News Addition Segments; Updub, edit master 16

Telephone service is in the midst of a revolution. You can still reach out and touch someone, but interactive technology in the form of 900 and 976 phone numbers has now made it possible for others to touch you back. Call 1-909-MACL. 900 numbers are provided by interstate telephone carriers such as AT&T, MCI, and Sprint. For all the sports news, instantly dial 976-1313. 976 numbers are local services provided by regional bell companies. When you can't get to the game, get to the phone. Both services enable sponsors to take polls, provide information, and offer entertainment for which the caller is charged automatically. The industry is expected to earn $2.5 billion by 1992. In Texas, Southwestern Bell has found 976 service profitable, but controversial.

The profits help buy equipment like this new switching computer. But public outrage over Bell's introduction of 976 service on the one hand, and a lawsuit over first amendment issues on the other reflect many of the problems associated with the service. Southwestern Bell first introduced 976 service in 1986, and it didn't take long for many companies to exploit the easiest product in the world to sell. Sex. A pistol that really triggers my uses. Go back now and settle up your ears for more hot messages. I know you can. The entire industry soon became known as dial-aporn, and the Public Utilities Commission in Austin, which regulates local telephone service in Texas, received thousands of angry letters in protest. We had over 30,000 letters and a couple thousand phone calls all in one day. It was a very strong outpouring of public concern and just literally fury on the part of the public that they were being put upon in this manner and without their permission.

We had people who had, as an example, a mom and pop gas station grocery store type of thing. I remember this one, a family that wasn't making it all that well anyway, and someone they employed had charged $2,000 in phone calls in one month, and this was a new employee. They had no idea it was happening, and they had no way to block that time. There was no way to block the line. Carolyn Gray, a Richardson mother of two, was one of those concerned. I felt invaded. We couldn't believe that something could be so accessible in our homes by an instrument that we viewed as being a life-saving instrument that was necessary for life. Many people were told that they just had to pay their bills, and that there would be no way that they could get out of paying the bills. There was nothing that they could do about it. Public Utilities Commissioner Joe Campbell was critical of Bell's initial response.

I think if you look at an internal memorandum that was discovered from Bell, you would see that even though at that time they recognized the downside of offering 976 services. They made a decision to go ahead because of the large amount of the revenues that the 976 service would provide. At the same time then when it was suggested that blocking could occur, then Southwestern Bell wanted to charge people to keep material they didn't want coming into their homes from being able to come into their homes. Then the commission, when the commission put Bell on the spot, they did agree to offer free blocking. In an order handed down in the spring of last year, the Public Utilities Commission, known as the PUC, also told Bell that they could not disconnect a customer's phone line for failure to pay 976 charges. Thank you.

In order, the PUC effectively deregulated Southwestern Bell's billing and collection service. It's hard for information services to make money, unless the telephone company bills and collects for them. The PUC order gave Bell the right to deny billing and collection to vendors whose service Bell considered injurious to its corporate image. Commissioner Campbell descended on the order. My administrative assistant asked Bell for instance, what would happen if Planned Parenthood wanted to offer an information service and they were doing it as a 976 service. And those who oppose Planned Parenthood said the anti-abortion groups or pro-life groups decided to go and pick it all of your offices. What would you do? And they said, oh, we would cut them off. That seems to me to be giving Bell enormous kind of censorship, powers. Censorship is the issue in a lawsuit filed by Dallas Lawyer Mike Aronson against Southwestern Bell alleging First Amendment freedom of speech violations.

The purpose of communication is to get ideas from one person to another. Those ideas do not have to be embraced by the majority of the public to be acceptable. I'm to the First Amendment. They also do not have to be information that is useful to the majority of the people in this country. There are lines that provide information on politics, on sex, on AIDS, on medical subjects. Now, if you call Madam Helger or whatever her name is, and she talks in a way that assists you in the privacy of your home, in some sexual vein, then that's your thing. And why should you be denied that if that's your pleasure and you're paying for it?

It's nothing illegal about it. I can only imagine what the person that makes the call needs or is doing. But that's that person's private business and the privacy of his or her home. Southwestern Bell declined an interview request, but issued a statement which said in part. The matter of 976 is now being discussed before both the public utility commission and in various litigation in Texas. As a result of these public forum hearings, we don't feel it's an our best interest to discuss our particular postures on these matters in the media at this time. We don't want to appear on responsive. We do want to appear that we're operating in the public interest and going to continue to do so in the future. Carolyn Gray places some of the blame for the continuing controversy at the feet of the PUC. I probably was less happy with the PUC's performance than with Southwestern Bell, even. I didn't feel like that they, like a lot of the other people, could see past the major inflammatory issues that were there, the pornography and things that came immediately to the forefront. I really thought that they should have been able to dig deeper into what a solution would be and to work with Southwestern Bell on what the technology was and what the possibilities were and what had gone on in other parts of the country.

I think the 900 numbers that are in existence now are really what we were worried about when we started looking into the 976 numbers. They're just on a broader spectrum and are a little, they're a little harder to regulate with the agencies that regulate 976. They're on a national level as opposed to a local level. Call 1008609042 and call back tomorrow for new messages on the date connection. We got into bed and made love like it was to be our last chance. Just taking her and using it, using her, she loves it. Joanna is speaking sensual encounters with state or by couple, by or gave women and well endowed men. 900 numbers offer a wide variety of services these days, from tame fantasy messages to more controversial confession lines, dating services and chat networks. But people run up huge bills on these lines and marketing techniques are effective if not always subtle.

It's your old pal Heathcliff and I want to hear from you, dial this number now. 900 numbers marketed over television to children, have people wondering just how far message vendors and phone companies will go. We showed some 900 number television advertisements to assistant attorney general Joselle Albrecht. A lot of the tapes that we viewed were targeted at children. Children are a curial in particular group of people to market to. The price, advisement and information to contact your parents and ask your parents for permission is given at the end, it's given rapidly. There is a lot of printed information flashed on the screen and small lettering that the children, A, might not be able to reject, certainly won't see. Their attention is distracted by the visual image from the content, but the most pronounced visual image on the screen will always be the huge, huge phone number. Hi, I'm Buzz Aldrin. One night, twenty years ago, we planted the American flag on the surface of the moon.

900 numbers marketed to adults often work in similar ways. This ad shown locally on channel 39 promotes a 900 number carried by MCI with a price advisement that is anything but prominent. In addition, callers find out that their names and addresses are registered through the telephone they call from, raising privacy issues which have yet to be resolved. A news edition reporter recently received an auto dialed recorded call promising credit information over a 900 number. When we called the number, this is what we heard. You will be receiving your Royal Frontier Studios Financial Information Plan. The charge for this phone call is $30 for your Royal Frontier Studios Plan which is added to your next phone bill. There are dozens of long distance carriers these days. A 900 number assignment sheet we obtained indicated that the carrier for this 900 number was an Illinois based company, Telusphere. We gave them a call.

How can Telusphere associate itself with telephone scams like that? How can we associate with telephone? Well, that's a loaded question, isn't it? Well, you're the carrier for that outfit, and I don't know who else to ask. Well, I'll tell you what, I can give you Royal Frontier's contact number that you can give them a call on. Yes, sir, I've called them and they won't call me back. I mean, were you aware of the nature of their service when you signed on with them? I was not. Does Telusphere have like a standards and practices department or something like that? I can hardly hear you. Does Telusphere have a standards and practices department? Yes, we sure do. I think one got by on you. The message I got did not tell me that if I called that 900 number, they would charge me $30. Now, that's fraudulent. Yes, it is. Their message is not telling me that. Is there no way that you can keep tabs on how they market themselves? Yeah, we're going to take care of that. I'm sure the phone various phone carriers and phone companies would tell you that they do the best they can to monitor this.

I think that there are some aspects of their monitoring that is not up to par. Considering its position on 976 numbers, it is ironic that Southwestern Bell still bills and collects for 900 services that many find questionable. Another regional bell, Bell Atlantic and Philadelphia, recently refused to bill and collect for 900 number carriers which don't offer their services to customers on a subscription basis. But 976 and 900 services rely on customer impulse and Southwestern Bell has up until now adamantly opposed subscription-only service. Still, the idea won't go away. It is so unfair to expect a consumer to take an action to get this block from their phone as opposed to being able to just have a phone line and if they want it similar to cable being able to subscribe to it. If they've got the knowledge to have this technology in place, they're bound to have the knowledge somewhere of how to deal with it.

Telephone industry officials say they don't know where this new technology is taking us. But for now, Americans can say and listen to just about anything they want. My name's Robert. I'm from Dallas. Yeah, that's right, baby. Hi, my name is Amy. I'm model. I'm in the hotel security business. You think you have problems just right? I've always wanted to strengthen. Oh, that's right. Oh, Robert and one over each club. Oh, yeah. You

You The stock market crash of 1929 and the great depression which followed brought to America conditions this country had never really known before widespread hunger and homelessness.

Who could have imagined then that 60 years later in 1989 millions of Americans would once again be without a place to call home and without food except for that they got in suit lines. Standing and wondering which way to go. So much confusion in this world alone. I've been suffering, I've been driven from door to door. Standing and wondering, wondering which way to go.

Homeless people often hear the laughter and the jeers from others. And they often feel the harsh tears of disgust. They talk about it. Some even write about those feelings. And our first place winner in the essay competition is Will Bebs for the Stu Pot 1. In an effort to raise self-esteem, last spring the Stu Pot at Dallas's first Presbyterian church sponsored writing and art contest. On this day winners were being announced. We know that as a group that people that have been on the street for longer than six months lose a great sense of self-worth and self-esteem. So the contest goal was to recognize creativity, not to reward homelessness but to reward creativity and resourcefulness. On a cold winter morning beat frozen in pain, I walked down the street in a wind driven rain.

I saw a line of people and I asked what was up. They said we're about to have coffee, come in for a cup. The homeless have a multitude of problems. Many are mentally ill, alcoholic and drug abusers. Some are Vietnam veterans who never got over the war and the way this country treated them when they returned. Others lost their families and homes after losing their jobs. The rest of this story will be told by those who know it best. The homeless, three of the winners in the Stu Pot writing contest. Meet Will Bebs, a former two manufacturer whose skills are not much in demand anymore. He's been on the street since last January. When I pray at night, I always ask to be a productive person in life because if you're not productive, what is? How old? I had a job here in Dallas for about four years and working 60 hours a week and everything was going great. I have a son in the service down at Fort Rucker in Alabama.

I went down to see him on vacation, decided not to come back and seemed like everything went down the tube after that. And the grand prize winner in the writing contest, Michael Avery, who says he left the military with a drug habit and only one skilled, the skill for survival. And when he returned home, he simply didn't fit anymore. I went through a lot of changes and in a sense a lot of animosity and jealousy and a whole lot of other things. I said, look at these people, look at us. You know, tell me immediately when you're going McDonald's in the morning and the bus station, the security follows you. They've got to pass, if you're not buying anything, so you have to leave. You know, I've never had that happen to me before. You know, and not have money where you couldn't even go in and buy a cup of coffee. I had a friend telling me the other day, for example, how you don't look like a bomb. What my answer was, well, kind of hard to bomb do when you don't look like it.

But when you're down and out and you don't have a dime for a telephone call or can't catch a bus, you can't get a job because you don't have any place to clean up. You don't have the proper clothing. If you did have, there's no place to keep it. And when people make comments about this, it hurts because you're not here by choice. You're a victim of circumstances. Now, if you stay here, that's a different story. Can you imagine having the all your world of possessions, anything that you want, the sacred that you need to keep? You have to pack it around all day long with you. Never being able to put it down for fear somebody else is going to pick it up and run all with you. The homeless can't understand why they are turned down so often. You can't understand why they can't pull themselves up. They can't pull themselves up because nobody will turn around and give them a chance to help themselves. That people have gotten to a point where they travel only back streets because of the way that people perceive them as.

All of us is being homeless out, you know what I'm talking about? They all steal, they all smell, you know, they don't want anything, but that's far from being the truth. You've got some people who are, like I said, they are spiritually and mentally and some even physically broken. And these things are irreparable. You understand, it's no way to turn them back. The city's answer for this is, we'll give y'all a spot down at the bar in the town and for all of the organizations and the people who want to feed you, or deal with you. Go down there because we really don't want to see. And this is up under the bridge. There are people who live under there and little cardboard houses, you know. These people that are making the comments are not seeing you out there at that time I'm warning.

Or late evening, everything else is closed up. You have no place to go. You're wondering the streets waiting to get in out of the cold. I was walking the other day and I saw this dude, he passed me twice. Okay, like he's walking in a circle, but I had talked to him and I knew him when he first hit the street, but it snapped. Okay, and no matter what happens, I don't intend to get weird and crazy. I don't intend to go crazy. And here's another ritual you'll see right now over here to the side. This is the ladies going to shower. Can you imagine, you know, no privacy. And you have to go in a shower and there are eight speakers, so there are four in each other's stalls. When you have so many, so many weirdness and on top of that, know how to go and no friends, you're in trouble. We had a guy that died in here. We were full of ass.

And I came in in the morning to help clean up and this guy was laying in the back. And I walked over and I looked at him and I knew he was, you know, hey, you, you know, I was thinking to myself, you've never been laying down this time a morning before. And so I looked down at him and his eyes were just partially open. So I walked back and I put the broom up and I came back and I nailed down beside him and I was shook him, you know. And he had been, you know, Rig Amortis that I already said, and he was still, you know, and I checked his pulse and I checked him over, you know. And then the lady in the back said, he did it. And I said, yeah. And so they went and they called, you know, for the paramedics to come. And a lot of the people just, everybody just flowed out, you know, and it was like, well, this happens every day, but it doesn't.

And I was thinking to myself, and I asked him, I said, I wonder, is this a lesson for everybody in here? I wanted to look at it in terms of it being a lesson to say, hey, I don't want to spend my life or in my life in a place, feel with 200 people and nobody even knew enough about me, I cared enough about me to know that I was laying here dead all this time. The other part to it is, for those who aren't trying to get away from here, aren't trying to get back into the mainstream of life, is this the way they want to leave out of here, feet first? For me, the tension kind of just eases away when I can sit down and I can just start to write about things that are happening to myself. I think that what it does is it brings you closer to what's going on because you get more introspective and you begin to think rather than just operate superficially off the top of the head.

The streets have been a way of life to many of us and for too long. I came from a good home and like a lot of street folks, the families we left behind for whatever reasons are prosperous, but we don't fit. Some had drinking problems and others drug addiction. I had all of the blood. Don't just look through them, try to look at them as a person and ask yourself, maybe what happened to get an individual in this state? And then if you listen to some other stories, then you realize that hey, this could happen to me, he could happen to anybody. Hey man, hey man, hey man, hey man, hey man, hey man, what the hell now? Hey man, hey man, hey man, hey man, hey man.

Hey man, hey man, hey man, you're invited here. Hey man, hey man, hey man, hey man, hey man, hey man, hey man, hey man, come and join this little life This little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine This little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine Yeah, yeah, this little light of mine

I'm gonna let it shine Let it shine, let it shine To show by the rubber One thing my paper used to say He said that Even in my home zone The fear started last December Judge Jack Hampton told Dallas Times Harold reporter Laurie Montgomery that he sentenced 18-year-old convicted murder a Richard Bynarsky to only 30 years

because his victims, Tommy Trimble and John Griffin were homosexual He later repeated his comments to the Associated Press The victims were homosexuals They were out in the homosexual area picking up three major boys Had they not been out there kind of spread hands around They still be allowed today Reaction from the gay community was swift Gay leaders were joined by other outrage citizens to protest in front of the county courthouse calling for Hampton's resignation The Texas Human Rights Foundation filed a formal complaint against Hampton with the state commission on judicial conduct alleging misconduct A group of Oklan ministers called for Hampton to repudiate the statements A week later he called a news conference I want to apologize for a poor choice of words and describing the victims in the Bynarsky Do not mean to condemn the homosexual community generally and I use the poor choice of words I'm sorry about that

I also made the statement that the voters would not remember this case in 1990 and that was incorrect I think they are probably going to remember the Bynarsky case in 1990 and I hope that two years from now they'll also remember my good record of the trial judge However, Hampton stood by his sentence and refused to resign The gays have been given a feather pillar ever since they come out of the closet We eventually we have no rights His comments divided Dallas and rekindled some perceptions nationally that the city is an intolerant bigoted place Earlier this year the commission on judicial conduct appointed retired judge Robert Murray of San Antonio to preside over a special hearing to review the facts in the case Monday, ten months after Hampton made his comments the hearing opened One, two, three, four! Jack Hampton out the door Once again, gays protested in front of the courthouse calling for Hampton's ouster Primble and Grimble will not allow us to forget about this Jack Sorry, we'll see you in court

Although Hampton did not attend the hearing he was represented by a battery of attorneys including former Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade Commission attorneys argued the judge knew his statements were going to be made public and that he should not have commented on the case while motions were pending But at the heart of the matter was what Judge Hampton truly believes and could any crime victim or defendant have faith in the integrity of his court and the system Hampton's attorneys introduced a dozen depositions from judges and other attorneys all attesting to Hampton's fairness and impartiality They said Hampton was within his rights to explain why he handed down Bynarsky's sentence and he was guilty of only a poor choice of words in making his explanation Regardless of Judge Murray's findings and the Commission's final actions Judge Hampton's greatest challenge may be his bid for re-election next year I'm not sure if it's really hurting politically Kevin Clancy is Richard Bynarsky's defense attorney although he maintains his clients innocence

and has filed motions for a new trial Clancy believes Hampton's sentence was fair and the media has made it an issue I'm not sure who's more upset about it except the press and the homosexual community I don't think most citizens in Dallas really care what he said I don't think if they took it in the right context they'd understand the situation and a lot of them might feel the same way if you know I think he was misquoted or at least misinterpreted what he meant by that because I find him to be a very fair man I found him to be a very fair judge to all people blacks, whites, everybody I think he tries hard to be fair The first time I heard it I just couldn't believe it and even today it's still difficult to believe that someone in Judge Hampton's position could do what he did by saying that he gave a man a lesser sentence because the victims have to be homosexual William Weberin is president of the Dallas Gay Alliance and has led the fight to remove Judge Hampton from the bench I think the gay rights people are going to try

to make this their cause the lab forever but I think it should die it's over with it was a couple of comments made a lot of people in Dallas feel that way but wouldn't come out and say it publicly and a lot of people don't feel that way you know just because someone's homosexual is not mean they have a right to die they're a human being like everybody else but jurors consider people's backgrounds nobody's raised any issue about the drugs that were involved here are two homosexuals smoking marijuana one of them had marijuana on his body why would two older men pick up two 18-year-old boys and take them to River Sean Park in the middle of the night you know what they were trying to do I think from what I understand from most people in Dallas County that they're embarrassed by Judge Hampton they may agree or they may not agree with him but they're embarrassed that there's this national scrutiny upon Dallas County and they would like for that to just go away and one of the ways that they can make it go away is removing the thorn or the sore point

and that happens to be Jack Hampton I suspect there are a lot of people who agree with him but they just don't like all this attention on Dallas and certainly holding Dallas County up to be some sort of bigoted enclave where judges can make ruling like this and get by with it so I think personally they would like to get rid of him but they don't know how to do that they would like for the commission to do that for them but that's the long and involved process and so consequently the first opportunity they will have will be in a Republican primary Tom Pocken, a conservative Republican and a political columnist for the Dallas Times Herald doesn't see a primary opponent for Hampton on the horizon I don't see any attitude within grass roots for Republican ranks that Jack Hampton needs to be replaced at this point so I don't see that he suffered any serious damage within Republican ranks from a practical voting standpoint John Poland is chair of the Dallas County Democratic Party The approach we take will obviously depend on

what type of system we have in Dallas County if we are running under the current system we will recruit and aggressively run a campaign against him in the fall in the general election on a county wide basis My impression of the situation right now is I don't see any strong primary opposition within Republican ranks appearing on the scene to run against Jack Hampton for this spring and it should be appearing if some if there's going to be a serious candidate because there's only a few months between now and now from the next generation so there're huge primaries however I would anticipate that the Democrats will attempt to field a strong candidate against Jack Hampton in the November election Poland says a voting rights case pending before federal judge Lucius Button in West Texas could result in the creation of single member judicial districts In terms of a partisan basis that would be a significant change in both A number of the judges now live in North Dallas, live in the University Park area.

If we go to a system where we elect them in the single-member districts, they'll have to be running from areas like Pleasant Grove and Grand Prairie, Irving, Garland, and so forth. They'll either be moved or they'll have to run against each other where they live now. So I expect to see, like I say, 15 to 20 new judges at least. So they'll have a tremendous impact, and frankly, I don't think it could get any worse, so I'm hoping it'll be better. In his parting comments to the Dallas Times' Harold last December, Hampton told Cory Montgomery to spell his name right because voters would not remember in 1990. That's kind of a paraphrase of an old line from a governor of Texas, Papi Leo Daniel. He used to say, I don't care what they says as long as they says my name, and that's exactly what name identification is in politics, and that's why it's so critical to change the system we have now. The voters in Dallas County will be voting on 60 judicial races in 1990 under the current system. There's no way they'll keep up with all these people,

and they're going to go in and vote for somebody that they have just heard of, whether it was good or bad. We've had some bad experience in the past in Texas, electing people with famous names who were not necessarily famous judges. In certain parts of the county, Jack Hampton will be hurt by what transpired at which with his remarks and other parts of the county, he will not be hurt. Now, whether there'll be enough votes to defeat him or make it a close election, it's hard for me to tell. I think it's dependent on whether the other judicial races are fairly close. If they're fairly close, then Hampton could be in trouble. Well, I think he virtually ensured that we would remember when he said that. In fact, the goal of our organization has been to make it that no one forgets it, and we intend to work as hard as we can to get him out of the bench, for as long as he is on the bench. Judge Murray will submit his report on the case in about two weeks. It will then be up to the commission to decide whether to dismiss the charges, reprimand Hampton, or remove

him from the bench. When we were thinking about what we wanted to do in conjunction with the opening of the

Myers and Symphony Center, we wanted to do an exhibition which really focused on the city and the great achievements, the great cultural achievements of the city. And we're very fortunate to have a really good collection of modern European painting at the museum, but we're particularly fortunate in Dallas because there are so many great private collections. And what this exhibition is, it's a world-class exhibition of major masterpieces, all of which have homes in Dallas, some in the museum, and some in private homes. The greatest art of modern times is the art that developed out of the Impressionist Movement in the 1860s and 70s and France, and all of the little splinter groups of artists that succeeded the Impressionist. It's the only global art movement is Impressionist. And it's because of the fact that the paintings are accessible and colorful and beautiful and

relatively easy, you can look at a beautiful painting of the San near Paris, or of a bather, or of a cafe scene, or of Martinique, and you can get directly involved in it, no matter who you are. So it's a kind of art that doesn't have all that much to do with your background, and that's why it's universal. There's sort of symphonies of color, the Monet Water Lilies, wonderful deep blues and greens, but also moves and purples, and slightly acid colors, little moments of yellow. The pictures are full of color. The paintings, the last major figure picture by Edward Manet, who at the end of his life was struggling to create a series of pictures of monumental isolated human beings, and then

he became too ill to paint, while he was working on this picture and died and leaving it incomplete. And in a way, we're lucky that the picture is left unfinished because you can see a great artist's mind working through his hand. The impressionist component of it is maybe a third of the exhibition, and we are fortunate enough that the collections in Dallas contain works from all of the major movements of European painting, even before Impressionism, and right through to World War II. The generation following went in many different directions. Some pushed the color experiments of the Impressionists.

We are looking at a painting by Edward Monk, who was in Norwegian. It was painted in the early part of the 20th century, when Mr. Monk was living in Germany. Monk has created this curtain, this very dense curtain of green across the back, which represents the forest as it was. We are here in the foreground, which has just been leveled, raised by crews coming through, cutting this road. And their path has left behind this red, completely bare, stripped earth, which in a very real sense is suffering and bleeding. This group is very exciting, indeed, because it all represents work made in the Soviet Union just after the Russian Revolution. When the intensity and excitement of the revolutionary experiment was at its peak, and before the repressions of Stalin, which put a quick end to these brilliant bold experiments and geometric abstraction.

If people come to the museum thinking that they are going to see pretty pictures, and that they find they see tough pictures, or they see pictures that challenge them, or pictures that calm them down, like the moneys and back of us on the wall, which are soothing and peaceful and calm. I think the role of pictures like that in a world full of stress is a pretty good role. A victory party in Elmwood.

A usually quiet neighborhood southwest of downtown Dallas. These neighbors teamed up against another neighbor and won. Their opponent was Dixico, a company that makes bags and packages for snack foods. Earlier that day, the company announced it would drop plans to burn inks, solvents, and other hazardous waste at its plant. We still believe incineration is the safest, most appropriate means of disposal. But unfortunately, someone else will have to be the first to do the right thing. Someone else will have to be the leader.

We had a lot of support, and a lot of people that were opposed to this, and I feel like it was a financial decision they felt like they just couldn't continue to battle it. They cut back a lot on their storage. That's the chemistry of solvents right there, 10, 18, and 89. Dixico has wanted to stop shipping off its hazardous waste after some of it showed up on a farm, instead of at a hazardous waste disposal site. The dumping wasn't Dixico's fault, but by law, it had to pay for an expensive six-month cleanup. Any hazardous waste that we generate, we are responsible for forever. And that's the incinerator would allow us to burn it on site. We wouldn't have to worry about somebody picking it up, hauling it away, burning of it properly, and we would never have to worry about it turning up someplace else in the environment. There it is right there. Neighbors call the incinerator the beast. We looked at it the day before Dixico dropped plans to use it.

It's a 1974 trash burner that they want to modify to the state of our incinerator, and Dixico wants to modify it. It's not the manufacturer that made the incinerator. So I don't think they have the qualifications to be able to do that. The neighbors, we just felt that they didn't understand what we were doing. They didn't understand that it was safe, that it was sound. The Environmental Protection Agency supports incineration. Bill Honcker handles permits for hazardous waste disposal. There is a certain degree of risk involved with any industrial process, any waste disposal or treatment process. Most of the incinerators that we've reviewed in terms of the risk presented are on the order of one in a million chances of an additional cancer caused by the incinerator. If properly designed and operated, an incinerator can be safely operated even in residential neighborhood.

There are too many children. There are over 10 schools within a two mile radius of this plant. I mean, the closest school is like 3,000 feet away from its doors. And yet here in the middle of this residential. So the neighbors in this changing working-class neighborhood banded together. They call themselves individuals and residents against toxic emission, or I rate for short. When complaints to city and state agencies didn't stop the incinerator, they staged public protests. They said Dixico was a bad neighbor. Dixico is the number one releaseer of airborne carcinogens in Dallas County beating out of... And they talked about the company's safety record. Last year, the Dallas Fire Department found almost two dozen safety violations. Barrels of solvent had not been properly stored. No smoking signs were not properly posted near flammable solvents. I don't think that's responsible. That's not responsible to the surrounding neighborhood. That's not responsible to their employees. They did show some things, which I think any company has had any history in an area

over a period of years would have had problems with. But all of those areas were properly addressed. They were taken care of to the satisfaction of the Texas Water Commission. 15 feet underneath this black top supposed to be contaminated and it's supposed to be coming to this area right here. An investigation last year revealed that the dangerous chemicals, phenol and talluine, had reached the water table. The chemicals leaked from storage tanks that have been removed, but the contaminated dirt remains. They made it sound like the state of Texas found that problem. We took our tanks out before we were required to because we knew that eventually the tanks would have to either come out or be taken care of. We took them out. We found the contaminated soil. We reported it to the Texas Water Commission and we're working right now on a closure for that area. So all of the things that they are saying are they're saying it with a little bit of

color added to it. Dixico has operated in the neighborhood 67 years. Dixico has been using this creek for many years to dispose of waste material. Things like that happened all over the country before people knew what they know now about dangerous chemicals. But that history makes people who live near Dixico suspicious. The grassroots campaign against Dixico's incinerator got bigger and stronger. By the time the Texas Water Commission held a hearing in August, most of the neighborhood showed up. 400 people crowded into a hot gym. I have one little granddaughter. She is six. The other one is only two months old. I want them to grow up in a clean environment. And frankly, Dixico's emissions have scared the hell out of me. We are concerned. We don't feel that our fears and concerns are unfounded about the possibility of having toxic and hazardous waste in an increasing fashion in this section of the city.

Read my lips. We don't want your toxic waste. We don't want your toxic incinerator. And we don't want you. We are frustrated with lies. We are frustrated with political leaders who encourage and further those lies. We are frustrated with self-appointed neighborhood leaders who are not interested in the truth. This hearing was to decide who could testify to formal hearing next month. At that point, Dixico and its incinerator would have gone on trial. The hearing could have taken a few weeks or a few years. The neighborhood protests were bad enough. Then Dixico started having problems with various city agencies. They didn't live up to what they told us initially. What did they tell you initially?

Basically, they could not support Dixico in the incinerator, but they would do nothing to hinder our application for it. We don't believe that having a hazardous waste incinerator is going to be conducive to the health of our children or other residents or to the environment. When the anti incinerator campaign reached City Hall, the city switched sides and hit Dixico with zoning restrictions and permit requirements for burning hazardous waste. Dixico filed a lawsuit against the city. I don't know whether I call it betraying. I don't think they knew what they were doing. Had this been in an industrial site, the city council certainly would not have reacted as it did. Nor would I have the neighborhood. I think that the pressure from both sides led to the solution. The solution was at Dixico Dropits application and the lawsuit. That happened two days after the city changed a zoning ordinance to let Dixico stay in business.

And the opposition was actually not an issue in making this settlement. I don't see how they could possibly say that. I mean, we've been right in here for the past year and a half battling this and digging in files and looking for information. This is the permit application itself. A summary of their compliance history and the enforcement. This is the enforcement section. The Dixico fight has changed the way the Thompson's live. Well, the yard didn't get moat as often as it used to. Didn't get watered as often as it used to. Laundry piles up a lot more than it used to. The children get a little discurrent while sometimes and a little tearful when they can't spend the fallout the time that we used to spend together. I think it's nice for them to do it for our future. I think it's pretty nice to them. Then we won't be having all the skin cancer and all that.

So the Thompson's fought the beast and won. It's just the beginning. And of course, we're still concerned about the 27 stacks that are on top of that plant that have no filtering systems. When and Joe Thompson want to keep their backyard safe, but what they call their backyard keeps getting bigger and bigger. I'm glad that we definitely got them to stop and take another look. We don't need this in neighborhoods and we don't necessarily need it in the state of Texas. Their victory may become a problem for someone else's neighborhood. Until companies and people learn how to create less hazardous waste. Thanks to Jackson County. I just miss him.

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