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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 22, 1995)
199) :s an- WINNING IS EVERYTHING A&M head coach Mark Johnson strives to return his team to championship form. Sports, Page 7 THE RUN WITH IT Editorial: The newly appointed A&M regents should protect and enhance the University. Opinion, Page 11 INDIGO GIRLS Folk duo will perform tonight at Rudder Auditorium. Aggielife, Page 3 101, No. 115 (12 pages) “Serving Texas A&M since 1893’ : : I * - o 5 \ ■•f ^ o ' r . Wednesday • March 22, 1995 BHSSHHHBHEBSBBBHBBHBSil ds exas a&m listens to College Station expands recycling oncerns of community □ A&M leaders re- saii spond to students' wtu questions. ienit se re 3y Lynn Cook The Battalion i said orest idwil id err, irren: r stt-j ideK ‘two:, res o: “the. I Despite an unexpected trip to ustin to appear before the Texas ouse Appropriations Committee uesday morning, A&M Presi dent Dr. Ray Bowen was still able io answer questions from stu dents during a live television pro- am, “Ray Bowen and Friends.” Bowen was linked to the broadcast through the Trans Texas Video Network. I The televisi on show, aired from A&M’s KAMU-TV, i is the first of its [kind for the Univer sity. The show was designed to make administrators accessible to students and the community by letting people ask anything they want about the faculty or University. In addition to Bowen, other panel members included Dr. J. Malon Southerland, vice presi dent for student affairs; Dr. Jer ry Gaston, interim vice presi dent for finance and administra tion; and Brooke Leslie, student body president. All the partici pants answered questions about campus issues ranging from safety to the expansion of the College of Liberal Arts. Mary Helen Bowers, deputy director of Uni versity Relations and the show’s organizer, said eight students asked questions from the remote-camera See Listens, Page 4 □ The City of College Station begins a pilot apartment recycling program this week. By Tracy Smith The Battalion College Station apartment complexes are getting involved with the recycling mission by making recycling as convenient as taking out the trash. Katie Gibson, recycling coor dinator for the city of College Station, said a recycling pilot program for apartments begins this week. “We surveyed apartment com plexes in College Station to see if there was any interest,” she said, “and while we have only eight complexes participating, we had 40 complexes that ex pressed interest.” An assessment of the partici pation and amount of materials recycled will be given to the Col lege Station City Council after the 16-week program finishes. “This is a unique program. What happens over the 16-week period will decide its fate,” Gib son said. “We hope it will be come part of our annual budget. Only time will tell.” Gibson said Col lege Station resi dents and university students who live in apartments and are interested in recy cling suggested the program. “Right now, our curbside program services approxi- mately 10,000 families,” she said. “We hope to increase the number of people recycling by including apartment complexes as one of our priorities.” Laurie Hearn, a junior agri cultural journalism major, said she thinks the program’s conve nience will encourage more peo ple to become involved with re cycling. “When I first moved into an apartment, my roommates and I would drag bags of cans down to the recycling center,” she said. “After a while, though, we stopped because between school and work we didn’t have time "Right now, our curbside pro gram services approximately 10,000 families." — Katie Gibson, recycling coordinator to drive the cans down to the center. “I know other students who have run into the same problem. I think convenience is one of the big reasons people don’t recycle. They want to do it, but don’t be cause of the time it takes.” Gibson said the program’s four-month trial period will take place during Texas A&M’s se mester break in mid-May, allow ing city council members to see if the program will succeed dur ing one of College Station’s most trying recycling times. “With so many people moving in and out, the end of the semes ter is when a good percentage of the recycling should be done,” she said. “If the program can be successful during this time, it will probably be successful the rest of the year.” Scott Eustance, University Towers director of special pro jects, said that with all of the current emphasis on recycling, University Towers officials are happy to find a program to ac commodate its tenants by mak ing recycling easier. “When the city approached us to be a participant in the pro gram, University Towers jumped at the chance,” he said. “We had See Recycling, Page 4 Practice makes perfect Robyn Calloway/THE Battalion Members of the number one ranked Aggie Rugby Team practice Tuesday afternoon at the polo fields. The team is getting ready for the Texas Rugby Championship this weekend. GSC votes down fee consolidation □ Graduate Student Council opposes changes to the student health center fee. By Gretchen Perrenot The Battalion The Graduate Student Coun cil Tuesday opposed a proposal to consolidate part of the stu dent service fee with the health center fee. The GSC’s opposition will now go to the Office of the Vice Presi dent for Student Affairs for con sideration. Texas A&M students will vote on the proposal in a student ref erendum March 29 and 30. The proposal would combine the $15 of the student service fee that goes to A.P. Beutel Health Center and the $25 health cen ter fee into one $40 health center fee. Amy Kardell, GSC president, said the GSC is rejecting the referen dum and requesting a voice in the proposal’s negotiation. “I have a clear belief that it will pass through with the under graduate students,” Kardell said, “therefore we should reject the proposal now.” Members of the GSC said they want graduate students to have an option of receiving and paying for on-campus health care. If the GSC supported the proposal, the members said, they would not be able to make this suggestion. Kardell said 48 percent of graduate students receive health care assistance from the Univer sity and do not use the on-cam pus health center. “It negatively affects graduate students who already have health care or health insurance,” she said. Stepheni Stephenson, GSC president-elect, said she voted against the fee consolidation be cause many graduate students can receive less expensive health care elsewhere and should be able to choose not to have health center fees. Charles Goodman, GSC exter- It [consolidation] negatively af fects graduate students who al ready have health care or health insurance.' —Amy Kardell, GSC president nal affairs officer, is one of two members of the Council who does not oppose consolidating the fees. “I appreciate that the graduate students are concerned that the student health center is not meet ing their needs,” Goodman said, “but I think those are two sepa rate issues.” Goodman said he does not See Fee, Page 4 OP divides over proposed tax bm b House members try to compromise on tax breaks for wealthier families. I WASHINGTON (AP) — [preaking ranks on a key item in the “Contract With America,” ; nearly half the Republicans in the House called Tuesday for scaling tack tax breaks intended for ; Wealthier families. “I don’t think that’s out of the question,” con ceded Speaker Newt Gingrich. K- The White House and con gressional Democrats instantly Renewed their attacks on Repub licans as benefactors of the rich. •*‘1 can certainly understand their tnease with ... regressive, trick- Ipe-down tax policy,” taunted House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri, who noted that Republicans also favor cuts ^In school lunch and other nutri tion programs. With the GOP tax-cut mea sure expected on the House floor next week, 102 Republican lawmakers cast their request to limit a $500-per-child tax credit as an effort to plow more mon ey into deficit reduction. Even so, their proposal reflected a broader debate among majority Republicans in Congress — and White House hopefuls — of the prominence that tax cuts should receive in the coming months. As approved last week in the House Ways and Means Com mittee, the GOP tax bill would permit families earning up to $200,000 a year the full, $500- per-child tax credit promised in the “Contract With America.” A letter from 102 of the 230 House Republicans calls for a vote on lowering the cap to $95,000. “Passage of this amendment would still cover 85 percent of the families in America,” the group wrote. However, they wrote that it would also mean “an additional $12 billion to $14 billion in sav ings for deficit reduction.” The Republicans intend to bring the tax-cut measure to the floor at the same time as spend ing cuts to pay for it. Republican leaders have made numerous compromises in the past 75 days as they ma neuvered their ambitious agen da toward passage. House ap proval of the balanced-budget amendment came only after the leadership bowed to GOP mod erates and dropped a provision requiring a two-thirds vote to raise taxes. Even so, the letter stands out as the most striking example of lawmakers using public pres sure to force a key change in the “Contract With America.” The letter was sent to Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y., chair man of the Rules Committee that will set the rules for debate on the measure. Its leading sponsors were Rep. Greg Ganske, a first- termer from Iowa, and Rep. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, chairman of the House Agriculture Commit tee, neither of whom was avail able to comment. Democrats attack new welfare reform □ Republicans pro pose major alter ations to the current plan which includes giving states control of welfare finances. WASHINGTON (AP) — Af ter weeks of wrangling over teen-age mothers, school lunches and the “slavery” of dependency, the House took up the centerpiece of the GOP so cial agenda Tuesday — a wel fare overhaul that replaces fed eral support for the poor with payments to the states. Food stamps, foster care and aid to disabled children and sin gle mothers would he fundamen tally changed under the far- reaching blueprint as states are given a free hand to design their own welfare programs. The hill also shrinks welfare spending by $66.4 billion over five years, repeals dozens of so cial programs developed since the New Deal, and erases the federal government’s guarantee to sup port poor women and children. Republicans have called welfare the “last plantation” and say it has enslaved mil lions of American families in long-term dependency. They accuse Democrats, who controlled the House for 40 years, of jealously guarding a "While the current House plan is weak on work, it is very tough on children." — President Clinton bankrupt system that discour ages work and marriage and encourages the poor to “stay where they are.” “Young mothers having ba bies, not going out to work, and no man has responsibility for the family — that’s what we’re setting out to reform,” said Rep. Marge Roukema, R-N.J. Democrats, however, say the bill is cruel to millions of chil dren and falls far short on get ting parents from the welfare rolls into the work place. “While the current House plan is weak on work, it is very tough on children,” President Clinton told Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., in a letter on the eve of the debate. “Cutting school lunches and getting tough on disabled children and children in foster care is not my idea of welfare reform.” Clinton also criticized provi sions in the bill that deny aid to unmarried mothers under age 18 and their children. “We should demand respon sible behavior from people on welfare, but it is wrong to make small children pay the price for their parents’ mis takes,” he said.