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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 1983)
The Battalion Serving the University community il. 76 No. 169 USPS 045360 10 Pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, July 6, 1983 Campus normal ifter blackout by Robert McGlohon Battalion Staff tyctophobes rejoice. The Texas :M Physical Plant is back in busi- is, a plant official says. "We’re safe — safe as we can be at : moment,” William E. Holland, ociate director for utilities, said esday. That margin of safety is due to ind-the-clock efforts of physical nt employees and the Brazos Elec- :al Power Cooperative, Holland d, adding that it was rather frantic the few days after the blackout. The blackout, which occurred ursday at 1:40 p.m., resulted from iroblem with the boiler connected the University’s biggest source of ctrical power, a 15,000 kilowatt gas bide, and with the expansion joint meeting the boiler to the turbine, (Hand said. The failed boiler and expansion at caused a campus-wide interrup- n of electrical and telephone ser- e Thursday afternoon, but service s partially restored by Thursday ;ht. Additional blackouts were avoided shutting off services to unused ildings and cutting back on air con doning for parts of campus, Hol- td said. Full power was not re tted, however, until 6 p.m. onday. The gas turbine was repaired and ited but will be down for another tee weeks while the boiler is being paired. The west campus is now po- :red by a transformer hastily sup- ied by the Brazos Electrical Power (operative. Because the gas turbine could be ed, if inefficiently, without the boil- ,Texas A&M now has back up elec- cal capacity that it didn’t have he re the blackout, Holland said, which makes another blackout un likely. In three weeks, when the boiler is completely repaired and the gas tur bine can be operated efficiently, Texas A&M will be safer than ever, Holland said. “We’ll be in better shape than we were before the blackout,” he said. The University’s electricity wasn’t restored easily. Holland said that as soon as the blackout occurred, physical plant workers were put on round-the-clock shifts to restore the failed equipment, and Brazos Electrical Power Coopera tive was asked to supply a mobile elec trical substation to pick up part of the load. The mobile substation was instal led and operating by Saturday after noon, which brought the University to full power. But, Holland said, mobile substations are susceptible to damage in transit and are not as safe as their more permanent cousins, and the one supplied failed at 3:30 Sun day morning. The University again had to limp along on less than full power until 6 p.m. Monday, when a permanent substation, again supplied by Brazos Electrical Power Cooperative, was in stalled and operating. The delay was due to the fact that a crane had to be brought in from Dallas to move the 69 kilovolt substation. Two hours after the new substa tion was working, the turbine was fixed and tested. It was shut down again, however, for safety reasons. It’s dangerous to work on the boiler while the turbine is going, Holland said, because of the extremely high temperature at which the turbine op erates. “It would fry a man to a crisp if a mistake were made,” Holland said. A College Station fireman washes antifreeze off the roadway following a two-car collision Tuesday morning at the intersection of Wellborn Road and Joe Routt Street. The traffic lights at the intersection were not working at the time of the accident. The Cadillac attempted to cross the intersection and was struck by a truck. The driver of the Cadillac was issued a ticket. SISD to seek counsel for Ferguson hearing by Robert McGlohon Battalion Staff The College Station Independent hool Board voted Tuesday night to re counsel for an upcoming hearing ncerning the suspension of A&M jnsolidated High School football ach Hal Ferguson. The vote followed a special closed leeting in which the Ferguson case as discussed with CSISD attorney on G. Henslee. The motion was adeby board secretary Joe W. Tem pleton, seconded by board member John C. Reagor and approved 7-0. Board president Bruce W. Robeck said after the meeting that the move to hire outside counsel was a “pro cedural thing,” and that he needed someone to advise him during the “quasi-judicial” hearing in which he will act as administrative law judge. “I need to have someone to sit next to me and advise me who is familiar with administrative law,” Robeck said. Ferguson was suspended from his staff photo by Barry Papke Out with the old Patricia Mauck, a grounds maintenance worker, removes dead flowers Tuesday and prunes excess foliage from red cannons located behind the Military Sciences Building. The flowers were relieved from the summer heat and humidity Tuesday by rain that showered the area early in the day. Mauck has been a University employee for four months. coaching position June 20 after the board learned of a bank account set up in Ferguson’s name at Western National Bank of Bryan. Robeck said after that meeting that the account violates state law, as well as CSISD policy, because it was not located at the district’s designated bank, Un- itedbank of College Station. Ferguson opened the Western Na tional Bank account in December us ing more than $300 of his own money. The account, Ferguson said, was used to buy supplies for conces sion stands at A&M Consolidated bas ketball games and for personal travel expenses. Receipts from the conces sion, stands were later deposited into the account. Ferguson said no district money went toward his personal use. After Tuesday’s meeting, Robeck said no new developments in the case had occurred. Ferguson has hired an attorney to argue his appeal of the suspension before the board. District counsel Henslee will argue the administra tion’s case and the board will sit in judgment. Henslee said after the meeting that he had advised the board to hire out side coun sel because of the nature of his role in the case. “I can’t very well present this case and advise them too,” Henslee said. “I have advised the board to seek coun sel to advise them while I present the administration’s case.” Robeck said that the outside coun sel will be hired in an advisory role only. Whoever is hired probably will have nothing to do with the case until the actual hearing, he said. The hearing, which Ferguson has requested be open to the public, has not been set yet, but Robeck said it would probably be sometime in Au gust. Decision of tax exemptions for banks may cost Texas cities, counties millions United Press International WASHINGTON — A Supreme Court decision that gives banks ex emption from state and local taxes on federal securities holdings will mean millions of dollars in pay backs and lost revenue, said city and county offi cials across Texas. Justice Harry Blackmun, writing for the court in Tuesday’s 6-2 ruling, said Congress intended that banks be exempt from nearly “all states taxes” on savings bonds, Treasury bills and other federal securities in a measure enacted in 1959. City and school officials in Dallas and Houston and Dallas and Harris counties each said the ruling required them to repay more than $10 million to banks. Jim Robinson of the state Property Tax Board in Austin said his office expected to receive a copy of the deci sion today and would determine how much money is involved across the state. “A lot will depend on what can be taxed and retroactivity,” Robinson said. “It’s obviously going to involve several millions of dollars.” Linus Wright, superintendent of the Dallas Independent School Dis trict, said although the DISD had built up a $20 million fund in anti cipation of the decision, he did not want to use those monies because that would reduce the district’s collateral. “It’s imperative that we not deplete the fund balance and maybe pay this out of (future) revenues,” .said Wright, who also predicted the finan cial bind may affect teacher payraises in Texas. There was speculation that press ure might be placed on Gov. Mark White to call a special session to set up a new method of taxing banks. Brian Lidje, an attorney for the Dallas banks that challenged the law, said he did not believe the amounts involved represented such a large percentage of a city’s or county’s tax revenues. “While these dollar amounts sound large, they really aren’t,” Lidje said. “They make up only a small part of the budget.” The governmental bodies, which will have until January to repay taxes improperly collected in the past three years, were expected to move to raise property taxes to make up the differ ence. In addition to Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Montana have simi lar laws that may be voided by the court’s ruling. Death row inmate’s fate depends on Supreme Court ruling today United Press International PARCHMAN, Miss. — If the Sup reme Court issues its long-awaited death penalty ruling today, Jimmy Lee Gray could still die in the gas chamber at Parchman prison before midnight. The condemned child-killer’s fate was left in the hands of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after Chief Justice Warren Burger Tuesday de nied Mississippi’s request to lift the appeals court’s stay of execution. The New Orleans court, in grant ing the stay Saturday, said it wanted to await guidelines on death sentence appeals expected this week when the Supreme Court rules in the case of Thomas Barefoot, a man condemned to die in Texas. However, the appeals court also said it wanted rebuttal from the state to Gray’s contention that Mississippi’s gas chamber constituted cruel and unusual punishment. An assistant Mississippi attorney general was in New Orleans today prepared to ask the 5th Circuit to dis solve its stay after a ruling comes down in the Barefoot case. Gray, 34, a slender former compu ter operator, was sentenced to die in 1976 for the sexual assault, kidnap ping and murder of Deressa Jean Scales, 3, of Pascagoula. The child was killed by holding her head in a ditch until she died from swallowing mud. At the time, Gray was on parole from an Arizona prison in the 1968 killing of his 16-year-old lover. Tuesday’s ruling brought a bitter response from Mississippi Attorney General Bill Allain, as well as from the father of the dead child. “They (the defense) are talking now about how you can execute, if the gas chamber is inhumane,” said Allain. “That is a brand new issue. It has not been raised in the seven years we have been in court in this case. “People begin to lose confidence in the justice system for a court to con tinue to Mickey Mouse around with a case that’s been around for seven years. For them to continue to allow Jimmy Gray to raise issues at the last minute, when are you going to have finality?” Richard A. Scales of Dallas, the dead girl’s father, said after Burger’s ruling that “There is no justice.” If the exeuction cannot be carried out by midnight tonight, authorities in Mississippi must return to the Mis sissippi Supreme Court for a new ex ecution date, which Allain said could take several weeks and open the door “for all kinds of future delays.” inside Classified 8 Local 3 Opinions 2 Sports 9 State 4 National 5 forecast Partly cloudy skies today with a high of 93. Northeasterly winds near 10 mph. Mostly clear tonight with a low near 73. Partly sunny Thursday with a high of 92.