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.