TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1999 LOCAL DAYTON DAILY NEWS 3B leadlines iS Wk mm li it fi Candidate Esrati calls for return to basics The four-year part-time post pays $29,500 a year and includes a city-issued car. The four commissioners and mayor 3 tV I He challenges Neal, Lovelace for City Commission By Jim Hkbhingtoin Dayton Daily iews DAYTON When asked about what got him interested in politics, David Esrati points to a garage door. In the mid-1980s Esrati bought a home in the South Park neighborhood, a broad historic district in southeast Dayton. For $14,000, Esrati bought a house in need of a lot of love. As part of a complete rehabilitation, he replaced the garage door with a new, vinyl door.
For his troubles, he was forced to replace the door again by the city's Landmark Preservation Board, which is charged with approving all exterior maintenance in historic districts. Esrati's grumblings against the historic architecture requirements not against the restrictions themselves, he said, but that the city does not inform home buyers about them launched him on a 14-year career of hipping at the heels of City Hall. Since 1993, he has run for mayor once and is now in his third Dayton City Commission race. In next Tuesday's election, he faces incumbents Idotha Bootsie Neal and Dean Lovelace for two seats on the commission. DAVID ESRATI, candidate for Dayton City Commission, says the building behind him illustrates what is wrong with city policy.
The structure on East Fifth is vacant because regulations require parking space for tenants. the rules." The behavior that has gotten Esrati attention through the years seems to have mellowed somewhat. During his early runs for office he wore fatigues to candidates nights. Now he wears suits. To protest what he viewed was encroaching secrecy in city affairs, he wore a black mask to a City Commission meeting.
He was arrested, sued the city and won, wringing out a $100,000 court settlement. But since then, he has been to few commission meetings. "David has been a very dear friend for a long time. He is one of FROM WIRE REPORTS Doctor misses South Pole YOUNGSTOWN An Ohio doctor who had to leave the South Pole after finding a lump in her breast said she wants to return someday. Dr.
Jerri Nielsen treated herself for three months with chemotherapy before being rescued Oct. 16 from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Center. Physicians confirmed last week that she has breast cancer. "It was such a wonderful place. I still love it.
I would'do it again. Even knowing what happened to me, it was the best year of my life," Nielsen, of the Youngstown area, told The Vindicator Sunday. She said she is recovering from surgery for breast cancer. She continued to shy away from publicity and would not reveal where she was undergoing treatment. Baby rhino dies at zoo COLUMBUS A black rhinoceros born at the Columbus Zoo this month died while doctors were performing eye surgery.
The female rhino died at 10 p.m. Saturday, the zoo said. She showed' signs of fatigue and dehydration Friday and was briefly separated from her mother for bottle feedings Friday and Saturday. The zoo said the rhino's mother, Kulinda Kifaru, became distressed during each of the bottle feedings and the infant received an eye injury a few hours after the bottle feeding Saturday morning. A necropsy will be performed.
Officials aren't sure why the rhino, born Oct. 4, failed to thrive. City worker accused of assault TOLEDO A city employee has been charged with assaulting actors at a haunted house exhibit. Richard Thielen, who is a manager in the city's department of neighborhoods, pleaded not guilty Monday to four misdemeanor counts of assault following his arrest Saturday. The arrest came after reports that Thielen, 41, hurt four volunteers at the Erie Street Haunted House on Friday.
He denied the allegations. There were several warnings posted at the haunted house telling people not to hit any actors at the risk of being charged with assault. Cincy man hurt in plane crash ASPEN, Colo. A small plane, crashed in a wilderness area, killing the pilot and injuring her two passengers, including a Cincinnati man. The pilot, Carolyn J.
Maddon, 40, of Colorado Springs, was an Air Force Academy graduate who was flying a Cessna 172 with two Air Force Academy cadets from Aspen to Colorado Springs, the Pitkin County sheriff office said. The plane crashed in the Hunter-Fry Pan Wilderness Area in the White River National Forest about 1 p.m. Saturday. The area is near Independence Pass, about 10 miles southeast of Aspen. Cadet First Class Joseph Richard Gavigan of Cincinnati was injured in the lower back and was in serious condition at St.
Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction. Cadet First Class Michael Donn Parker of Simpson, 111., suffered minor injuries and was released from a hospital Sunday. Greeneview student contracts meningitis ELECTION meet weekly to approve any city spending above $2,500 and decide on ordinances and resolutions that give the city manager guidance for running the city's staff and its $900 million in assets. Esrati, 37, is running, he said, because too much of that money is misdirected. "If we're going to board up a home, at least get the windows square," he said last week as he drove past a sloppily shuttered home on Lakeview Avenue.
"What do you do with that? It doesn't tell me anything other than, 'Who Esrati pointed to the dusty streets, cracked sidewalks, occasional boarded-over home and weed-clogged vacant lots. The city is not taking care of itself, he said. He decries the measures taken in recent years to turn that trend around. Much of the development under way in the city, from housing subdivisions to a minor league baseball stadium, is partially city funded to attract more investment. Esrati has called for a return to basics: fix streets, clean up lots.
Even though the City Commission has no say in running the Dayton Public Schools, he calls for the city's children to go to neighborhood schools, rather than be bused across town. His focus on schools at a Belmont Neighborhood Association meeting early in the campaign led one audience member to ask why he didn't just run for school board. Esrati said he wanted to be on commission so the city could sue the school board to force it to act. Esrati has carved a small niche for himself in South Park. He drives a Lexus and operates an apparently busy advertising firm, the Next Wave, out of one of four homes he has rehabilitated there.
He and other neighbors also pooled their money and bought a Wayne Avenue bar nearby and are converting it to a restaurant, Cafe Potage, As he drove through the Dayton View Triangle, he said it is what the rest of Dayton could be like: nice homes on tree-lined streets. "This is nice; this is Dayton," he said. "What (this is) is Kettering at half the price." Esrati wants the city manager, Valerie Lemmie, to be judged on whether the city turns around economically. He would change the city's priority board system and send citizen complaints straight to Lemmie's office, and require her to respond to them quickly. "I think she could adapt and learn and do well," Esrati said.
"I just think she has never been given a real policy or goal system. It is like playing football and not knowing JAN UNDERWOODDAYTON DAILY NEWS efforts. "I would like to see recruitment institutionalized, so it is not done Just before a test." Civil Service Board members agreed. Smith said the city has done little to really change the way it attracts police and fire employees. It has also wasted its time recruiting at black college campuses, he said.
"To go to African-American colleges to recruit is ridiculous," he said. "We send recruiters down and how many have they brought back? Zero. Zip." il JAN UN0ERW00DDAYT0N DAILY NEWS the most creative people I've ever met," said Bill Rain, chairman of the Downtown Priority Board. "I don't believe in everything he does, but he is one of the guys down in the trenches trying to make his neighborhood better." 1 But Esrati is still prone to stunts. When he went to a commission meeting last spring to protest a proposal to limit where adult entertainment stores can operate, he brought with him a huge copy of the settlement check from his lawsuit a warning, he said, to what happens when city officials tread on the First Amendment.
as a single isolated event. Tonya Elam, the communicable disease control nurse at the Greene County Health Department, said it is the first case the county has had this year. She said close contacts, like the child's family members, were treated with antibiotics to help keep them from contracting the disease. Antibiotics can be used to eliminate the germ from the nose and throat. Students who had casual contact with the child would not be at a high risk, she said.
If a child had close contact with the ill student, the letter warned parents to be alert for the disease's symptoms, which include the sudden onset of a fever, intense headache, nausea, sometimes vomiting, stiff neck and frequently a rash. The disease can occasionally be fatal. The incubation period varies from one to 10 days commonly, three to four days. Parents were directed to call school nurse Elizabeth Westry, R.N., their family physician or Elam at the Greene County Health Department. Westry said the county health department informed the district of the case late Tuesday and letters were sent Thursday.
She received 15 to 20 calls from concerned parents Thursday night, she said, but the number of calls fell once the information was sent to parents and any questions they had were answered. No other cases of the disease have been identified at the school, Westry said. She said the ill child's parents told her late last week that the youngster was recovering. Westry said she wasn't sure when the child would return to school. As long as what they're doing isn't hurting anybody and I don't drink and I don't condone it why is it anybody else's business?" State officials Saturday morning confiscated five electronic video gambling machines, numerous tip tickets, a computer, a printer, two cash registers, various brands of beer, wine and liquor in bottles, financial records and money from machines totalling $2,647.
An investigation is under way and charges are pending, said Agent in Charge Gary Miller of the Ohio Department of Public Safety and Liquor in Cincinnati. Because of the legion's prior conviction, the Warren County prosecutor may file criminal charges, state officials said, Legion representatives could not be reached for comment Monday An official says others are at low risk of getting the disease By Mklanie A. Stawicki (irerne County Bureau JAMESTOWN A Greeneview North Elementary student has a confirmed case of meningococcal meningitis, but a county health official said Monday other students are at a low risk of getting the disease. Greeneview North Elementary serves about 400 children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The illness is a severe infection of the bloodstream and the thin lining covering the brain and spinal cord caused by the bacteria Neisseria meningitides.
It is spread by close contact with nose or throat discharges of the infected person. "This is our first case of anything like this," Greeneview Superintendent Art Reiber, who had been with the district 20 years, said Monday. After obtaining legal counsel, Reiber said he could not reveal the child's age, name, grade, classroom, sex or address for confidentiality reasons. A letter was sent to all Greeneview North Elementary students' parents last week, Reiber said. He said the letter wasn't given to all the other schools in the district, because the child rode the bus with only Greeneview North elementary students, so it appeared her contact was limited.
The letter said meningococcal disease, which the student contracted, is relatively rare and usually occurs -jr lu iri ifel a I iixv Vr 1 Hi otot ir I rA'V i i IS ST State liquor agents again raid legion post in Waynesville Work progresses on UD apailments Jeremy Peters, a brick mason with Miami Valley Masonry on Ome Avenue, scales the scaffolding around a $6.75 million apartment building under construction near the University of Dayton campus. The Lawnview Apartments along Lowes Street are due to be completed in April 2000 to house 165 juniors and seniors in mostly four-person apartments. Miller-Valentine Group is the general contractor for the project. with Civil Service Board and their attorney, William Kaufman, said he did not have enough information to comment. "It was a very low-key entry," Miller said.
"We walked up and knocked on the door. Pretty simple. It's not quite as dramatic as TV. There were two people inside: a cook and someone eating." This is the third liquor raid at the Waynesville legion hall. The first was in the early 1990s and the last one was in March of last year, after which Warren County Court Judge Dallas Powers found the legion guilty of one misdemeanor count each of keeping a place where alcohol is sold, keeping a gambling house and operating a game of chance.
Contact Joann Routt at (5 1 3) 743-5302 or e-mail hpr at si prior conviction may lead to criminal charges Uv Joainn Rouse llairrn County llitmiu WAYNESVILLE The American Legion Post 615 in Waynesville was busted in a liquor raid this weekend for the second time in two years and residents in this dry village of about 2,500 people are upset. At the Ohio Department of Public Safety Liquor, that is. "The American Legion has been a very good neighbor in Waynesville," said Mayor Charles Sanders. "They've participated in every benevolent venture in Waynesville. City to work It Jim Diiylmi Daily DAYTON The Dayton City Commission and its Civil Service Board, which have differed over how to employ the best people for the city, pledged Monday to cooperate to figure out how Dayton can hire more women and racial minorities.
The two groups met for 90 minutes Monday and also agreed to plan a daylong retreat. The thrce-mnmbcr board, Jim Payne, Gloria Bell and John Smith, is apiwinted by the commission and oversees enforcement of civil service rules for Dayton's employees. Commissioner Idotha Bootsie Neal said Dayton needs to change how it recruits police and fire employees, and should study how other cities have been more successful in diversifying their departments. Civil service employers are hired based upon their ranking on an exam. One change to consider, Neal said, is having ongoing recruitment.
