THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Vol. 86 No.52
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
November 6.1975
Students deny impropriety in KUAC football flights
By BILL SNIFFEN
Staff Writer
Conflicts of interest were denied yesterday by Ed Rolfs, student body president, and David Shapiro, Student Body President, although they acknowledged they had accepted expense-paid trips to University of Kansas away football games this season.
Rolfs was flown to the game at the
The KULA buys state that both the student body president and the chairman of
University of Kentucky Sept. 20, and Shapiro was flown to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for lodging and food costs were paid by the University of Kansas Athletic Corporation (KUAC), according to Doug Messer, assistant athletic director for business
Plebiscite opportunity approved by Senate
By CHUCK ALEXANDER
Staff Writer
The Student Senate voted last night to permit students to demand by petition that the school provide student meal benefits.
According to the bill, all enactments, bills, petitions and resolutions passed by the Senate can be subject to a vote by the student body.
In another action, the Senate voted down a bill that would have cut the number of new federal programs.
The Senate passed bills; creating a Minority Affairs Committee, requiring organizations funded by the Student Activity Fund to broadcast the phrase "Funded (or 'Funded in part') from the Student Activity Fee," allocating Senate funds to hire a part-time special assistant for the "KU on Campus" committee on Classroom Teaching.
THE BILL THAT ALLOWS students to call for a referendum states that an issue can be decided by a popular vote of the student body if a petition signed by at least 10 per cent of the students eligible votes is received. The vote can also be called for a referendum by a two-thirds vote.
Ed Rolfs, student body president, said he would push the proposed satellite union as a referendum issue. Rolfs said he expected that voters would approve the Senate before the end of the semester.
The bill to cut the number of Senate seats was defeated.
Britt Buckley, elections committee chairman, spoke for the bill and said it was designed to make the Senate more informed. He also said that increased competition for Senate seats would probably make senators more responsible.
Steve Segebrecht, liberal arts and scientists senator, said the bill would accomplish the opposite of what it intended to do.
"YOU DON'T BURN DOWN the barn to get the rats," he said. "You don't get more representation by reducing the size of the Senate."
Jeff Roper, liveral arts and sciences senator, said the Minority Affairs Committee would seek ways to get more minority persons involved in the Senate. He said the committee would provide in-depth helpful to minority Senate candidates.
Ralls said the job of the Committee on Classroom Teaching would be to evaluate existing programs to improve classroom teaching and to recommend new programs
"It's important that this be a continual evaluation." Rofs said.
Rolfs said after the meeting that the Lawrence City Commission had asked the Senate to help it solve the beer problem and to direct the streets on home football game days.
"IT'S AN ISSUE THAT affects a lot of students and I think the Senate should get actively involved while it's still going on," he said.
Rolfs also said he would appoint an ad hoc committee to look into the operation of the fire brigade.
According to Rolfs, the committee would review the board's budget, evaluate the graduated parking permit fee system, evaluate parking tickets and tickets and review new parking lot plans.
Rolfs said committee positions would be open to all students and an advertisement announcing the formation of the committee would be run next week.
the sports committee are members of the Athletic Corporation Board.
Shapiro said he had gone as a representative of the board and of theverse.
"I don't feel my objectivity has been compromised at all," he said. "I could care less."
Rofls said, "I was under the impression that this didn't come out of KUAC." He said that his expenses had been paid by the company and received a flight to Keepbryk, that Rofls was on.
Steve Clark, assistant director of the
Alumni Association, said he knew the
course was effective.
John Novotny, director of the fund,
declined to comment last night.
Clark said he thought that the plane was chartered by the Williams Educational Public
Messer said that the flight was paid for by the KUAC as “a matter of budgeting.”
Cyclle Walker, athletic director, said that student board members were the only students invited to go on flights chartered by the Athletic Corporation.
Messer said that taking visitors to football games was a common practice.
"THEER'S CERTAINLY NOTHING secretive about it," Walker said.
Because planes are chartered, all the seats are paid for anyway, he said.
Walker said he didn't know whether Rolfs' and Shapiro's traveling on the trips constituted a conflict of interest. He said that it was an opportunity to "get some knowledge of the program."
Rolfs said that he interpreted the conflict of interest statement in the Student Senate Rules and Regulations to apply to salaries or other money collected.
Paragraph number 7.8.2, of the rules and regulations reads:
“AN INDIRECT CONFLICT of interest shall be defined as indirect potential or vested financial interest contingent upon the candidate being enrolled in the Student Senate. This shall include, but not be limited to, the case of a senator holding a membership role in an organization which would benefit from the candidate's employment in the form of financial or other support.”
Rolfs said he was studying ways to clarify the conflict of interest statement.
He said that an elimination of all "good will" trips, including trips to football games, and honors banquets, wouldn't solve the problem.
See INTERNAL CONFLICT page five
Kitty giveaway
Staff Photo by GEORGE MILLENER
Katie Roesch, Wichita sophomore, takes a peek at a kitten Roesch was looking for a female kitten to keep her male cat Wednesday afternoon while Mike Dohrert, Lawrence, watches. company, but she decided against taking Dohrert's kitten.
Regents muse on agenda
By SHERI BALDWIN
The Kansas Board of Regents will again consider a switch of policy on the release of agenda items at its Nov. 21 meeting in Wichita.
Glee Smith, regent from Larned, said yesterday that the Regents will consider changing the agenda policy so that items may be released to the press and the public the Monday or Tuesday preceding Friday meetings.
Present policy states that agendas are to be mailed five days prior to Board of Regents meetings to each board member and that the state institution governed by the Regents.
According to the Regent's general policies, "No publicity or news release shall be given on any item that requires board approval. The matter has been presented to the board."
UNDER THIS POLICY, those who receive the agenda cannot reveal its content until after the meeting. Agendas are, however, available shortly before the
Smith said that Max Bickford, executive officer for the Regents, was requested by the board in July to draw up suggestions for modifications in the agenda policy. The modifications state the Monday or Tuesday time factor, he said.
meeting to both the public and press members in attendance.
"I think that they (agendas) should be released sooner than they have been, but I can't," she said.
The agenda policy has been a topic at several meetings recently, Smith said.
"There were so many things on the October
agenda that we never go time to talk
about them."
ELMER JACKSON JR., regent and former chairman of the board from Kansas City, Kan., said yesterday that agendas for the meeting day the day before the Regina meeting.
Pythons slither as children squirm
Bv J. MARTIN DOLAN
Schneider said, "I urge the board to reconsider its past unwritten policies in the light of the changing law, and to recognize that a grudging and parsimonious com-munication is not the language of a statute may yet be the violation of its clear and obvious purpose."
Although Bickford presented Schneider's letter to the Rogers at the Oct. 17 meeting, he did not attend the conference.
Attorney General Curt Schneider said in a letter dated Oct. 17 that the Regents may be violating the purpose of the state's open meeting law by restricting the availability of its meeting agendas. The letter was sent to Rickford.
See REGENTS page seven
THE ISSUE HAS RECEIVED much attention in the press over a period of years, most of it related to state open meeting laws.
WALLS AND HIS SNAKES travel throughout the country, usually setting up at a shopping center. For Walls, the snake exhibit is a "study in human nature, everyday," as well as a way of making enough money to support other business ventures. He also sees it as a education for "scared snitness" by snakes.
Walls said yesterday that his interest in smokes stemmed from his farm life in the
Two python lay intertwined in a heap in the corner of their box, sluggish from their recent meal of chickens and possum. The children leaning over the smudged glass of bowl, the oven-bed, even bobble reptile billed as a child snake and the "world's largest snake."
"When I was growing up in the Depression, we didn't have TV, so we had pets," Walla said. "I guess I've had just about any pet you can think of."
"Which one et the girl?" asked one boy. The attendant, eager to put on a good show, unpinned the lid of the box and separated the two snakes, which sent the youthful audience scurrying for better, and safer, vantage points.
The attendant showed "Big Pete" who slithered laboriously to the other end of the box, the movement sending ripples along its 28 ft. length. The other snake, "Carmeltta," remained still, moving only to the air with whip-like snacks of her tongue.
"IDECIDED ON SNAKES because of the unreasonable fear people have of them."
Carmelitta and Big Pete are owned by John Walls and the three of them are appearing in Lawrence this week at a grocery store parking lot.
Jackson said the State Colleges Coordinating Committee has had a policy of making the agenda available for the past two years.
women who traveled with a dolphin show for 15 years, said he encouraged parents to let their children have pets, particularly non-venomous snakes.
"I (having pets) teaches kids responsibility," he said. "A lot of kids nowadays never had a paper route or anything to give them a sense of responsibility. A pet will."
Walls said the hair, which snakes can't digest, was analyzed by a scientist at the University of Michigan. He said the owner wanted to know what the snake had eaten.
Big Pete, who is almost full grown at 276 lbs., won't get much bigger. Walls said, despite the six or seven chickens he eats every two weeks, Carmelita, the more aggressive of the two possums. The two are almost ready to begin a three month period of bibernation during
Walls bought Big Pete six years ago from a man who purchased the snake in his basement. He bought it for purchase, Walls said,Big Pete was still digesting his last meal, a process that takes several weeks. He said he had taken from the store a small amount of that of a human girl about three years old.
Staff Photo by DAVID CRENSHAW
There are more misonemons about snakes than any other animal."
The preacher, who refused medical aid,
died within one day.
which they will eat virtually nothing, he said.
On the wall behind the snake box there are several snapshots and newspaper clips about the death from a rattlesnake bite last year of a Tennessee man. The man was the owner of the house where banding snakes in worship and that God would save anyone who was bitten. Walls
he said he the incident to impress upon his
nature of the nature of any animal,
especially snakes.
See PYTHONS page three
"That preacher had handled rattlers he had issued," but he just pushed that tattoo too.
Walls said that he usually arranged for groups such as high school biology classes to hear his lecture on avoiding snake bites at his appearance. Walls, who bears scars from a dog attack, said the lecture also included measures to be taken in case a snake bites anyway.
worlds largest snake” is Carmalitta, pictured here. Big Pete, the larger of the two, weighing 278 pounds, is a little too hard to handle to be taken out of his cage very often.
Kansan hiring
The committee meets the day before the Regents meeting to discuss and explain agenda items, he said. It consists of three regents, student body president from the six state schools and faculty members from the school district. Jackson is a member of the committee.
Jackson said, "If the agenda can be made available 24 hours or so before the meeting, I see no reason why it shouldn't be made available a few days before.
I don't really believe that it's a controversial issue."
Snakes alive
If you look closely, in the parking lot of a Lawrence food store on 23rd is a 24-foot long ankle. A travelling exhibitor, ran by John Walls
Applications for positions on the news or business staff of the spring semester Kansan are available in 105 Flint Hall, the Student Senate office and the women's room. Men and Women of Woman. The deadline for applying is p. 9. Tuesday.
Interviews will begin Wednesday, Nov. 12. Applicants should sign up for a time on the bulletin board outside 114 Flint Hall.
Bar owners hope to alter commissioners' game plan
The owners of the Wagon Wheel Cafe, Jayhawk Cafe and Bierstube Tavern yesterday expressed hope that an alteration in the league will their businesses on home football games.
The Lawrence City Commission voted three to two at its regular meeting Tuesday night to ask the owners of the bars to close at noon during home football games, because the number of people patronizing the bars created a public nuisance.
The bars are located directly east of campus on 14th Street.
The bar owners met yesterday morning with City Manager Buford Watson and Police Chief Richard Stanwix to discuss the commission's decision but nothing was
The group plans to meet with Watson again at 2 p.m. Monday. The bar owners will have a public hearing at Tuesday night's city commission meeting.
KEN WALLACE, OWNER of the Jayhawk, said the owners hadn't decided what action to take. Wallace is acting as spokesman for Whit Shea, owner of the Bierstur, and John Wooden, owner of the Wheel.
Wallace said he was surprised by the commission's action Tuesday night. He said it was only by chance that he had attended the commission meeting at which the decision was made. No one told him that the burs were discussed, he said.
Wallace said he was planning to get the
Shutting down the Jayhawk on game days would cut his weekly profits by 25 per cent.
"The city may have bitted off more than it can chew in this issue," he said. "We think we have a lot of support. At least I hope we have a lot of support."
reactions of his customers to the proposed shutdown.
SHEA SAID HE WAS probably the most shocked of the three owners when he heard the commission had decided to request that he close his bar. No one has ever complained about the customers at the Bierstube, he said.
Stanwick said the Bierture had been selling beer to people Saturday after the football game. Those people took the beer and brought it to a site of the Wheel and the Jawkvah, he said.
Shea said the beer had been sold in sixpacks to go. He said that even though there was no law against selling beer to go, he would quit to please the commission.
Mayor Barkley Clark, who voted against closing the bars, said he hoped another compromise could be reached. The commission week help from the Student Senate be said.
Ed Rolfs, student body president, said a long range solution was needed.
"I THINK THERE is a problem," he said, and I wish it could be worked out further. "I don't know if they'll like me."
Rolfs said he had no solution for the problem of crowds at the Jayhawk and the Wheel. The sale of beer at the Kansas Union Market seems some but not all of the problem, be held.
Rofs said he was ready to discuss the problem with the commission.