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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 20, 1979)
he Battalion p2 No. 116 2 Fjages Tuesday, March 20, 1979 College Station, Texas News Dept. 845-2611 Business Dept. 845-2611 Absentee balloting open Absentee ballots for Bryan and College Station city council and school board elections are being accepted. Absentee ballots for the A&M Consolidated school board may be obtained at the central ad ministration office at 100 Ander son. To vote by mail, you must call or write the proper office to re quest the ballot be sent to you. It must be mailed within Brazos County by April 3. ome, 7i 3er game! t, who s team's if] 1 a great I e NIT J '"y/’saiij Square J me of tk| s in theo razos senator hot ver blocked measure 2) United Frees International JUSTIN — Sen. William T. Moore, Jryan, threatened to hit Sen, A. B. tz, D-Galveston, over the head his gavel Monday in an angry al- ation that had the two colleagues jing each other everything from dic- hial to a liar. ae near fight between the Senate |n and veteran liberal leader on the ate floor overshadowed a Houston |resentative’s wedding on the other of the Capitol and a series of 13 luse votes to finally approve and id to the Senate a $450 million tax lef plan. Ichwartz and Sen. Lloyd Doggett, DjAustin, blocked Moore’s efforts ear- lie; in the day to win Senate approval for i bill they said would insulate con- tra tors from damage suits for faulty §§|; k on anything from school buildings ■bridges and highways. ■When Schwartz appeared at an af- arnoon meeting of the Senate State Af- feifs Committee, chaired by Moore, an< demanded the right to question a •Wit less the longtime foes erupted in a Vfti die exchange of insults that ended ift!i Moore gaveling the meeting to ad ornment. 1“Schwartz, the only reason you can [t away with this is because you know not going to hit you. You’re too amn small,’ Moore growled. JSen. Ed Howard, D-Texarkana, between the two when Moore iarched on Schwartz after declaring, piis committee’s adjourned. I’m not to be insulted by a fool. ’’ |Sen. Peyton McKnight, D-Tyler, walked Moore out of the Senate chamber. Moore had threatened at one point during the argument to have Schwartz ejected from the committee meeting. “You’re not going to take over this committee,” Moore told Schwartz. “Is it now you’re position that you can run this committee in a dictatorial fashion?” Schwartz asked. The Galves ton senator refused to say how many questions he wanted to ask the execu tive director of the Texas Board of Pharmacy and said Moore had no right to limit any senator’s interrogation of a witness at a committee hearing. Schwartz at various points in the al tercation called the Bryan senator ob noxious, and arbitrary and, when Moore said he never cast votes on a personal basis, retorted “That’s a damn lie.” “I don’t want to hit you over the head with this gavel, (but) you’re trying to provoke it,” Moore told Schwartz at the heighth of the argument. “I’m neither afraid of being hit nor of Senator Moore,” Schwartz told re porters after Moore stalked out of the chamber. In Senate session earlier, Moore won a 23-7 vote to debate his bill limiting contractors’ liability for construction defects but Doggett blocked action with a point of order complaining there was no fiscal note explaining probable costs of the bill. “I want to know what happened to the fiscal note,” Moore demanded hotly. “I didn’t remove it. I wonder if the senator from Travis (County) did?” Moore and Schwartz got into a shout ing match about the accuracy of a bill analysis indicating the bill would exempt contractors from liability for construction defects in work “on or under public streets or roads.” “Anybody with a very minimal knowledge of the English language or any comparable language can see the bill analysis doesn’t say what the bill does,” Schwartz complained. ‘T’d like to know if the lobby wrote the bill Doggett said Moore is pushing the legislation for Associated General Con tractors. “I don’t know where I got the bill, 1 may have got it off the floor,” Moore said. “This is designed to protect the con tractor from having to pay damages for his own negligence,” Doggett said. ’“They just want to be immunized from any liability and let the taxpayers of the community pick up the tab.” Schwartz said the bill would protect contractors who built a Danbury, Texas, school that he said has serious stmctural problems that inspecting en gineers and architects failed to note. “What this bill says is that the first time a high wind comes along and the building blows over and kills some school children the contractors say to the people of Danbury, Tough luck,”’ Doggett said. "If the school districts and the cities and the counties knew what this bill does they’d be up here opposing it,” Doggett said. 10U. Israeli parliament to vote n cabinet-approved treaty I iids I® 1Y United Press International JERUSALEM — The cabinet Monday overwhelmingly accepted the Egyptian- Israeli peace treaty, giving its approval to the irst pact of its kind between Arab and Jewtind clearing the way for its presenta tion to parliament where endorsement seemed certain. The Israeli radio said the treaty will be signed in Washington next Monday. The cabinet vote accepting the nine- treaty was 15-2, including that of Defense Minister Ezer Weizman who was in Washington, Cabinet Secretary Arye Naojr said. H Voting against the pact were Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon, the hero of the 197| October war who is responsible for Jewish settlements in the occupied ter ritories, and Transport Minister Haim Lanpau, Naor said. I The cabinet voted less than 24 hours after Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan urged an early first concrete step in im- pleiinenting the first Arab-Israeli peace agreement — opening the border between Egypt and Israel a month after the treaty signing instead of nine months. The open borders, Dayan said, would facilitate Egyptian participation in negotia tions for Palestinian autonomy. But he stressed the right of movement across the international border would have to be mutual. In essence, it meant Israelis would have the right to drive across Sinai to Cairo if they wanted. The favorable cabinet decision did not come as a surprise and was made during a five-hour special session. The treaty will go before the Knesset (parliament) today and its debate is scheduled to go through Wednesday fol lowing an overnight break. Nearly 90 of the 120 Knesset members are to vote for the document. The cabinet decided in addition to es tablish a committee to draw up proposals for Palestinian self-government in the oc cupied West Bank and Gaza Strip prior to negotiations with Egypt on the plan, Naor said. Prime Minister Menachem Begin will head the committee and it will start work following the treaty signing, Naor said. He said no concrete decisions were made at the session about the autonomy plan. Deputy Prime Minister Yigael Yadin said several problems remained in bilat eral relations, apparently between the United States and Israel, and said they will be solved. “The road is clear provided the Knesset will approve the treaty, and I hope it will,” he said. The army will resume its withdrawal from Sinai Sunday, defense ministry sources said. The military began with drawing non-combat equipment in the fall but halted the operation when the treaty negotiations ran into a deadlock. With Knesset approval all but certain, the government already made final plans for the ceremony in Washington where President Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Begin are to put their signatures to the treaty. Begin and an Israeli delegation are to leave for Washington Friday. Students petition Architecture dean By ANDY WILLIAMS Battalion StafF and PEGGY C. McCULLEN Battalion Reporter A group of 61 graduate students in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design have signed a “let ter of concern” to Dr. Raymond Reed, the dean of the school, objecting to what it calls discord between him and depart ments in the college. There are 89 graduate students in the division of architecture in the college. The students’ letter said in part, “The discord that exists between the Office of the Dean and the Department of Architec ture has been the ... cause for the resigna tion of key faculty members and the de partment head.” David Woodcock, who resigned as de partment head effective in December, said he did so because the position con flicted with his teaching career. Three faculty members have resigned from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design in the past two years. Lance Tatum, now at the University of Texas, resigned in the spring of 1977. Robert Heatley, now at Oklahoma State University, and Bob Meeker, now at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, both resigned last year. Woodcock said the men had left “for more than one reason.” Both Tatum and Meeker complained of a policy of the Texas A&M University Col lege of Architecture that prohibits its fac ulty members from practicing architec ture. Meeker said the policy was not Re ed’s own. Don Sweeney, assistant dean of Urban and Regional Planning, said the policy was established to assure the school that its professors would be foil-time. “The demands of a practice do not re spect the demands of teaching full-time. That’s why the state can not condone two full-time jobs,” Sweeney said. Meeker said no such policy exists at the five other schools in the state that have architecture programs. Robert Thompson, student representa tive of the Department of Architecture, said he wrote the letter out of a sense of exasperation. “I just got tired of seeing all the frustra tion between our department and the dean. Somebody’s got to stand up for what they believe in, so I authored this thing,” he said. The letter calls Reed’s office “an overall negative’ influence on the aspirations of existing faculty and an overall sense of ‘futility’ in areas of new research for the department.” The letter said the group believed the dissension has made it difficult to attract new faculty to the architecture college, and that the present problems stifle the department because of “personality con flicts and non-objective decision-making.” It also accuses Reed of harassing the leadership of the department of architec ture. Reed denies that harassment has taken place. The letter calls for an internal audit by a “non-partisan mediation group” to review progress to remedy the problems. Reed’s written answer to the students' letter suggested that they had overreacted to instability stemming from the lack of a head of the department of architecture. No replacement for Woodcock has been chosen. “Sustained discussion of deartmental problems in the presence of students at a time when the department is without permanent leadership has so fanned the insecurities of the students that they have chosen this approach to accelerate the res olution of perceived problems,” Reed’s letter said. Reed said he planned to have meetings with students and faculty members to re solve some of the problems. Thompson said he was unsure he had accomplished anything at a meeting the students had with Reed the week before spring break. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s one of those things where you like to think you did, but I left with the impression that I’d gotten the old runaround.” Asked specifically if there had been harassment from the dean’s office. Wood cock replied, “Harassment is certainly a harsh word. “This is a student petition. They obvi ously feel very badly about the issues or they would not have written the letter and signed their names to it, and such a large majority at that. “The problems are as real as the stu dents see them to be.” The letter continued by saying meetings are being held with faculty and students “to identify, illuminate, and resolve real and-or imagined issues.” The search committee appointed to find a new department head has interviewed three candidates, but has yet to offer any one the job. The committee asked that each of the candidates write a letter of response, out lining his requirements for taking the posi tion and offering constructive criticism of the department. Two letters have been received. Bryan decides to use private ambulances By JUDIE PORTER Battalion Reporter The Bryan City Council has done it again but not unanimously — in a four to three vote, the council defeated a motion to provide ambulance service through the Bryan Fire Department. As a result, a public hearing on March 26 will decide which one of three private companies will establish a service within the city. The council spent two hours in a special meeting comparing costs between having a city-owned service and a privately- owned service. City Manager Ernest Clark said the only decision to be made during Monday’s meeting was whether the city should enter into the ambulance business or permit a private company. The three private companies who have filed for a permit are Texas Ambulance Company operated by Gary Williams, Medical Transport Service owned by Bill Thornal, and Bryan EMS Inc. operated jointly by Dale Owens and Ken Whitlow. A detailed report showed the fire de partment could provide service to the city at a cost of $48,000 a year. The three pri vate companies vary in their costs: Williams wants $24,000, Thornal is asking for $60,000 and Owens & Whitlow want $88,980 plus a modular ambulance provided by the city. The manning of an ambulance service by the city would require six extra men who would work in two-men shifts of eight hours. Thornal has 11 people manning his service, Williams would start with two and work up to four, while Owens and Whit low would use three people plus two additional ones on the weekends. Williams has had six months experience in the ambulance business, while Thornal has had 18 years and Owens & Whitlow have had 15 years experience. Councilman John Mobley said, “We as a city should not be into ambulance serv ice.” Mobley was one of the four who voted against the motion for city-owned service. The other three members were Joe Hanover, Henry Seale, and Peyton Waller. Hanover said he felt that Bryan should give private business a chance to provide the service. Both Hanover and Waller agreed that the responsibility of the city providing an ambulance service would cause added headaches with the collecting, taxing, buy ing of equipment and other things it would require. Mayor Richard Smith said there had been no history of a successful private ownership of ambulances in Bryan and he thought they should work it through the fire department. Providing an ambulance service for Bryan has been a recurring problem for the council. In 1973, the city lost the serv ices of the three local funeral homes who were providing ambulances for the county. In 1974 Ed Sherill started opera tion but ceased in 1977 when Bill Thornal was granted a permit. Now, in 1979, the council is still struggling over funding an efficient ambulance service for the city. 4 Aggies surpass world record By DOUG GRAHAM Battalion Staff ^■exas A&M University has finally proven it: Sharks don’t sleep. |kEv, pool sharks, that is. ^■our fraternity pool sharks broke the Bnness Book’s world record of 101 hours follongest continuous pool playing. They started Thursday noon, and bat tled the elements, yawns, and table scratches till 9 p.m. Monday to post a new record: 105 hours. Kim Tijerina, Sigma Chi; Gary Bar- more, Pi Kappa Phi; Joe Ping, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and Robert Davis, Theta Chi, shot pool continuously, except for hourly five-minute breaks, in the beer garden of Astraptes, a local disco. And they looked beat when interviewed close to 5 p.m. Monday, when they would overtake the previous record. They stolidly played pool surrounded by bags of chips and other munchies. There were empty coke bottles, a dirty crock- at Astraptes Disco and Beer Garden. Battalion photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr. playing pool for 105 hours pot, and coffee cups. It was the debris of a four-day, nine-hour effort to draw atten tion to Muscular Dystrophy. In addition to the food fell-out, there was a small dike of mud on the brick floor. “The first night here, it rained and really flooded the place,” Tijerina said. “We had to build a dam. “The second night it got really cold. Since then it has been pretty nice.” Ping, moving and speaking slowly (he wasn’t the worst — Barmore was barely intelligible) said the group got a bit cocky after the first 30 hours, because the first day was the hardest. He and Tijerina agreed that at first all four students started as individuals and were finishing in a team effort. Their fraternity brothers helped keep them awake and various people came in to shoot pool with the “Marathon” men. Though the effort was geared toward helping the fight against Muscular Dys trophy, the players and their promoter. Bob Roberts, manager of the disco, did not take pledges for the amount of time the four played pool. “We had so many things to do in prepa ration, with that and the weather, we over looked it,” Ping said. “I think we made a mistake not doing it.” Roberts said the event took a lot of preparation. “We had to get new tables, new felt, the tables leveled, and get pub licity arranged.” In addition, Tijerina said, the Inter- Fraternity Council had to get the frater nities together for the pool marathon. But at the very least, the campaign against Muscular Dystrophy received $150 from the vending machine owner. He also staked $50 for a tournament between the players, Roberts said. The generous gesture spurred renewed competition between the pool sharks, Roberts added. “But the big problem is, none of them can even shoot in a simple straight shot anymore." Robert Davis lines up with the one-handed shooting style the marathon ers adopted when their hands became blistered and sore from holding and swinging a pool cue. Battalion photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr.