Waterloo Courier (Newspaper) - June 19, 1978, Waterloo, Iowa Monday June Waterloo Iowa 26 sections 20 cents Oil prices frozen for six months Up up and away The Northeast Iowa Invitational Balloon Rally finally got off the ground Sunday rooming southeast of New Hartford as about 10 hot air balloons ventured into the wild blue yonder The Golden Griffin a navy blue balloon flown by William Griffin of Carlisle prepares to Courier photo by Gary Fandel GENEVA Switzerland AP The OPEC oil cartel agreed Monday to freeze world petroleum prices for the next six months but to raise them again next Jan 1 The size of the 1979 increase will be determined at a meeting of the member Organization of Petroleum Ex- porting Countries next Dec 16 based on a report by a newly established special committee it was announced by OPEC Secretary-General AH He said the committee headed by Kuwait's oil minister Ali Khalifa Sabah would examine further how members could protect themselves from the erosion of their purchasing power due to the decline of the dollar Until the December meeting in Abu Dhabi said the cartel has agreed to maintain the current crude oil base price of per barel The decision was a victory for Saudi Arabia and Iran two biggest producers and the two closest friends of the United States in the organization BUT THE decision to maintain the base price at the level set a year ago came as no surprise Libyan Oil Miniter Izz whose government is one of the pries hawks told reporters at the start of the meeting Saturday he did not expect any change before the end of the year Although he expressed some personal dissatisfaction today noted that the decision was unanimous Iraq Algeria and others urged an in- crease in the oil price because of inflation and the decline in value of the U.S dollar the currency used in the international oil trade A study prepared by the OPEC secretariat said these two factors had cut the real price of a barrel of oil to But Saudi Arabia and its supporters argued that an increase would not stick because of the current world oil surplus ascend at right In the middle is the Indian Summer flown by Steve Garvin of Muscatine An unnamed baloon still on the ground is owned by William Gilson of Des Moines Some balloons traveled 20 miles after lifting off and other pictures page 12 Combining 5 agencies proposed by Carter Waterloo police chief retires WASHINGTON AP President Carter Monday proposed combining the government's five emergency tion and disaster relief agencies into a single office in his latest effort io streamline the federal bureaucracy By JIM WIGDAHL Courier SUM Writer Robert Beener Waterloo's police chief for the past eight years announced day is resigning effective the end of this month 1 decided it was just time to gel out said Beener who reached the police department's retirement age June 10 when he turned 55 Beener said his future is still uncertain but added he is considering some other job possibilities BEENER turned in his letter of re- signation Monday morning to Mayor Leo Rooff Although he is giving the mayor the customary two weeks notice there is little likelihood that a successor will be named by the time he leaves Under a state law that went into effect a couple years ago the city must advertise nationally for candidates for the post That raises the possibility that a replacement might not come up from within the ranks of the department such as in case when he was pointed to succeed Robert Wright on his retirement in 1970 BEENER at that time was a com- mander of field operations Understandably Beener bristles at the thought of bringing in an outsider to take his place I don't think it is necessary to reach said Beener We have the talent here to do a fine job Because of the necessity to advertise nationally Beener predicted it will take at least two or three months to name his successor I expect we will get a flood of Beener said Just look at what happened when Waverly advertised for a chief a while back They got 90 applications The Iron Duke Imagine what we'll get Beener said BEENER said until a permanent replacement is named an acting chief will have to be appointed by the mayor The most likely candidates for that job are the two assistant chiefs Gil Hansen and Larry Dolan Hansen has been an assistant chief since 1971 when he was recommended for the post by Beener Dolan was promoted to the position just last week to replace Roland Drewelow who retired in February because of ill health retirement will end a year career that gained him a reputation of being a courageous aggressive cop who could keep a head under pre- He joined the department in 1946 after serving three years in the Army two of them in the Pacific Theater during World War II Beener spent the first month on the department working undercover with another rookie Joe Power investigating bootlegging activities in the city We didn't come up with much ad- Beener But after he got a uniform it didn't take long before he came up with his first big catch In May 1947 he and another rookie Maurice Casey captured a man in the act of looting a car and later recovered stolen merchandise valued at more than big money in those days A year later Beener was credited with saving the life of another young officer Allen Franck who had been choked into a coma by an escaping prisoner in an alley near the old fire station on East Fifth Street HIS HEROICS didn't go unnoticed and in January 1954 he was elevated to detective He was promoted to captain in 1958 and then to chief of detectives in 1964 Three years later on a sweltering mid- summer day Beener faced perhaps the biggest challenge of his career Some observers say it was on that day he established himself as a sure-fire candidate for chief A man had taken his estranged wife hostage in a John Deere Waterloo Tractor Works parking lot For two hours Beener kept up a verbal exchange with the man trying to persuade him to put down a cocked re- volver he held on her Finally Beener took it upon himself to walk up to the man and talked him into releasing his wife and turning over the gun BEENER now admits that although he appeared calm at the time he had some fears about his own Safety when he de- to make his move The only consolation 1 had Beener said was that our best marksman had a high-powered rifle zeroed in on the man Bui 1 guess that wouldn't have helped me much if I'd have gotten shot first Nevertheless Beener said it was something he had to do It was so hot that day he said that it gol to the point that I thought I'd better go out there and get that gun or we'd all be barbecued Three years later on July 1 1970 Beener was sworn in as city's new police chief and was given a vote of confidence by then Mayor Lloyd Turner who pre- Beener would make an excellent chief HIS FIRST couple years in office went without much fanfare as he worked hard to upgrade his department largely through an aggressive pursuit of federal funds With the funds he replaced an outdated communications system equipping his Robert Beener officers with portable radios so they could be in constant touch with their station even while outside their squad cars He introduced video tape equipment for use in investigations and booking Later he obtained Crime Commission funds to buy photo equipment for the crime lab to purchase badly needed police cars to open a training center and to start a narcotics squad that was to gain much acclaim for fighting drag traffick See BEENER Continued on page 2 col 3 Administration officials predicted the move would save million to million a year through consolidation of agency headquarters regional facilities and staffs As many as 300 jobs would be eliminated through attrition The new agency to be known as the Federal Emergency Management cy would combine the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency the Federal Dis- aster Assistance Administration the Federal Preparedness Agency the Federal Insurance Administration and the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration UNLESS THE Senate or House votes to disapprove the plan announced Monday afternoon by the president in a personal appearance in the White House press room it will go into effect within SO legislative days The White House in a statement on the combination of the existing agencies into one office The current tion of these programs has caused dance and inefficiency in the federal effort and confusion on the part of states and localities Carter's reorganization project which assembled the plan said its study resulted in a severe indictment of the way the federal government has its response to national or localized emergencies SINCE 1973 the federal government has spent billion on such programs Specifically the report found: federal government lacks a clear and consistent understanding of the relationship between attack and peacetime preparedness activities of programs to prepare for nuclear attack floods earthquakes and fires Such disasters involve not only the three principle agencies the Federal Disaster Assistance Ad- ministration the Defense ness Agency and the Federal ness Agency but also the Federal Insurance Administration the National Weather Service the U.S Geological vey and the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration Problems with decision Severin The six members of the U.S Supreme Court who ruled in favor of the snail darter and halted work on a million federal dam in Tennessee are coming in for considerable criticism much of it from the Tennessee residents who will be unemployed by the decision The majority decision however seems to me to be the correct one It follows the endangered species law precisely as it was written and passed by Congress And as Chief Justice Warren Burger indicated if it is a bad law it is up to Congress not the courts to change it Nevertheless I have a couple of problems with the decision First there is Section Nine Article One in the U.S Constitution IT No of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed Since construction on the dam in question was started in 1967 and the endangered species act not discovered until 1973 it would seem to the layman that the three-inch fish was therefore ex post facto and hence should have no standing in court Secondly one might wonder how anyone really knows that the snail darter is an endangered species It was discovered in a stretch of the Uttle Tennessee River and slapped on the endangered species list when someone claimed that was the only place it could exist How could anyone know that without making a search of every mile in every stream on the How do we know there are not darters in the Greater River in southeastern You know how the Russians are about keeping things secret AND WHAT about the Marmelos River in the wilds of Has anyone looked for snail darters there? Then there is the question of whether you would know a snail darter if you saw one As Justice Lewis Powell noted in his dissenting opinion there are 130 separate species of darter minnows that even experts have difficulty distinguishing from each other Fortunately Iowa Sen John Culver a Democrat has teamed up with Tennessee Sen Howard Baker a Re- publican to sponsor an amendment to the endangered species act that might save the dam and force the world to get along with only 129 species of darter minnows The amendment would create a panel of seven with the power to make exceptions to the act when a federal project appeared to be more of a public benefit than the species it endangered Inside Flooding in Island Park in Cedar Falls may threaten the park's Sturgis Falls Day celebration Story page 5 Weather Chance of showers Tuesday morning clearing in the after- noon Complete weather page 2 Class reunions are tional Old grads are surprised to find teachers still alive teachers are amazed so many former students can read
