The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, November 18, 1975, Image 1

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    Weather
Partly cloudy and mild Wednesday
and Thursday with light northerly
winds 7-12 mph. High today 76; low
tonight 54. High Thursday 79; low to
morrow night 60.
Cbe
Battalion
Vol. 69 No. 45
Copyright © 1975, The Battalion
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, Nov. 18, 1975
C.S. voters
bond issue
to decide
financing
Land tract plan approved
by planning commission
By STEVE GRAY
Battalion City Editor
By a narrow 4-3 vote, the College Station
Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday
ni^it approved the final plat of a 30,000 square-
foot tract of land on the Redmond Terrace sub
division.
The commission debated for about 20 minutes
over the location of entrances and exits to the
tract, which is divided into two smaller sub
tracts. The land will be the future site of a Jack-
in-the-Box drive-thru restaurant to be located at
the southwest comer of the intersection of Texas
Avenue and John Miliff Road.
Commission Chairman John Longley cast the
tie-breaking vote in favor of the plat after the
commission deadlocked at 3-3. The commission
voted to allow construction of three curb cuts to
the tract, one on John Miliff Road and two on
Texas Avenue, as recommended by City En
gineer Elrey Ash.
A company official from Foodmaker, Inc. of
San Diego, Calif., said construction of the re
staurant should begin on or before Dec. 10 with
completion scheduled during late March or
earls April.
The commission approved the preliminary
plat for the proposed Pecan Tree Estates sub
division located between Holleman and South
west Parkway Drive. The .75 acre tract, just
west of Arizona Street, consists of 34 lots on
which, according to developers, duplexes will be
constructed.
A preliminary plat consisting of 85 home sites
in a heavily-wooded area located east of the east
bypass was also approved by the commissioners.
The large tract of land, part of which is located in
the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the city, con
sists of two adjacent subdivisions which are
being developed by Don Martell and J. W.
Wood. Both developers are currently requesting
ing category that would cover duplexes (or quad-
raplexes) not containing more than four families
per unit. Mayo was instructed by the commis
sion to craft a proposal of such an amendment to
be presented at the commission’s next meeting,
the city to sell water to the area. Septic systems
will be used to dispose of waste until the area is
subsequently annexed by the city.
The commission voted to recommend to the
city council that two tracts of land, totaling about
2.7 acres owned by the Bank of A&M, be re
zoned from an apartment-building district to a
commercial building district. The land, which is
adjacent to the bank and bordered by Texas Av
enue, Jane and Cooner streets, will later be used
to expand the bank’s facilities, according Bank of
A&M President D. H. Goehring.
The commission received an informal request
from the Texas Highway Department (THD)
that the commission look into the possibility of
providing other names for the west bypass and
Highway 30. Commissioner Ed Miller, who
brought up the request, said the THD appa
rently doesn’t like the name “west bypass.”
“Don't ask me why," he said.
Commissioner Chris Mathewson said the
commission should try to coordinate any such
renaming effort with the Bryan City Planning
Department since the bypass runs through both
cities. Such an effort would be needed, he said,
to avoid having two separate names for the same
road.
City Planner Al Mayo presented to the com
mission a report studying the possibility of draw
ing up a fence ordinance for College Station. He
said such an ordinance would be advantageous
to the city in that it would possibly prevent, for
example, “the erection of a barbed-wire fence
next to a sidewalk in a residential area.” Mayo
told the commission he has been studying simi
lar provisions included in the building codes or
zoning ordinances of Houston, Dallas and
Scottsdale, Arizona, to determine the benefits of
such a regulation.
Chairman Longley told the commission that
the city council has expressed interest in amend
ing the city’s zoning ordinance to include a zon-
By PAULA GEYER
Battalion Staff Writer
College Station voters will decide today
whether to approve a 14 cent annual increase
per $100 valuation of property for the next two
years to finance a $5.15 million bond issue.
The election is being held in the gym of the
Middle School located at 200 Anderson St. until
7 p.m.
The tax rate for the district is currently $1.77
per $100 of valuation.
Agnew writes
political novel
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Former Vice President Spiro
T. Agnew has delivered to his agent “The Can-
field Decision,” his 165,000-word political sus
pense novel about a vice president of the United
States who wants to become president.
Agnew s agent, Scott Meredith, said Monday
that Playboy Press will publish the book in the
United States in May. Publishing houses in
more than a dozen foreign countries also have
agreed to publish the work, he said.
Meredith said that when Agnew dropped the
manuscript off Monday, he did so with a sense of
“tremendous relief and said ‘Thank God.’ He
said a lot of people did not think he could do it,
but he was glad to show them he could.”
The work of fiction is 576 manuscript pages
long — about 500 pages in book form. “It is
unlike the Agnew-type vice president,”
Meredith said. “It is about a liberal vice presi
dent who does not get along with the president
and is looking for a means to get the next party
nomination on his own while being manipulated
by foreign forces.”
He also has an affair in the book with a female
cabinet member, according to Meredith.
Meredith described the novel as “very au
thentic with its descriptions of the boredom of
cabinet meetings and scenes on board airplanes
traveling between cities.”
Meredith said Agnew was now on a trip to
Europe and the Far East and would do some
promotional work for the novel when he returns.
After that, he said, the former vice president
plans to start a second novel of the political
world and then probably write his memoirs.
He declined to disclose how much the former
vice president was paid for the work.
Agnew resigned as vice president Oct. 10,
1973, after pleading no contest in federal court
to one count of income tax evasion.
Texas ticket sale
starts Thursday
The student ticket distribution
schedule for the Aggie-Longhorn
game is as follows: Seniors and
Graduate students: Thursday, Nov.
20. Juniors: Friday, Nov. 21.
Sophomores: Monday, Nov. 24.
Juniors: Tuesday, Nov. 25.
Associated Press
Many police chiefs around the nation blame
an FBI-reported increase in crime on the
economy.
“Until the economic situation rectifies itself
and you get more people working, you will have
a lot of thefts and crimes against property,” said
Chief Harry Merker of Bristol Township, a
Philadelphia suburb.
“With a lot of people out of work, you are
going to have a lot of crime.”
Merker was one of several police chiefs asked
by The Associated Press to comment on an FBI
report issued Monday that crime in the United
States rose 18 per cent in 1974.
Merker also said that there was a long-term
problem of “permissiveness” that had resulted
in a crime increase over the last 20 years.
“You have to be a convicted murderer to get a
prison sentence. Burglars and thieves get slaps
on the wrist,” he said.
“I guess the economy is a factor, too,” said
Chief William F. Quinn of Newton, a suburb of
Boston.
But he noted that one of the major problems is
that it takes too long to get cases to trial.
“There’s an awful lot of delay to get to the
Superior Court,” he said.
Chicago Police Supt. James M. Rochford said
that despite what the FBI statistics show, crime
in his city has gone down 1.8 per cent so far this
year, compared with the like period in 1974.
Deputy Police Chief John Killackey credited
this to “excellent patrol work and investigation-
s.”
Meanwhile, Chief Justice Richard J. Hughes
of the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a pub
lic pronouncement of judicial policy Monday cal
ling on judges to take a tougher stand with vio
lent criminals.
“Stern and prompt prosecutorial and judicial
response must be consistently thrown into the
balance in this effort to cope with violent street
crime,” Hughes said.
For example, a resident’s property worth
$10,000 would be assessed as being worth
$8,000, since property in the city is assessed at
80 per cent of its value. The annual tax on that
property for the next two years at 14 cents per
$100 valuation would $11.20 or an increase of 93
cents a month. Similarly, a $30,000 home would
be assessed at $24,000. The tax increase on this
would be $33.60 or $2.80 a month.
Board member Bill Lambert said at the board
meeting Oct. 20 that this tax rate would de
crease after 1978 after outstanding bonds are
paid off.
The bond issue, if passed, would supply funds
for building a new elementary school containing
25 classrooms on the old Middle School site at
1300 Jersey St.
The new school will help eliminate over
crowding in the district’s schools.
Present enrollment in the district is 3,077
students. The schools were built to accommo
date 2,975 students.
The plans for the bond issue also include a
vocational building at the high school, six clas
srooms in the Middle School and physical educa
tion facilities at South Knoll and College Hills
Elementary Schools.
The high school vocational facility would re
lease 10 classrooms currently used for vocational
classes to be used as regular classrooms.
The facility would provide needed vocational
and agriculture classrooms.
The six classrooms at the Middle School
would be used as a six grade classroom unit.
The physical education facilities and two re
lated classrooms at both College Hills and South
Knoll Elementary Schools will provide space for
a full physical education program at these
schools.
These facilities would also provide a place for
community education classes and follow the
school board’s concept of “providing citizens
with direct benefits from district schools.”
Other facilities which would be built with this
money are food service expansions at both the
Middle School and the High School, library ex
pansion and erosion work at the Middle School
and four additional classrooms at College Hills
Elementary School.
The projected enrollment for College Hills,
South Knoll and the new elementary schools
after the addition of these facilities would be
College Hills, 477; South Knoll, 508; and 432
students enrolled at the new school.
Most of the students attending the new school
would come from the South Knoll attendance
area.
The new school would be completed by the
fall of 1977.
If the bond issue passes and funds are availa
ble after these facilities are completed the ad
ministrative offices possibly will be rebuilt.
New Consol buses
to eliminatestanding
Police blame economy
for increase in crime
By PAULA GEYER
Battalion Staff Writer
The problem of children standing in the aisles
of moving school buses will be solved Monday
when two new buses are scheduled to be deli
vered to the school district, A&M Consolidated
Schools Superintendent Fred A. Hopson told
the school board Monday night.
The district must eliminate the problem be
cause of a new regulation laid down by the Texas
Education Agency (TEA). According to the regu
lation, no children will be allowed to stand in the
aisles of the buses while in motion. The buses
ordered by the district will help eliminate over
crowding by limiting the number of children per
bus to 72, Hopson said.
The buses cost approximately $13,000 each.
In other business the district approved a loan
from the University National Bank for $60,000 to
cover operating expenses and salaries until the
district receives money from local taxes. The
school district expects to receive the tax money
by January.
A report on the relocatable buildings at Col
lege Hills and South Knoll Elementary Schools
was also heard.
Hopson said the district was withholding
payment of 10 per cent of the cost of these build
ings until some of the problems with the build
ings were, corrected, such as replacement of a
few floor tiles, adjusting doors and retouching
some of the paintwork.
The district has currently paid $22,990 of the
cost of the buildings, and the remaining
$1,210 will be paid after the problems are
corrected.
A textbook committee to choose textbooks for
the next two years was selected by the board. It
will consist of 14 teachers and Hopson.
Books that will be selected during the next
two years are spelling and math books for grades
one through six.
A fiscal committee was also appointed by the
board to meet with O. C. Grauke, assistant
superintendent of finance. The committee
would meet monthly to review the district’s fi
nancial report in more detail than is possible at a
board meeting, and then report back to the
board.
Board members Bill Lancaster, Bruce Robeck
and Lambert Wilkes were appointed as commit
tee members by the board.
The program he outlined to the state’s judges
requires tightening procedures under which
charges are downgraded because of crowded
court calendars, which thus lessen the penalties
for some criminals.
He also called for a review of judicial policy to
see if there is a need to hand out substantial
prison sentences to the persistent and appa
rently intractable violent offender. ”
Seattle Police Chief Robert Hanson said his
city had a 14 per cent increase in crime for 1974
over 1973 and a 5 per cent reduction over-all
since 1969.
“The thing that concerns me is that the crimi
nal justice system, or non-system as I prefer to
call it, is in a state of collapse,” Hanson said.
“Crime won’t be reduced until the criminal jus
tice system is reorganized.”
Hanson added that unemployment locally
“has never had any great impact” on crime in-
Agency unfair to
small oil dealers
Associated Press
BOSTON — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy,
D-Mass., said Monday that a Senate subcommit
tee has found evidence that the Federal Energy
Administration has discriminated against small
independent oil dealers.
“We found discriminatory enforcement di
rected against the small independent firms in
stead of against the major oil companies,” Ken
nedy said.
He said that as of last June’s subcommittee
hearings, the FEA had docked small dealers
$800,000 on violations totaling $88 million, “but
FEA had not collected a single penny in penal
ties from the big refiners and the integrated oil
companies for price violations totaling $267 mill
ion.
“And they have not collected a single penny
for those violations up to this very day.”
Kennedy disclosed details of the report is
sued Monday in a speech to the New England
Fuel Institute. The report was issued by his Se
nate Administrative Practices and Procedures
Subcomm ittee.
The FEA in a statement issued Monday said
Kennedy’s subcommittee report concentrated
too heavily on negative aspects and may have
produced an unbalanced picture of FEA’s com
pliance program.
The statement asserted FEA has had teams of
auditors at the headquarters of the major refin
ers since the beginning of the compliance prog
ram and said the report fails to point out that
FEA has filed several suits and brought one
criminal action against major oil companies for
alleged violations.
Campus
: IN THE ARTICLE entitled “Med school may
i open in ’76” a mistake was ina^e. The Medical
J school will accept persons after their second year
of schooling, their sophomore year, not their
I lunior year as was stated.
•
i A VISITATION HOURS extention survey
| will be taken this week by the Residence Hall
I Association. The question reads: Do you wish to
i have visitation hours in this residence hall ex-
| tended another hour from Sunday through
Thursday? — Change the hours from noon to 9
p.m. to noon to 10 p.m. ? — Leave the hours as
they are now?
•
A LIQUOR ordinance survey is being con-
| ducted to determine whether students would
support a change extending the hours of liquor
purchase to 2 a. m. on Saturday and certain holi
days. The survey also queries whether weekday
i hours should be lengthened. Survey forms are
j available in room 216 of the MSC, student gov
ernment office.
•
| SELF-NOMINATIONS for Cotton Bowl rep
resentatives will be taken through 5 p.m. Wed
nesday in Room 218 of the YMCA building.
Candidates must be female students enrolled
full time at A&M, carrying a 2.25 GPR and have
! completed at least one semester of study at
; A&M. Selection will take place Friday through
an interview process.
JAMES MICHAEL and Barbara Ann Taylor
will perform Friday night in the Basement Cof
feehouse. Admission will be 50 cents.
•
WILLIAM TURNER, investigator for the
Kennedy assassinations, will speak Wednesday
at 8 p.m. He will address the topic of political
killings. Students with activity cards are admit
ted free, all other must pay $1.
STUDENTS interested in helping the com-
nunity should contact the voluntary action
:ommittee at 845-1741. The committee works in
Bryan Hospital, the Junior Museum of Natural
History, Bryan’s Girls Club, Retired Senior
Volunteer Program, Sheltering Arms, Arts
council enrichment program. College Station
recreation council and emergency medical prog
ram. Over 200 volunteers are needed im
mediately.
•
THREE TRIPS are being offered by the MSC
Travel Committee.
Razorback game watchers can travel round
trip by bus to Arkansas for $47. The price in
cludes two nights in a motel, round-trip and
game tickets. Sign-up closes Tuesday.
A ski trip is being planned for semester break
to Georgetown, Colo. The trip price is $163 for
six nights, ski lifts, and other details. Sign-up
closes dead week.
Four different European tours are being of
fered for under $640. The tours are for 11 days
and include London, Paris, Italy and Avoriaz.
Sign-up ends Dec. 12. Sign-up in Room 216 of
the MSC.
THE UNIVERSITY SYMPHONIC BAND
will perform Tuesday at 8 p.m. in the Rudder
Theater. The University Symphonic Band is
composed of students and teachers. A&M stu
dent admission is free with an activity card;
non-A&M student-date admission is $1; general
public admission is $2.50.
•
AUDITIONS for the Aggie Players’ produc
tions of “Lamp at Midnight,” “The Man Who
Never Died,” “Coat of Many Colors,” and
“Harper’s Ferry” will be held Monday, Jan. 19.
Anyone is eligible to try out for as many plays as
they wish. Cast and crews are not limited to
students. Between 100-150 people are needed.
Scripts are on reserve in the library for those
who wish to read them. Production dates are
Feb. 25-28 and March 3-6.
•
COLLECTIONS will be taken Thursday for
the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (Ox-
fam) in coordination with their “fast for a world
harvest.” The committee has been in the U.S.
for five years and collected $813,227 from
200,000 participants in last year’s fast. The
money is used to aid farm projects in Asia, Latin
America, and Africa.
People interested in helping with the collec
tion should contact Jim Reibel at 846-0760 or
Josie Garcia at 693-8845.
National
A FREE DANCE will be held in the Military
Plaza Friday from 8p.m. until midnight. Music
will be provided by Ben D. Downs, disc jockey
at WTAW.
•
MARILYN HORNE will perform Thursday
evening in the Rudder Auditorium at 8. Tickets
are from $3.70 to $5 for A&M students and $4.60
to $6.75 for general admission.
I A SPECIAL GAME to teach bridge players
1 how to play duplicate will be held Saturday at 1
I p.m. in Room 140 of the MSC. The teaching
I session is free and enables bridge players to par-
{ ticipate in the ACU-I tournament to be held in
early December.
•
THE A&M MOTORCYCLE CLUB will hold
its Fall Semester Observed Trials Sunday at the
Easterwood Airport Riding Area. There will be
classes, enduro, trials and powderpuff for the
dirt bikes. Interested persons may call Tom
Carney at 845-6066.
•
GRAND ILLUSION, part of the Aggie
Cinema’s International Series, will be shown
Tuesday at 8 p.m. in the Old Ballroom. The
movie is Jean Renoir’s 1937 anti-war master
piece set against a prison escape of French av
iators from a German Prison Camp. Erich Von
Stroheim and Pierre Fresnay star. Admission
will be $1; tickets are available at the Rudder
Box Office.
WASHINGTON — After only brief debate,
the Senate today confirmed President Ford’s
nomination of Donald H. Rumsfeld as secretary
of defense.
Rumsfeld, 43, who has been White House
chief of staff, succeeds James R. Schlesinger,
fired by Ford 16 days ago.
Rumsfeld was the only witness at hearings last
week by the Senate Armed Services Committee,
which then gave the nomination its unanimous
approval.
Before becoming Ford’s staff chief, the former
Illinois congressman served the Richard M.
Nixon and Ford administrations as U.S. ambas
sador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
director of the Office of Economic Opportunity,
White House counselor and head of the now-
defunct Cost of Living Council.
Centerpole
Texas A&M students raised the centerpole Friday 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 26.
for the 1975 Aggie Bonfire. The Aggie fire will be lit at staff Photo by John west