UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, November 9,1994
5A
Brownback takes seat in nasty race
By James Evans
Kansan staff writer
Republican Sam Brownback began election day by voting for himself in Topeka.
He ended the day the Kansas 2nd District pick for the U.S. House of Representatives.
"For a farm boy from Parker, Kan., I'm deeply honored," Brownback said last night at the Ramada Inn in Topeka while giving his acceptance speech.
Brownback, former Kansas secretary of agriculture, defeated his opponent, Democrat John Carlin, former governor of Kansas. Brownback received 65 percent of the vote to Carlin's 35 percent.
Sam Brownback
Brownback, 38.
said that one of the main strategies that helped him win the race was focusing on the renewal of government. He said throughout his campaign that the federal government needed to be reformed, reduced and returned to the people.
"It's a message that we have been hearing from people all over the 2nd District," Brownback said. "And it's a message that Washington needs to hear."
Carlin, 54, spent yesterday at his campaign headquarters in Topeka and at the Topeka Downtown Holiday Inn. He did not campaign yesterday because he felt that the day belonged to the voters.
Yumi Chikamori / KANSAN
Carlin, who was governor of Kansas from 1979 to 1987, said that Brownback had run a negative campaign against him. Both candidates accused each other of distorting and outright lying about the other's record.
"I don't know how you do it," Carlin said. "It just a total injustice."
Carlin, during his campaign, ran with a message of ending the partisan bickering in Washington.
Trudy Saulkern, Fort Scott senior, shuffles through a pile of ballots at the Douglas County Courthouse. About 54 percent of Douglas County's 48,898 registered voters voted.
Incumbent wins 47th district
By Manny Lopez
Kansan staff writer
Voters of the 47th district chose Joann Flower to continue serving as their voice in the Kansas House of Representatives.
Flower, 59, the Republican incumbent, will return to office to serve her fourth consecutive term. She beat first-time Democratic candidate Charlie Geist of Grantville.
"I am pleased and appreciate the support of my family and friends," she said. "Nobody wins on their own."
The 47th District encompasses eight townships and includes most of Eudora and parts of Douglas and Jefferson Counties. Flower said she drove more than 15,000 miles during the weeks leading up to the election meeting her constituents, listening to concerns and attending functions.
She said she would continue to address health care, education and other issues with the resources she had available to her.
"Business is always unfinished," she said. "I believe in term limits, but not lower than 12 years because it takes some time to learn and build contacts. There is some real value in people who have been there."
Joann Flower
Flower also supports the death penalty, leans toward being pro-life, does not support qualified admissions and said she was excited
about seeing a new governor take over.
Her opponent, Geist, said that even though he lost, his campaign experience was invaluable.
Geist, who retired and left his job with the state earlier this year so he could run for office, said he would probably buy some cattle and enjoy his retirement on his 40-acre farm in Grantville.
and said she was excited about seeing a new governor take office.
Buhler keeps commission seat
By Carlos Tejada
Kansan staff writer
Mark Buhler held on to his seat on the Douglas County Commission last night with a margin of victory both he and his opponent said was less than decisive.
Buhler, a Republican, kept his seat for the Douglas County Commission District One with a 4,971 to 4,283 victory — with 52 of 54 precincts reporting at press time — against Democrat Lisa Blair. Buhler, who won by a slimmer victory when he first came to office in 1990, said his victory wasn't necessarily a referendum on the popularity of the commission's recent decisions.
"This district has a diverse perspective," said Buhler. "I don't know what it means. It means I got more votes than she did."
Although the commission has three members, this individual race could be key in several future issues. Buhler favors continuing construction of the South Lawrence Trafficway
Mark Buhler
and building it through the wetlands south of Haskell Indian Nations University. Native-American students at Haskell have said those wetlands have spiritual significance that the trafficway would spoil.
Buhler said the commission's next job would be to see that the funds raised by the 1-cent sales tax, which
also passed last night, were spent on the appropriate projects.
Buhler and Blair congratulated each other on running campaigns free of mudslinging. But,Blair also said the margin of victory was a signal from voters that they desired a change in government.
"The disparity is not great enough to dismiss the need for change," Blair said. "I hope the county commission has listened. The people have spoken."
Lawrence voters approve bond issue,new high school
By Carlos Tejada
Kansan staff writer
Lawrence's days as a single-high-school town soon will be over.
Lawrence voters last night approved 11,842 to 9,730 a $36.9 million bond issue to pay for, among other things, a $25.8 million second high school. By press time last night, 52 of 54 precincts had turned in their results, which made the bond a clear winner.
The vote was a turnaround from 1990, when Lawrence voters rejected a similar bond issue for a second high school by almost 2 to 1. But Bob Johnson, a representative for Keeping the Promise, the pro-second-school group, said this proposal differed from the proposal four years ago. Johnson said this proposal called for a three-year school like Lawrence High School. The proposal four years ago called for a four-year school, an unpopular choice.
This proposal also was more clear on who would attend the two schools, Johnson said. He said that this year supporters made clear to voters that the two schools' areas would bisect both Lawrence's low-income east side and high-income west side.
"It's a very different issue not just in outcome, but in structure as well," Johnson said.
But opposition to this proposal was no less
stiff than the 1990 proposal. Opponents said a new high school would duplicate services, divide the city socially, cost too much and dilute the Lawrence School District's efforts to educate students.
Clay Comfort, representative of Sound Alternatives for Educational Excellence, the antisecond-school group, said Keeping the Promise had won in part by outsending the opposition 4 to 1. He also said the proposal to renovate the campus of existing Lawrence schools, which was tied to the second-school bond issue, encouraged voters to cross over.
"Our community demonstrated its willingness to support school renovations in 1992." Comfort said. "The question was, was that large majority patient enough to vote 'no' on a new high school."
But Comfort encouraged school officials to use the bond money slated for renovations quickly.
Because the 1-cent sales tax on yesterday's ballot also passed, Lawrence residents will not have to pay more property taxes to pay for the bond. City and county leaders plan to use money from the sales tax to lower property tax rates to 7 mills, or $7 taxed for every $1,000 of assessed property value. The school district then will raise the property tax it levies to 7 mills, leaving no net increase in property taxes.
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