Tomorrow's weather
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Kansan
Warm tomorrow with a chance for rain
HIGH 74
Tuesday
April 6, 1999
Section:
A
Vol. 109 • No. 124
"Take me out to the ballgame." Major League Baseball has started. Check out their site to find all the information you want.
Online today
Sports today
http://www.majorleaguebaseball.com
Kelly Miller joined the Kansas soccer team as a volunteer goalie coach in February.
SEE PAGE 1B
Contact the Kansan
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WWW.KANSAN.COM
Dede Seibel, YOU candidate for student body vice president, gestures during the student body presidential and vice presidential candidate debate. Candidates discuss issues including the proposed recreation center. Photo by Augustus Anthony Piazza/KANSAN
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Mary Liu, Delta Force candidate for student body vice president, ponders her answer for a question posed during the student body candidate debate. About 250 people attended the debate last night at the Kansas Ballroom. Photo by Augustus Anthony Pizzaza/KANSAN
Senate candidates volley campus issues
By Nadia Mustafa
nmustafa@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
About 250 students watched Student Senate candidates highlight the differences between their coalitions at a formal debate concerning campus issues last night.
Between intermittent jokes about Ryan Robertson, the debate's moderator and KU basketball senior guard, student body presidential and vice-presidential candidates fielded questions from state legislators and KU administrators.
The questions concerned a new campus recreation center, a zero-tolerance policy for hate crimes, minority student retention, the allocation of student fees, the representation of non-greek and off-campus students, tuition rates and contracts between the University of Kansas and corporations.
YOU coalition and Delta Force candidates disagreed about a $49 per semester student fee increase to fund a free-standing campus recreation center.
Korb Maxwell, YOU candidate for student body president, said that it
was unfortunate that the new recreation center had become a campaign issue because it was already on the ballot as something for the student body to decide. He said that his coalition had not taken a stance on the issue but that the recreation task force had a well-constructed plan backed by eight months of extensive research.
Seth Hoffman, Delta Force candidate for student body president, said that Delta Force did not support the task force's proposal.
task we propose.
"This has been an issue that has been dodged long enough," he said. "We should not stand around and dance around it all night. We have to stand up for what we believe in."
Kansas Sen. Anthony Hensley asked the candidates how they would represent students who were not part of the Greek system or those who lived off campus.
Mary Liu, Delta Force candidate for student body vice president, said that her coalition had worked on recruiting people who usually wouldn't be involved with Senate
membership of students who represented a wide variety of campus organizations, such as students who live in University housing. He said that YOU was not focused on the greek system.
would be invoiced.
Maxwell said that he and Dede
Seibel, YOU candidate for student
body vice president, solicited the
Candidates from both coalitions showed their mutual support for student representation and input in the University's corporate contracts, campus safety and public transportation.
David Ambler, vice chancellor of student affairs, asked the candidates about the expulsion of students who
were convicted of committing hate crimes.
Maxwell said that although the policy seemed to be a good idea, he did not think the University had the right to automatically expel students.
right of abuse. "We have to have due process and protect the rights of students," he said.
Liu said that Delta Force would support a zero-tolerance policy.
— Edited by Tara Hinkhouse
Delta Force cleared of election violation
The elections commission decided in favor of Delta Force last night at a hearing about the coalition's alleged campaign abuse.
Delta Force was freed of charges that they had sought campaign advice from Jason Fitzell, 1998 KU graduate and former Delta Force president.
and former Delta P.C. pro-
Ben Walker and R.J. Woodring,
incumbent YOU candidates for Nunen-
maker senators, filed a complaint last
week that Delta Force was violating
the elections code by consulting a
non-student about its campaign.
Delta Force consistently denied the charges.
Walker said that he was upset and thought a more in depth investigation was necessary. He said that YOU's complaint was not politically-motivated.
Jennifer Watkins, elections commissioner, would not comment on the commission's decision or any potential punishments against Walker or Woodring.
- Nadia Mustafa
John Nalbandian, professor of public administration and government, is stepping down after working as a city commissioner for the last eight years. Nalbandian, whose last official committee meeting is tonight, said that his experience as an elected official has helped him in his teaching. Photo by Graham K. Johnson/KAANSAN
KU professor ending City Commission work
By Heather Woodward
hwoodward@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
A new season is about to begin on the Lawrence City Commission. As winter gives way to spring, three commissioners will step down, making room for three rookies.
"I think there is value in having new people and new ideas on the city commission." Nalbandian said. "I don't have as much patience for things as I did when I started, and I don't have as many new ideas as I used to."
One of the departing commissioners, John Nabandian, who has been on the commission for eight years and is a University of Kansas professor of public administration, said that it was time to add some fresh faces to the commission.
While sitting on the commission and completing a term as mayor in 1996, Nalbandian was a strong advocate for a 1 percent sales tax to pay for additional parks and recreation facilities in Lawrence. Although he said he regretted not accomplishing a Lawrence recrea-
Tonight's commission meeting will be Nalbandian's last.
ation center, Nalbandian said he was proud of the affordable-housing project at 25th Street and Haskell Avenue and of a comprehensive storm-water utility plan
Nalbandian graduated from the University of Southern California in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in international relations and then went into the Army, where he was stationed from 1968-70 at the Pentagon.
gon.
He then went to work for the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C., before returning to USC, where he earned a doctorate in public administration. In 1976, Nalbandian started working for KU teaching public administration and government.
"I would like to be remembered as a commissioner who had a long-term view of the city and that I could get things done." he said.
"I wanted to be a city manager," Naldbandian said. "But I ended up coming out here because KU has such an excellent public administration program."
Nalbandian said there had been ups and downs during the course of his terms as a commissioner.
See CITY on page 2A
Man pleads guilty to killing Shepard
By Katie Burford
kburford@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
LARAMIE, Wyo. - One of two men charged in the slaying of gay college student Matthew Shepard pleaded guilty yesterday and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.
Russell Henderson, 21, a high school dropout and roofer, pleaded guilty to felony murder and kidnapping charges, avoiding a trial and the possibility of the death penalty.
Authorities said Henderson and Aaron McKinney, 21, posed as homosexuals, lured Shepard out of a bar last October, kidnapped and pistol-whipped him and then left him tied to a fence in the cold. The 21-year-old University of Wyoming student died five days later
Henderson said he drove the truck and helped tie Shepard to the fence but blamed McKinney for the beating. He said he tried to stop the beating, but McKinney struck him when he spoke up.
at a hospital.
"Matthew looked really bad, so I told (McKinney): 'Stop, he's had enough.' " Henderson said.
sa
Henderson then apologized to Shepard's parents.
"I'm very sorry for what I did, and I'm ready to pay my debt for what I did," he said.
Judge Jeffrey A. Donnell dismissed his apol-
08Y
ogy. "This court does not believe you feel any remorse," Donnell said when he sentenced him.
min.
McKinney will be tried in August on first-
The case has stirred activism on both sides of the gay-rights issue.
degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery charges. He could be sentenced to death.
Early yesterday, a dozen young people dressed as angels, with white sheets for wings, tried to block from view an anti-gay group demonstrating outside the courthouse.
About a dozen anti-gay demonstrators shouted and waved signs, including one that read "God Hates Fags."
"These creatures are sending this nation to hell in a hand basket," said the Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka. Phelps and members of his church also picked Sheard's funeral in Casper, Wyo.
Phelps and members of his church also picketed Shepard's funeral in Casper, Wyo.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
carried by Idi Smith
Rush-hour gustnado hits Wichita
By Jamie Knodel
Kansan staff writer
A tornado-like windstorm whipped through the heart of eastern Wichita yesterday morning during rush hour.
ing during rush hour.
Although the 7:33 a.m. storm brought winds of up to 75 miles per hour, uprooted trees, turned over cars and tore off roofs, the National Weather Service meteorologists didn't classify this spring storm system as a tornado. Instead, they called it a gustnado.
"Both are violently rotating columns of wind that touch the ground," said John Ogrern, warning coordination meteorologist for Wichita's National Weather Service.
Wichita's Nationals 4-2 formed on the front of a storm, or the gust, and a tornado formed on the undraft and arrives after the storm.
Ogrern said that because gustnados were difficult to detect, there were no warnings before yesterday's storm.
Kelly Jackson, Wichita resident, who lives at Orme and Oliver streets, looks at the damage to his 1965 Ford Fairlane. The car was in his garage when the gustado hit yesterday morning. Travis Heying/WICHITA EAGLE
When the storm came through, Jefferson Elementary School's latchkey students were eating breakfast.
ing breakfast. Principal David Lamp said that 18 pupils were led to safety by a custodian to the school's main building. Lamp said that there were no injuries.
He also said that three portable classrooms were destroyed and that — had school been in session — more than 50 students would have been in the classrooms.
been in the class room.
"Had it been an hour to an hour and a half later, we would have been looking at something really severe," he said.
Classes were canceled yesterday, but Lamp said school would resume today, despite minor damage to the school's main building, including shattered windows.
"There is nothing structural that will keep us from opening," he said.
The storm lasted no more than a few minutes, Ogrern said. The storm took a path 2 miles long and 50 to 100 yards wide. Other damage to
Wichita included snapped trees and gas leaks throughout the storm's path. A small shopping center's roof was also smashed in.
"It was a very random storm." Lamp said. "It was hopping around from place to place."
Melinah Kurdian, Wichita junior, said that the area of town that the storm took place, near Kellogg and Oliver streets, generally had a lot of traffic in the morning.
traffic in the morning. "It's a busy highway going through the city with lots of traffic," she said.
Ogrern said it was too early to estimate the monetary amount of damage the storm caused.
Forecasts are clear for Wichita and the Lawrence area for today and most of tomorrow.
Curtis Hall, the meteorology practicum adviser, said that residents of Lawrence should not worry about storms in the area.
"We are out of the woods as far as severe weather goes until late Wednesday or Thursday,"he said.
Edited by Aerica Veazey