KTA more than just toll charge collector
By STEVE DZAMA
Staff Writer
The Kansas Turnpike Authority emblem can be misleading because it is similar to that of a law emblem.
However, the KTA is not a law enforcement agency, although many of the quasistate agency's officials have been detained.
BCAe 'state funds' not used to support the
TAIa highway toll re-energy help pay for its
motorways.
The KTA was created by a state statute in 1968 to rebalance, operate and finance all mikeup projects.
The KTA executive board is composed of five members: State Rep. John T, Ivy, El Dorado; State Sen. Robert V, Talkington, Iola; H. J. Barr, Jr., Daniel E. Woods, William L. O. D. Turner. Kansas secretary of transportation.
Talkington, who is chairman of the Kansas Senate Transportation Committee, said the KTA would repay the $160 million bond issued in 1956 to build the turnpike.
"I think they'll pay the bonds off early, if there's a gas rationing or a gas shortage," Talkington said.
The KTA also will pay the remaining debt on the Kansas City 18th Street Expressway, he said.
The KTA has retired more than half of the $160 million bond debt so far, he said.
The due date for the bonds repayment is Oct. 1,
1994.
When the bonds mature and the KTA's authority expires in 1994, the KTA will revert to the Department to manage the bonds.
A department official disaged, however. He said that the KTA could be extended indefinitely to operate the turnpike and that the roads would remain toll roads.
"I doubt they'll revert back to us," he said.
The KTA closely watches activities on the turpake. It has the authority to refuse to allow gasoline stations along the turpake to change their prices. The KTA is also the agent with the state-ordered renovation of Howard Johnson.
restaurants along the turnippe after a surprise inspection by Gov. Robert F. Bennett, who was displeased that the restaurants were neither very clean or very welcoming.
Patrolling the 284-mile trip is a difficult job, and the KTA has its own FM channel to help the crew navigate.
If there's an accident or a bridge weakening, we want to know about it so we can take steps to correct it.
Accidents, state troopers and nongaying drivers are some of the responsibilities that toll booths have.
Kathy Worden, 1903 Barker Ave., who has worked the East Lawrence booth for three years, said the highway patrol was called if someone drove through the toll booth without paying the toll. The highway patrol is given a description of the vehicle, the occu-
"If I let people through, I'd come up on short an
axle count and questions would be asked." Worden
Worden said that employees probably would be in trouble if they let them through without paying.
"They're pretty good, though," she said. "They give you warnings, the suspensions for problems, it supports them."
Operating a toll gate not authorized by the KTA or the state is a violation of state law and carries an injunction.
Talkington said the KTA's concern was not the loss or revenue of a driver slips through but the potential risk of injury.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
"Even ambulance workers are asked to slow down," he said.
"We want them to tell us who it is, even by yelling, as they go by and later they will have to come back
Cloudy, rainy High in the low 80s
Taklington also said that a southeast Kansas turpike that would parallel the Kansas-Oklahoma border had been authorized but probably would not be able to cross the Hudson had shown it to be unfeasible because of the cost.
KANSAN
Vol.88.No.152
The University of Kansas
Tuesday June 20,1978
Senate annoyed by repair delays
By TAMMY TIERNEY
Staff Writer
The Student Senate has had so many problems pushing through a plan to rehabilitate seven playing fields at 32rd and Iowa streets that it is willing to sacrifice $12,000 it already has invested in the project, a Harper, student body president, said yesterday.
“If we don't get some action soon, we're going to lose the funding from the Harper deal.”
The Student Senate allocated $79,800 in April to have the field regraded and seeded. In addition, $235,000 was allocated for future use.
HARPER SAID the fields were too dangerous to be used in their current con-
Since then the Senate has spent $12,000 on architectural plans for the field. That money would be lost if the Senate withdrew funding from the project.
He said that the longer the rehabilitation was postponed, the worse the condition of the fields would be when construction began.
"All of them are uneven and water doesn't drain properly off them," he said.
cars drive on those fields, horses clomp
them and motorcycles are ridden on
them.
Harper said there had been problems with the rehabilitation project from the beginn-
One rehabilitation of the playing fields was one of the choices presented to the Sesame Society.
He said that when the Student Senate cut funding for women's athletics, they were given several choices for the use of the money.
He said that Facilities Operations was originally slated to do the construction but when former director Gene Blitch, retired in fall 1977, the project was put off.
"We immediately went to work and got it together to start to star the project then." Harper said.
"ITS BEEN one thing after another"
Harper said. "The whole thing has been a
something."
However, Max Lucas, University director of facilities planning, said that the project
delays have been "a lot of misconceptions" from the beginning.
Lucas said that the project was not put off by Blitch's retirement but that when the new director, Rodger E. Oroke, was appointed in 1977, he decided to hire a private
"When the new landscape man came in, he looked at the total amount of work it would take to get the job done and decided that an outside company could do it quicker.
Using a private company would take more time, Lucas said, because the plans and specifications need to be much more complete.
Staff Photo by SUZANNE BURDICK
Harper said that the University architect, Al Thomas, was originally selected to plan the project, but was unable to because of other construction priorities.
Harper said that he regretted hiring the architectural firm with Senate funds because, he said, Thomas could have done the job for less.
WHEN THOMAS was unable to complete
the fieldwork, he paid a $2,000 fee to staff him for the fields.
Lucas said a private firm was more expensive because of the cost of doing the work.
In May the University sought bids from local contractors on the projects but encountered problems when companies erred in the planning and construction and their bids exceeded KU's budget.
Harper said that when he learned the Senate would have to wait 90 days before another bidding, the Senate cut several months' budget to bring it within the limits of their budget.
"I'm sorry this apparent mis-
understanding has occurred." Lucas said.
"We have tried to keep the student leaders
informed of the progress of the project."
Harper said that the project was now facing another delay because Lucas has said that the fields cannot be seeded until this fall or next spring.
Harper said, "It's the worst bureaucratic mess we've ever dealt with. The University can put up a $6 million art museum but they can't fund a $79,000 playing field."
Bridge break
After a morning of painting houses, two students from the
University of Kansas take time out for lunch under the bridge at Potter Lake.
Israeli plan gets cool response
JERUSALEM (AP)—Cairo and Washington reacted differently to what Moshe Dayan, Israeli foreign minister, called a permanent solution to the future of the occupied zones of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Dayan was referring to Israel's plan to negotiate the future of the occupied zones after five years of limited Palestinian self-rule.
Arabas saw the plan as a new Israel retreat to give up Arab lands captured in the war.
day by the Israeli Cabinet would further dim prospects for Mideast peace.
The United States was publicly subdued in its reaction to the Israeli policy statement, reached in reply to a series of U.S. questions intended to help restart Israel-Egyptian relations. However, some officials privately expressed disappointment about the Israeli plan.
THE STATE DEPARTMENT said it was possible that Cyrus Vance, secretary of state, or a top aide would travel to the Mideast soon to try to revive the peace talks, stalled since January over Israel's refusal to surrender the land.
Prime Minister Menuchen Begin's government has decided to or returning the terribly Arabized Nairobi.
we do not see it as a temporary solution that automatically ends after five years," Dayan said. "This is a solution for Arabs in the Middle East or in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."
IN CAIRO, Mohamed Ibrahim Kamel,
Egyptian foreign minister, called
Jerusalem's refusal to quit the West Bank
and Gaza regrettable.
Louyan, bringing the new policy to the Israeli Cabinet for parliamentary debate, said Israel would negotiate the question of West Bank and Gaza Strip sovereignty with the Arabs after five years of Palestinian under continued Israeli military protection.
Firefighter talks reach impasse
Kamel relayed his government's viewpoint to U.S. Ambassador Hermann Elmpsen in New York.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who initiated peace overtures toward Israel with his historic journey to Jerusalem in November, was unavailable for comment. He has maintained that there can be no peace unless Israel reinlists all capitals and maintains its borders. Palestinians on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip to have an independent state.
Staff Writer
Rv DAVID LINK
The talks between Lawrence firefighters and the city stalled yesterday when union representatives declared that the talks were at a stalemate.
Samuels said that the city had made no significant changes in its proposals. He accused Kevin Burt, director of city employee relations, of not bargaining in good faith when the city offered to raise its taxes and increase from 5.75 percent to 6 percent.
"I guess we are at impasse," Alvin says. "I should negotiate, said the when they broke up
"YOUR LATEST OFFER is an increase of a penny an hour over your last offer and you expect us to take back to the table that last offer was turned down." Sampey asked.
However, he said that the conclusion reached after a marathon debate within
Burt, in turn, accused the firefighters of not bargaining in good faith when they reintroduced a request about sick days that the city had assumed been dropped at a police session.
The union's proposal was for a 10 percent pay increase, compared with the wage increase of 45 cents an hour that they had requested in the last session Wednesday.
"They let it go for two or three rounds of talks and then they tried to bring it back up again today." Burt said. "I don't call that bargaining in good faith."
LeRoy Spence, the assistant chief fire is, a 29-year veteran of the Lawrence Fire Department and was one of three finalists for the Winn-Dixie Award to Mike Wilden, assistant city manager.
"He may have the administrative experience, but I've never seen anybody put out a fire with a book," Samuel said. "The paper said he's only got nine years of experience as a teacher, and they passed over a mime our own department with 22 years of experience."
SAMUELS ALSO expressed dissatisfaction with the city's appointment
Friday of James A. McSwin of Bethany, Okla., as Lawrence's new fire chief.
"WE BEGEGED PEOPLE from within the department to apply for the job and had only three local applicants." Wildgerd said. "We would have to tell the staff would most strengthen the department."
Donald Knight Jr., president of the local firefighters' union, said that a formal declaration of impasse could be forthcoming within the next few days.
If so, the firefighters would be the second municipal employees group within the last week to declare an impasse in their labor negotiations with the city.
Chief police negotiator Gary Sampson sent a letter to Buford Watson, city manager, yesterday formally declaring an insnage in the talks with police.
"I imagine we'll wait two days and unless the city makes another offer, we go ahead and do it."
sensus on a new agreement had been reached by June 15, an impasse may be declared. The procedure calls for a public hearing by June 20 with the City Commission to settle the dispute.
LAST YEAR'S WORKING agreements with both groups provide that if no con-
Postal workers defy anti-inflation plan
The unions asked for the continuation of automatic cost-of-living raises in the current three-year contract and for wage increases of $1,100 in the first year of a proposed two-year contract and $865 in the second year.
WASHINGTON (AP)—In what is likely to be a key test of President Jimmy Carter's voluntary program to fight inflation, unions that represent 554,000 post workers asked yesterday for higher wages than the administration wants them to have.
President Emmet Andrews of the American Postal Workers Union, the largest of the four unions that are negotiating with the Postal Service, said through a spokesman that the unions' proposals amounted to a 14 percent increase in the first year.
ACCORDING TO Postal Service figures, wages now average $15,877.
Walter Duka, a Postal Service spokesman, declined to comment on the figures presented in a closed-door session.
"OUR APPROACH has been that we are not negotiating in public." he said.
The unions' wage proposal of a 14 percent increase in the first year of the contract is at least double the annual increase that the unions propose.
The administration has not set a specific target for a postal wage settlement, but Carter's advisers on inflation are hoping for an increase that is substantially less than the 8 percent annual increase in postal worker wages received under the contract that expires July 20.
**BECAUSE LABOR costs account for about $7 out of every $8 that the Postal Service spends, wages strongly influence how high postal rates must be to recover expenses. Postal rates increased from $15 in 2004 to $19 in 2006, increasing the price for mailing a first-class letter from 10 cents to 15 cents.**
The administration is urging unions to make their wages demand less than those won in past contracts. The postal workers' contract is important because it is the largest federal wage contract of the year and the first contract to expire since Carter announced his
Both sides have played down the possibility of a strike, which would violate federal law.
“WE SHALL insist upon the job security and cost-of-living vital to the health and well-being families,” he said. “And we believe in better and safer work conditions.”
Andrews, whose union represents 299,000 workers, diapause assertions that postal workers are overpaid, citing acknowledged errors.
CARTER'S ADVISERS have calculated that postal wages have increased 17 percent since 1911, compared with a 64 percent increase in 1950.
However, it was widespread local walkouts in 1970 that helped lead to a law that established collective bargaining for postal workers. Previously their wages had been set by Congress and were considerably smaller than they have been under collective bargaining.
OPEC freezes base oil prices until January
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has decided to freeze the base oil prices.
At that time OPEC will again decide whether to increase the base price, now at $27.30.
In a commune that ended a three-day meeting, OPEC, an oil card of 13 countries, said it would not increase the base price might be. It, however, said the oil ministers had expressed concern about the erosion of their revenues because of inflation and higher currency in which the base price is fixed.
The OPEC SECRETARIAT estimates that the base price has shrunk in real terms to $7 since the quadrupling of OPEC prices in 1974.
The base price was set a year ago and was extended at an OPEC meeting in December. Today's decision to continue the freeze, at least temporarily, was a victory for the pro-West governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran, IOPE's two biggest oil exporters.
OIL INDUSTRY EXPERTS estimate that a 5 percent increase in the base OPEC price means an increase of $1 \frac{1}{2}$ cents a gallon in the prices at U.S. gasoline pumpes.
They contend that a price increase now would jopardize the Western economies in which they and other oil countries are located, arguing that an increase would not be justified because of the current world oil surplus, swelled by new production from the North Sea.
Al Jaidah of Qatar, the OPEC secretary-general, said the ministers had decided to establish a special committee to examine the weakening of their countries' buying
He said the committee's recommendations would be the basis for a price increase and could be presented at any time, even before the meeting. An upcoming meeting, scheduled for Dec. 16 in Abu Dhabi,
WASHINGTON (UPI)—Rep. Charles Vanik, chairman of a House Ways and Means subcommittee that is considering beef import legislation, said yesterday that a compromise should be reached to avoid a presidential veto.
Vanki said Bob Bergland, secretary of agriculture, had said that President Jimmy Carter would veto the countercrylic bill, sponsored by Sen. Lily Bleden, D-Texas, who is in charge of domestic production were small and lower imports if domestic supplies were large.
Because the threat of a veto is hanging over a Senate-passed beef bill, Vaniak said, it is particularly important to reach a compromise. However, he revealed little about the possible substance of such a compromise.
A PORTION OF the bill would restrict presidential authority to suspend beef import quotas. That authority was used this month when President Jimmy Carter intervened to reduce the amount to 1.80 billion pounds the amount of meat to be imported into the United States this year.
House ponders a compromise on beef imports
Although not disagreeing with Carter's move, Vanki said that as a general rule he would like to reduce presidential discretion and establish beef imports by statute.
"We do our work in the sunshine and some of these other decisions are made in the rain."
In addition to Bentsen's bill, the subcommittee will consider 32 bills that amend the 1984 Meat Import Act, which was passed to limit meat imports from or frozen beef, veal, mutton and goat meat.