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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 12, 1988)
State and Local Tuesday, July 12, 1988/The Battalion/Page 3 WWii—M mi in j niwwCTjmwtinwBM—mnuiiflf raHTnw*mini iti iv^jptgt-wiiniawMnnKRu.",^: f -y ■crR^-^ZA.-.-'', - 'y^iaB«etgw»jm>:rt aiB-CS residents initiate sister cities’ program o help Soviet relations beer, ra rchy. Ri arkagei el off K s cans I ezers at By Catherine Zudak Reporter Bryan-College Station residents e reaching out to cities a half- orld away to promote understand- g between people of the United ates and the Soviet Union and fa- litate better relations between the o nations. “There are heavy issues the nited States and the Soviet Union }ave to deal with,” Scott Thacher, resident of the Bryan-College Sta- on Sister City Project, said. “It ould be nice if we could know fcmething about the Soviets.” The sister city project hopes to es- biish a long-term relationship be- reen B-CS and Vladimir-Suzdal, in cities in the Soviet Union. The lelationship would include exchang- lig visits with residents from the two Ikies. I “Friendly relations require that leople know each other, see the mings they have in common,” said 1'hacher, a Texas A&M assistant Irofessor of biochemistry. “That’s possible with a sister city relationship Because you go back and forth (visit- lig) over a number of years.” Though the project began only ight months ago, it has already aade a significant step forward. Olga Cooke, a member of the B- IS project and an assistant professor f Russian at A&M, visited with rep- esentatives of Vladimir and Suzdal ist month. Cooke lead a group of 16 A&M tudents and one student from Bos- )n to the Soviet Union for intensive jnguage study. However, the trip rved to initiate the program, she aid. “The trip was a Department of lodern Languages study tour,” she aid. “But I just combined the trip to [he cities with the trip to the Soviet Jnion.” Cooke and the student group pre sented “keys to the cities” of Byran and College Station to Mayor Vladi mir Kuzin in Vladimir and Yuri Ni- kanorov, assistant to the mayor of Suzdal. Mayor Kuzin stressed the need to improve relations between the two countries by encouraging bilateral ties, a Soviet Nosvesti Press Agency story said. “I must say that the distrust that has existed between our peoples is beginning to wane,” Kuzin is quoted as saying, “and in order to stimulate that process we should start bilateral exchanges of delegations, organize meetings between citizens of our towns and exchange school and col lege students.” But Cooke said there is no guar antee that either city will become a sister to Bryan or College Station be cause the decision to become sister cities is made by the major city gov ernments. Bryan and College Station city councils already have issued procla mations supporting the sister city project. Now the Soviet cities must decide. “Once we’ve made the overtures,” Cooke said, “it’s out of our hands. I’ve been told it could take six months to two years before a deci sion is made.” She said she spoke to Yuri Menshikov, director of sister city re lations between the United States and the Soviet Union, in Moscow be fore meeting with the Soviet city of ficials. “He let me know they don’t view cities as twin cities, they don’t have that concept,” she said. “Vladimir and Suzdal are actually an hour apart.” Cooke said Vladimir and Suzdal often are referred to as “Vladimir- Summer Special $65 jdentn lattaliot it take s tlping | te: raffic | roll (to ut, exifj owardf tentioni waht Aerofit itW • indoor swimming pool • raquetball • vollyball • • basketball • weight machines • free weights • • aerobics •tanning bed • lounge • - — — — COUPON — — — — — — — ONE WEEK TRIAL MEMBERSHIP (Limited to First 100 applicants) OR f/rr. $10 OFF summer membership (last day to sign-up is July 31) 823-0971 Aerofit ■ ■ Club and Activity Center 1900 West Villa Maria • Bryan, TX 77801 Texas Forest Service reports damages caused from fires Official blames blazes on drought Suzdal” because of their historical and cultural significance as well as their relative proximity. “They are part of the golden ring of Russian cities,” she said. The “Golden Ring” is several cit ies in northern Russia around Mos cow that are famed for their cultural and historical monuments and stat ues. Some similarity exists between the “Golden Ring” in Russia and cities that are significant in the history of Texas, Cooke said, which was one reason for selecting Vladimir-Suzdal as prospective sister cities. “If you connect the cities of histor ical significance in Texas, Austin, San Antonio, and, well, the Brazos County area,” she said, “they’re kind of golden cities.” Thacher said other similarities ex ist between B-CS and Vladimir-Suz dal that made them attractive sister- city candidates. “They are in an agricultural area,” he said. “There are several technical institutes in the area and Vladimir is an industrial city a little like Bryan.” Though the project must wait to find out if and who will be their sis ter city, Thacher said, much remains to be done to prepare for a sister city relationship. “We need a hospitality committee, a fund raising committee,” Thacher said. “We hope to get a high school student committee to be involved in the planning.” The project has about 20 mem bers now, but Thacher said this group doesn’t want to direct the pro- ject. “We want to facilitate community involvement,” he said. In order to recruit interested B- CS residents the project organizers are holding a benefit at Brazos Landing Thursday at 8:30 p.m A $3 donation is requested. By Mary Huron Reporter The Texas Forest Service has re ported more than 1,344 forest fires covering more than 25,000 acres so far this year because of drought. Just one cigarette tossed out of a car window or one careless strike of a match could set thousands of acres on fire. Prolonged dry weather when pre cipitation is less than 75 percent of the average annual rainfall creates drought, range specialist Barron S. Rector said. “The best alternative for dealing with drought is proper planning and management,” he said. Dr. B.J. Ragsdale, a range special ist with Texas Agricultural Exten sion Service, said Bryan-College Sta tion is 10 inches below average rainfall this year and would still be behind even if the area got more rain soon. This is because it is al ready too late in the season to plant vegetation. Ragsdale said high winds, little rainfall and low humidity in the spring made it the worst time for area fires. Due to unusually dry conditions, vegetation was unable to grow and now little is left on the ground to burn in the summer months, he said. “East Texas is a more hazardous area than we are and those ranchers in native grazing lands have had to reduce their number of livestock and restore their feed supplies in at tempt to take pressure off grazing pastures and to survive the drought,” Ragsdale said. “We have only a small area of acreage here so local ranchers have recovered considerably well on little rain,” he said. “The biggest concern of fires here is with homes and buildings rather than with farms and ranches.” The main causes of fires at this time of year are lightning and man’s misuse of fire, such as leaving a vehi cle’s engine running on dry grass or being careless with campfires, he said. “Fire is a natural phenomenon and can be a good tool only if it is used properly and with care,” Ragsdale said. The service is educating itself by working with various agencies and distributing information to make this area as safe as possible during these critically dry months, Ragsdale said. Elections of state district judges get challenged in federal lawsuit AUSTIN (AP) — Texas’ method of electing state dis trict judges was challenged Monday in a federal lawsuit charging that the at-large voting system makes it more difficult for Mexican-Americans and blacks to be elected to the bench. The League of United Latin American Citizens and other plaintiffs said many counties have large minority populations but only a tiny number of minority judges, and they said minorities often are appointed as judges only to lose subsequent elections. “There are many, many counties within this state that have multiple judicial districts within the county, and many of those counties have substantial minority pop ulations,” William Garrett, lead attorney for the case, said. “But the number of actual minority judges sitting presently in those counties is miniscule.” The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Midland by three groups on behalf of LULAC, two local LULAC councils and two individuals. It seeks to have judges elected from single-member districts rather than at large. The foundation was joined by the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and Texas Rural Legal Aid in bringing the suit. Lawyer Rolando Rios said the suit focuses on approx imately 20 counties but that more may be added later According to the suit, those counties contain 190 state judicial districts and a combined minority popula tion of nearly 30 percent, but only 10 of the judges — 5.3 percent — are minorities. Garrett said he can point to many cases “where a mi nority judge, either black or Hispanic, has been ap pointed by the governor and when they’ve been re quired to run in an at-large situation. The almost universal result is that they’ve been defeated by the at- large system.” In the at-large system, all the judges in a county are elected by the voters of the whole county. If a county is mostly white, that makes it more difficult for a minority candidate to win, the suit argues. 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