South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 13

Sun-Sentinel, Tuctday, Feb. 4, 188 Road report cites need for more WPB access By Fred Lower? Tmimtlw Hrtlcr WEST PALM BEACH A final report by traffic consultant! received by city commissioners Monday confirmed earlier conclusions that major additions will have to be made to the city's access system. The report by Barr, Dunlop and Associates of Tallahassee provided concrete evidence for earlier estimates that the road system surrounding the downtown area would not be able to handle traffic adequately, City Engineer Ron Schutta said. "This was little more than a supplementary report that the county wanted," Schutta said. "It verifies and comes very close to what we thought the counts would be Earlier in its study, Schutta said, the consultants had used rule-of -thumb estimates to show traffic on major arteries on the fringes of the downtown(area increasingly would overload those arteries.

The city and county have been working to develop a plan for downtown access from the western areas and Palm Beach International Airport, but county engineers had said they wanted concrete figures on traffic counts to justify conclusions that both had reached, he said. Based in part on recommendations from an earlier Barr Dunlop report, the city already has embarked on an access im provement program within the downtown. Construction started recently on an extension to Loftin Street, the eastern exit from the Flagler Memorial Bridge to and from Palm Beach. Accordirg to plans, it will tie into Railroad Avenue, which is envisioned by planners as a fivelane artery that could be used to funnel high volumes of traffic into and out uf downtown during rush hours. In addition, the wi lenirg of First Street from Dixie Highway to Australian Avenue for use as a similar rush-hour funnel is scheduled to begin within the next year.

While both of those projects are included in a 20 million street improvement program approved by the city last summer, additional work will be done with traffic impact fees being paid by new development within the city. And those fees are coming in at an unanticipated rate, Commissioner Rick Riknis said. He noted 250,000 in impact fees had been collected in December. That amount is equal to earlier estimates of an entire year's collections, Reikenis said. it the ky to future downtown access is it i '1 an expressway link at leart as far west as Interstate 95, Schutta said earlier.

That link is still under consideration by city officials and the county's Expressway Authority as a part of a complex I 95 connector system Unking downtown, the air- port and a proposed western expressway Wellington and Royal Palm Beach. Completion of that link, though, could at least five to 19 years off, if at all, since planning is in its very preliminary stage and cost estimates have not yet been developed to show whether a toll expressway could be justified financially. The downtown connector would join and the western expressway in the area the Australian Avenue-Old Okeechobee Road intersection, following the southern edge of Clear Lake and coming into downtown area along a corridor in vk "ity of Okeechobee Boulevard and Street to be 1-95 of the the Jessamine i Digsst Business hindered despite ruling -i A if By James H. Tolpin Stall Writer Business at Wheelers Truck Stop west of Riviera Beach still was not back to normal Monday evening, despite a judge's order allowing the company to retrieve the assets and property state officials seized in a raid on Jan. 21.

"It's really an inconvenience," said truck driver Rebecca Martin, who parked her 18-wheeler at the truck stop after a trip from Charlotte, N.C. She said she couldn't unload her textiles in Pompano Beach until today and didn't want to return to Vero Beach, which she said had the next closest "real" truck stop. "Once you get here, you don't want to drive 75 miles back," Martin said. She said she planned to spend the night in her cab parked on the truck stop lot. Robert Wheeler, the truck stop owner, said the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office would be returning his property (his morning and he hoped to start selling motor fuels soon afterward.

Bank accounts for the truck stop and Wheeler's other businesses at 5770 N. Military Trail also are to be released under Circuit Court Judge Richard Wennet's order, which required Wheeler to post his land holdings in place of a $600,000 bond, i The court set the bond because the Florida Department of Revenue found Wheeler delinquent in paying $560,000 in taxes, interest and penalties. Wheeler's attorney, Jim Bonfiglio, said the Sheriff's Office confiscated the property for the Department of Revenue and that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement seized the company's records as njirt of a statewide grand jury investigation. That investigation, known as Operation Tigertail, is a statewide probe of non-payment of millions of dollars in motor fuels taxes. Wheeler has said he is mistakenly being investigated as part of Operation Tigertail.

Some of his taxes were not paid because of an accountant's error, and he had been working with state auditors to clear up the matter, he said. JfA AIDS task force planned The Palm Beach County Health Department plans to organize an AIDS task force next month to advise it on issues related to the deadly disease, a department official said Monday. Department epidemiologist Dr. Dale Tavris said the task force will be made up of community representatives who will investigate such problems as providing adequate housing, medical care and legal services to AIDS patients. "It will be a kind of focus for AIDS-related activities.

People will know where to go for help," Tavris said. Members of medical organizations, social service agencies, drug treatment programs and groups representing homosexuals will be invited to join the task force, he said. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is a fatal and incurable viral disease that disables the body's immune system. The disease is most common among intravenous drug users and male homosexuals. There have been 139 cases of AIDS reported in Palm Beach County.

Alan Bavley Parlor owner charged BOCA RATON Police on Monday charged the owner of a massage parlor on Federal High-. way with running a house of prostitution. Robert Bailey, 61, of Deerfield Beach, who owns the Mini Spa Massage at 6140 N. Federal Highway, was released from the Palm Beach County Jail on 1,000 bail following his arrest by Boca Raton police detectives. The arrest followed a six-month investigation into reports of prostitution and lewd and lascivious behavior at the massage parlor, according to police reports.

The investigation was sparked by the complaint of a woman who once worked at the massage parlor, said Sgt Mike Noll. The woman told police that girls hired to give massages also were giving customers sexual favors, Noll sail "We looked into it and found that it had gone beyond the touching and fondling stage into prostitution and sexual acts," he said. Noll said police did not expect to make any more arrests. A woman who answered the phone at the massage parlor Monday said she was unaware of the charges filed against Bailey, and that the business would remain open. David Enscoe 3 suspects still sought Sheriff's detectives continued their search Monday for three people suspected in the killing of a Gay County man found beaten in a parking lot west of Lake Worth.

James Stidfole, 45, a printer from Orange Park, died Saturday at 8 p.m. in Doctors Hospital near Lake Worth. Police said he was beaten and possibly robbed, then thrown from his van by three people he met in a bar that morning. According to investigators, Stidfole met the suspects, a woman and two men, at 8 a.m. Saturday in Harry's Open Door Bar on the 1900 block of North Dixie Highway in Lake Worth.

Witnesses told detectives that the three suspects, who said they were from Massachusetts, left the bar with Stidfole at p.m. Detectives think the three suspects were riding in Stidfole's van when they pulled into a parking lot at the Barnett Bank office near 10th Avenue North and Congress Avenue. There, they beat Stidfole and tossed him from the van about 2 p.m. Two of the suspects drove off in the van while the third fled on foot, detectives said. The van was recovered Sunday afternoon at Woodhaven Plaza at Forest Hill Boulevard and Kirk Road, west of West Palm Beach.

Investigators said Stidfole died of a blow to the head, but are not sure whether the fatal blow was delivered before or after he was thrown from his van. David Enscoe Clerk sprayed with Mace WEST PALM BEACH A robber armed with a can of Mace fled empty-handed after spraying the chemical at a convenience store clerk's face, police said Monday. The clerk at the 7-Eleven store on Belvedere Road, Preamchand Ramdass, 28, told police a man walked into the store at 10:17 p.m. Sunday and bought a candy bar. Ramdass said that when he looked up from the cash register to give the man his change, he was staring at a canister of Mace, police said.

Ramdass told police the man demanded cash from the register. When he refused, the robber sprayed the chemical at Ramdass' face, cursed at him, and fled the store. Ramdass was able to turn his head from the spray, so that most of the chemical mist struck him in the ear. Although he was not injured seriously, Ramdass told police his ear burned, Capt. James Diggs said.

Mace is a mixture of organic chemicals kept in an aerosol can. When sprayed in someone's face, it causes intense eye pain and respiratory irritation. David Enscoe it, fca (l a jm- i mmrnff tniMiiiiwrtin iWrtii mili Jmw SUf( photo by MAJIK RANDALL Smile of hope Lana Hazzard, 6, the 1986 March of Dimes poster child, take place March 22 at the South Florida Fairgrounds, meets with Gary Forney, chairman for the 1986 March Walkers will collect pledges for the distance they over of Dimes WalkAmerica. The fund-raising walk will in the 17-kilometer walk. Second murder trial begins for Owen confession devastating.

The prosecutor has maintained Owen recited details only the killer would know. The interrogation dragged on for days only because Owen delighted in playing cat and mouse games with the detectives, the state maintains. The jury that will hear the Worden case during the next two or three weeks will not be told about Owen's previous murder conviction or that he has admitted to other less serious assaults. The Worden case was scheduled to begin last month, but Owen made a last-minute complaint about his lawyer to the Florida Bar. The complaint of a potential conflict of interest was found to be without merit, but did delay the beginning of jury selection.

If jurors convict Owen of first-degree murder, they have the option of recommending either the death penalty or a life sentence. string of area assaults, as well as the killings. Worden, 38, was bludgeoned and raped in the bedroom of her Boca Raton home while her two children slept. Prosecutor Sandra Kabboush plans to show the jury photographs depicting the violent way Worden was killed. The case will begin later this week.

Detectives linked Owen to the crime after finding a single fingerprint inside a novel near Worden's body. As in the previous murder trial, the key evidence against Owen will be the videotaped statement the 24-year-old made during several days of interrogation. Court-appointed defense attorneys Craig Boudreau and Donald Kohl are expected to attack the incriminating videotape, saying Owen was coerced into confessing. A similar defense strategy was used during the Slattery case. But after the October conviction, Owen's defense attorney, Michaol Salnick, called the By Deborah Petit Staff Writer Prospective jurors discussed their views of the death penalty Monday as lawyers began selecting a jury to hear the details of a young Boca Raton mother's slaying.

The lawyers wanted to know whether each juror could vote to send Duane Owen to the electric chair if the state proves its second case of murder against the diminutive drifter. A previous Palm Beach County Circuit Court jury recommended last fall that Owen be executed after it found him guilty of the knifing and rape of Delray Beach baby sitter Karen Slattery. The judge decided to delay sentencing Owen until he could be tried in the second case, which evolved from Georgianna Worden's death. Both homicides occurred in the spring of 1984, before Owen was apprehended and confessed to a Jury selection held up in slaying trial time instead of havihg'all the jury prospects present during the questioning. Defense attorneys had feared that some prospective jurors might be influenced by answers from others.

"Tn order to eliminate anv Dossibilitv of coming to the aid of another newspaper employee when she was killed. Court officials had hoped to begin selecting a jury in the case Monday afternoon but were thwarted because of a lack of prospective jurors. Juries were being selected in two other first-degree murder trials as well as in several other cases. Sheriff's Office investigators said that Thompson and fellow employee George Abbott were talking in the parking lot of Gary's Loxahatchee Junction when a man with a gun jumped in Abbott's car and demanded the car. Investigators said Thompson, who had her own gun, tried to intervene.

One shot rang out, striking Thompson in the head. Balthazar is charged with the early morning shooting of Thompson, who was coming to the aid of another newspaper employee when she was killed. Court officials had hoped to begin selecting a jury in the case Monday afternoon but were thwarted because of a lack of prospective jurors. By Rich Pollack Staff Writer Because of a heavy demand for jurors in other cases, jury selection in the first-degree murder trial of a man charged with shooting a newspaper circulation department supervisor in 1984 was delayed Monday. The selection process is expected to begin today, however, in the trial of Be-noit Balthazar, who is charged with the July 30, 1984 shooting death of Palm Beach Post district circulation manager Frances Thompson.

Balthazar could face the death penalty if convicted. During a pre-trial hearing Monday, visiting Circuit Judge Humes T. Lasher agreed with a defense request that prospective jurors be questioned four at a contamination, we'll bring them in groups of four," Lasher said. Defense attorney Richard Greene, fearing that the recent unrest in Haiti could Interfere with his Haitian client's being able to obtain an impartial jury, also asked the judge to give each side 20 jury challenges. "The defendant heres literally on trial for his life," Greene said.

Balthazar is charged with the early morning shooting of Thompson, who was Balthazar was arrested in Lake County 18 hours after the shooting. i t.JbCAUh Jto g..