bihac and demanded that sur rounded soldiers of the Muslim led government army surrender They also continued detaining more than 200 peacekeeping troops as insurance against air at tacks The peacekeepers were de or prevented from moving freely during the past three days Kofi Annan the for peacekeeping told re porters in New York that NATO warplanes were in the air for 60 minutes but broke off the mission because of darkness In Naples Italy NATO spokes man Capt Jim Mitchell said the planes also broke off because they couldnt find their targets He said forces on the ground had re quested close air support which means hitting guns that are firing and are an immediate threat Mitchell said the NATO aircraft observed missiles being launched but they were well outside of range and no air craft were hit Bosnian Serb television and Serb military officials insisted however that NATO jets attacked Serb positions and Serb tanks and artillery re fire Friday afternoon on Bihac one of six designated safe areas in Bosnia in Sarajevo and Zagreb said The city is apparently just about to said Peter Kessler a spokesman for the aid agency in Zagreb Street fight ing exploded on the edge of said spokesman Maj Herve Gourmelon in Sarajevo Gen Manojlo Milovanovic the Bosnian Serb chief of staff de manded that the surrender of the government armys 5th Corps in the Bihac pocket Bosnian Serb television reported You are completely Milovanovic said If you dont want to think about your lives you ought to think about the Ships Depart For WASHINGTON AP Three ships with Marines aboard departed Friday from a port in southern France bound for the Adriatic Sea to provide sup port for NATO forces in Bosnia Clinton administration officials said An Amphibious Ready Group composed of the USS Nassau and two other ships left four days ahead of a scheduled depar ture to serve only as a cy backup for NATO efforts to break Serbian rebels siege of Bihac The reason for sending the three ships is to have helicopter support more readily available in case for NATO pilot down over the Adriatic said one Pentagon official speaking on the of anonymity The deployment he sized is not a sign of stepped up involvement in war he said noting that the ships had long been scheduled to depart for the Adriatic next Tuesday i A t a tor me me next Minority Status Doesnt Shake Author of the powerful and s WASHINGTON AP He won reelection handily but John Din gell Jr is surely among the larg est casualties of the Republican takeover of Congress The burly congressman from Michigan is losing the committee chairman ship and accompanying staff he used to become one of the most powerful and feared lawmakers in the nations capital Theyve called him the Grand Inquisitor Congress Junkyard Dog or in deference to his 6foot 3 frame The Truck or just Big John For more than a dozen years Dingell who learned the art of political from the likes of Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson has been chairman of the powerful and House Energy and Commerce Committee But with Republicans winning a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years Dingell will be thrust into the minority losing most of his clout Its not going to be as much said Dingell 68 in an inter view a few days after returning from a hunting trip to Texas where he bagged a pair of wild turkeys and some quail My ego doesnt demand that I be Many on Capitol Hill find that hard to believe Dingell who succeeded his late father in 1955 as the congressman representing a largely working class area outside of Detroit has been called intimidating a bully vengeful domineering bullhead ed and just plain overpowering He also has been said to be thor honest a dogged pursuer of government waste and fraud and a master of politics and legis lative dealmaking And man of a committee that handles 40 percent of all the legislation be fore the House he has had few equals in terms of political power and influence Through Energy and Com merce flows legislation vital to a broad array of industries includ ing telecommunications energy banking securities health care and the environment With a staff of 140 counting a small GOP mi the panel has had its hands in crafting the laws that from the quality of the air we breathe to the price of a telephone call or cable TV service Atop this power base John Din gell has reigned supreme consoli dating his control within the com rewarding friends and punishing opponents and accord ing to critics taking every oppor to expand the panels reach Few pieces of legislation survived without imprint He was like an almighty king and the Energy and Commerce Committee was his says Don Ritter a former Republican lawmaker who was a member of the committee for 12 years before losing his House seat in 1992 Go NEW YORK AP If bargain hunting seems especially frenzied at the mall perhaps its because a third of Americans plan to spend less money on gifts this Christmas season compared with the last few years An Associated Press poll last weekend found only 14 percent in tending to spend more money on gifts and 50 percent planning to spend about the same as the last few years Three percent dont know or dont buy gifts The 33 percent in the poll who plan to spend less money on gifts this holiday season is virtually un changed from November 1992 when President Bush failed to convince voters that the economy was rebounding The spendless figure was 40 percent in Novem ber 1991 at the beginning of a tightfisted holiday season Retailers who count on the holi days for a large share of their yearly profits will find some cheer in the polls finding that 55 percent expect to have more mon ey next year than this year Personal financial expectations have risen slightly over the past two years especially among the young and employed Fully 74 per cent of those under age 35 expect to have more money as do 67 per cent of those working fullor part time But among Americans age 65 and older the percentage who ex to have less money next year doubled to 38 percent from IS per cent in 1992 Among all adults in the poll 25 percent think theyll have less money and 18 percent predict about the same The poll of adults was tak en Nov 1822 by ICR Survey Re search Group of Media part of AUS Consultants Results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points About half those polled think their community will have more jobs next year 48 percent up from 41 percent a year ago and better than the 40 percent who currently expect fewer jobs The recent rise in interest rates a move by the Federal Reserve Board to guard against inflation makes only ia percent feel more hopeful about the economy A ma of and come adults feel Jess hopeful as a result of the rise And a lawmaker who crossed Dingell was taking his chances James Scheuer a former New York congressman who was chairman of a consumer protec tion subcommittee learned that for a requirement in 1979 and again in 1980 for air bags in new automobiles Like the automakers Dingell strongly op posed the The next year Din gell had Scheuers subcommittee disbanded arguing it was not needed A man not easily defined Din gell who is of Polish ancestry loves the ballet and classical mu sic but also is an avid hunter and strong opponent of gun control He has pushed major environmental legislation such as the Endan Minority Status page 3A Photo by Francisco Water Line Breaks LEW S FEDERICO an Arizona Water Company employee clears off some broken pavement at Fourth Street and Cameron Avenue Wednesday afternoon The damage was caused when a 4 inch main broke laid open by this weekend
