ustxtxb_obs_1975_03_14_50_00013-00000_000.pdf

DIG VEND Y , DOOKS , MAPS 4 EXPERIENCE. TO HELP YOU THERE Fr2EE LIST WHOLE EARTH PROVISION CO. 2410 JAN ANTONIO AUSTIN 78705 LA GRANGE TAYLOR \(Approved ROCKDALE THORNDALE THORNDALE \(Approved \(Approved SERVICE Business, one-party $13.75 $14.50 $13.60 $16.00 $18.00 Business, two-party 14.00 16.00 Business extension 1.75 1.75 1.75 1.75 1.75 Residence, one-party 6.50 6.50 6.25 7.75 9.20 Residence, two-party 5.55 5.00 4.90 6.45 8.00 Residence, four-party 5.80 7.50 Residence extension 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 document filed just put the defendants on the record. More will come later, he says. Cutcher has a reputation around the area as being a big courtroom hotshot, but then again he is about the only attorney around who tries to be a big courtroom hotshot. By Thorndale standards, he is expensive, but not as high as some of the lawyers Woelfel contracted. He and his partner have been linked with John Tower politically. That’s not exactly an outstanding credential for consumer advocacy, but cases like this have sometimes drawn lawyers who oppose statewide regulation and hope to preserve local regulation. The lawyer says he thinks the people in Thorndale are already paying too much for phone service. He says the case will “be interesting.” Over in Thrall, which is across the line in Williamson County, the city commission also rejected the increase, but not until late in January. “It’s not so much the increase,” said Thrall Mayor Willie Herzer, Jr. “We want some service for what we pay.” Herzer said Thrall customers could not call Taylor-seven miles away-without interference on the line. “They have to call you back.” Thorndale wants Thrall to lend a hand with the legal costs. Herzer and the city commissioners haven’t committed themselves, but they also haven’t been served with the lawsuit papers. Across Williamson County, General filed suit against Georgetown. The city council there never got the satisfaction of turning down the rate request. General asked for a 61 percent hike in business rates and a 31 percent jump in residential one-party rates. The city hired a rate consultant, Joe Nall and Associates of Dallas, who worked for Georgetown in 1972. He suggested 33 and 20 percent hikes, but Mayor Joe Crawford thought that was “quite an increase.” General filed suit after the council questioned Nall’s recommendation and he was dismissed, to be replaced by Jack Hopper of Austin. Hopper and City Attorney Joe McMaster filed some written interrogatories, but General responded with exceptions, claiming the information sought was not relevant to the suit. The suit was dismissed in late February because the company had not exhausted it’s administrative remedies. General turned over some additional documents requested by Hopper, and the city council has four weeks. to take action. The councilmen have two options reject the increase or grant some sort of hike. If they grant an increase and General doesn’t like it, then Kinslow says it will be back to litigation. So on to court march General’s lawyers, hoping to gain giant rate increases from Thorndale and Thrall. Woelfel and the people of Thorndale will fight them. The Thorndale mayor saks, “If they can go to court and get any rate increase, what power do the little cities have?” March 14, 19 75 13 LEGE IN MOTION George Austin “It has been said that democracy is the right to make a wrong choice and that is what this referendum is all about,” explained Paris Rep. George Preston to the House State Affairs Committee. That was about as clear as Preston ever got on his non-binding referendum concerning the federal equal rights amendment. It met with well-nigh unanimous disapproval. Part of the problem with Preston’s referendum \(which he says he thought up April 22 ballot along with a pay raise for state legislators and an increase in teachers’ retirement benefits. Neither the legislators nor the teachers want to endanger their proposals by linking it to the volatile ERA issue. “Why, you’d bring out every chronic `no’ vote in the state,” predicted one House aide. And neither the proor anti-ERA factions want to cope with a confusing referendum on recision. Preston told committee members that he wants to give voters a chance to express their views on the federal ERA proposal. \(The Texas Legislature ratified the federal amendment in March of 1972, and now there’s a movement afoot to try to rescind that ratification. See Obs., Nov. 15, thousand letters about the ERA, letters from people afraid of how the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court would enforce the amendment, fearful of loss of privacy, and concerned about erosion of Christian morality. “There is a controversy,” Preston explained, “about trying to second guess the Supreme Court and whether it will recognize the physiological differences between men and women.” The House chamber and gallery were filled with women and men wearing ERA stickers \(the antis weren’t in waves of titters. Preston had no witnesses to introduce in ,w 4NOMIN1101111.000