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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 9, 1980)
The Battalion Serving the Texas A&M University community Vol. 74 No. 29 Thursday, October 9, 1980 USPS 045 360 28 Pages in 2 Sections College Station, Texas Phone 845-2611 The Weather Yesterday Today High 83 High 85 Low 58 Low 60 Humidity. . . 75% Humidity . .. 58% Rain .. 0.0 inches Chance of rain. . . . . . none Northgate crowding solutions presented By NANCY ANDERSEN Battalion Staff Ifenative solutions to the problem of overcrowded Northgate ■ were presented to the student senate Wednesday. ■uring peak nights, students overflow into several lanes of He on University Drive outside the four bars. David Collins, ■president for external aflairs, reported some temporary solu- ans until a long range one could be implemented to alleviate the Htion. The proposed solutions included: | Blocking off the parking spaces in front of the bars to create ior< standing space. § Adding another light on “Bottle Cap Alley” to try and draw ion people into the alley area and away from the street. 3) Remove the motorcycle parking area between the Dixie ■ken and the Alamo. Bese solutions have not been worked out with the businesses volved yet, but Collins said “we can count on some cooperation om them.” Collins said the proposals will be submitted to the ollege Station Planning and Zoning Commision and City Mana- :r North Bardell. The long range solution would be to block off and resurface jtricia Street, which runs behind the bars and the adjoining Ring lot. This would create a mall area, he said. Lights, ben- ies and maybe a roof would complete the conversion, he added. “It would be a walking street — orienting all the Northgate mnesses toward the back,” he explained. College Station city officials are very concerned with the pedes- ian problem and will try to float a $1 million bond for capital Uprovements, of which an estimated $100,000 would be used for jiconversion, Collins said. The earliest this conversion could be implemented would be :xt fall, he added. Collins said that he needs student input on this problem, and id students with ideas should come by the Student Government Bet in 216 MSC. In legislative action, senators hotly debated the documentation an academic minors bill, but sent it back to committee. This bill )uld require the Registrar’s Office to place a student’s minor, if plicable, on the official transcript. Computer delays action The controversy centered around the fact that the University does not recognize minors in any fields on transcripts. “Minors are merely policies within your fields,” said Kevin Pond, off-campus graduate senator. So before such a proposal could be enacted, the University would have to recognize minors, approve the bill and send it to the Coordinating Board in Austin for final approval, he said. Since minors are not looked on favorably by the board. Pond said, the bill will run into problems getting approved in Austin. The trend is away from specialization statewide, and currently no state institutions have academic minors, he added. “The chances of this passing our administration and the coordi nating board are so slim, that we shouldn’t put pressure on our administration, ” said Steve Crumley, business senator and acade mic affairs committee member. “We have to think of our reputation with the administration,” added Kathleen Miller, vice president for academic affairs. Phil Hannah, sponsor of the bill, disagreed. “Since no one else has them, why can’t A&M be the first to have an academic minor?” asked Hannah. “This is extremely important to anyone who has a minor. Having the field stated would be more powerful than course fistings.” “We are here to represent the students and not impress the administration,” said Rhonda Rhea, Ward II senator. “I have yet to talk to a student who doesn’t support this bill. ” However, bill opponents said the situation isn’t as simple as adding the word “minor” on a transcript. The way the bill is written, there would have to be a review of all courses offered to specify which ones would be required for a minor, Miller said. In other action, a parking row indication bill was tabled until the last senate meeting of the semester. This bill will recommend that University Police put row markers in nine of the larger parking lots. Sponsor Hannah said the $50-per-sign cost was a little high and other solutions should be investigated. The senate also heard and asked questions about the “Only One Date a Semester” bill. No action will be taken on it until the next meeting, Wednesday, Oct. 22. As By DEBBIE NELSON Battalion Staff soon as delayed parts of the new com- terized traffic signal system arrive and J installed in College Station, traffic mid flow more smoothly. istallment of 16 new lights at about ,000 has been delayed by controller oces (which electronically time the jitching of lights) which failed to pass xas Department of Highways and Public fety tests, said Roger Barnes, TDH en- leering technician and inspector for the &ject. eplacements have been ordered, but received. Barnes said the state office in |tin will put the new controllers through ame “severe tests” the first set of lights mt through. Arrival of the system’s computer has len delayed several times, John Black, Sr traffic engineer, said. Fourteen of the Ev lights, or all but four of the city traffic Jits, will be connected to the computer. The computerized system is being Ided by the Texas Department of High- lys and Public Safety. The city of College Ition will take over maintenance once the ps are installed. lefugee move o Puerto Rico lalted by judge United Press International SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A federal dge halted the transfer of 5,000 Cuban Haitian refugees to a Puerto Rican nav- iase in a stunning setback for President er’s attempt to temporarily settle the iugees on the island. Wednesday’s injunction order was uled as a victory for “the democratic sys- m by Puerto Rico Gov. Romero Barcelo. The White House announced it would tpeal the decision ordering a halt to the tting up of the temporary camp at Fort (len Naval Base. Work stopped at the Fort Allen tent city tiding a decision on the White House peal in the 1st District Court of Boston, lich has jurisdiction over Puerto Rico, a •S commonwealth. U S. District Judge Juan R. Torruella iled President Carter had not proved a iter would result if the Cubans were ransferred to Puerto Rico and thus had ight to waive local environmental laws lanitation and crowding at the Fort n camp. barter’s executive order, issued Oct. 3 er a law giving him the right to waive ironmental regulations in cases of catas- ihes or national security, overruled a rto Rican environmental board’s re- ement that Fort Allen not be used as a gee camp until an environmental im- statement could be filed. Each individual controller box will be programmed to decide how long a light stays green, Black said. The boxes are ab out the size of a refrigerator and will sit on concrete slabs at the intersections. But adding the computer can change the lights’ timing for light and heavy traffic periods. “Basically, when you plug it into the computer, the computer will override what all the little controller boxes are doing,” he said. Barnes said there are three weeks left on the construction contract, but because of equipment delays, construction will run overtime a little. Black said he expects complete installa tion to be delayed from 60 to 90 days, and said he would hate to estimate when the computer would arrive. A cable will connect all the lights to the computer in Black’s office in city hall. A large lighted map will display the city traffic lights. Black said the new system will work simi larly to the two lights on Wellborn Road at Jersey and W. Main. Timings are set for each signal head. Metal detectors in the road hold a green light on Wellborn until a car comes off of the campus or across the railroad tracks. The new system will contain about 150 metal detectors at various places around the city, counting the number of cars pas sing over them at certain times, Black said. The computer will use that information to determine when individually program med signals should be overidden. The present traffic system has been up dated several times, but contains “some antiquated equipment,” Barnes said. Only four city signals will not be con nected to the computer: Agronomy Road and University, Tarrow and University (by Fed Mart), Rosemary and Texas (to be taken over by Bryan) and Southwest Park way and Texas. The city itself will install a controller box at the Southwest Parkway-Texas intersec tion. But the box it will use is presently being used at Jersey and Wellborn Road, which has not received its new controller box yet. “We’re waiting on the state, and the state is waiting on the contractors, and the con tractors are waiting on the manufacturer and supplier,” Barnes said. Fish Tarzan StafT photo by Pat O’Malley Stevan Perez, a company M-l freshman, goes through the motions on the obstacle course behind Mount Aggie. The outfit placed 35th at the Texas Tech march-in, so freshmen were “paying for it” Wednesday afternoon. Lithuanian wins Nobel prize United Press International STOCKHOLM, Sweden — In a surprise decision, Lithuanian author Czeslaw Milosz today was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Milosz is the first Lithuanian to win the coveted prize, worth $215,000 this year. He won over a star-studded field that included Norman Mailer, Britain’s Graham Greene and Trinidad-bom author V. S. Naipaul. The award to Milosz, a 69-year-old poet who comes from a tiny Soviet-ruled Baltic state of3.4 million population, was in line with a recent tradition of awarding the prize to lesser known literary personalities from smaller countries. Last year’s prize also went to a poet, Odysseus Elytis, a Greek wartime resistance fighter. In awarding the prize to Milosz the Swedish Academy cited his family background of ancient lineage “in which primitive folk traditions lived on together with a complex historical heritage. ” Since 1960, Milosz has been a guest lecturer in Slavonic lan guages at the University of California in Berkeley. Milosz grew up in the Polish town of Vilna. The academy adso said that during his youth, industrialization had not made itself felt in earnest. Ships wait out war Oil tankers stranded Rally ’round Staff photo by Pat O’Malley A rally for the Democratic presidential ticket and local candidates was held Wednesday afternoon in Culpepper Plaza parking lot. From left to right are Kent Caperton, candidate for state senator; Geech Cook, (‘66), an actor, formerly of CBS’ Carter Country; and Jerry Webster, a musician from Austin who performed in the show. About 50 people showed up for the rally. United Press International MUSCAT, Oman — Almost 40 huge oil tankers rode at anchor near the mouth of the Persian Gulf today—stranded at sea by a war that has made the oil shipping lanes dangerous and prohibitively expensive. The harbor master at Mina Qaboos, near Oman’s capital of Muscat, said 38 empty oil tankers were sitting off the Omani coastline in the Arabian Sea awaiting instructions from their nervous owners. Looking out to sea from Mina Qaboos, the huge oil tankers filled the horizon. The ships’ owners were reluctant to send them through the 24-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf because of the recent 300 percent increase in war-risk premiums imposed by insurance brokers on the re gion after the onset of the Iran-Iraq War. Harbor officials said all the tankers were headed for Iraqi and Iranian oil export ter minals or other ports “close to the war zone.” There are normally only two or three tankers anchored off Mina Qaboos, and Omani officials have begun to charge the shipowners per ton for every week’s stay in their protected waters. Shipping sources said they could not gauge how long the tankers would wait out side the Persian Gulf, but they noted there was no great demand for tanker tonnage now and it was cheaper for the owners to keep their ships in the area. The owners apparently are hoping for a quick end to the conflict and an equally rapid reduction in the war-risk premiums before they allow their tankers near Iran or Iraq. In a related development, the Qatari news agency reported from the United Arab Emirates port of Dubai, inside the Persian Gulf, that Dubai has concluded an agreement with Iraq to accept shipments destined for Iraqi ports until the hostilities end. Shipments for Iraq can now be unloaded at Dubai so captains don’t have to enter the As the war continued today, Iranian war planes set huge fires in Baghdad and attack ed the oil center of Kirkuk. Iran claimed its airborne forces destroyed 35 Iraqi tanks and killed more than 100 enemy troops along the northern border. Fighting was reported on several fronts along the Iraq-Iran border as the war en tered its 19th day today, with each side still claiming the tide of battle was in its favor.