RAISE LOWERED FOR D.C.COUNCIL

Senate Keeps Plan For Phone Towers

The Senate yesterday dropped plans to restore a proposed pay raise for D.C.
Council members and remove a provision in the District's budget that would
allow construction of two cellular telephone towers in Rock Creek Park.

In approving the District's fiscal 2000 budget on a voice vote, senators
said they would block council members' proposed 15.6 percent pay raise,
instead permitting them raises of about 5 percent, to $84,000 a year.

A week ago, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) said she would agree to the
full increase if it would speed passage of the city's $4.7 billion spending
plan. But the Clinton administration said the president would veto the bill
because it included GOP inserts to ban the use of marijuana for medical
purposes and a needle-exchange program for drug addicts, aimed at curbing
the spread of HIV and AIDS.

With the White House holding firm, Hutchison restated her opposition to a
15.6 percent raise for D.C. Council members, saying it didn't make sense for
them to get larger pay increases than military and civilian government
employees.

Similarly, Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said he was
willing to take out the provision allowing the Rock Creek cell towers if it
would hasten progress on the city's budget. On that basis, the House removed
the provision from its bill that passed Thursday. But yesterday, senators
kept the measure in their bill.

"He still is hopeful it will be kept in the bill," Daschle's spokeswoman,
Renit Schmelzer, said yesterday. "However, he doesn't want to hold up the
process either."

The two issues will be taken up by a conference committee of lawmakers from
both houses, which probably will meet next week to try to come up with a
final budget that President Clinton won't veto. The District is operating
under a temporary spending resolution that expires Thursday.

Other key changes in the bill would:

* Allow private clinics such as Whitman-Walker--rather than the D.C.
government--to distribute clean needles to addicts.

* Permit the D.C. mayor, school superintendent and financial control board
to determine a new cap on fees for lawyers who represent students in
lawsuits against the D.C. school system's troubled special-education program.

Also yesterday, a consultant's report concluded that Bell Atlantic Mobile
needs better cellular telephone coverage in Rock Creek Park but could
achieve that with one antenna tower rather than the two it has proposed.

But more towers are likely in the park as Bell Atlantic's competitors seek
clearer cellular telephone service, the consultant said in a report to the
National Capital Planning Commission.

The commission, the federal government's planning agency for the region, is
scheduled Nov. 4 to consider allowing Bell Atlantic Mobile to build the towers.

The consultant, Comp Comm Inc., of Voorhees, N.J., said that "while Bell
Atlantic Mobile can make a clear case that they do not provide suitable
service to the park from their existing sites, they fail to make a
compelling . . . argument for locating two sites in the park."

The consultant's report "is a small victory in a long process to provide
additional coverage in Rock Creek Park," Bell Atlantic Mobile spokeswoman
Andrea Linskey said. She added that the company believes two towers are needed.

The park's valleys and trees inhibit cellular calls; nearby residents and
conservationists say the towers would be intrusive.