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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 28, 1984)
TKe Battalion Serving the University community he •owy said, I Vol 78 No. 120 CISPS 0453110 14 pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, March 28, 1984 ality of uurnamei e leamthu nen's team amen’s let en are o •niraden, 1 n the ced third ;rn placed onnecticut win: Hart landslide United Press International Lowy said, lournamei m membeuBHARTFORD, Conn. — Sen. Gary of togetheimrt got back, on the victory trail lost in diMiesday, winning the Connecticut i the standiBimary by a landslide over Walter go up thJondale and gaining momentum oeat, but it Bing into next week’s battle for dele- Ble-rich New York State. ■With 79 percent of Connecticut’s n consists® precincts reporting. Hart had aallclasses B,779 or 55 percent, Mondale ■,680 or 30 percent and civil rights gnition fotBivist Jesse Jackson had 15,284 or 9 d- peicent. Bln the battle for the 52 delegates at Bke in Connecticut, a preliminary IBfBBuntgave Hart 34 and Mondale 18. VV | Bin Mondale still kept a big lead in 1 ytht battle for the 1,967 delegates ’■eded to win the nomination, told themB^ e * alesl nationwide UPI dele- heirhei count including Connecticut sers.” showed Mondale had 698, Hart 429 ners C ou an(! J ac hs°n 87. feeling t|»B^ onnec ^ ct was a lopsided victory whoL ^ 01 l * ie Colorado Senator, but not ill of Fan 111 x P ecte< ^ s *nce he had cam- nl intninJigned heavily in the state where he spent six years studying religion and that I * av at ^ a i e while Mondale had vir- )w ” S 2 K j jMy ignored Connecticut. Corb«S^ e viclor y K ave Hart a sweep of th^ so Be caucuses and primaries iti all six |Ni v England States this year, and his W'ho si fintprimary victory in two weeks, ad coadiB^ arL svve P l parts of Connecti- v wipe Igh scoring heavily in the suburbs. the now ct. so many h we coni ’ Meyer Mondale had his best showing in the cities of the state, but still lost them to Hart. Jackson was strongest in the cities, with a 22 percent vote in Hart ford in the early count. In Bridge port, the state’s largest city, Jackson was running ahead of Mondale with only one precinct left to report. put gether the same coalition that has brought him victory in earlier battles — the young, affluent, well edu cated, suburban and independent voters. CBS reported that Hart carried a majority of both the labor and Jewish vote — probably Mondale’s two strongest constituencies in his earlier victories. “We’re going to lose and lose badly,” Gov. William O’Neill, Mon dale’s strongest supporter in the state, said less than a half hour after the polls dosed at 8 p.m. EST. Con necticut, with one of the fastest com puterized voting counting systems in the nation, had nearly all its votes counted within the first hour. A light turnout was reported across the state despite perfect sunny spring weather. Party officials esti mated a third of the state’s 660,000 Democrats would cast ballots. Nearly all the state’s Democratic leadership had backed Mondale ex cept Sen. Christopher Dodd, whose early endorsement of Hart sparked instant speculation in the state that he was among the senator’s vice pres idential possibilities. Hart needed the Connecticut vic tory to overcome the perception that his campaign might be slumping af ter its dramatic early victories. After Mondale won the season opening Iowa caucuses as expected, Hart scored one of the major upsets of po litical history by winning the New Hampshire primary with ease. That startled the slumbering Mon dale political machine, but it was slow to make a comeback as Hart followed with victories in the Maine caucuses and Vermont’s beauty contest pri mary the next week. Then two weeks later,Mondale got back in the race, winning in Alabama and Georgia while Hart scored big in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Florida. In the most important contest to date, Mondale scored a big victory last week in Illinois, setting the stage for the big showdown next week in New York and again the week after in Pennsylvania where 172 delegates 3re at stake. {Rate plan criticized hat would I i the aisles B ByTRICIA PARKER Staff Writer ■ The Texas A&M System Board of Rt ents voted Tuesday to increase £ ithi rent rates for married student f fV ^ ous ' n g 10 a l eve l so high that it will be cheaper to live off campus, claims Ithe president of the married student : on third housing organization, ir, senditlt'B “The only way you will be able to !iv( here cheaper (than off campus) doubled is not to live here,” says Chuck Mc- ake it l-UCullough, president of the organiza- owed witklbu. “The only people who will save 3-0 leadoumoney living here are the ones who my Stewarijgo home every weekend or who don’t ter Frank run their air-conditioners.” first six iniB Jerry Smith, associate director of its and stifusiness services says the proposal ^rsTomHipill raise rent in the fall of 1984 by id Dave ip percent. oies ont" 11 * “The increase is due to a state jy, mandate to raise salaries of the crews and simply to maintain the apart ments,” Smith says. e 1 1 Rent for married student apart- l ments now runs from a low of $160 a month for a one-bedroom unit up to K52 for a two-bedroom, the average is about $230 per month. The 3.2 percent increase would add five to seven dollars to the bill. McCullough says if he adds in the electric bills he ; 4'ght as well be living in a regular 1 japartment. B McCullough says several commer cial apartments offer comparable shooni- Tjts at prices ranging from $225. ung to i>| victory Friday 1 various 1 iunday in game a? aite a met !g' )arf Confer? nd advati' 1 jional reel nament. I overcame They also offer swimming pools, Ja cuzzis, trips and prizes which mar ried student housing does not. “We aren’t saying we want a swim ming pool or carpet or any of the other amenities offered by other apartments,” he says, “since we need to hold costs down. But when making a comparison, these things must be considered.” “Student housing is just not com peting with the local market,” he says. “Other apartments are offering bonuses and their rent is actually fall ing. But ours went up last year and it’s going up again next year.” Frank Nicolas, the manager of stu dent apartments, says married stu dent housing is not in competition with commmercial apartment com plexes so the fluctuations in their rents do not affect it. Married stu dent apartments are run on a break even basis, he says, and rents are set so that income just covers the cost of their operation. “It’s Ike apples and oranges,” Nic olas says, “we’re not the same. These are fine apartments but there are no frills.” There are five complexes located around campus to provide low cost housing for married students, in cluding the Southside complex lo cated behind the police station, and the College Avenue, College View, Hensel Terrace, and Avenue “A” apartments, all located on the corner of College and University Drive across from Skaggs Alpha Beta. Seven hundred and nine units are are contained in the complexes. Nicolas says electricity meters were installed at the beginning of Septem ber to reduce the costs to students and to help cut down in the amount of energy used. Since the meters were installed, consumption of elec tricity has dropped by 10 percent. But costs to the students are another matter, says McCullough. “Sure, they cut the rent by $15 or $20,” McCullough says, “but when you add in a $50 or $60 electric bill, it’s a pretty substantial rent increase. The 3.2 percent proposed rate hike for the fall of ’84 seems small, but I fail to see the need after the whopper last year. McCullough says rent was cut by about $20 in September, supposedly the amount of the average electric bill. But utility bills rang upward of $50, actually increasing the rent, he says. Nicolas says that from figures he has compiled, the average utility bill is from $15 to $73, depending on the complex. Any additional increases, he says, are necessary to cover the ris ing costs of labor and maintenace. “We’re completely self-sufficient,” he says. “We have to pinch pennies in every fashion we can. If I have to pay for something it has to come out of someone’s pocket, and it’s the one of the tenants.” See HOUSING page 9 Photo by CHRISTINE THA YER Up a tree “Would you please detach your cat from my chest,’’was fire fighter Rob Bordeau’s only comment after rescuing Maggie, a 7-month-old tabby cat from a tree. Her owner, Susan Talbot, a senior journalism major from San Antonio, called the College Station Fire Department after Maggie had been in the tree for 24 hours. Parking policies toughen By SARAH OATES Staff Writer In an attempt to crack down on students, faculty and staff who re peatedly ignore the parking regula tions, the University Police Depart ment has developed a new, tougher policy for handling parking viola tions. According to the new policy, peo ple with six or more tickets will not be able to buy a parking permit for the coming academic year until their tickets are paid for. “We have about 1,000 to 2,000 fac ulty and staff with six or more tick ets,” said Bob Wiatt, director of secu rity and traffic for the University Police Department. “We also have some students who have 30 or 40 tickets and have been towed before, but still haven’t paid for the tickets,” he said. A new twist to the University tow ing procedure is any person with six or more tickets could be towed at any time, regardless of whether he is parked illegally. Such a person will not be able to recover his car from the A-1 Wrecker Service lot unless he presents a re lease from the University Police De partment. The release cannot be ob tained without paying for the tickets. Those unable to pay for all of their tickets at once, such as offenders with several hundred dollars worth of tickets, can arrange to make weekly payments to the University Police Department. These people will not be allowed to park on campus until the pay ments are complete and their park ing permits will be scraped off the rear windows of their cars. “The bottom line is, folks, we’re all going to be legal,” Wiatt said. He said that “most people on cam pus obey the parking regulations, but we have a small minority of flagrant violators.” “This is not a punitive measure,” he said. “It’s the only way to gain some semblance of sanity in parking on this campus. We want to em phasize that the parking regulations are in effect 24 hours a day and ap ply to everyone, regardless of pos ition.” Ballot crisis corrected By ROBIN BLACK Staff Writer Voter turnout for the student body elections has been good so far despite a near catastrophe — a short age of the correct computer forms fewer than 24 hours before the elec tions were to begin. But, thanks to some fast talking and a lot of phone calls on the part of Student Government election com missioners, the worst did not hap- pen. “Monday 7 morning we received 12,000 ballots — computer forms, ac tually — from IBM in Houston,” Pat Wood, election commissioner, said. “We were sent red forms, though. and our computer program needed the green form. “So we started calling every de partment on campus, checking to see if they had any of the green forms we needed. Those forms are the same kind that are used in teacher evalua tions, so we managed to scrape up about 10,000 of them by Monday af ternoon.” If they had not been able to get enough ballots, Wood said, they would have had to drive to the IBM office in Houston Monday night to get the computer forms. Now that they had the ballots, all they needed were the voters. No problems there either, Wood said. “Just guessing from the stack of ballots we have from Tuesday’s elec tions,” he said, “I’d say about 4,500 people voted. We are shooting for about 9,000 to turn out overall, so we’re hoping that as many people show up to vote today.” About 6,700 students voted last year. With the exception of the ballot crisis, things seem to have gone “very smoothly,” he said. “The ballot is correct this year, we’ve had lots of outside help in keeping the voting lines short,” he said. He also said there have not been any complaints about the limited number of polling locations. In Today’s Battalion Local • Texas A&M has begun a program to improve the management skills of construction managers. See story page 3. State • A 62-year-old employee with American Airlines is suing the company for age discrimination. See story page 11. National • A recent, widely-publicized Massachusetts gang rape may be made into a TV dramatization. See story page 9. Regents pass proposed fee increases during Board’s final day of meetings By STEPHANIE M. ROSS Staff Writer Twenty-seven agenda items, in cluding the proposed fee increases, were passed without further dis cussion at the final day of the Board of Regents meetings Tuesday. Seventeen fee increases, eight of which affect the main campus, were passed. Those fee increases include increases in dormitory and married student housing rates, parking per mit rates, board plan rates, shuttle bus rates, student service rates and fines for parking in handicapped spaces. Resident hall increases will be 6 percent, or about $35, and the in crease in married student apart ments will be 3.2 percent. The in- rease is attributed to operating costs — electricity and phone service. The rise in parking permits is the most noticeable rate increase, with red permits going from $36 to $78 and blue and green permits going from $36 to $60. Faculty reserved numbered permits will go from $72 to $114 and faculty reserved lot per mits will go from $48 to $78. Ran dom street permits will go from $36 to $60 and basement garage permits will go from $96 to $ 150. Before the increase was passed, Vice Chairman William McKenzie said that he approved of the in creases, but that in the future the Board should try to find ways to de crease the fees, because they were al ways being raised. Planning for the new special events center soon will be underway. Regents authorized the chancellor to negotiate for the preparation of the center’s design. The Crane Ander son Company was selected for the ar chitectural engineering of the center. The Board also gave the official go-ahead for fundraising to begin for construction of 48 suites at the north end of Kyle Field. Regents OK’d the creation of a De partment of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts and a bachelor of arts in speech communication. The department and the degree must be approved by the state Coordinating Board for colleges and universities. Funds also were appropriated to complete the Texas Plan for minority recruitment at Texas A&M. The plan includes recruitment .of mi nority faculty, undergraduate and graduate students. $987,270 was ap propriated to the plan. Four plaques were presented to re gents donating money to the Sul Ross scholarship fund by Corps Comman dant Col. Donald L. Burton. They were presented to Chairman H. R. Bright, Royce E. Wisenbaker, David G. Eller and Joe C. Richardson. In lighter business, a resolution was presented to Bright in apprecia tion of his recently acquiring the Dal las Cowboys football team. The regent who presented the res olution told Bright that he expects to have the January meeting at the Su per Bowl. “After we’ve been to the Cotton Bowl,” Bright replied.