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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 18, 1990)
I The Battalion TATE & LOCAL Wednesday, July 18,1990 What’s Up ciesat freed- olicif, mdc ader, AaJ rktk ; l3l vays e thej iplei: nsii; lal me; EA idesi Wednesday TEXAS ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION COALITION: will have a general meeting at 7 p.m. in 118 Civil Engineering Building. For more information, call 846- 6767, 846-8748 or 823-3577. AGGIES WITH KIDS: will have a covered dish supper at 6:30 p.m. at Thomas Park. Call Nancy at 845-1741 for more information. A&M CYCLING TEAM: will have summer training at 7 p.m. in 502 Rudder. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS: will have a general discussion at noon. Call the C.D.P.E. at 845-0280 for more informatiom. NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS: will have a general discussion at 8:30 p.m. Call the C.D.P.E at 845-0280 for more information. U.S. CENSUS BUREAU: is looking for temporary workers for the remainder of the summer. Call Larry Ingham at 846-0444 or 846-3662 for more infor mation. Thursday NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS: will have a general discussion at 8:30 p.m. Call the C.D.P.E at 845-0280 for more information. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS: will have a general discussion at noon. Call the C.D.P.E. at 845-0280 for more information. ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS: will have a general discussion at 6 p.m. Call the C.D.P.E. at 845-0280. Items for What's Up should be submitted to The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald, no later than three business days before the desired run date. We only publish the name and phone number of the contact if you ask us to do so. What’s Up is a Battalion service that lists non-profit events and activities. Submissions are run on a first-come, first-served basis. There is no guarantee an entry will run. If you have questions, call the newsroom at 845-3315. Candidates bicker over finances Fund sources spark debate AUSTIN (AP) — Candidates for lieutenant governor traded jabs over campaign finances Tuesday with each accusing the other of selling out to high-dollar special interests. Republican Rob Mosbacher of Houston said in a news conference that Democrat Bob Bullock’s cam paign is fueled by donations from political action committees and pow erful lobbyists. “How can you claim to have the independence to do what’s right for Texas when you owe so much to so few lobbyists in Austin?” Mosbacher asked. Following the news conference, Bullock’s campaign said Mosbacher was trying to buy the election with his family’s fortune. The Bullock campaign also ac cused Mosbacher’s father, U.S. Sec retary of Commerce Robert Mos bacher, of shaking down people to contribute to his son’s campaign. “We’re getting reports that his fa ther is making phone calls for him, that he is leaning on people. He’s leaning on them hard,” Bullock’s campaign spokesman John Bender said. Bender refused to divulge the names of people who he said were pressured by Secretary Mosbacher. Mosbacher said his father has ap peared with him at a couple of politi cal events, but added, “To suggest that he’s on the phone calling peo ple, trying to raise money, the an swer is no. Bullock, the state’s comptroller, reported raising $1.2 million and spending $641,000 in six-month statements filed Monday with the secretary of state’s office. Mosbacher reported receiving $1 million in contributions and spend ing $1.4 million. Mark Sanders, a spokesman for Mosbacher, said the Republican had $500,000 left over from the last reporting period. Mosbacher said one-third of Bul lock’s contributions are from politi cal action committees and special in terest lobbyists. Bullock’s campaign said 78 per cent of his money is from individu als. “He has the most diverse sup port, the widest support of any statewide candidate,” Bender said. Mosbacher also challenged Bul lock to a televised debate and of fered to pay for it. Bender said dis cussions are under way about a debate. In another political development, Nikki Van Hightower of Houston, Democratic candidate for state trea surer, received the endorsement of three organizations, which brought criticism from her Republican oppo nent, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Dal las. Van Hightower was endorsed by the Texas Abortion Rights Action League, Texas Women’s Political Caucus and Texas chapter of the National Organization for Women. “Since there are two women in the race, I believe that my endorsement by three bipartisan women’s political groups is very significant,” Van Hightower said. But Hutchison said describing those three groups as “bipartisan is laughable. They are auxiliaries of the Democratic Party.” Phyllis Dunham, executive direc tor of the abortion rights league, said even though the treasurer’s of fice does not directly affect abortion, “voting for pro-choice candidates is the only way to keep Texas poli ticians out of our most personal and private decisions.” Dunham said Hutchison refused to answer the TARAL questionnaire. Hutchison said injecting the abor tion issue into the state treasurer’s race “is a smoke screen to draw at tention away from the real issue” of who is most qualified to fill the post. Poor districts call law unjust AUSTIN (AP) — Superinten dents of poor school districts chal lenging Texas’ new school funding plan said Tuesday the law doesn’t put their students on equal footing with those in richer districts. “Why shouldn’t my students be able to compete with them?” asked Allen Boyd, superintendent of the San Elizario school district in El Paso County. “You’re talking about the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ ” State District Judge Scott McCown is overseeing the hearing on the new law, which provides $528 million in additional state education funding this school year. McCown on Tuesday denied a re quest by Assistant Attorney General Kevin O’Hanlon for an immediate ruling against the poor school dis tricts. O’Hanlon said he wasn’t surprised by McCown’s decision, but said the poor districts have failed to prove their case. The law was passed in June in re- S onse to last year’s Texas Supreme )urt order to even out funding be tween rich and poor school districts. It is meant to phase in an equitable system over several years. But poor school districts say the law didn’t significantly change the $13.5 billion-a-year school finance system, which relies on state aid, lo cal property taxes and some federal money. 1 :om: le ns, oil ral ly itani of ends; Te ism ““ Act Now DON’T MAKE IT EASY! Lock your bikes and leave them in a safe place. There were 275 bikes reported stolen on campus in 1989, worth a total of $60,041. Only 29 of these stolen bikes were recovered. The majority of these bikes were secured with poor-quality locks, cables or chains. Some may not be locked at all. The worst months for bike theft are May through Septem ber. The following are tips about how to save your bike: • Use operation identification. Record the bike’s serial number and engrave your driver’s licence number on the bike. These are proofs of ownership. • Register your bike with A&M’s Department of Parking, Transit and Traffic. It’s free, and it’s a way of returning your bike should it be recovered. • Buy a sturdy, case-hardened steel U-shaped lock and lock your bike to a bike rack. Small chains and cables easily can be cut. • Immediately report to the University Police anyone suspi ciously loitering around bikes. UPD’s number is 845-2345. • For more information on bike locks and Texas bike laws, call the University Police Crime Prevention Unit at 845-8900. Criminal prosecution begins for shrimpers ignoring laws HOUSTON (AP) — The National Marine Fisheries Service says it will begin criminal prosecution of shrimpers who are ignoring laws aimed to protect sea turtles and will beef up enforcement along the Texas Gulf Coast. “We’ll be intensifying enforcement efforts and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is also beginning to help us,” Andrew Kemmerer, southeast regional director for NMFS, said. “But the major change is that we may be going to issue criminal citations, depending on the situ ation.” The decision came after about 15 representatives of shrimping associations, the U.S. Coast Guard, Texas Parks & Wildlife and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service met to discuss reports of turtle strandings and discove ries of dead turtles on the shore. Environmentalists contend shrimpers who are not using turtle excluder devices, or TEDs, on their nets have prompted the increased number of fatal turtle strandings on the upper Texas coast. Since the Texas shrimp season opened July 8, more than 31 sea turtles — 17 of them endangered Kemp’s Ridley turtles — have been found dead in a stretch from Galveston to Matagorda County. NMFS has not completed necropsies on the animals, but environmen talists are convinced the turtles became ensnared in shrimping nets and drowned. “As soon as the Texas shrimp season opened, those turtles began floating in,” Carole Allen, founder of Help Endangered Animals-Ridley Turtles, said. “That’s certainly one of the indicators to me.” Some shrimpers at the meeting said they would coop erate with authorities to see that members of their in dustry cooperate with the TED regulation. “We are all interested in the survival of the sea tur tles,” Lucy Gibbs, president of the Texas Shrimp Asso ciation, said. “We are supportive of trying to do every thing we can to protect these turtles and NMFS has very graciously agreed to continue to work with us.” Suzanne Montero, special agent in charge of NMFS’ southeast region, said another 10 agents will be brought Wednesday to beef up enforcement along the Texas coastline. Already, six additional agents had been as signed to the Texas coast because of the opening of shrimp season, she said. Likewise, the U.S. Coast Guard is adding additional boats and manpower in the area. “We’re going to increase our number of boats and man hours down there, and we’re sending about twice what we’d normally send,” Cmdr. Jim Force, chief of law enforcement for the Coast Guard’s regional office based in New Orleans, said. “I would expect this to help compliance.” Force said he hoped to increase the use of TEDs on shrimpers from a 60 percent compliance on the Texas coast to 80 percent by the weekend. Kemmerer said the criminal conviction under the federal Endangered Species Act carries a possible $25,000 fine or six-month jail term. “Prior to this time, we made all our citations on a civil basis and that carries a fine of up to $12,000.” Gibbs said the $25,000 fine “is liable to put (a shrimper) out of business.” She said TSA had suggested other methods to increase compliance with the TED regulation, including a possible closure of inland waters where the turtles are more likely to be found. But offi cials said they will not take other measures before meet ing again with the shrimpers. “We have all agreed to work on this problem,” Gibbs said. “We’rejust not willing to take full blame for this.” Williams ‘talks tough’ in small-town campaign Richards gets ‘bashed’ in speech RUSK (AP) — Republican Clay ton Williams, starting a two-day small-town campaign tour, Tuesday called gubernatorial rival Ann Rich ards a liberal out of touch with Tex ans’ concerns. Williams used some of his tough est talk of the election year to bash Richards on issues ranging from abortion to the state’s law against so domy. “Ann Richards said she will repeal the Texas sodomy law,” he said. “I’m against sodomy, and I want to keep that law on the books because it’s a statement of the true values of the people of Texas,” he said. “And Ann Richards says parents don’t have the right to know if their teen-age daughter is about to receive an abortion,” he said. “Don’t let Ann Richards tell you that your child’s fu ture is none of your business.” Richards is pro-choice on abortion and has said government should not interfere in peoples’ private lives. Williams has said he opposes abortion except in cases of rape, in cest or danger to a mother’s life. He also said he favors a law requiring notification of a minor’s parents and parental consent before an abortion could be performed. A spokesman for the Richards campaign was not immediately avail able to comment on Williams’ re marks Tuesday afternoon. Making speeches in Rusk, Car thage and Center, Williams aligned himself with President Bush and U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm. Richards, he said, represents the same thinking as defeated presidential candidate Mi chael Dukakis. “The choice is crystal clear,” he said. “Texans can vote for the Bush- Williams-Gramm team — a team that understands the values of most Texas families, or they can vote for the Dukakis-Richards-Parmer team — a trio that’s trying to sell you an old, discredited and tired liberal bill of goods,” he said. State Sen. Hugh Parmer, D-Fort Worth, is challenging Gramm in No vember. As his campaign staff in Austin criticized Richards for raising funds outside of Texas, Williams attacked her ties with entertainment industry celebrities. “Ann Richards is an East Holly wood Democrat, not an East Texas Democrat,” Williams said. Richards, in an appearance in Houston, said she would be a tough- on-crime governor. Safety board finds driver at fault in bus accident Associated Press The driver of the truck that hit a I Texas school bus last fall, sending it 1 into a water-filled pit and killing 21 1 students, should have been able to 1 stop despite faulty brakes, the Na- 1 tional Transportation Safety Board I said Tuesday. Forty-nine other students were in- H jured in the Sept. 21 accident near I Alton, It was the nation’s worst I school bus accident since 1976. The lack of emergency exits — I there were only two — contributed H to the number of deaths, the board E said. J NTSB Chairman James Kolstad | said that there were “clear deficien- I cies” in the truck’s brakes but that I driver Ruben Perez “did not re- f/li s P on< ^ soon enough and he did not E respond aggressively enough.” J| Investigators found the truck’s brakes were operating at about two- v\ thirds strength, which should have been enough to stop the truck. Perez tfi. had said he began applying the | brakes 300 feet before the collision. Perez said that the brakes failed B and that he began to use those on I the truck’s trailer, then downshifted I gears to try to stop. Perez’ attorney, Bob Binder of Austin, said the board was “com pounding a tragedy to put the blame on the driver when he was given a truck with bad brakes.” “The brakes were failing,” Binder said. “They were not in complete failure but they were failing. So he (Perez) downshifted, which is the proper procedure, and applied the trailer brakes by hand.” Perez watched the NTSB hearing impassively. Binder would not let Perez talk to reporter s, citing a law suit Perez has filed against Valley Coca-Cola Bottling Co., which owned the truck. The NTSB urged the bottling company to improve its driver-train ing and fleet-maintenance pro grams. Most of the victims drowned be cause they couldn’t get out of the submerged bus, the NTSB said, call ing for more emergency exits on school buses. It made a similar recommenda tion last year in its report of the May 1988 bus and truck collision in Ken tucky that killed 27. That accident involved a school bus converted for use by a church. Police Beat The following incidents were reported to the Texas A&M Uni versity Police Department be tween July 3 and Sunday. ASSAULT: • A San Antonio girl reported she had been struck twice, once on her right arm and once on her right leg, with a shirt. Then she was slapped several times on her face after an argument with a male acquaintance. The girl and boy had been par ticipating in the Youth Opportu nities Unlimited Program. The boy was dismissed from the pro gram while the girl returned to San Antonio with her mother. UNAUTHORIZED USE OF A VEHICLE: • A Bryan man reported a erson entered a University Dai- atsu Hi-Jet vehicle and damaged the steering column. Once the wiring was exposed, the vehicle was started by some type of tool and removed from the area. The vehicle apparently ran out of gas and was abandoned near Parking ^ 5 BURGLARY OF A BUILD ING: • An officer reported some one had forcibly removed a Sony AM/FM/Cassette/CD player from an office at the Brayton Fire man’s Training School. • Unknown persons entered the Fabric Care Service office in Duncan Hall and stole a wall clock, a Panasonic portable radio and seven long-sleeved shirts. Suspects also discharged a fire ex tinguisher throughout the office area. HARASSMENT: • A resident of Keathley Hall reported he had received two ha rassing phone calls. CRIMINAL TRESPASS: • A security officer reported he found two men sleeping in the A-l Lounge. Both men stated they had been at an area bar and then went to the A-l Lounge to wait for a ride which never ar rived. They were issued warnings and released. • Two Bryan men were de tected trespassing on the ninth level of the press box at Kyle Field. CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: • A Bryan man reported the lock used to secure his bicycle was severely damaged. • An A&M student reported someone had broken the right rear passenger window of his Oldsmobile while the car was parked on Jones Street. • During a patrol of campus property, an officer observed two subjects near a recently damaged vehicle. The owner of the vehicle was contacted and verified that his vehicle had not been damaged that night. • A College Station woman re ported somone entered a room of the Chemistry Building and cov ered her laboratory coat with acid. • Someone cut out a 4-foot-by- • 2-foot section of the fence from the Grounds Maintenance com pound. Nothing was taken from the area. PUBLIC INTOXIC ATION- /CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: • A security officer reported he observed a subject tampering with a barricade in Parking Area 3. Investigation revealed the bar ricade was damaged by a College Station man. While at the scene, the officer observed a subject getting up from the ground. The officer is sued the man a citation for public intoxication. MINOR IN POSSESSION OF ALCOHOL: • An officer issued a minor a citation for possession of alcohol on July 4. BURGLARY OF A MOTOR VEHICLE: • A College Station woman re ported someone entered her un locked car and stole her parking hang tag. THEFT OF SERVICE: • Numerous long distance telephone calls have been charged to the Engineering Re search Center’s telephone bill. The calls are being placed to seve ral different numbers in Round MISDEMEANOR THEFT: • A Bryan woman reported someone stole the left rear hub cap off her vehicle while it was in Parking Area 55. • A College Station man re ported someone entered a room of the Academic Building and stole his Panasonic black and white television and Sanyo porta ble tape player. • Four bicycles were stolen from various areas around cam pus. • A College Station woman re ported someone removed $50 in cash from her purse while it was in a room of the Engineering/ Physics Building. * AM/PM Clinics P CLINICS • Minor Emergencies • General Medical Care • Weight Reduction Program 10% Student Discount with I.D. Card (Except for Weight Program) 846-4756 693-0202 779-4756 3820 Texas 2305 Texas Ave S. 401 S. Texas (next to Randy Sims) (next to U Rent M) College Station (29th & Texas) • COPYING • TYPING • LAMINATING COPIES • Wed., Sat., Sun. • Self-serve machines only •RESUMES • FAX SERVICE • PASSPORT PHOTOS