The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, April 15, 1991, Image 1
Tuesday Partly Cloudy High 85° ■rr “Early registration for graduating se niors would make life a little easier on everyone.” — Ellen Hobbs page 2 Back on track Texas A&M baseball team sweeps twinbill from Rice to climb back into SWC race pages Wolf Pen Creek Architects’ designs and engineers’ plans for phase I of the College Station project are nearing completion. pages The Battalion Vol. 90 No. 131 USPS 045360 8 Pages College Station, Texas 'Serving Texas A&M since 1893' Monday, April 15, 1991 State submits school funding plan Here are important events in the course of the school finance case: July 13, 1984 - Gov. Mark White signs House Bill 72, the education reform mea sure passed by lawmakers in special session in an attempt to equalize school funding. Oct. 2, 1989 - The Texas Su preme Court unanimously de clares the school finance system unconstitutional and calls for law makers to devise a new one. Feb. 27, 1990 - Legislature be gins meeting in special session to address the court ruling. It is the first of four special sessions. June 7,1990 - Gov. Bill Cle ments signs Senate Bill 1, a reform mea sure giving schools an ad ditional $528 million in state money this school year. Jan. 22, 1991 -Texas Supreme Court again rules the public school funding system unconstitutional and gives lawmakers until April 1 to come up with a new one. March 26, 1991 - With the Senate poised to vote, Lt. Gov. Bob Bul lock releases figures show ing the com promise bill would cost nearly $14 bil lion AUSTIN (AP) — The last time the state faced Texas Judge F. Scott McCown in court, he gave officials a stern warning: This time, they must reform the school finance system so that all children are treated equitably. When the state returns to court Monday, it will be with a plan designed to do that by shift ing hundreds of millions of dol lars in local property tax revenue from wealthier to poorer school districts. It's a new step, and a frighten ing one for some Texans. Some critics have called the plan socialistic. But unless they enjoy being the target of righ teous anger, they don't do it more than once in the hearing of Senate Education Committee Chairman Carl Parker, D-Port Arthur. "It just crawls all over me for somebody to describe that as so cialism," he said. "Socialism is where the state owns the means of production and tries to make everybody equal in what they have. "What this does, it takes the wealth of the state as a whole and tries to give every citizen an equal shot or opportunity to have the same level of educa tion." The Texas Supreme Court has twice, unanimously, ruled the school finance system unconsti tutional . Roads close today Several roads on Texas A&M's campus will be closed indefi nitely beginning today to allow for repair and reconstruction projects. Houston Street was expected to be closed from Joe Routt Boulevard to the entrance to Parking Area 48 (the new visitor lot) earlier this morning. Faculty and staff members as signed to Parking Area (PA) 46 adjacent to the Read Building are asked to use PA 48 until the first phase of Houston Street recons truction is completed. They should access PA 48 from Hous ton Street via George Bush Drive. When entering the parking area, individuals holding PA 46 permits should take a visitor ticket, which will be validated at no cost when leaving. Completion of the Houston Street reconstruction is sched uled to coincide with the com- letion of the University Center arking Garage, scheduled for opening late this summer. A companion project to the Houston Street reconstruction is the repair and reconstruction of Throckmorton Street from Lewis Street to George Bush Drive. This section of Throckmorton will be closed at various times during the reconstruction pe riod. Southbound traffic on Throck morton will be required to de tour by way of Lewis and Bizzell streets when "road closed" signs are posted on Throckmorton. Rainy weather proves no match for annual Big Event volunteers By Troy D. Hall The Battalion Rainy weather on Saturday did not hamper Big Event, the annual Texas A&M service pro ject to repay the Bryan-College Station communities for their support of the University. "Big Event is the students' way to show the University's ap preciation to the community," said Suzanne Greever, Big Event romotions coordinator. "Big vent makes individual organi zations look good, while making A&M look good." She said this year's Big Event was the largest in its nine-year history. The committee had not re ceived final numbers, but Greever estimated more than 1,000 people attended the kickoff at Olsen Field where students participated in an Aggie yell ractice and the formation of a uman American flag. She estimated more than 3,000 people worked throughout the community on 115 projects. Many of the projects were coordinated through the city governments of Bryan and Col lege Station. Several A&M organizations worked on demolishing and re furbishing the exterior of 15 houses and storage sheds in the east gate area of College Station. Greever said the houses were given a complete facelift, while Corps of Cadets groups demo lished a few abandoned storage sheds in the targeted east gate area. The Horticulture Society spent the day landscaping the Crest- view Retirement Community, while A&M sororities cleaned up along several major Bryan-Col lege Station streets. Another group went to the Still Creek Boys Ranch near Kur- ten to paint buildings, build a storage shed and clean the pool. While weather was not a ma jor factor in the project, there were some temporary delays. "A good percentage of the jobs were completed Saturday," Greever said. She said the few projects not completed would be finished by the weekend. The Big Event Committee thanked students and campus organizations for the success of the project. "Everyone in the community we talked to appreciated the hard work," she said. Chancellor S ch warzkopf ? Regent calls reported offer 'speculation' By Mike Luman The Battalion Operation Desert Storm Com mander Gen. Norman Schwarz kopf is considering an offer to become chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, the Dallas Morning News reported Saturday. Ross Margraves, chairman of the A&M Board of Regents, said Sunday the report was specu lation, but did not deny contact ing Schwarzkopf about the posi tion. "We're conducting a search, but we made it a policy not to disclose people we are inter viewing — whether it's John Doe, Gen. Schwarzkopf or whoever," Margraves said. State Comptroller John Sharp, an A&M graduate, said in a Sat urday wire report that Univer sity officials contacted Schwarz kopf about the chancellor We’re conducting a search, but we made it a policy not to disclose people we are interviewing... jy — Regent Ross Margraves position and both parties seem interested. Sharp also said he has heard plans for an A&M representative to travel to Europe and discuss the job with Schwarzkopf. Margraves said he did not know where Sharp got the infor mation. He called the report speculation, and said Sharp has no affiliation with the Board's search committee. "Until those we are consid ering for the position elect to dis cuss it themselves, we have asked the Board to keep all infor mation confidential," Margraves said. Sharp said he believes Schwarzkopf will be attracted to the job because of A&M's strong military tradition. "From Schwarzkopf's point of view, I am sure the military part of A&M is something that is ap pealing to him," Sharp said in the wire story. "It produces the largest amount of military offi cers of any school in the nation outside the military academies." Schwarzkopf, 56, recently an nounced his plans to retire from the Army within a few months. He is expected to return to Tampa, Fla. in a month. A 32-year Army veteran, Schwarzkopf is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West If reports are true and Schwarzkopf accepts the job, he will replace Interim Chan cellor Ed Hiler. H i 1e r has held the chan cellor position since December Gen. Norman when former Schwarzkopf is chancellor said to be consid- Perry Adkisson ering an offer to resigned, become System The position chancellor. pays $63,036 a year, and usually is supple mented by private income sources. Chancellors also receive a house in the Bryan-College Sta tion area with utilities paid. Point, N.Y. Top stories from Friday's Battalion Editor's Note: Because of Fri day's power outage on campus. The Battalion ran only a limited number of papers. The follow ing is a summary of Friday's ma jor local stories for readers who might have missed them: □ Texas A&M head football coach R.C. Slocum restructured the 12th Man Kickoff Team, de ciding to use only one player to represent the student body, rather than fielding an entirely non-scholarship kickoff team. Q Three A&M faculty mem bers testified before the Com mittee for a Discrimination-Free Campus on Thursday, saying they approve of President Mob ley's decision to remove sexual preference from the University's anti-harassment and discrimina tion policies. 0 An A&M student worker quit her job in the Department of Physics after she was forced to choose between selling re view materials, and grading pa pers and calling roll in the same class. 0 Three trade officials from the United States, Mexico and Canada said President Bush must get permission from Con gress to freely negotiate a trilate ral trade agreement or the agreement will fall through. The three men were in town for the MSC Wiley Lecture Series. Circuit fault causes interruption in campus power By Bridget Harrow The Battalion Electrical power to most of Texas A&M's main campus went out Friday when a fault occurred in a major circuit supplied from the University's utilities plant. The power outage occurred at about 7 a.m. when a circuit breaker did not operate properly, causing the backup main bus-duct and generator breakers to open, said a statement released by A&M's Office of Public Information. Dick Williams, associate director for maintenance and modifications at A&M's Physical Plant, said in the statement that all generation sources from the Utilities Plant were shut down. There also was a momentaiy loss of power from Brazos Electric, which was restored after a few minutes, he said. Brazos Electric supplies supplemen tal power to the main campus but has a capacity to serve only a portion of the main campus, Williams said. Some classes and scheduled tests were cancelled as a result of the black out. Power was restored to many cam pus buildings by 2 p.m. Williams said other buildings near the original power fault were brought back on line by 3:30 p.m. when the damaged circuit connection was re paired. Some buildings, such as Zachry En gineering Center, were unaffected be cause they have individual auxiliary power generators. A&M's phone registration system, however, was completely shut off be cause of the power outage. Assistant Registrar Willis Ritchey said. Friday was supposed to be phone registration for sophomores with last names beginning with H through O. "Phone registration lines were work ing at 6 a.m. and were available for 55 minutes," Ritchey said. Phone registration was extended un til midnight Friday and opened up Sat urday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. to accom modate students who were unable to register during the power outage. Williams said the Texas A&M Uni versity System Board of Regents ap propriated $4 million for the purchase of two powerful transformers to im prove power reliability to the main campus. The transformers should be in place within 18 months.