---
The University Daily
KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Wednesday, March 24, 1982
Vol. 92, No. 118 USPS 650-640
Group's rumor ad disputed by Binns
Staff Reporter
By STEPHEN BLAIR
Staff Reporter
Lawrence Clyne Commissioner Don Binns yesterday called "irresponsible" a recent newspaper advertisement that listed rumors of misconduct by city officials.
The half-page ad, which was purchased by some supporters of Commissioner Tom Gleason, is for the City of New York.
The rumors involved charges of misconduct by unnamed city officials, including unauthorized changes in city laws, harassment of citizens through selective code enforcement, coverup of a hazard in the city's water supply, bid rigging, authorized people opening mail within city hall.
"Why haven't these charges been in-
ward? What concerns brushed under the curtsey?" asked the lawyer.
Binn said, "I think it was in poor taste. The man was obviously ill-informed." Binn said in reference to Bob Marvin, 124 Rhode Island St., where he told, "Right to Know," the group sponsoring the ad.
The ad appeared in Monday's Lawrence Journal-World.
Marvin said his group was concerned that the commission was not investigating the rumors. The ad said the commissioners had discussed these issues during closed sessions on Feb. 18 and 20 held to evaluate the job performance of City Manager Ruford Watson.
Before the evaluation Gleason wrote a letter to Watson asking Watson to resign or face the possibility of being fired. However, none of the commissioners moved to fire Watson.
The commission has had a month since the
evaluation to investigate the charges, Marvin said.
"People have alleged these things and I don't blame the allegation because we answered—that's why," he said. "he's very important."
But Mayor Marci Francisco said that although the concerns expressed in the ad were understandable, the commission had not had time to act because various commissioners had been absent from meetings in the month since Watson's evaluation.
"No one really understands the time schedule of the commission," she said. "They think that since a month has gone by, we've had time. I remember when it last the last month with the whole commission there."
The group that sponsored the ad has 10 to 15 members that have supported Gleason, Marvin
He said he had not been involved in organizing the group and that he put his name on the ad because he was not a home owner and could not suffer reprisals against his property.
Members of the group feared that building codes might be selectively endorsed against their own designs.
"I'm saving paranoia exists," he said.
Marvin said he did not realize he would have to be the spokesman for the group when he agreed to take over.
"I'm almost willing to pay for the next ad to get another spokesman," he said.
One rumor cited in the ad was, "There was a coverup when dangerous wastes were detected."
Former water department lab technician Linda Frost has alleged that she was pressured into quitting after she found two samples in 1979 that she said contained coliform bacteria.
See AD page 5
JON HARDESTY/Kansan Staff
Playboy photographer David Chan was a popular man in Lawrence yesterday as he interviewed KU women for next fall's Women of the Big Eight issue. Here he reviews snapshots of Laurien Griffin, Merriam, Kan. senior.
JON HARDESTY/Kansan Staff
Tedd McCullough of the Kansas Natural Guard explains the Guard's position on anti-nuclear activities to Mark Baker, Wichita junior, in front of Watson Library yesterday.
Severance foes digging grave for tax
By COLLEEN CACY Staff Reporter
TOPEKA—A last-choice effort in the Kansas Senate to save the minerals severance tax failed yesterday, and hearings yesterday and Monday in the Senate Ways and Means Committee offered little hope that the controversial tax will pass.
State Sen. Jack Steiniger, D-Kansas City, yesterday proposed an emergency suspension of Senate rules that would take a Senate-sponsored effort to override the governor's and advance it to final action on the Senate floor.
Steineger admitted that his proposal would probably fail, and that the tax would die in committee. But he told the Senate that if the governor made certain taxes would increase by more than $60 million.
"Are we going to short education? Are we going to increase sales taxes? Is that what you want?" he asked the senators. "We should have an alternative revenue source should be."
The estimated $100 million in revenues from the proposed tax would go mainly for public works.
Faxation Committee and the Ways and Means Committee.
The Senate bill, which calls for a 5 percent tax on oil production and a 2 percent tax on coal, will also include a minimum wage.
SENATE PRESIDENT Ross Doyen, R-Concordia, an influential opponent of the tax, has referred each severance tax bill to two congressional committees for review. For the issue to come to the Senate floor for debate.
Earlier this month, the Kansas House passed a severance tax "compromise package" that called for a 3 percent tax on oil and gas, and an 8 percent tax on coal, producing countries for property tax relief.
The Senate tax committee amended that version to a 5 percent tax and a 15 percent tax.
The bill is expected to die in the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which is made up of Doyen and other strong opponents of a severance tax.
Representatives from the oil and gas industry testified against the tax yesterday.
"The impact of a severance tax would be devastating." Pete McGill, lobbyist for three Kansas oil refineries, told the committee. "This is not a scare tactic, as the tax proponents do."
McGill said some of the smaller refineries in the state would be forced to close if they had to pay a severance tax. He said that the price of oil was going down, and it if continued to do so, there would be less oil wells and less severance tax revenue.
"YOU'RE PLAYING Russian roulette with the K萨asa bidet," he said.
State Rep. Robert Frey, R-Liberal, took the committee he opposed a severance tax because it would place an excessive burden on one industry in the state.
He said Kansas did not need another tax.
"The severance tax is advocated to raise funds that simply are not needed," he said. "It could ultimately leave our great state of Kansas in a greater financial dilemma than we are in
But local legislators support a severance tax and fear that other programs will suffer if the tax fails
State Sen. Jane Eldredge, R-Lawrence, said she would not pass the pass, but she would not predict its final outcome.
Eldredge said some opponents of the tax advocated increasing the motor fuels tax or the
"But I think their first position is that we don't need any more money." she said.
state rep. jesse Branson, D-Lawrence, said she thought the only hope for passage of the severance tax could come from pressure from dissatisfied constituents and legislators.
"I'm hoping pressure may build up in the Senate from constituents or from disgruntled senators who want to see their own programs funded," she said.yesterday.
Drainage fee vote could include recall
By SUSAN AHERN MARUSCO Staff Reporter
Lawrence residents will vote May 11 on whether the city may attach a 50-cent monthly storm drain fee to each customer's water bill. In addition, the Lawrence City Commission's action last night.
The commission, after a short discussion,
unanimously adopted an ordinance establishing
Mil. 11 villenay as a town hall.
It is likely that the storm-drainage fee vote and the election to recall Commissioner Tom Gleason will be held concurrently, Mayor Marci Francisco said.
after the Feb. 11 validation of the petition's signatures.
According to Francisco, the county clerk will be able to coordinate both elections.
The storm drainage fee was forced to a citywide vote by Citizens for Better Government, a Lawrence group that contended that the city's 50-cent fee was actually a tax. After the fee was proposed, the group circulated petitions saying that the public had a right to vote on the fee.
Patty Jaimes, Douglas County clerk, said yesterday that May 11 was the first date the election could be held, because legally she could not schedule the recruitment until 60 days
Commissioner Barkley Clark said, "It's a good
student. At KU will still be here. It will
do well."
The recall election of Gleason was initiated after Gleason sent a letter last month to City Manager Buford Watson, advising Watson to resign or face the possibility of being fired.
City Clerk Vera Mercer said that students who want to attend the May 11 election must register by April 21.
Students can register to vote from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Douglas County Court House, 11th and Massachusetts streets, or Lawrence City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets.
In other business, Watson submitted a revised city manager employment agreement as a compromise with a version of the agreement墨西哥 submitted to the commission last Tuesday.
nowhere, they will have to sign a document canceling that registration."
Watson submitted his original version March 4, after the commission reviewed his per- sesion report.
"Students don't have to bring identification when they come to register, but they will have to declare they are Lawrence residents." Mercer said. "And if they are registered to vote
The agreements outline the conditions of employment and termination for the city
Watson's revised agreement proposes a three-month severance payment. Francisco had proposed two months' severance pay if the city manager is fired.
Bicycle registration to be held on campus
Handler to handlebars, their spokes glistening, almost 150 lost bicycles are lined up in two long rows in the basement of the Law Enforcement Center.
*This severance agreement is important to
  see COMMISSION page 5*
By BECKY ROBERTS
The room, which looks like a bicycle shop, is filled with bikes that range from sturdy children's bikes to sleek, slim 10 speeds.
Staff Reporter
"Unless you register their bicycles, there's no way we can return them," Jack Elder.
See COMMISSION page 5
Most of these bikes, which were either lost or stolen, will never be returned to their owners simply because police officers are not able to find the owners.
All are found property with unfound owners
evidence officer for the Lawrence police department, said yesterday.
Police say a lot of the problems associated with returning recovered bicycles to their owners would be alleviated if the owners would have been awarded an assurance that requires all blikes to be registered.
In an effort to get more students to register their bicycles, the KU police are sponsoring "Bike Days" on several days during the semester.
STUDENTS CAN register their bikes from 14 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday on the east side of the Satellite Union, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on April 8 and in front of the Kansas Union and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on June 7 in front of Hoch Auditorium.
KU police Sgt. Mary Ann Robinson said, "We found that if we sit in the office waiting for people
Robinson said registering a bike helped both the police department and the bike owner. If a bike is registered, there is no question of ownership, she said. It is also easy to trace the vehicle by registering staging bicycles by the police and the owner have a record of the serial number.
to register their bikes, not many people get it done. That is why to register the bikes, you have to hurry.
To register a bicycle, the owner should have its number made and model number, 25 or ninety-five and fourteen.
The same is true if a person wants to register his bake with the Lawrence police at the Law Patrol Office.
A PERSON CAN be cited by the Douglas County District Court violating the city or county laws.
Guatemalan coup's leaders claim elections were rigged
GUATEMALA CITY—Dissident army officers who asserted that Guatemala's presidential election was rigged, ousted President Romeo Lucas Garcia yesterday in a coup back by tanks, planes and hundreds of soldiers. They immediately named a five-man military junta, a Guatemalan army spokesman said.
By United Press International
The whereabouts of the president-elect, the president or his brother who headed the army was not known. There were reports Guevara was vacationing in Miami at the time of the election.
Lucas Garcia, himself an army general, surrendered at the presidential palace, where he was executed.
Although it was not clear how many members of the army took part, the scale of the uprising and the seizure of the National Palace, the Congress, the election registry,
The candidate of García's ruling party, Gen. Angel Anibal Guevara, narrowly won the March 7 hullotting that three civilian guerrillas attacked. Guevara was to have taken office July 1.
Firefights between dissidents and loyal army members reportedly erupted in the first hours of the coup outside the military base in Quetzaltenango, the nation's second largest city, 48 miles west of the Capital. There were no reports of injuries.
Guatemala, Central America's second largest and most populous country next to Nicaragua, faces a growing leftist rebellion housed in the inequitable distribution of land.
radio stations and other facilities indicate that forces represent a sizeable fraction of the action in the city.
Jaime Rabnales, who remained a spokesman for the army under the new junta, said. "The army has firm control of the entire country."
Leonel Sismaege Otero, a defeated right-wing vice presidential candidate, called the elections "a joke of the company's wishes" and accused him of corrupt minority不当 rape the homeland."
A outset broadcast over a seized radio station said: "The corrupt government has been deposed. The armed forces acted in response to the manipulation of the elections."
Weather
It will be mostly sunny today with a high around 54, according to the KU Weather Service. Winds will be northerly at 10 to 20 mph.
Tonight will be partly cloudy and a little colder with the low around 28.
colder with the high in the upper 40s to lower 50s.