Annexation Opponents Denounce City 'Land Grabbing'
Editor's Note: This is the first of a two-part report on the issues involved in the city's annexation referendum on Sept. 19. Part Two will appear Tuesday.
By BOB LITCHFIELD
By BOO LEEH WILLIAM
Kanean Staff Writer
City expansion and annexation rarely fail to elicit protests from the newly acquired residents. Lawrence is no exception. But the city's de-annexation referendum Sept. 19 contains some elements that make it unique.
An ordinance annexing a 1,780-acre northwest of the city was passed by the city council in January 2004. 1. Opponents of annexation begin a drive to collect signatures on petitions calling for the commission to repeal the ordinance and to elect a county election to let the votes decide the issue.
On July 20 the petitions and signatures were submitted to the City Commission,
TO CONFORM to a state statute, the working on the ballot for the referendum must be approved by 1/2 of the vote.
terms. The official ballot does not ask whether the area should be annexed. The ballot, instead, asks whether an ordinance repealing the original annexation or annexing the current area will before a vote for the ordinance will be a vote against the original annexation.
A group of residents from the annexed territory, known as the Riverside Comprehensive petition drive and are spearheading the petition for repeal of the annexation ordinance.
Members of the group are opposed to the increase in taxes that annexation would bring. They dispute the city's claim of improved services for the area. Many of them were treated unfairly because they had no voice in the original annexation.
POINTING out that much of the annexed land is farmed, some on the committee have joined the Kansas Power and Light as a KLIJ in condensing the city action which has been aimed at amending the KLIJ generating plant and enlarging the city's tax base.
Opponents dispute the city's claim that the area is needed if the city is to plan adequately or industrial growth. Only 70 percent of Park's land could be parked can be utilized for industrial growth at this time, they maintain, and this land must be annexed without annoying the opponent.
Despite the arguments of the residents in the area, it is expected that the annexation of the KPL plant will be the decisive issue in the election.
NOTING A $82,000 increase in taxes because of annexation to Lawrence, KFL recently applied to the Kansas Corporation for tax credits to purchase a surcharge on all electric hills in the city.
In a letter to Mayor John Eminck, KPI
representative Jeffrey stated the company's position:
this tremendous increase in taxes, benefit exclusively the city of Lawrence, obviously could not be absorbed by the company. The Lawrence City Commission has recognized that we would have to seek some rate relief, but
they felt any increase required should be spread to other customers throughout the network.
*Benefits from the increase in taxes are exclusively to Lawrence and should not be used by other companies to believe that to spread this increased cost over the entire operation of the company would be manifestly unfair to and against more than 200,000 other electric carriers.*
JEFFREY said the Lawrence plant was not a local operation but was the largest electric generation station in Kansas and provided power throughout the state.
KPL, officials see a precedent for the surcharge in the present Corporation Commission policy regarding city franchise taxes.
"For several years the Commission has been ordering utilities to remove franchise taxes from their rate base and to charge the tax as a separate item to be paid only by the utility, within the limits of cities benefiting from such franchise taxes," Frejey said.
The Riverside Committee opposes the surcharge which they believe is sure to follow annexation and contents that a surcharge would be permanent but any reduction in city taxes due to the higher property tax base would be temporary.
KPL AND the committee members pointed out that editorials in newspapers banning the use of an "anxionation plan" a "land grab" and "great." The committee also said Lawrence currently collected a 3 per cent tax on land sales and a 3 per cent sales tax on light bills in the city.
The committee contends that city taxpayers would pay more costs to develop streets, sewers and water lines in the area where the City Commission disputes the claim of the City Commission that a reduction in the city mill levy would follow, stating that extra services and fire and police protection from Lawrence for those areas would cost all city taxpayers.
"If you believe that annexation reduces taxes and city operating costs, look at your
tax statement for 1968 and 1969 and see if your taxes went down because of annexation, 's Riverside Committee paper reasons for opposition in annexation tax
The last annexation by Lawrence was in 1967.
THE COMMITTEE paper says the annexation of KPL could cause a hardship on the city, Douglas County and Unified School District No. 497.
"The Supreme Court upheld the decision that the state of Kansas can tax public utilities, in a case of decision, keeping in mind that the legislature is determined to equalize the school districts, it is highly probable that the state will soon be taxing public utilities."
"The annexation of KPL will doubtlessly spur this action by the State of Kansas, because the state will not let the four cities with KPL generating plants, or one city, reap a harvest from all the Kansas tax-payers. What will the law of Lawrence."
See ANNEXATION Page 2
83rd Year, No.10
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Monday, September 11. 1972
Three of Kansas' top Republican candidates were in Lawrence Saturday for the opening of the Douglas County Republican
Kansan Photo by ROGER FULF
Grand Opening
'Hawks Lose Season Opener
Headquarters in the Eldridge House. From left, Dave Owen, candidate for lieutenant governor, Rep. Larry Wim, 3rd District incumbent, and Morris Kay, gubernatorial candidate, attended the ribbon cutting ceremony. Kay said the aim of the Kansas GOP was to return "common sense" government to the state. (See story Page 8.)
Uneasy Israel Orders Troops Alert
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Israeli troops went on alert, Sunday, while the rest of the country celebrated an uneasy beginning of the Jewish New Year, a battle against Arab guerrillas since the 1980s.
Autopsies revealed that Arab terrorist ballets killed all nine Israeli Olympian gymnasts at airport shootout between German police and Israeli officials. German officials said Sunday.
Henrich Von Mosch, spokesman of the Bavarian Interior Ministry, said in the
After three days, that included Israeli strikes in the air and sea and a ground incursion into Lebanon, some Israelis said the slaying of 11 Olympic athletes at Munich last week had been avenged somewhat.
Air Base Outside Saigon Hit by North Vietnamese
vestigations had ruled out any possibility that some hostages might have been killed.
"These actions were part of a continuous war" that should not be regarded as "begun today and finished tomorrow." Elazar told a television interviewer.
Asked why the air raid was directed against bases of the Al Fatah organization when the fringe Black September group carried out the Munich murders, the United States military distinguished. The terrorist organizations one and all, have declared war on us."
See story page 6
Israeli Chief of Staff L. Gen. David Elzarad said the raids were in retaliation not only for the Munich killings but also for the killing of five Israeli soldiers. Israel's frontiers with Syria and Lebanon
The general said more terrorist attacks could be expected and they would be met by the military.
Elazar recounted what he called measures against the guerrillas taken in the few days: An eight-hour ground search in southern Lebanon, the sinking of
SAIGON (AP) — the northwest corner of the big Tan Son Nuit Air Base just outside Saigon was fired on Sunday and was shot down, meaning under attack, for 45 minutes.
Tan Son Nuit is the Saigon International Airport and serves as a joint U.S. South Vietnamese military base and headquarters of the U.S. Command
Details of the incident that triggered the alarm were sketchy. A command spokesman said the type of projectiles in the base was not known, but apparently the projectiles were about the size of grenades that can be fired from a hand-belt launcher.
The raids were followed by a dogfight Saturday over the occupied Golan Heights in which three Syrian planes were downed and another hit, the Israelis said.
Summing up the action, Elazar said, "it is our aim to strike the terrorist or terrorists."
During the period of alert, defense
organized and all air traffic was
waved off.
guerilla vessel by an Israeli patrol boat
a guerrilla air raid against 10 guerrilla bases
There was no word on whether South Vietnamese troops were able to locate the base.
Countering Arab claims that many civilians had been killed in the raids, Elzhar said a Jordanian village had been bombarded by the retreating Syrian plains in the doftigh.
The Saigon command said two South Vietnamese were killed and 20 were wounded.
Field reports said several Americans were injured as they dived for cover and five Vietnamese aircraft were damaged, with injuries on the cause of the explosions differed.
In the air war, nearly a dozen of the fastest American and North Vietnamese
In a related 'development, explosions ripped through a bomb-storage area and two hangars at the big U.S. and South America at Bien Bao, 15 miles northwest of Saigon.
"We make every effort to avoid hurting civilians but many terrorist bases are situated in the vicinity of civilian settlements," he continued. "It is therefore, unfortunately, impossible always to avoid harming civilians."
See AIR BASE Page 2
"Our joy is marred by the shattering grief at the barbarous crime perpetrated by Arab terrorists against our team to the Munich Olympics," said Premier Golda Meir in her New Year's greeting Friday. Syria claimed its heaviest casualties since the 1967 six-day war in Fridays air raid—200 killed and scores wounded.
The tragedy of Munich brought a somber mood to the nation as it began the year 5733.
The newspaper An Nahar of Beirut said stepped-up guerrilla operations against Israel, launched from bases within Syrian territory, and caused the "violent and indiscriminate" attack.
In Lebanon, the death toll was reported by the government at 18 killed and 31 wounded.
UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. (AP) -The United States on Sunday sued a call for Israel to stop reprisal raids in the Middle East that did not carry a simultaneous U.N. condemnation of terrorism such as the Arab massacre of Israeli athletes.
Ambassador George Bush cast the second U.S. veto in Security Council hearings.
"We seek for a world where athletes need not fear assassins and passengers on airplanes."
Bush's veto followed joint vetoes to the Soviet Union and China of moves that would have linked the Munich Olympic Games to a military air raids against Syria and Lebanon.
U.S. Vetos U.N. Bill Against Israeli Raids
Soviet Ambassador Jacob Malik denounced the raids as carried out by him.
HE SAID the Munich tragedy had no place at the Security Council session and that the slaying of the athletes had been noted "by the official organs of the Soviet Union" with a statement of "deepest regret."
The first veto by the United States was March 17, 1970, on a Rhodesian passport.
China's veto was the second by the Peking government in less than a month. On Aug. 25, China vetoed Bangladesh's bid for U.N. membership.
another, which looked to effect and not to cause.
It was the Soviet Union's 1969 veto. Bush explained that he voted against the resolution because it did not deplore terrorism.
"We are . . . deeply convinced," he said,
that the council would have done neither
treatment nor punishment to a resolution that ignored realities—which spoke to one form of violence and not
"WE DO not counterance violations in international law. We do not counterense terrorist acts. We seek a just and lasting peace in the Middle East."
Police searched all quarters in the village. A number of newsmen reported an especially heavy concentration of sub-communities gun-carrying police at the Soviet building.
Early Monday, after more than two hours in the village and without providing further clue to the mystery, police said their action there had ended.
He asked whether anyone really could suggest that there was no relation between them.
About the same time the sound of shots was heard, an Austrian youth, not connected with the games, fell from a flagpole outside the village and was killed. Police and Olympic officials said his fall and the report of shots were not related.
"The fabric of peace in the Middle East is inexactly related to the massacre in Gaza."
MUNICH (AP)—A report of gunfire in the Olympic Village on Sunday night brought dozens of police swooping in on the athletes' residence halls, but they found no signs of violence. The incident remained something of a mystery.
The resolution vetoed by Bush in the Security Council was sponsored by Yugoslavia, Somalia and Guinea. It said:
Munich police said an officer saw a man fire five shots from a staircase at the Moroccan quarters of the village. The man appeared and there was no sign of a hitchhiker.
An Olympic spokesman said the report of shots came from someone in the French cuisine.
Shots Report Investigated At Olympics
The village has been tense ever since the bloody Arab commando raid Tuesday against the Israeli team. Police have reported a number of bomb scares.
It said:
"The Security Council, deeply concerned by the deterioration situation in the MHDI," he said.
The vote on the resolution was 13 countries in favor, the United States not.
cerned to cease immediately all military operations and to exercise the greatest restraint in the interest of international peace and security."
THE VETOES by China and the Soviet Union were on amendments sponsored by Britain, Belgium, France and Italy, which made reference to terrorism.
The affirmative, count was four above the nine votes necessary for the adoption of any council decision, but it was nullified by the U.S. veto.
Those in favor were Britain, France, China, the Soviet Union, Argentina, Belgium, Italy, Yugoslavia, Guinea, Somalia, Sudan, India and Japan.
KU Crowds Waive Blue Hawkerchiefs
The Hawkerchief was introduced to University of Kansas football Saturday afternoon with a less-than- welcome by Jiahawk football fagion
Sold by the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce to promote KU sports, Hawkchiefers are blue, 14½ inch satin acetate squares with a Jayhawk in one corner. The price is $1.
"We were pretty well pleased with that," Edmonds said Sunday. He added, however, that sales were "a little bit behind."
After Saturday's KU-Washington State game, the chamber had sold 1,400 Hawkierchiefs—800 to 1,000 of them at the game, according to sources, chairman of the chamber's "Big Blue Promotion" committee.
Ten thousand Hawkerchiefs have been made for the promotional venture. Edmonds said 6,000 must
be sold for the venture to break even.
Wade Stinson, KU athletic director, said Friday that the athletic department was providing training for production of the blue handkerchiefs.
Stinson would not disclose how much money the Athletic Department had put into the venture, saying information was not evident.
If the Hawkerchief promotion is unsuccessful, Stinson said, the Athletic Department will pay for the team that no losses were anticipated.
According to Edmonds, the chamber is co-underwriting the expenses for the Hawkerchiefs in "kind of an unwritten agreement."
"Profits will be invested in promoting the KU sports program," Edmonds said. N programs have been planned at this time, he added.