Tuesday, June 12, 1984/The Battalion/Page 3
Cable
(continued from page 1)
■
DiBacco said it was purely coin-
Icidental that ran the full-page adver
tisement ran when the majority of
the Texas A&M students were gone.
McCaw designed the proposed line
up when Bryan Mayor Ron Blatch-
ley asked for a proposal that citizens
could discuss before the final read
ing of the franchize agreement. The
advertisement could not be run until
the proposed line-up was completed.
Blatchley also asked for the an es
timate of the largest possible rate in
crease before the council approved
the franchize agreement.
McCaw said that the maximum
, rate increase that the company
f? uodily iuj W ould ask for would be an increase
to $9.50 for the basic cable. The
$9.50 fee is an estimate of the pro
posed increase. The actual amount
of the increase is not known yet, and
cannot be set until the line-up is fi
nalized, DiBacco said. However, he
said, a rate increase is needed and
would be requested.
Any rate increase must be ap
proved by city councils.
The reasons a rate increase are
needed are varied. One reason is
r ette smolt that the Midwest Video and Com
munity Cablevision rales were artifi
cially low because they were trying to
put each other out of business, Di
Bacco said.
A rate increase also is needed in
order to update the service training
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“We want to make sure that we
have adaquate funds for all the ex
penses to provide first class service,”
DiBacco said.
“Once we have an opportunity to
get our hands on the cable systems to
correct the problems that we know
exist there and correct some that we
don’t know are there but that we an
ticipate will be there anyhow, people
will see that for their $9.50, they are
getting a good value for their mon
ey.”
DiBacco added that another thing
the company wants to avoid is over-
expectation of changes the day
McCaw takes over. Over 1,000 miles
of cable facilties are in the Bryan-
College Station area. DiBacco esti
mated that it will take six to nine
months for the company to get the
) get to lltB system back to get the system to the
d if thevfc first class quality and service desired.
Obviously it would not be in sub
scribers best interest to throw away
what is good equipment and replace
it with new just simply to make it
new,” DiBacco said. “So we will be
evaluating all the equipment and re
placing it on an as need basis in or-
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der to provide state-of-the-art capa
bility service.”
One topic which has provoked a
lot of discussion is that apartment
dwellers will no longer receive bulk
billing rates. McCaw will charge to
same rate to apartment dwellers that
is charged to those in single family
units.
“We want to deal with all subscrib
ers on an individual basis,” DiBacco
said. “We think that will improve
subscriber communications between
the company and subscriber and we
think it will be more fair to people
living in single family dwelling units
instead of asking them to carry the
bulk of the expenses of operating ca
ble.”
The decision of whether the
apartment residents will pay for ca
ble on an individual basis or have it
included in their rent will be made
by each complex owner.
The extra income provided by
equalizing the billing rates was also
figured in the $9.50 proposed rate.
Many citizens have voiced concern
about not being able to use the re
mote controls on their “cable-ready”
television sets. Cable-ready sets are
those which can receive all the chan
nels of the extended service.
With the new McCaw equipment,
the extended service signals will be
scrambled so the sets cannot pick up
the signals of the extended service
without a converter. McCaw will rent
remote controls that work with the
converter for about $2 a month.
Subscribers can have their cable
system wired to allow them to use
their remote for channels 2 though
13 and the converter remote for the
other channels or the converter re
mote for all channels. The service
will cost a one-time installation fee of
about $20.
The cable’s remotes also will be
able to be used on televisions which
are not equiped for remote them
selves.
Having only one cable company
has also a topic of debate. Bryan and
College Station was one of the six
communities in the United States
with two cable companies.
DiBacco said cable companies are
natural monopolies because the
companies need the economic base
of being the only system in town to
operate.
Blatchley also says that cable is not
a monopoly.
“We’re going to have a modern
cable operation and as a result I
think we’re going to see some real
improved service,” Blatchley said.
High Court approves
roadside sobriety test
Photo by Dean Saito
Artistic Bug Problem
This correspondance between the Halbouty Geosciences
Building custodial staff and the builder of the can tower was
found Monday on a desk shelf in a graduate students office.
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Su
preme Court unanimously approved
use of a roadside sobriety tester
Monday, turning aside a challenge
that states said could have crippled
their efforts to get drunken drivers
off the highways.
The 9-0 ruling relieves police of
any duty to save breath samples of
drunken driving suspects given on-
the-spot breath tests and approves
use of the Intoxylizer — a popular
portable device.
The decision reverses a California
court ruling that banned use of the
“Intoxylizer” — the device preferred
by 85 percent of police officers in
the state — because it does not save a
breath sample.
A national prosecutors’ group and
five states joined California in argu
ing that forcing police to save breath
samples would seriously jeopardize
drunken driving laws.
The justices soundly rejected ar
guments that breath samples of mo
torists arrested for drunken driving
be saved so they can challenge the
results of the roadside breath-tests in
court.
The court, in another major rul
ing, gave its approval to a widely ap
plied exception to the controversial
exclusionary rule that bans prosecu
tors from using illegally obtained ev
idence.
The 7-2 ruling in an Iowa case
sanctioned the “inevitable discovery”
exception to the rule of evidence,
which until now did not allow use of
illegally discovered evidence even if
it would have inevitably been discov
ered legally.
The ruling upholds the conviction
of Robert Anthony Williams for the
murder of a 10-year-old Des Moines
girl who disappeared from a YMCA
on Christmas Eve 1968.
A&M Faculty Senate approves changes
By ROBIN BLACK
Senior Staff Writer
The 1984-85 Texas A&M Faculty
Senate met for the first time Monday
and approved a list of recommended
curriculum changes and set up a
new committee.
The Senate, under the guidance
of new Speaker Murray Milford, ap
proved recommendations that, if
passed by the Board of Regents, will
add new courses, change prereq
uisites of others, and change titles
and course descriptions of still oth
ers.
One recommendation that passed
only after several senators had
voiced disapproval was the proposed
change in curriculum for the com
puter science program.
Opposing arguments, especially
that of former Speaker of the Senate
John McDermott, concerned the
lack of hours designated for human
ities courses in the computer science
curriculum.
A supporting argument for the
amended computer science curric
ulum was that students could enroll
in other humanities classes outside
the required degree plan.
McDermott argued that with 135
required hours already in the degree
plan and only three of those hours
set aside for humanities courses, tak
ing “extra” humanities classes on the
student’s own would be punitive.
The evidence showed police ille
gally coaxed Williams to reveal the
location of the body of Pamela Pow
ers by telling him she needed a “de
cent Christian burial.”
In the drunken driving case, a
state appeals court banned use of the
Intoxylizer because it has no mech
anism for saving the breath sample
after it is tested. The results are kept
on a printed card.
In other action Monday, the court
—Unanimously overturned a
Michigan court ruling that allowed
the state to regulate farmers’ con
duct in selling their agricultural
goods. The ruling sided with a can-
ners’ group that said regulating con
duct of farmers or “producers’ of ag
ricultural products, amounts to
“compulsory unionism.”
—Voted 9-0 that California’s tax
board can order the U.S. Postal
Service to garnish the wages of em
ployees who are delinquent in pay
ing their state income taxes.
—Voted 7-2 that Ohio prosecu
tors are not barred from seeking a
murder conviction against a suspect
even though a judge previously ac
cepted a manslaughter plea and im
posed a sentence.
—Unanimously ruled that Arkan
sas prosecutors do not violate a mur
der defendant’s rights by making a
plea bargain offer, then withdraw
ing it and offering a less favorable
deal.
Police beat
The following incidents were re
ported to the University Police De
partment through Monday.
MISDEMEANOR THEFT:
• A blue Columbia ten-speed bi
cycle was stolen from the Architec
ture Building bike rack.
• A black Murray BMX single
speed bicycle was stolen from in
front of a student’s apartment.
• A man’s wallet containing his
driver’s license, $45 in cash and seve
ral credit cards was stolen from 173
East Kyle.
CRIMINAL MISCHIEF:
• Three tires on a car in Parking
Annex 60 were deflated.
INDECENT EXPOSURE:
• A student reported seeing a
man masturbating in the Memorial
Student Center lounge. Responding
police officers were unable to locate
the man.
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