Publishers Solve 'Phoenix' Dispute

This week's 32-page edition of The Phoenix, on sale today, is ten pages shorter than usual. But the two-year-old Boston paper has survived a battle for control between its publishers which threatened to end its life.

Richard H. Missner, one of the two publishers who shared control of The Phoenix, bought out his partner. Ray Riepen, yesterday morning after a long struggle. Missner, who has been with the paper since April of last year, gained control of it, he said, "for a cash sum in five digits."

"The staff is very happy about it," Editor Harper Barnes said yesterday. Members of The Phoenix staff willingly forfeited pay for the past two weeks in order to continue publishing the paper, and many vowed to resign if Missner was unable to buy out Riepen.

"Our dispute was primarily on a personal level." Missner said of the partnership. "We were not able to work together and I felt that he was destructive to the health of the paper."

Missner created the network of street hawkers, which has been a factor in making The Phoenix Boston's largest selling newspaper. He also supplied most of the money throughout his partnership with Riepen.