Lima News, The (Newspaper) - January 31, 2007, Lima, Ohio High 22 Low 15 PageAT Lima dentist faces 40 complaints The fight for Bath territory Quarterback quandary SPORTS Dl L WEDNESDAY T me Lima 50 CENTS DAILY SUNDAY Jan 312007 87500 Sunday readers Pace of hurricane relief slow Contractor takes the heat OUNCE The Associated Press BATON ROUGE La Nearly eight months after it was hired by the state a consulting company in charge of dispensing billions in federal aid to people whose homes were damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has received 103000 applications but handed out fewer than 400 grants And now the company is getting much of the blame for the overall slow recovery of New Orleans and the rest of the Louisiana Gulf Coast Frustrated homeowners are bitterly Inter national Inc and state lawmakers are A consulting company in charge of dispensing billions in federal aid to people whose homes were damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has received 103000 applications but handed out fewer than 400 grants demanding Gov Kathleen Blanco fire the company But ICF is defending its aid program is a task of unprecedented proportions ICF was awarded a contract valued at up to million in June to run the Road Home program a funded program to compensate property own ers whose houses were damaged or destroyed by the 2005 hurricanes For ICF the contract amounts to a poten tial 10 percent commission ICF should be ashamed of them selves They should never have even attempted to take on a project like this They were obviously not equipped to do it said New Orleans homeowner Mark Samuels who lives with his three children upstairs while he rebuilds his gutted home He is haggling with Road Home over how much aid he should receive 17 months after Katrina breached a and swamped the house with See KATRINA A7 is winter weather warrior CRAIG J The lima News An Allen County snowplow travels south Tuesday plowing snowdrifts blowing across farm fields on Road in American Township Drifting snow on roads Tuesday caused problems in the area See Page Bl for story Plan to cut smog collides with Bush goal to cut gas use The Associated Press scientists want to tighten smog standards a step that would allow tens of millions of Americans to breathe easier The plan also would run headon into President Bushs hopes of wean ing Americans from gasoline by using more ethanol Environmental Pro Agency scien on Wednesday will say that tougher stan dards would provide greater health protec tion for sensitive groups including asthmatic children and other peo ple with lung disease healthy children and older adults espe those active out doors and outdoor workers Nearly 160 million people now breathe illegal levels of ozone in and around major cities in California and the East The overall body of evidence on ozone health effects clearly calls into question the adequacy of AT A GLANCE Ethanol a focus of Bushs gasoline reduction plan helps cut carbon monoxide in winter but can raise smog levels air pollution experts say Ethanol leases more nitro gen oxides a key element of smog and evaporates more easily than gasoline adding other air pollutants See A7 5 on We cannot have energy independence and military dominance at the same time Anas F economics professor ONU professor lectures on energy independence By R SIMMONS was just about a week ago when the president during his State of the Union address dis cussed the dependency on foreign oil Students at Ohio Northern Uni versity learned more about energy independence in a lecture from eco nomics professor Anas F at the school Tuesday While the dent hopes to de crease the fuel dependency by 20 percent said its not the citi zens who are depen dent on the fuel Weve never heard about the dependency on it said But theyre talking about your car In a presentation Al showed a military aircraft that he said uses 30 gallons of fuel per minute We cannot have energy inde and military dominance at the same time said Sophomore ONU student Kurtis Brown agreed with Its a major issue being that we are involved in Iraq and our mili tary does consume so much fuel Brown said In order for us to See INDEPENDENCE A7 Firefighter money budgeted But department still cant hire By HEATHER ROTZ 4199562094 TTMA An assistant fire chief accused the city administration of playing a shell game with the bud get Tuesday and left a meeting not knowing if the department is al lowed to hire four firefighters At City Councils Finance Com I When of Mainers rent the OW Town Center in OkJ c Town Maine all they djf need are the shoes for the buff ow bowling event rested and accused of rob bing a Utah County Utah bank just weeks after getting married Kylee and Joshua Rich of Lehi are due in federal court today request Assistant Fire Chief Mark Refiner provided de tailed numbers on how replacing three men who retired and one on military leave would affect the departments budget Heffner also criticized how the administration has laid out its 2007 budget numbers I always assumed budgets were tools to help administrators operate Champion Chicago Bears hit a morning when a huge football helmet broke as it was being placed on a lion outside the Art Institute of Chicago their departments I dont under stand this budget Heffner said Youve put money in were not al lowed to use Its a tool of deception hiding in open sight money we have It looks like we should be able to use that for operations but we cant II makes me suspicious The positions are funded in the 2007 budget but the administration has also declared a hiring freeze and set amounts for each department to See A7 man was charged with drunken driving after officials say he drove his ve hicle onto the Missis sippi River near Sabula Iowa County studies second drug plan By BART SOILS 4199932184 LIMA Less than a week after introducing a potential countywide prescription drug plan Allen County com missioners are ready to intro duce some com petition C o mm i s Dan Reiff will meet later this week with a group of local Reiff medical profes interested in developing that would allow peo ple to obtain drugs directly from pharmaceutical companies po saving money in the process The program would be similar to one commissioners introduced last week called Pre scription Hope managed by a business Reiff said the local business contacted him last week after reading about Prescription Hope See PRESCRIPTION A7 Sheldon who won awards in three the ater movies and at 50 turned to writing bestselling novels has died of complications from pneumonia He was 89 J BUSINESS CLASSIFIED COMICS B5 COMMENTARY At LIFESTYLE C13 OBITUARIES 82 PEOPLE A2 81 4 SPORTS B6 FREEDOM COMMUNICATIONS INC 2007 Published at Uma Ohio 28 pages 4 sections
