8A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2003
Candidates seek cheap housing, quality of KU life
Editor's note: The Kansan will print candidate profiles for the upcoming Lawrence City Commission elections. This is the second part of the four-part series.
One long-time public servant and one long-time defender of public rights have both decided to serve Lawrence in a more active capacity. Dennis "Boog" Highberger worked with groups like the Lawrence Indian Center and Kansas Defender Project in the past, among others. Lynn Goodell spent much of the last 24 years working to build better neighborhoods for everyone in Lawrence. Both men believe the future of Lawrence relies on controlled growth and cooperation among the city's many vocal coalitions.
Dennis "Boog" Highberger, 43. The former KU student body vice president (1984) received his degree in Electrical Engineering in 1985 and graduated from KU School of Law in 1992. Since 1992, Highberger has been an attorney for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Highberger's main concerns:
Community control of development
- Sensible tax abatement policy.
Ensuring the availability of affordable housing in Lawrence
Building a safe and effective
Building a sale and effective transportation system for our city
The Biggest Issue Facing KU students and Lawrence:
"I think the biggest issue facing KU students and the University are tuition increases and state budget cuts, respectively. Unfortunately, there is very little the city can do to address these problems. I do think that there are ways that the city can be a better partner with the University, for instance by supporting the University's efforts to encourage new businesses based on research conducted at the University.
"I think that every environmental issue is a student issue and every social justice issue is a student issue, and so I think that many of the issues facing the city today are relevant to KU students. The availability of affordable housing, controlling runaway development, and ensuring a safe and effective city transportation system are all things that directly affect KU students, faculty and staff."
Lynn Goodell, 66. Goodell has lived in Lawrence with his wife for 32 years where they have raised four sons and been involved with the University. The former director of Housing and Neighborhood Development recently retired from city government and decided he wanted to serve the public again, after doing it "behind the scenes" for 24 years.
Goodell's main concerns:
Service, integrity and consensus building
Joining with the school board and county commission to improve budgets, planning and considering the consequences of growth
Protecting and enhancing the quality of life in Lawrence's neighborhoods
Working with surrounding communities to develop a comprehensive economic strategy
Expanding affordable hous
ing programs
The Biggest Issue Facing KU students and Lawrence:
"I would think one of the biggest issues concerning KU students and the city would be the registration of rental units since they have housing needs."
Goodell said he would like to see a report on the results of enforcing that ordinance, including the cost.
"KU's a big industry up there on the Hill, and it's an old one, so I can understand the concern of those neighborhoods right around there. I think that something can be done, though, that will satisfy everyone involved."
Edited by Ryan Wood
Graffiti
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
"Cosr," a KU student who didn't want to be identified because of his illegal hobby. Cosr got interested by taking pictures of graffiti in the train yards of the Flint Hills.
"The thing you find out about graffiti is there is no such thing as a typical graffiti artist," Giessel said. "You have poor kids, rich kids, black kids, white kids, brown kids, yellow kids."
"It was all about exploring Lawrence. I mean, you do it on foot, and so you get this intimate knowledge of the city where you're at. It's urban exploration," he said. "It's just like, 'Yo, I can go here. I can go wherever I want and explore, and less than one percent of this town actually sees this part of the city, and I get to and why not just write on it?'"
And Giessel is just one of them. He was new to Lawrence three years ago but didn't get into the graffiti scene immediately. Once he did, he began to see what he had been missing.
He said he had a conscience, a small one, about where he wrote. He chose objects such as dumpsters and telephone boxes because it wasn't clear who owned them.
"Once you start looking for places to write on, you start seeing them all over," he said.
He said graffiti artists like himself were attracted to graffiti for its artistic expression.
"I think a lot of people associate the whole process with graffiti — dressing in dark clothing, getting a hoodie and a backpack and just bombing the whole city," he said. "I think graffiti is tied to the art, and, in some cases, art at all costs."
Whether graffiti is writing on desktops or scrawling in bathrooms, it's not definable.
"It's so varied. I think there's room for it all," he said.
She sprays graffiti using stencils and gets her inspirations from everyday life such as the Kansas sunflower or her son, Elan. 3. Other stencils are simply words.
Dessert's graffiti is one example of its varied forms.
"I was thinking about the word privilege, and it in our culture and what it means," Dessert said. "I like having words like that to give people something to think about."
Dessert has been drawing as long as she can remember. She began graffiti a year ago when she learned some of her friends were already doing it. The quickness and simplicity of stencils attracted her to this type of graffiti.
"People can see it for free and I wouldn't have to go through all that bullshit — finding a gallery or doing a show," she said.
Although some of her stencils were painted over already, she said they usually remained up because they were tasteful.
"I'm sure you could take apart all the layers of why I do it," she said. "It being illegal doesn't really bother me, and I figure with the things I'm putting up, if some cop tried to arrest me, it'd be really stupid."
Dessert distances herself from some of the other graffiti. She is not impressed with random tagging that appears in the alleys.
Frie Ream/Kansan
Cosr has tagged the alleys behind Massachusetts Street 44 times from Seventh to 11th streets.
In late 1999, Cosr became interested in train graffiti in his hometown. He'd see a name on a train and wonder who these people were, where they were from and why were they doing this. He started taking pictures of the graffiti then began writing himself.
"If I've had a bad day, I'll go out and paint a train," Cosr said. "And then when you're'
"I don't think it's art," Cosr said. "It's more of a personality expression than an artistic expression."
"Cosr," KU student and local graffiti artist, tags the side of a boxcar in a train-yard. He said he wrote graffiti because of his ego.
done, you feel great because you got out safe. For that time, it's like eyes on the prize."
Sooner or later, the trains leave. His tag goes with them. He has tracked some of his tagged trains all the way to Mexico.
"It's like that whole message in a bottle thing," he said. "You throw it out to sea, you know. Who's going to see it?"
"I want people to discover it instead of having it fall in their laps because that's what makes
He shows his work to other graffiti writers from around the country. He credited the Internet, and before that became popular, the freights for bringing graffiti to America's suburbs
it so important," he said. "You find it and then you do what you want with it."
He said he didn't want grafitti to become mainstream.
"If it's force-fed through MTV to every kid in America, I don't want it to be cool," he said. "I just want it to be for me and other people that feel the same way."
Giessel, Dessert and Cosr take graffiti seriously.
"It's not going away." Giessel said. "People that want to get up, will get up no matter what the regulations are, and no one can stop them."
—Edited by Michelle Burhen
Crash
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
Students, athletes, KU faculty and visitors at Saturday's track
meet at the Anschutz Sports Pavilion took a moment to recognize the lives lost.
"This time I am a little more detached, but I can still feel the loss and tragedy," Sorensen said. "I can really sympathize and understand the horror."
Tim Weaver, meet manager, decided to inform the people at the meet about the tragedy.
The announcer updated the audience at noon, when the running events were about to start, and asked for a moment of
sence. The athletes who were participating in the jumping and throwing events stopped their events to recognize the astronauts who perished. During the silence, the final lap bell rang seven times for the seven lives lost, Weaver said.
The moment of silence allowed the people involved in the track
meet to pause and reflect on the tragedy, Weaver said.
"Athletics are important, but I wanted to put everything in perspective by mentioning the shuttle tragedy." Weaver said. "And after we took our moment of silence we were able to go on with the meet."
Edited by Anne Mantey
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