Wednesday, April 23, 1980
University Daily Kansan
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Mediation centers ease court costs, tempers
Bv CINDY WHITCOME
Staff Reporter
Mrs. Jones is awakened every Friday and asks me if you can stay with parties at her young neighbors' house, but she doesn't call the police because she is too afraid and in too poor health to testify.
When Jack and Mary Smith split up, there was a messy and emotional divorce trial. Jack's privilege to visit the children were severely limited because he couldn't dispel his shame that he drank too much. Now Jack is hating it and is planning a way to get back at Mary.
Federally funded meditation centers are being set up across the country to offer these kinds of people alternatives to living in situations or accepting rigid court decision.
The centers offer the use of mediators to settle personal disputes in short periods of time without the costs of criminal or civil cases.
Three representatives from Lawrence service groups attended a workshop in which the participants were more about meditation centers and the possibility of establishing a center in Lawrence.
ATTENDING THE workshop were Linda Kneipa, coordinator for the Oread Neighborhood Association crime prevention program; Phyllis Griekspeor, publicist for Lawrence Consumer Affairs; and Sue Schuster, facilitator for Alternative Action.
Kenepaşe said mediation centers research had been written into ONA's federal grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.
"I went to the workshop this weekend to find out more about the actual meditation process," she said. "I guess the next step will be to gather information from different
groups in the community before making any other decisions."
Participants in the workshop acted in the role of disputant mediators in role play, participating in disputes between neighbors over gardens and pets, visiting privileges not divorced with their spouses.
A MEDITION Center in Kansas City, Mo., the neighborhood Justice Center, One West Armour Boulevard, has been operating since March, 1978.
Maurice Macey, director of the center,
said that 89 percent of the 800 cases
the center handled in a year ended satisfactorily.
"I think our purpose is to help each disputing party get something out of a settlement," he said. "There is ventilation here and that ventilation into what causes a dispute by both sides."
In the mediation process, one party must request the help of a center and the other party has to voluntarily submit to the hearing. Then a trained mediator, without a bias toward the subject of the dispute or the involved, must be found to hear the case.
The mediator hears both sides of the decision and argues to the disagreement. The mediator then arbitrates a decision called an award and each party must agree in writing to abide by it.
NO FINES or imprisonment can be inflicted on the disputants, but a mediation decision is upheld in the courts. Macey said.
"Agreements involving money or visitation rights will be upheld, but things like violating an agreement not to call your neighbor names are hard to determine," he
The Justice Center now also receives money from the city of Kansas City, Mo., although originally it was funded
by the LEAA. The center has one part-time and six full-time employees who coordinate the program and train mediators.
The center has almost 40 volunteer mediators to work in the Kansas City area. They each receive 50 hours of training before they hear any cases.
According to the center's policy, mediators are various members of the
community, including business persons, lawyers, social workers and retired persons.
MACEY SAID that because of tight funding from the city, the center probably would not increase the number of cases it had to emphasize certain areas of the community.
"We are working in the school systems
now, trying to solve disputes between students and teachers, parents and parents and students and other students," he said. He also working in the area of public housing.
Our biggest goal now is to become an organization, not just an organization that depends on federal funding from year to year. This is a whole system of justice."
Outdated laws rarely enforced
By CINDI CURRIE Staff Represent
Staff Reporter
Most people know public drunkenness is against the law.
But according to the Lawrence city code, people can be arrested for drunkenness in their own home if they disturb their family and the penalty is $10 or 30 days in jail.
There are 229 pages of ordinations in the code book, which consists of 30 chapters on such topics as beverages, health and nutrition; wildlife offences, animals, zoning and planning.
"As long as an ordinance is active, on the books and has not been repeated," he said, "it's enforceable. Whether or not they are enforced is up to the department."
Mike Reeves, Lawrence police sergeant, said yesterday that all of the ordinances in the code book were "100 percent enforced" and that not all of them were actively enforced.
The laws in Lawrence are not as archaic as those in some states. In Missouri it is illegal to throw asses into the Missouri River unless someone in the river requests
Revees said that as recently as five or 10 years ago, a Lawrence ordinance said that
before a car was driven into town, someone had to walk two blocks in front of it to warn horse and驾车 drivers.
The ordinances become antiquated and get lost in the shuffle when the books are revised," he said.
Dona Jimbay, city clerk secretary, said ordinances were changed when a citizen or commissioner proposed amending an ordinance or drawing up a new one.
She said that the code book was printed every year and that changes were made periodically throughout the year.
Reeves said most of the unusual ornaments in the bookook were there before he published them. He complained to the city and the complaint was deemed perfect enough to be made into a film.
A majority of the 5-member city commission is required to amend or add an ordinance, Jimby said.
The ordinances are common sense, he said, but if someone wanted to be irritating enough, the laws could be enforced.
Although there are not any sections in the code book as antiquated to the horse and buggy example, some of the ordinances cannot be enforced.
For example, fortune tellers and palmists supposedly cannot tell a fortune in Lawrence.
Even though the Kanans printed a story last semester about a palinist in Lawrence, Reeves said, he does not know of any fortune tellers in the city.
"I never knew about it," he said. "I guess she didn't try to read the palm of a police officer."
Other illegalities in Lawrence include injuring birds and squirrels and dumping manure within the city limits without the city health department's permission.
Spitting on a public building, in an elevator or on sidewalks is punishable by $100 or 30 days in tail or both.
Garbage can weigh no more than 65 pounds, and shrub trimming have to be wrapped in bundles no more than 18 inches in diameter and no more than five feet long.
Reeves said that in most cases an officer simply would warn the violator and not arrest him.
saughter house outt, within the city limits Back yard fences cannot cut off the neighbor's sunshine or view.
I cream vendors cannot stay in one place for more than five minutes.
No hogs can be raised, or a slaughterhouse built, within the city limits.
KANSAN
On Campus
TODAY: The U.S. Marine Corps Officer Selection Officer will be interviewing at Booth 1 in the Kansas Union until 4 p.m.
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS WORKSHOP with Jim Banning, Colorado State University,
"Strategies for the Intentionally Designed Environment" at 8:30 a.m. at M.E.C.WEDNESDAY FORUM will hear Paul LIM, instructor of English, give readings from his play, and Friar and Friar, a play in the Academy. There will be a WOMEN'S STUDIES students' meeting at noon in 2132 Wesco Hall. THE MOUNT OREAD CWCLC CLUB evening leisure event will leave South Park Gazebo at 5:4 p.m.
TONIGHT: ALBERT GERKEN will give a carillon circlation at 7. The KU SAILING CLUB meets in Pariors b and C of the Union Club on Monday. Mr. Gerkens will hold rehearsal in Danforth Chapel at 7. Arnold Stricker Jr. and Bob Duffer will hold a MASTER'S RECITAL in attending at 8. The program will be held at There will be an ANTHROPOLOGY LECTURE, "Genetic Epidemiology," by Philip Lefevre-Wilmer, Institute of Public Health, at 8 in the Council Room of the Union.
TOMORROW: THE GRADUATE
WOMEN'S GREAT HOME at noon in the
Union. The Union will be informational meeting for all students interested in applying for both Fulbright and Amnesty scholarships at 3:30 p.m. in the International Room of the Union. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL will show "Human Rights and the Church in Africa" at 3:30 p.m. in the Union. The KAPTA KAU ALPHA journalism honorary dinner and invitation will be held in the 30th Centerial Room of the Union.
EDUCATION STUDENTS
Applications are being accepted for Pi Lambda Theta National Honor and Professional Association in Education
Applications due April 28 in the Dean's office.
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wishes to congratulate the following new initiates.
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Grace Cecelia Barben
Lance Douglas Hurt
Mary Helen Coombe
Cindy Joyce Martinsen
Jon Erik Hartronft
David W. Levy
Blaine Lee Farless
Anne Elizabeth McAteer
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Douglas Kay Peck
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Jeffrey Lynn Johnson Roy Don LaRue
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Kennon W. Wyatt
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Graduates:
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James Harold Turner
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