THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
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February 9,1999
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Vol. 109·No.90
The Kansas men's basketball team has climbed back into the Associated Press' Top 25 poll. The Jayhawks are ranked 24th.
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THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Forum tries to find safe ride
(USPS 650-640)
Participants debated about how to get drinkers home
By Nadia Mustafa Kansan staff writer
About 15 students, alcohol educators and the mayor agreed on the need for an alternative mode of transportation for student drinkers at a Student Legislative Awareness Board forum last night.
They ddd not agree on how to implement a public transportation system or how to finance the possible expansion of Saferide, which offers free rides for students between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m.
Mayor Marty Kennedy said that he would like to see Saferide expanded but that he did not know from where the funds would come.
"Instead of having people stumbling around on people's lawns, providing an alternative transportation system at night is definitely a goal people share," he said.
Kennedy said that if the city could come to an agreement with the University of Kansas, it would propose a public transportation system to Lawrence taxpayers.
Students said that safe transportation to and from parties was the most important issue.
Dave Schmitz, Topeka senior, said that students did not use Saferide because it did not take them to other parties.
"Drunk people should know that they can use Saferide," he said. "Since it can't take them to bars, it defeats all that's good in the program."
Student Legislative
Jodi Niehoff, Douglas County Citizens Commission on Alcohol member, said that the state would not be flexible on its underage drinking stance.
"The Department of Transportation does not support taking someone who's already drunk to another bar so
they can drink more," she said.
Shannon Martin, Topeka junior, said that she thought the Lawrence Police Department was wasting its time trying to catch underage drinkers.
"There are so many more things they could be doing that are so much more worthwhile instead of going to find where house parties are." she said.
Martin said she was glad that public transportation was discussed at the forum, but she was hesitant to believe that any action would be taken.
"It all depends on what they do about it," she said. "It depends on whether they take the students' opinions to heart."
Sam Raiskeib, Peculiar, Mo., senior, said that he did not think anything was accomplished at the forum.
"There was a lot of nice talk," he said. "But it's hard to educate and not punish at the same time."
Marci Francisco, Oread Neighborhood Association board member, said that the association wanted to promote responsible drinking.
"We want to find a good balance between people going out on the town and people sitting at home," she said.
Mourning a Leader
Jordanian students ponder country's future
Left: President Bill Clinton, flanked by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek, (right of Clinton), and Yasser Arafat, (far right), walk in King Hussein's funeral process yesterday, in Amman, Jordan. King Hussein died Sunday following complications related to cancer.
Bottom: Jordanian soldiers accompany King Hussein's coffin from the royal palace to the mosque where he will be buried. KRT photos
By Dan Curry
Kansan staff writer
The funeral of Jordan's beloved King Hussein caused tears to fall — even in Lawrence.
"I felt sad," said Sawson Awwad, Amman, Jordan, graduate student, who has been in America since 1995. "At the same time, I felt scared for the future because he was a very wise man. He was a good king."
Awwad, who is one of six Jordanian students at the University of Kansas, said that she watched the funeral procession of King Hussein on television yesterday.
"On TV, everybody was crying,
"Awwad said. "Everybody loves him. They were very sad."
Hussein's body was carried along the streets of Amman, which were thronged with weeping Jordanians. The crowd cast handful upon handful of flowers over the coffin as it passed.
The king's white stallion ran riderless down the street in the procession.
Awwd's husband, Yousef Basir, Amman, Jordan, postdoctoral student, said that Hussein's white horse, Amre, would never be ridden again.
President Bill Clinton and former presidents George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford joined other world leaders to pay their respects to the king.
Basir said that he was
pleased the U.S. leaders attended the funeral but that he and his wife were anxious about the future.
He said that they hadn't talked to their families, but Awwad said that she planned to call her family in Jordan some time next week to see how everyone was doing.
In the mean time, Awwad said that she was filled with trepidation.
"It's not going to be easy. They are in a very tough situation between Israel, Iraq and the Middle East," she said. "I hope that things will go right. Everything is in bad shape. It's like a volcano."
Awwad said that everyone looked up to the king as a source of stability in a politically volatile region.
Hussein was born in 1955 and assumed the throne in 1953 after his father stepped down because of mental illness. He died Sunday after a seven-month struggle with lymphatic cancer.
Awwad said the new king had yet to be tested.
"I don't know how much experience he has," she said. "Hopefully his uncle will help him. I hope he follows the steps of his father."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
The University of Kansas Medical Center will open its new KU MedWest facility Feb. 15. The new center is located 7405 Senner Road in Shawnee, near I-435 and Midland Drive. Photo by Kate Levenson/KANSEN
Med Center expansion modernizes KU medicine
By T.J. Johnson Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas Medical Center will open its new KU Med West facility, giving students and physicians the opportunity to practice medicine in a modern environment.
The grand opening, Feb. 15 in Shawnee is the final culmination of a project that began in 1993, said Dr. Donald Hagen, executive vice chancellor of the KU Medical Center.
KU MedWest, which will serve the Kansas City area, is a $5.1 million, 60,000 square-foot facility offering physician offices, specialty care, diagnostic and laboratory services, an outpatient surgery center and physical therapy services.
It is located at 7405 Renner Road in Shawnee, near I-435 and Midland Drive, or just south of the Westglen movie theaters.
Hagen said that the idea for the new facility came from a 1993 study that showed the Med Center needed to develop an outpatient teaching center to improve its services.
A joint task force between the Med Center and the doctors who will practice at the new facility purchased the building three years ago and have been renovating it.
The existing building had to be completely refurbished to accommodate operating rooms and medical equipment. Hagen said.
"We had to tear everything out and redo it," he said.
The project was funded entirely with revenue from Med Center patients, with no tax money going to support the building costs. Hagen said that because the center was built without tax money, it would not be directly controlled by the University of Kansas. Control instead will lie with the Med Center and with the doctors
See NEW on page 2A
New dispatch system to make crime statistics more accurate
By Katie Burford
Kansan staff writer
The new system, Computer Aided Dispatch, takes advantage of software that is making it easier for the department to compile accurate statistics, said Sgt. George T. Wheeler of the Lawrence Police Department.
Since this was the first year that crime statistics were available using the Lawrence Police Department's new dispatch system, the city will have to wait another year to better compare some of the results.
The crime statistics, which were released Thursday, showed a significant increase in the calls for service category because of the new dispatch system. The number of reports filed, such as homicides, rapes or robberies, was not
affected.
Wheeler said that an increase in the specific types of services — such as police checking bars, which went up from 295 bar checks to 564 — was attributable to the new system.
With the CAD system, every call that comes in through dispatch is automatically recorded on the computer. Before, calls had to be entered by hand from written log sheets.
For this reason, officers call the dispatch before every stop they make so that information can be recorded instantly.
"If an officer doesn't radio it in, then it didn't happen," Wheeler said. "This is why we have trained officers to use the radio every time."
traffic, which has led the department to hire more dispatchers this year.
The new system also automatically notifies the dispatcher if the officer who placed the call hasn't followed up in 15 minutes. Wheeler said.
The result is an increase in radio
Jerry Neverve, owner of the Red Lyon Tavern, 944 Massachusetts St., said that he hadn't noticed a significant increase in the number of bar checks.
"The they can make more checks if they want to," said Neverve. "It's nice to have a police presence downtown. It makes everyone feel safer."
Steve St. Denis, an employee at Louise's West, 1307 W. Seventh St., said that he may have seen a little increase but nothing significant.
Although the city's call-for-services numbers may have been affected by the new CAD system, the KU Public Safety Office won't have the same problem, said Rhonda Bird Song, communication center manager for the KU Public Safety Office.
She said that it has used its own version of CAD for 11 years.
Because of the varying size and population among districts, he declined to generalize about how crime rates differ between areas.
The biggest decline was in aggravated assault, which went down by 30 percent.
Wheeler said the number of calls for service affects how the city was divided into districts.
The statistic showed that every category was down except for arson, which had increased from 15 reports in 1997 to 35 in 1998.
Activity 1996 1997 1998
Homicide 0 3 2
Rape 32 46 47
Robbery 97 70 69
Aggravated Assault 218 220 153
Burglary 657 721 703
Motor Vehicle Theft 193 232 201
Arson 23 15 35
Reported Crime in Lawrence
Wheeler said that the department would like to take credit for the decline but that it wasn't caused by anything more than normal fluctuation.
Jason Williams/KANSAN
Some of these fluctuations were nominal, such as homicides, which went down from three in 1997 to two in 1998 and robberies which declined from 70 to 69.