THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Vol. 86 No.137
The University of Kansas—Lawrence. Kansas
Wednesday, May 5, 1976
Harris, Murphey get mixed review on their concert
See page 5
Employes, citizen group denounce Smith dismissal
By JANET SCHMIDT
More than 175 people appeared last night before the Lawrence City Commission, protesting that the dismissal of sanitationennis Smith was a violation of his civil rights.
Members of Citizens for Fair Efficient City Management and some city employees charged that Smith was dismissed because he had criticized city government and had led the move by workers to affiliate in April with the Teamsters Union Local in Toooke.
For more than two and one-half hours, the speakers and the commissioners exchanged verbal blows over the issues surrounding Smith's dismissal.
Smith, who has been advised by his lawyers not to make public statements on his dismissal, didn't address the commission.
NO ACTION WAS taken by the commission at the meeting, however, because a decision on an appeal filed by Smith about the dismissal is pending.
The appeal was sent last Thursday to George Williams, director of public works, and must go through a review board and the commission makes the final decision.
Smith was dismissed on April 23, city officials said, because back problems prevented him from doing his job. Smith, a math teacher at the department, bad off, been sick since Jan. 22.
Smith says in his appeal that he was
involved on the job injury that occu-
pied with him. § 8.
"I requested lighter work until I could go back to my prior position," the appeal states. "I tried to go back to work but was placed in the same type of work I had been doing in spite of the fact my doctor advised lighter duty."
SMITT'S DOCTOR had sent a letter to the city recommending that Smith be given light duty because driving a truck aggravated his back trouble.
The appeal lists 10 employees with on-the-job injuries who have been given light fittings.
The real reason for his dismissal, Smith says, was his criticism of city management and the lack of community involvement.
Those reasons were repeated by the city council, who employed employees who addressed the commission.
DAVID KATZMAN, a member of the citizens group and associate professor of history, said he had a list of more than 20 injuries that day light duty because of on-the-job injuries.
"The city broke its own tradition by assigning Dennis to his old job," Katzman said. "He was fired to threaten other workers into silence, to break the workers' organizations and to break ties with the Teamsters."
Katzman said Smith's damasal was a waistband to basic freedoms and civil rights of others.
"If it can happen to Dennis it, it can happen to anyone who works for the city," he said. "The city has tried to rob its people of fair play and of dignity."
Katzman concluded by asking that Smith be rehired.
MAYOR FRED PENCE responded to the speech, asking if Katzman had ever taken up former sanitation superintendent Donald Purdy's cause. Purdy resigned in April saying that he had been harassed by employees.
Pence then said he was going to limit discussion about Smith's dismissal to a half hour, "on the grounds that we (the companies) need to up here and be推进 for three hours."
That statement, however, provoked an uproar in the audience until Norm Forer, a member of the citizens group and associate professor of social welfare, interrupted.
"As long as this is a free country we're going to speak," Forer said. "If these people are too dictatorial and too cowardly, then let them resign and get the hell out."
COMMISSIONER BARKLEY Clark responded right to petition is not told.
Katzman replied that the point of the discussion was free speech.
"This podium should be open to every city employee, not just for the sake of the commission but for the sake of the citizens," he said.
William Tuttle, a member of the citizens group and professor of history, addressed the commission on what he said was the unfairness of the grievance procedure.
See COMMISSION page 12
★ ★ ★
City condemns land amid protest
By CAROL LUMAN
The Lawrence City Commission approved last night the condemnation of five acres of land in North Lawrence for the expansion of Lyons Park, despite protests by the owner.
Lawrence Allison, G23 N. Seventh, denied that he was trying to sell the property for
Powers are limited in Student Senate
Staff Writer
By BARBARA ROSEWICZ
(Editor's note): This is the first of two articles examining the powers and the structure of KU's Student Senate.)
The Student Senate is not an independent power.
The administration, at least twice in the past, has questioned the Senate's action and proved that the Senate could be overruled.
IN THE SECOND instance, the Senate decided to fund the Gay Liberation Organization. The administration also said the University should fund any organization that promoted any sexual tendencies. The case was taken to the federal court of appeals in Denver, but the lawsuit was not and never has been funded.
In the first year the Senate had control of its budget, the summer Finance and Auditing Committee cut the University of Kansas Athletic Corporation (KUAC) funding. The Senate approved a budget overturned the Senate decision because KUAC, already in its new fiscal year, had counted on Senate funds.
According to Ed Rolfs, student senator and former student body president, today's Senate isn't one of action, but one of reaction. He said the Senate could only publicize facts and try to apply popular pressure.
Tedde Tassheff, student body president, said the Senate collected student opinions on funding programs and asked the Senate to guide the way the administration handled issues.
This past year, $12 of each student's tuition went to the Senate, which has allocated $533,325 to 52 student organizations for next year.
Ellen Reynolds, Graduate Student Council executive coordinator and graduate student senator for two years, said the Senate had a "doubled voice."
"THE ACTIVITY fee is important and the easiest thing to identify," she said.
She said the administration, for reasons of public relations, wouldn't ignore students when those students spoke in a unified manner.
Reynolds said she didn't think the Senate could make any demands it wanted, because its opinions received under consideration by the administration.
THE SENATE has three written outlets to take action or to address problems. Those are bills, which are collected and sent to the senate; regulations; petitions, which ask
someone else to do something about an issue; and resolutions, which are statements of the Senate's opinion.
including to the Senate Code, all powers are "subject to and in accordance with the control of the Board of Regents as provided by law."
more than its assessed value and said that even if the city offered him $28,000—$10,000 more than the assessed value—and "put it in my hand right now. I'd prefer not to take
This means that bills passed by the Senate are subject to review and can be overruled.
Jon Losserand, a student senator for four years, said the effectiveness of the Senate's decisions depended on who was listening.
WHEN THE SENATE was first organized, Josserand said, many students used it to express opinions on national issues such as the Vietnam war and marijuana legalization. Currently, he said, the petitions and concerns internal measures and were usually directed to the Chancellor.
Aside from the two bills overruled by the administration in the past, he cited the success of the regulation requiring schools to take part in academic policy-making councils, the Senate's establishment of the Hilltop Day Care Center and the founding of a
Josserand said the power of petition was important as long as the Senate didn't pass petitions all the time and decrease its effectiveness.
He said the Senate also was responsible for the Whomper, a recycling center which though not a volunteer group, a volunteer group in Lawrence,
Organizations such as the Consumer Affairs Association were created specifically by the Senate, he said, and rely on Senate money for support.
If the administration had control of the activity fee, he said, it would mean complete financial control by the ad-hoc Kansan and JKHK-FM radio as the Kanasan and JKHK-FM radio.
"WITHOUT THE Student Senate, I doubt very seriously if anyone would have stepped in. we probably wouldn't have a bus service system today."
Jooserand said the bus service was going out of business when the Senate took action.
He said the general student body was being served by the Senate, even if they didn't see any visible effects.
"THAT WOULD be a disaster."
At last week's city commission meeting, the 85-year-old Allison had said he was "too old" to move and wanted to stay in his present home.
"THAT WOULD be a disaster." Rolfs said if the Senate hadn't stepped in with the Board of Regents, the Union wouldn't be selling beer.
However, several of the commissioners said last night they all thought Wainamn wasn't bitter about the prospect of selling his land, but he said he was not going to pay him more than the land was worth.
Allison, Mayor Freed Pence said, had in the past put the property on the real estate market once and had twice offered to sell it to the city.
BUT ALLISON said circumstances were different now.
(Tomorrow: The Senate's structure.)
"I'm not very mobile now; I was wiser then and could move easier," he said.
Allison said he had even gone so far as to contact other property owners in the city to try to find other suitable land on which to build a house, lands, for which some of his land is allotted.
He said he had found two owners with property who were willing to sell to the city. One of those sites is also adjacent to Lyons Park.
HE SAID HE personally valued the land at a higher price but was willing to sell for $5,500 "so as to save the home of Mr. Allison."
Stanley Shepard, *Law* 4, Lawrence, said he was willing to sell two and three-fourths of his land.
At a general meeting of North Lawrence
residents Monday night, Allison had said he was willing to sell or trade his property. Heather Reis, organizer of the meeting, told the commissioners. Reis said Allison had given the impression that giving up his land wouldn't be a hardship.
Therefore, it was the recommendation of the people at that meeting that the city go ahead with its plans to condemn the land, she said.
A letter from several members of the North Lawrence Improvement Association also said it was the opinion of some committee members that Allison was willing to leave his home, but that he wanted more money for the property.
MURIEL PAUL, a member of the North Lawrence Improvement Association, dissented, saying the issue of 'human values' should enter into the commission's
"I only ask you to make a decision that you can sleep with tonight," she said.
Although the condemnation procedure was approved, the city will continue to try to make a deal with Allison to purchase the land. The judge goes to court, Mayor Fred Pence said.
If an agreement is made prior to the time the case comes to court, the city will drop the condemnation action, Pence said. If no decision has been reached by then, the court will decide on a fair price for the land and the city will have to pay Allison that amount.
In other action, the commissioners referred to the city manager's staff a petition against Alabama, for a detention agreement on a water reactivation from the city water department.
Emplove controversu
Staff photos by GEORGE MILLENER
Former city employee Dennis Smith, top right, conferred frequently with Phil Bohlander, sanitation worker, during the discuss at last night's city commission meeting. Jim Jenkins, bottom, waterworks employee, was one of several city employees who interrupted the commission meeting to voice their opinions on the recent firing of Smith.
Critics critiqued by one of own
Rv CHUCK SACK
NEW YORK-Nobody likes a critic. The person who first stated that was probably another critic. So what could persuade a neophyte like me to join 125 other newspaper reviewers, reporters and editors from around the country for an entire weekend here in New York City?
The answer last weekend was that United Artists Film Corp, was offering an advance screening of its summer release, "Buffalo Bill and the Indians," plus press interviews with the film's star and its director. Since the star in this case was Paul Newman and the Robert Allman, I was willing to tolerate 125 competitors.
Press junkets like these often are organized by studio or producers hopeful of creating useful publicity for their products, a temptation of attending even greater, the studio may allow them to round trip airplane ticket, his hotel room, a hospitality suite, dinner after the screening and a pre-interview of these things were offered to me up front. I accepted.
MANY PAPERS have codes that won't allow their employees to accept this kind of invitation. Some are allowed to attend, but the publisher foots the bill, and still others refuse all offers. For reporters, the dilemma is that there is virtually no other way for them to meet major stars and directors.
I'm not sure whether I was automatically tainted by taking the airline ticket. However, I did notice that the famed conductor Andre Koeletanel, who sat across the back of the plane in New York, refused to look me in the eye the entire trip.
My first real taste of the jacket came after I checked into the hotel and went into the hospital suite. One of the agents for United Artists handed me a press packet, out the bar and invited me to mingle with my cohort.
'They're your own kind,' one heavy-set agent told me slyly.
IT WAS HARD to discern what that "kind" was. There had been a screening for high school and college journalists earlier that day, so I was an oddity. The other people present ranged from roughly ages 28 to 60. Most were in their late 20s. Half were women, but there was only one black critic.
When these demographic impressions formed into real personalities, I discovered great variety within the group. Susan, a critic from Chicago, confessed that this was her first experience of public life; the wing of the many U.A. publicity men in the room.
Bill, an editor from Detroit, had been on four previous junkets, and many of the public relations men knew him. These more experienced critics were a little uneasy, but they were willing to wonder whether they had to wear ties in the evening.
Sam was seated at a table close to the bar, dispensing advice to anyone who would listen. Beside him sat Ted, a
DAVID, A REVIEWER for one of Boston's underground papers, noted that last fall's "Cuckoo's Nest" trip was the first in which a female student
But it wasn't until I met Sam, the entertainment editor for a medium-sized paper in Massachusetts, that I began to understand that the true nature of the trip wasn't necessarily journalistic.
protege whom he had brought along at his paper's expense, although all that the paper actually paid for was Ted's bus ticket.
S punctuated his advice with anecdotes from various other publicity junkets that he had attended. These dated back as far as "Cheyenne Autumn," 1982 John Ford film. The director, who co-wrote the Indians the studio had hoped to impress walked in.
BASICALLY, SAM'S advice was on how to pick up the most extra benefits from the junket.
"Room service is free. You can order a couple of bottles, take 'em home."
Whenever one of the U.A. men would come over to his table, Sam would smile, point to Ted and say, "Dees'the like like Charlie Bronson?" From the mouth up there was a vague resemblance, but Ted had no chin to speak of. The U.A. men, happy to be included, would agree whole heartedly, yes, he looks like Charles Bronson.
Actually, Ted looked more like a frog with a moustache, but this opening gave the agents a chance to remind everybody listening to Sam that United Artists is producing Bronson's next picture.
There were no "name" critics present. Presumably, there were separate screenings for the critical elite. Consequently, many of the critics tried to remain as aloof to the impression that they were used to better treatment.
OTHERS RESPONDED by perpetuating or manufacturing rumors about the arrangements. One U.A. fly had said that Burt Lancaster would be present. Unfortunately, a U.A. had bothered to clear it with苹果, as he was told.
See CRITICS page 7