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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 12, 1976)
ouncil grants request for transit bus I By JERRY NEEDHAM I Battalion Staff Writer ■permit to operate transit buses in Col- ■Stationwas granted by the City Coun- ■esterday to Tom Bass of Cameron, I, during a four-and-a-half-hour meet- nhe Bryan City Council granted a permit Wednesday to Roy Ellis, 804 Muckleroy St, in Bryan, to operate a transit bus within pe Bryan city limits. has a permit request pending in Ln, and Ellis has a request pending in lege Station. ■heCollege Station Council emphasized ; granting a pemnit to Bass does not [Jude them from also granting a permit .told the councilmen that he has lecity buses that he got from the city of [Angelo. He plans to start with two ; and run them seven days a week. 6e said his buses will operate on a edule and will travel Texas and College Ws (pending approval from the Bryan [incil). He said he may venture into thborhoods if the demand warrants it. lass said it will require 15 to 30 days to lupbus stop signs and to advertise the lice. Jllissaid that at this time he has only one ius, a 48-passenger school bus, but plans to Imore if needed. He said his transit sys- Iwill be primarily designed to help low- fine people get to and from work be- «n the cities. Questioned about his plans if Bryan does not grant him a permit, Bass said he felt a transit bus could be economically feasible even if it operated only in College Station. Mayor O. M. Holt and Councilmen Jim Dozier and Larry Bravenec voted against granting the permit. “This could very easily work into a franchise system,” Dozier said. A bus sys tem operating solely in College Station would, in time, probably have to be sub sidized by the city because it would not make money, he said. Bravenec said “We’ve got an old ordi nance, and I think we should update it before we grant any permits. ” The ordinance was written in 1939, one year after College Station was incorporated as a city. The insurance section of the ordi nance requires coverage for $5,000 liability The ordinance was written in 1939, one year after College Station was incorporated as a city. The insurance section of the ordi nance requires $5,000 liability and $1,000 property damage. A stipulation to the approved permit al lows the city staff to check the axle load on the buses to see how the loads will affect the city’s streets. In other action, the Council approved a bicycle path plan for the city. Federal funds totaling $6 million are available nationwide for starting such plans as demonstration projects. The next step in the project is to apply for the federal funds. A map and further explanation of the plan will be in next Wednesday’s Battalion. The Council rejected a request to rezone 16.2 acres of land east of the Highway 6 bypass and south of Krenek Lane from single family residential to general com mercial. Glynn Williams, who was requesting the change, said, “Residential housing would not be very marketable on the bypass be cause of the noise level. ” Councilman Jim Gardner said he felt commercial businesses should not be en couraged all along Highway 6 but should be limited to certain intersections on the highway. “If yours is rezoned, why not the whole highway?” he asked. Mayor Holt and Councilman Homer Adams voted for the zoning change. “If the property can stand without inter fering with anyone, I think we should re zone it,” Adams said. The Council also amended the penalty section of the Hotel-Motel Tax ordinance. The amendment allows the city to place a lien on the property of a motel which does not give the city the three per cent hotel- motel tax collected from its guests. The Council heard a request from A. L. Bartley, local manager of Lone Star Gas Co., for an increase in gas rates in College Station. A public hearing on the request has been set for April 8. CITY COUNCIL IN ACTION Councilmen Halter, Adams and Bravenec (1 to r) view zoning maps Staff photo by Jim Hendrickson r Battalion Vol. 68 No. 91 College Station, Texas Friday, Mar. 12, 1976 Fire Station Committee studying ways to expand facilities College Station has a definite need for a rger central fire station and a substation, ie Chief Douglas Landua says. The city’s Capital Improvements Com- ittee is studying ways to expand the fire ation facilities. Councilman Gary Halter, lairman of the committee, said three pro- losals are being considered. ; The first proposal calls for expansion of the police - fire station building at its pre sent site on Texas Avenue across from the |exas A&M campus. Another proposal I’ovides for the expansion of the police station at the present site and the building of a new fire substation south of the city. Halter said the third proposal calls for jxpanding the fire station at the present cation and moving the police station. The proposals are part of the committee’s jecommendations for a $5 million city bond issue tentatively planned in the spring. The bond issue will include proposals for an improved utilities system, park improve ments, city street tensions and improve ments and a park fund. Halter said the improvements commit tee will meet in three weeks to make final recommendations. The bond issue propo sal will then be submitted to the City Council sometime in April. Landua said the primary needs of the fire station are space and equipment. “The station now has facilities for five on-duty personnel. “We need additional living quarters for 16 or 17 people, ” he said There are presently 15 fulltime firemen and 30 pay-call firemen. Pay-call em ployees are paid only when they are called to assist at a fire. Ninety - five per cent of the pay-call firemen are A&M students. Before 1971, fire protection for the city was handled totally by the university. In 1971 the city took over the responsibility. “We are still a long way from being able to supply totally full-time personnel,” Landua said,’’but we are working towards adding more full-time people.” The fire chief said there is enough full time personnel to man the first run of the . fire trucks. “After that we rely totally on off-duty firemen and pay-call men. We just hope they are in town.” A fire substation is needed, he said, be cause the station should be within a two- mile radius of all of the city’s boundaries and if the present facility is expanded it is in a good location to serve the campus, Northgate area and two miles south of the station. — Lynn Rossi Restrained from flight Almost as though the tower is straining to fly from the earth, it is held only by taut steel cables. Rather, maybe it is Earth that is held from flight by its anchor, the tower. V Staff photo by Douglas Winship Index Comet West can be seen early in the morning all next week. Page 3. The Bryan Community Education Program begins next week. Page 3. The March of Dimes Walkathon is scheduled for March 27. Page 3. Aggies around the world are pre paring for Muster. Page 4. Two students found a smugglers’ camp in Mexico. Page 4. ★★★ Weather THE FORECAST for Friday is partly cloudy and mild with chance for thundershowers. High today in mid-70’s; low to night 39; Saturday in high 50’s. ★ ★★ Drive carefully and defensively over the holidays Williams to submit request for more educational funds Texas A&M University is 19 from the bottom on per student expenditures nationwide, A&M President Jack Williams told the Academic Council yesterday. He also said he is going to submit a statement to support more education ex penditures in Texas to Senator Bill Clayton, speaker of the Texas house, for lobbying. The recommendation will compare A&M academic standards to those of other colleges within Texas and the United States. It will include the number of col leges and programs offered at A&M. Williams also reported Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) scores for enter ing freshmen at A&M are higher than the national college norms. A&M was compared to 1,800 other four-year colleges and universities that par ticipated in the College Entrance Examina tion Board (CEEB) survey. Williams said that the average SAT scores of entering freshmen are: A&M 513 487 verbal 551 mathematical College Norms 505 426 verbal 459 mathematical “Forty-one per cent of the students in the upper ten per cent of their graduating class attend A&M as compared to the na tional norm of 18 per cent,’ Williams said. “We wanted to find two people with cur rent lives and representation that will re flect well on the A&M centennial and on the bicentennial,” said Williams in refer ence to commencement speakers. Houston attorney Leon Jaworski will be the featured speaker at commencement exercises Friday evening, May 7. General Brad Weyand, Army Chief of Staff will speak on Saturday morning, May 8. Fifty new courses were approved by the council in addition to various course changes, course cross-listings and course withdrawals. The proposed Doctor of Philosophy in applied psychology curriculum was ap proved. If approved by the Board of Re gents and the State Coordinating Board, this will be the only doctoral-level program in applied psychology offered in Texas. The council also approved the proposed Master of Arts program in anthropology and » Bachelor of Fine Arts program in Art. The fine arts proposal, approved by the Academic Council in July 1974, was not taken to the Board of Regents because of | limited facilities, said Dr. John C. Cal houn, A&M vice-president of academic af fairs. The program will be housed in the new architecture building when it is finished. Lillian Foreman Alternate sites proposed for varsity tennis courts Three alternative sites for the proposed varsity tennis courts were reviewed yes terday by Texas A&M System Vice- President A. R. Luedecke and student members of the Long-Range Campus Planning Committee. The site originally proposed is south of the Rudder Center next to G. Rollie White. This site is being reconsidered because of the large size of the eight planned courts, Luedecke has said. One alternative is to renovate the exist ing six varsity courts, increasing their size and improving their foundation. However, various positions of the restructured varsity courts would intrude upon a grove of trees, the regular tennis courts and an intramural field in the surrounding area. The courts require a north-south orienta tion so the sun will not be in the players’ eyes. Luedecke will discuss the alternative sites with the Academic Council, tennis coaches and intramural coaches before the final decision on the location is made. Other alternatives for the courts are south of the baseball field and across Wellborn road. “The tennis court project has been ap proved and everyone is anxious to get on with it,” Luedecke said. He did not know how long it would be until the plan was finalized. Luedecke also discussed plans for the west campus. Two agriculture buildings and a power plant are now under construc tion. Near future plans include four parking lots, new roads and electrical and sewage systems. The existing buildings on the west campus will hamper construction, but new facilities must be built before the existing ones can be torn down, Luedecke said. Luedecke said traffic on Wellborn Road would be controlled with stop lights at Jer sey St. and Old Main Drive. Priority would be given to campus traffic during peak Regents to consider service-fee reduction By LEE ROY LESCHPER JR. Battalion Staff Writer Student service fees for 1976 - 77 may be reduced 6 cents per semester credit hour by the A&M Board of Regents later this month. Tom Cherry, A&M vice-president for business affairs, has recommended that the Board set Fall 1976 service fees at $1.59 per credit hour. Maximum fee charges would be $19 for regular sessions and $9.50 for summer sessions. Service fees are now $1.65 per credit hour with maximum charges of $19.80 for regular and $9.90 for summer sessions. The Board will probably act on Cherry’s recommendation March 23. The Regents’ meeting, which will be open to students, starts at 8:30 a.m. in the Regents’ wing of the Memorial Student Center. In his recommendation Cherry said the reduction was possible because service fees are expected to exceed projected uses for those fees. Excess fees would be available because of large enrollment increases for 1976-77, he said. New funding sources for programs formerly financed by student money will also reduce service fee needs, he said. The Student Senate recommended a $1.60 reduction in maximum fee charges in February’s part of a proposal on athletic department funding. Under that proposal, service fees would be reduced and student season football tickets would be increased to $16.50. Jeff Dunn, student government president, said yesterday that University President Jack Williams approved the Se nate recommendation two weeks ago. Final approval on any service fee change must come from the Board of Regents. hours. The problem of the railroad tracks dividing the campus has not been solved. The expense of moving the tracks is too great to be considered now, Luedecke said. The new Animal Resource Facility will be located near the College of Veterinary Medicine across from the Forest Science Laboratory. Its primary purpose is to house animals for research and lab use at the vet school and the new medical school. Other colleges will have research animals kept there. Funds for the project will be limited to $3 million, Luedecke said. The contract should be awarded by November, 1977. The new baseball field will be located across Wellborn Road where the rodeo arena is now situated. The estimated cost for the stadium is $1.5 million. Although the actual design not been de cided, the stadium will include dressing rooms, concessions and mechanical and custodial areas. Seating capacity will be 5,000, Luedecke said. A parking lot holding 500 to 800 cars will be built south of the stadium. The barns in that area will be removed. An Equestrian Center has been pro posed to replace the rodeo arena and barns that will be torn down, Luedecke said. The master plan for the center includes a polo field, jumping field, five barns, riding trails and arena. The arena and one barn will have priority for construction. The arena will be an open air stadium with steel bleachers. Luedecke said that il will be constructed so that the arena can be enclosed later if desired. The barn is ai experimental design, circular with an ele vated roof. The center of the barn is ar open arena with stalls surrounding it anc the outer edge of the building. North of the new baseball field will be ai intramural complex containing eight foot ball fields and four softball fields, Luedecke said. Luedecke said that he would like to see the polo field moved from the front of the campus near the Systems Administratior Building. “The players need a proper place awaj from the increasing traffic on campus,’ Luedecke said. —Susan Browi