er « Texas A&M
Che Battalion
1988
College Station, Texas
Vol.
USPS 045360
Pages
Report says B-CS utility bills
comparable despite averages
zi Man’ remains jailed
jor drug-related killings
:d to exprf
imount of t
lo be nali
really cal
iver an of
; a legitimi'
' ihe Univtt
vas an onos
advertent i-
mOUSTON (AP) — An ex-convict known on the street as
Uzi Man” and suspected in the drug-related slayings of
■ men and the attempted murder of another man remained
tiled Tuesday.
Bracksher Sheldon Booker, 24, who was wanted on an ar-
ei warrant for a murder charge filed in August, was jailed in
ieu of $50,000 bond.
Additional charges, including a capital murder charge, may
■led against Booker, who also is suspected in several rob-
|ries investigators said.
A tip from an acquaintance of Booker led investigators, as-
i|8ted by a SWAT team, to a south Houston hotel early Mon
day, where Booker was arrested, Houston homicide Sgt. Terri
Ips said.
■coker had checked into the hotel about midnight Sunday
with a female acquaintance and another man who checked into
arate room, she said.
A SWAT team was called to assist investigators because of
Ter’s reputation for being armed with an Uzi submachine
in, a .357-caliber Magnum pistol and a .38-caliber pistol,
ivestigators said.
SWAT negotiators called Booker’s room and ordered him
Ross said.
Booker told negotiators his name was Marcus Brown, she
aid. ‘‘They said, ‘Well, if you’re Marcus Brown, come out
Kway.”’ Shortly after 5 a.m., Booker surrendered without
ncident.
Police found a .25-caliber automatic pistol and a semiauto
matic machine pistol, similar to an Uzi, under the bed, Ross
said. They also recovered a plastic bag containing a substance
thought to be cocaine, she said.
They later recovered an Uzi along with an ammunition clip
for it and a box of ammunition for the .25-caliber pistol from
the trunk of a car the trio had been using, Ross said.
The status of his two acquaintances was pending further in
vestigation, she said.
Described as a major drug dealer in Houston, Booker is
charged in the Aug. 11 death of Aaron Ealy, 32, who was
gunned down over a $10 drug dispute outside a reputed crack
house in southeast Houston.
Witnesses also have positively identified him as the gun
man in the shooting deaths of two other men and the attempted
murder of another, investigators said.
On Sept. 24, police say, Booker used the Uzi to fatally
wound Michael Doris Conner, 28, outside an abandoned
apartment complex in north Houston. The location is reported
to be a haven for drug dealers, police said.
Earlier that day, another man was shot at the same complex
during a narcotics altercation, investigators said. That victim
survived.
In mid-October, witnesses identified Booker as the man
who shot Terry Dilworth, 25, to death in a vacant lot in north
west Houston.
According to witnesses, Dilworth was a bystander to a gun-
battle in what is reported to be a well-known drug-dealing
spot, police said. Before Dilworth was shot, a woman and a
man had been engaged in a shoot-out.
By Scot Walker <
Staff Writer
Those moving from Bryan to College
Station may be surprised to receive a
higher monthly electric bill. But accord
ing to a statewide report, total utility
costs in the two cities are about the same.
An average month’s residential elec
tric usage in Bryan costs $75.67. The
same usage (1,000 kilowatt-hours) in
College Station costs $86.42. But Bruce
Albright, utility office manager for Col
lege Station Utilities, said that despite
the difference in electric rates, it’s not
true that College Station is a more expen
sive place to live.
“When you add it all up, and include
water and sewer and taxes and so on, it’s
really pretty close,” Albright said.
A report published by College Station
Utilities this year compares utility and
property tax rates in College Station with
those in 12 other cities across Texas.
According to that report, an average
monthly utility billing in College Station
is $141.44, while in Bryan the same bill,
covering electricity, water, sewer, sani
tation and property taxes is slightly
higher, at $142.85.
Both cities rank in the middle of the
comparison with other cities, including
Austin, Brownsville, Waco and Lub
bock.
However, most Texas A&M students
rent their homes or apartments and are
not directly responsible for paying prop
erty taxes. When property taxes are ex
cluded from the utility bill, a College
Station resident pays almost $10 more a
month than his counterpart in Bryan, pri
marily because of the difference in elec
tric rates.
Albright said the difference is mostly
attributable to the cities’ different ap
proaches to providing power to resi
dents.
Albright said College Station Utilities
has a contract to purchase electricity
from Gulf States Utilities. He said a
monthly residential electric bill is calcu
lated by taking a $6.50 base and adding
an energy charge for the number of ki
lowatt-hours used. A kilowatt-hour, or
kwh, is the amount of electrical energy
consumed when 1,000 watts are used for
one hour.
The charge per kwh in College Station
varies with the volume of electricity
used. The first 100 kwh are charged at
$0.1009 each. The next 400 kwh cost
$0.0709 apiece, while anything more
than 500 kwh is charged at $0.0639 per'
kwh in the summer months May through
October and $0.0558 per kwh at winter
rates November through April.
The final calculation of the bill is
based is a fuel cost adjustment, Albright
said. It varies from month to month, and
is based on the what the city has to pay
GSU for the electricity.
“The fuel cost adjustment is one
month behind,” Albright said. “We
charge extra or less in October according
to the rates that we pay for the electricity
in September.”
A different formula is used in Bryan
because Bryan Utilities is a member of
the Texas Municipal Power Agency, a
coalition of four cities (Bryan, Green
ville, Denton and Garland) that have
joined to generate their own electricity
through the Given’s Creek Lignite Plant.
Because Bryan is part owner of the
plant that supplies the city with electric
ity, the cost to a Bryan resident depends
on the price of the fuel that the TMPA
has to purchase to generate the electric
ity.
Daphine Harrelson, customer account
supervisor for Bryan Utilities, said that
the customer’s bill is based on a $6.00
service charge, a usage charge of
$0.04884 per kwh to cover overhead,
and a fuel charge of $0.01500 per kwh.
Bryan rates, like those in College Sta
tion, are slightly higher during the sum
mer months because of an increased de
mand for electricity to cool homes during
the hotter weather.
Both utility companies are owned by
the taxpayers of the city, and Harrelson
said that all of the employees work hard
to keep costs down.
“We have to go to our homes and pay
electric bills like everyone else, so we
don’t want to do anything to make them
higher,” Harrelson said.
Albright said that many residents
moving within the College Station city
limits wonder why it costs $40 to transfer
electrical service from one address to an
other.
“There is a lot more involved than just
flipping a switch or pushing a button,”
Albright said. “We have to send a
worker out to the old address to take out
the meter and put it in the disconnect po
sition, and then another worker has to go
to the new address and activate that me
ter. And after that we still have to make
sure the deposit and balance from the old
address are tranferred to the new one.”
Harrelson said that no specific charge
is levied for transferring to another ad
dress in Bryan as long as the deposit
transfers and no outstanding balances re
main at the old address. She said that the
cost of connecting and disconnecting is
added to the monthly bills.
Albright said that a security deposit is
held on each account and applied against
the final bill. The amount of the deposit
is set by city ordinance. In Bryan, the
deposits are $145 for electricity and $10
for water at a rental property, and in Col
lege Station they are $105 for electricity
and $30 for water.
“The purpose of the deposit is to pro
tect all those people who pay their bills
every month from higher rates because
of those who don’t,” Albright said.
Police are still looking for the man who abducted and raped an A&M student
last Thursday. Reports originally indicated that the student was taken from
Lot 71, but police are now saying she was abducted from the west side of Lot
56, the Fish Lot. The University and College Station police departments have
been flooded with possible leads since the release of this composite sketch on
Monday. The suspect is described as a white male who wears gold wire-rim
glasses and has a moustache. He is about 29-34 years old, is of medium build,
and has short light brown hair in a standard cut. At the time of the attack he
was wearing a dominantly blue checkered or plaid long-sleeve shirt and blue
jeans. He was carrying a maroon backpack. The victim was moved to a pri
vate room in Humana Hospital and remains in stable condition with 24-hour
police protection.
aptist convention delegates vote moderate
keepilw 11
to kei
Fed Huin^
kegic I®’ ■
II with
■ ranked
I cxplos 1 ' 1 ’ 1, "
hcylw 1 '’®'
vai a?‘ llF ' :,:
andpl , y slcJl
robably 5
game.
dlye«i IEi u ;
,'OU omj :
iribuied' , l | ''
lonarf'
airoff^
AUSTIN (AP) — An initial challenge
■vcallcd fundamentalists for control
the Texas Baptist General Convention
was repelled Tuesday, as delegates voted
a moderate for first vice president.
Earlier, the Rev. Joel Gregory, a Fort
on i pastor and self-described cen-
fcrist, was re-elected by acclimation to a
second term as president. Gregory, who
is not aligned in the rift between moder
ates and fundamentalists, is expected to
deliver a speech later calling for an end
to the feuding in the 2.4 million member
convention.
‘T am not a card-carrying member of
the moderates or fundamentalists,” Gre
gory said.
Fundamentalists have accused the cur
rent state Baptist leadership of drifting
away from a strict interpretation of the
Bible.
The convention attracted about 6,000
people, about 3,400 of whom are “mes-
icials look for cause
ires at Parsons’ green
score 1
M 2().
chantf';-i
311110'^
|y Denise Thompson
Staff Writer
fvo fires on opposite sides of Par-
Ti’ Mounted Cavalry green on FM
Ifl were extinguished by College
|pn firefighters Tuesday.
|n investigation is underway to
tine the cause of the fires,
Tim Fickey of the College Sta-
|Fire Department said,
wouldn’t say they’ll ever find a
ie for the fire because it’s grass
Idirt out there,” he said. “If some-
|did start it, we’ll probably never
mulout.”
Rickey said the fires are being con-
wed “fires of a suspicious nature.”
■e said the station received many
ne calls at 1:27 p.m. about the
Five fire units were dispatched to
the site about one mile north of Eas-
terwood Airport at the corner of F and
B Road and FM 2818.
Fickey said the fires destroyed
about two acres of the field.
James Moore, 1st Sgt. of the Par
sons’ Mounted Cavalry, also received
calls about the fires and went to the
scene.
“We heard it was heading for the
bam, and we just got about 140 bales
of hay in,” Moore said. “When 1 got
here, the horses were standing in a
field where one of the fires was, and
we moved them out of there. The
horses weren't panicking or anything,
they were just standing there staring
at it.
“Really, the only damage I can see
so far is that the fires burned some of
the fence posts and ruined fence
lines.”
Cathy Schwab, a first-year veteri
nary student, lives on F and B road
directly across from where one of the
fires was burning.
“I came down the road and saw all
the smoke, and I thought somebody
was burning brush,” she said. “I
couldn’t believe someone would be
doing that, but then I saw the fire
trucks and realized it wasn’t someone
burning brush.
“I was concerned about the fire
crossing the street, so 1 went out and
found a water hose. It’s just really
strange.” Fickey would not comment
on whether he suspected foul play,
but said a report will be available to
day or Thursday from the College
Station Fire Marshal.
sengers” or convention delegates.
In the election for first vice president,
fundamentalists nominated Gordon Gra
ham, pastor of the First Baptist Church
in New Braunfels, while moderates
nominated Phil Lineberger, pastor at the
Richardson Heights Baptist Church in
Richardson.
Lineberger defeated Graham. The
vote totals were not immediately avail
able.
Paige Patterson, president of the Cris
well Bible College in Dallas and leader
of the fundamentalist movement, said his
group would also make a challenge in the
second vice presidential race.
Even if they won, however, they
would lack the necessary votes among
the top officers to establish their agenda.
The president and vice presidential posi
tions control numerous appointments to
Baylor University and to other Baptist
institutions in the state .
The major target of the fundamental
ists is Baylor University, the largest
Baptist college in the country with an en
rollment in 1988 of almost 12,000.
Patterson complained that religion in
structors at the Waco school do not be
lieve in the strict interpretation of the Bi
ble. He also said he was upset that a
Mormon has been allowed to teach Span
ish at the university.
‘‘We are in the midst of seeing a drift
in a leftward direction,” Patterson said.
Gregory, at a news conference after
his election as president, said, “I would
oppose the dismissal of any professors in
the religion department.” But he said, as
positions become open, he would prefer
to see those positions filled with evangel
ical scholars rather than with scholars of
differing faiths.
Gregory also said he would oppose the
kind of changes, which have been a deci
sive swing toward the fundamentalist
ideology, seen in the Southern Baptist
Convention applied to the Texas Baptist
Conventions.
‘‘There’s no great secret. (Houston
Judge Paul) Pressler and Patterson both
have said they’re going to take Texas and
they’re going to take Baylor.
“It certainly is an objective that would
allow them to have a tremendous, a pro
found influence on Baptist life if they
were able to do that.”
“We have been under scrutiny and surveillance and
microscopic examination, week after week, month af
ter month, and year after year, and from my own per
spective they have come up with precious little.’
— Hebert Reynolds
Baylor University president
Fundamentalists have held the top of
fice of the national Southern Baptist
Convention for nearly a decade, while
there has been a growing influence of the
fundamentalist philosophy on the boards
of trustees, as well.
Earlier at the convention, Baylor Uni
versity president Herbert H. Reynolds
blasted the college’s critics.
“We have been under scrutiny and
surveillance and microscopic examina
tion, week after week, month after
month, and year after year, and from my
own perspective they have come up with
precious little,” Reynolds said.
“I have tried to stand toe-to-toe with
them and never underestimate them,” he
said. “The fundamentalists have demon
strated they are capable of taking over.”
Reynolds said the fundamentalists are
determined to gain control of the univer
sity.
Patterson said he didn’t want to take
over the university, but that he wanted to
put more conservative Biblical teachers
in the religion department. He said the
teachings of some of the current Biblical
scholars stray from the beliefs the fuda-
mentalists hold.
Reynolds’ news conference was called
in response to accusations by the funda
mentalists that Baylor had refused ad
mission of Paige Patterson’s daughter to
Baylor.
Reynolds dismissed the allegation,
saying her application was treated just
like everyone else’s and that she was ad
mitted to the school, but never responded
to the acceptance notification.
Patterson declined to elaborate on the
situation concerning his daughter, only
to say, “I regret my family is dragged
into something like this.”