February 23, 2001
Volume 107 ~Issufe 101
8 pages
talion News Radio: 1:57 p.m. KAMI) 90.9
A ends missing voter application case
College Republicans take blame for incident
at rejects pe;
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of involveii;
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if Israelis, he Battalion
dllings ha\e®he Brazos County District Attorney’s of-
ans and dr. announced Thursday that the probe of the
.n rightsgr dsling voter registration paperwork of 150
lent. Ms A&M students has been completed,
ice MondayMfter a four-month-long investigation, the
the village office concluded that there was evi-
on IsraeliarSe to show that an A&M student organi-
wish neigh'lion was responsible,
ieastiems. According to a press release from the
back. As office, “After investigating the matter,
techniciai e found no evidence that the Brazos Coun
in the We-Mter Registrar mishandled applications.
M1 were v did receive credible evidence that, after
a the i' ie November election, a member at one of
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www.tliebait.com
the student organizations discovered approx
imately 150 voter registration applications in
their cubicle on campus.”
District Attorney Bill Turner declined to
offer details about the case or invjestigadon,
and refused to name the organization in
volved. However, David Rushing, president
of College Republicans and a junior political
science major, said that College Republicans
has accepted blame for the mistake.
The student who discarded the applica
tions, Amy Sandlin, a former member of the
College Republicans and a sophomore civ-
(6
I called Jack Long to
make sure that it was OK
to throw [the voter registra
tion applications] away.
He tola me it was OK and
to throw them away."
— Amy Sandlin
former member of College Republicans
il engineering major, said she approached
Turner about three weeks ago and admitted
to throwing the voter registration applica
tions away.
She said she and a friend found the appli
cations in the drawer of the College Republi
cans cubicle at the end of November — one
month after they had expired. She said that
since the applications were expired, she and
her friend put them in a box to be thrown away.
“About 20 minutes after I put the cards in
the box, I called Jack Long (then-president of
College Republicans) to make sure that it was
OK to throw them away,” Sandlin said. “He
told me it was OK and to throw them away.”
Long was unavailable for comment
Thursday night.
In a Nov. 9 Battalion article, Long, a ju
nior political science major, said he had sub
mitted about 1,500 voter registration appli
cations and had watched an employee of the
voter registrar’s office hand-check each ap
plication to make sure the dates and infor
mation was correct.
“A&M students have not been allowed to
vote due to screw-ups in the [voter regis
trar’s] office,” Long said in the article. “I am
not accusing them of purposefully keeping
See Voter on Page 2.
Ml!
tudent
sinprinting
Stalls 48
lie and coir#
:d in public I
~K
ctthejunii'p
bel peace if" _
ion since ^ ‘ ,l 1
not intimaiMhe number of printing jobs in open
jely contn :cess computer labs at Texas A&M
jereased by 48 percent las semester,
borne off iid Computing Information Services
children. 2IS) officials.
assinations Richard Spiller, associate director of
nailed Iron IS, said students have dramatically re-
d daughter ace Q their use of printers since for
is in thehoew-ges for excess printing were imple-
enied in Fall 2(X)0. The charges were
■lemented to provide funding for
riming needs like personnel, supplies,
rinters and paper.
IMtudents can print 150 pages for
IJP' ree; any print jobs beyond that al-
' U • ilance cost 5 cents per page. CIS has
ilk d students $200,000 from the print
xj Mges from Fall 2000. Spiller said the
iGIIVvra'ges provided for all printing costs,
Ming only negligible profits last se-
Mer from the charges.
Mhe charges were added to students’
Bng 2001 fee statements, changing
■balance of students who paid before
Mes started.
Thomas Putnam, CIS director, said
e was a glitch in the program that
dies those charges, but that CIS
grammers are working with an ac-
nting team to resolve the problem.
Hompared to other universities,
as A&M students pay a relatively
R printing fee. The University of
las-Austin charges 10 cents per page,
nter
-
Gender
Issues
Educati
Service!
See CIS on Page 2.
Claymation
Amber Guthrie, a freshman at Blinn Col
lege, collars a clay pot Thursday afternoon.
KRISTI HINES/The Battalion
She has been taking pottery for 2 and 1/2
years at a local pottery studio.
Graves admits
to personal use
of state planes
Will pay $329 to A&M System
GRAVES
Staff & wire
Texas A&M University System
Chancellor Howard Graves, who ad
mitted to twice us
ing state-owned air
planes for personal
business, will re
fund $329.70 to the
system.
Graves ordered
an internal review
of travel records,
which showed he
twice visited his orthodontist in Austin
on system airplanes, the Bryan-Col-
lege Station Eagle reported Thursday
in a copyright story.
The review showed that one of the
visits was during a business-related trip
and the other was not. .
Graves returned to College Station
after both trips.
The System spokeswoman Brenda
Sims said the internal review was
launched after a Houston television sta
tion filed an open-records request for
plane logs and other documents.
After consulting with the system’s
general counsel, Graves asked that the
A&M system audit him for the charges
he incurred on his trips, according to a
statement released by the system.
Brazos County District Attorney Bill
Turner said his office recently received
a complaint about Graves’ travel and is
reviewing whether any laws were bro
ken. Turner said he was “not in a posi
tion to comment on the incident because
it is currently under review.”
Turner said “under the Texas Penal
Code, a person accused of personal us
age of state-funded resources would be
tried for official misconduct.”
The Texas Rangers have been
called to investigate this case. The use
of an A&M System plane costs $460
per hour and is charged in 1/10-hour
increments, Sims said. Charges for
Graves, include vehicle rides to and
from the airport.
Ross Margraves, former chairman
of the A&M System Board of Regents,
was convicted in 1996 of official mis
conduct after a jury found he used a
system jet for personal reasons. Mar
graves said his 1993 trip to Louisiana
State University, which cost taxpayers
$1,435, was official business but coin
cided with his son’s graduation.
Turner, who prosecuted Margraves,
argued it was illegal for government
property to be used for private benefit.
Margraves was sentenced to four years
probation. He also was ordered to pay
a $3,000 fine and perform community
service.
Graves was recently diagnosed
with sarcoma cancer. During the next
9 to 12 months, he will be working in
termittently as he undergoes
chemotherapy. Dr. Jerry Gaston,
deputy chancellor, will manage the
System in Graves’ absence.
Graves has served as chancellor
since August 1999.
)epartmen!
)ivision of
ent Affairs
MPO will review railroad route alternatives
j
-CS residents encouraged to attend workshop, hear study results
f Bryan
College
Station
Wellborn
/ Rd.
RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion
By Elizabeth Raines -
The Battalion
Texas A&M students who
have back-to-back classes on
main campus and West Campus
know the problems of caused by
having a railroad run through the
middle of campus.
The Bryan-College Station,
the Metropolitan Planning Orga
nization (MPO) will host a work
shop Friday at 2 p.m. at the Bra
zos Center at which
Bryan-College Station residents
are invited to attend. At the meet
ing, the MPO will report the find
ings of a study they have been
working on regarding relocating
the railroad.
The MPO, which is required
by law in an area with a popula
tion of 50,000 or more, has been
examining possible alternative
routes for the railroad for more
than three years. The MPO ini
tially became interested in relo
cating the railroad in 1998, after
A&M suggested the idea.
The study, which is being
completed by the consulting firm
Carter and Burgess and HDR En
gineering, has considered the ex
isting route and 22 alternative
routes as options for the train
route.
After receiving the informa
tion from Carter and Burgess,
the MPO Technical Advisory
Committee (TAC) and the MPO
Rail Advisory Committee
(RAC) recommended three
routes and the existing route to
the MPO policy board.
“The routes originally chosen
for recommendation by the TAC
and RAC went into Burleson
county,” said Doug Johnson,
MPO transportation planner. “We
had to choose the new ones,
though, because of the protests
from citizens in Burleson County
about the railroad being moved
into their county.”
The committees plan to dis
cuss the three recommended
routes and the exiting route with
the MPO policy board at the
workshop today.
“Although the policy commit
tee does not have to choose routes
to look further into on Friday, we
are hoping that they will choose
two of the four recommended
routes to study in more detail,”
Johnson said. “The study con
cludes in August when the funding
See Railroad on Page 2.
ROBIN GRAHAM/The Battalion
The Tradition private dorm is located behind Northgate.
Construction should be finished this summer.
New private dorm
opening Fall 2001
By Rob Phillips
The Battalion
A new housing option will be available to students in Fall
2001, when The Tradition at Northgate opens its doors.
The new private residence hall, located on Church Av
enue, one block from the north side of campus, will be
completed by Summer 2001.
Brian Revell, senior project manager of C.D. Hender
son Inc., said everything is going as planned.
“Constmction is going quite well,” Revell said. “Actual
ly, we’re right on schedule to complete the job by July 2.”
The total constmction cost of the new building, including
the stmeture, roofing, mechanical/electrical, security systems,
landscaping and the attached parking garage, is approxi
mately $26 million.
See Traditions on Page 2.