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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, October 28, 1968
Tax has drawbacks
To most KU students, doling out another $10 for a Lawrence vehicle tax each year would be noticeably painful. But this might be the case after the Nov. 5 election.
The citizens of Lawrence will vote in the general election on whether to institute a city ordinance which would require that each vehicle kept in Lawrence for the major portion of the year have a sticker signifying that its owner had paid the $10 tax.
KU students fall into this category, with a nine-month residence in Lawrence.
The vehicle tax which was authorized by the Kansas legislature in 1966, is supposed to pay for street repair and resurfacing and traffic control equipment. The money for street work now comes from property taxes because, until after the state's 1966 law, a city could levy only property taxes.
The law states that either a $5 or a $10 tax can be instituted and that the tax be applied uniformly to all vehicles. The law also stipulates that the electorate of each city must vote on whether to put the tax into effect.
But this year, the 1969 budget, drawn up in August, was, according to Donald Metzler, KU associate dean of engineering and a Lawrence city commissioner, "cut to the bone," in the area of street repair.
In a special election of August, 1967, the Lawrence citizens vetoed the tax so the money for street work for the 1968 budget year will come from property taxes.
"If the tax proposal fails this time, all we can do next year is fill in holes that would be dangerous." Metzler said.
"The sole purpose of the vehicle tax is to charge the user for the services he uses," he said.
Metzler explained that this concept isn't new, "Those who use water pay for the water," he said.
"We feel that wherever we can identify a user with a specific service, then he should be charged with this service."
The $134,000 appropriated in the property tax budget for 1968 only paid for the resurfacing of a few sections of street and some traffic control equipment. Metzler said repaving costs $7.50 a foot for a standard 28 foot-width street; a simple traffic light costs $4,500. Even he white line down the middle of a street costs two cents a foot to paint.
If the tax is passed, Metzler estimated the city could collect $250,000 a year. He said the city
would probably need even more than that yearly to do a good job on the streets.
Metzler thinks the tax was defeated in 1967 because the voters didn't understand it. He didn't speculate on the outcome of this election but said he thought eventually vehicle taxes such as this eventually would be instituted in all towns of any size.
Most people, both citizens and students in Lawrence, are aware that street repairs are very necessary here.
However, the $10 price is steep for students who must also pay a $10 parking fee to the University. Of course, the law, as set up by the state legislature, provides that each vehicle owner must pay the same amount.
To impose the tax evenly on both large construction trucks and small sports cars also seems unfair. Metzler said that owners of trucks and other large equipment pay heavy state taxes and that some of these are channelled into the city funds. However, he didn't specify how much the city obtained for street repair.
Since it would be impossible to determine whether permanent Lawrence residents or University students and faculty use the streets more during the school term, the tax isn't really unfairly aimed at taxing KU students.
But the uniform enforcing of the tax does seem unfair since University students will have to pay both the University and the city each year for nine months of driving in Lawrence. Also, the state legislature should have made some provision for grading different kinds of vehicles, perhaps according to their weight.
University students are eligible to vote in the Lawrence general election since they have 60 day residency in the city. But this means that they would have had to register here earlier this fall. A majority of students probably didn't know this and if they did, they would probably rather keep official residency in their home towns and vote by absentee ballot.
Also, many students aren't 21 and haven't the chance to vote on the proposal.
Therefore, the Lawrence residents are going to vote on a proposal which affects approximately 9,000 students and the student representation in the issue will be very slight.
The idea of the tax is sound; construction costs are rising and adding street repair to the property tax budget only results in angry taxpayers and inadequate funds for streets.
'So nice of you to support my position in this matter.'
the rock hound
Sitar appeal
By WILL HARDESTY
CHAPPAQUA by Ravi Shankar on Columbia is not just another soundtrack recording.
The maestro of the sitar has blended his Indian sounds with a Western orchestra to produce a bitter-sweet album which comes off quite well.
Persons who previously have not like Shankar's music might like this. Besides the Indian instruments, there is just enough oboe, harp, flute, bass, cello and violin combined with a bit of
jazz beat to satisfy the fan of American music. Old Shankar fans should still like the album since it is a new field in Shankar recordings.
Conrad Rooks, about and by whom the movie was written, describes Shankar as "... an extraordinary man with a talent which I doubt I would find anywhere else in the creation of a track for motion pictures.
Letters to the editor
Representation, RFK, bad taste, football
To the Editor:
Tuesday, October 22, the All Student Council rejected amendments to the proposed Senate Code which would have provided for student-faculty representation based on a principle of political equality. I am quite depressed about this decision and the spirit in which it was made.
Obviously, I am a supporter of 50-50 representation. This position is based on the assumption that students, like faculty, are adults, and that a community of adults necessarily implies political equality in mutual concerns. As against this, those ASC members against political equality at KU argue that university governance should not be democratic, or that to associate community of adults with political equality is "silly," or that the number of students 50 per cent representation requires will not be willing to responsibly carry out the sometimes tiresome duties of a legislator, etc.
It is my opinion that these arguments seriously underestimate the capabilities of our student body. But, furthermore, there is an argument that if students, in their legislative body—the ASC, propose that equal representation is proper to adult communities, the faculty will consider this opinion as irresponsible and on this basis reject any increase in student representation. I think this argument underestimates the possibility of faculty viewing students as adults (when we present ourselves as such) and agreeing with
the substantive argument that adult communities are most properly governed on a basis of political equality.
However, in spite of this decision in ASC, students still have the opportunity, and perhaps the duty, either through petition or personal contact with student or faculty legislators to express our opinion that we have a right to political equality, that this is a responsible position, and "if not now—when?"
But most importantly, as of the recent ASC meeting, we students are not presenting ourselves in the present form of the Senate Code as adults and political equals. The majority of the ASC members have denied that consideration of faculty reaction to (against?) the equal representation proposal carries weight with them. I experience this denial of perhaps the most important issue involved—namely, student-faculty relations, as psychological passivity. They argue that unequal representation is what they truly want. The ASC majority has denied itself the responsibility of asserting its adulthood.
Bob Howard ASC, married-unorganized Wichita senior
I have just finished reading Robert Kennedy's "Thirteen Days" in the November issue of McCall's. It is a fascinating and frightening account of the
To the Editor:
Personally, the article deepened my feeling of loss over the deaths of John and Robert Kennedy.
Joseph M. Collier Visiting Lecturer in Journalism
Cuban missile crisis in October, 1962. I hope it arouses in readers the same emotions and thoughts it aroused in me: 1) the awesome possibility that Curtis LeMay could be a heartbeat away from the presidency; 2) the awareness again that the civilian branch of our government must always be in total control of the military; 3) the reaffirmation that existentialists, who would relegate history to the dung heap, are nuts. See how large a role Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August" played in President Kennedy's insistence that the world not blunder into nuclear war.
"He would create music to the absolute segment of the picture. We would project it on a big screen and he would sit there with the musicians. He cannot read music, so we had to hire a young guy to write it down—Shankar would hum the tune and the guy would write it down. Then we'd pass it out to the musicians and they'd play it."
In regard to the article "Sunday Morning" written by John Marshall; I consider it in bad taste, that is, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I get the impression from this article and from a previous one by the same author on a football game, that the author sees the world (his world) as ugly, vulgar, and full of rude, ignorant, self-centered human beings.
To the Editors:
I do understand that every individual is entitled to his own
world view, but I do not believe that such a world view merits precious space in a newspaper, and much less on an editorial page.
The pugnacity animated by some of these future practitioners of law and order is indeed awesome when vented upon his fellow man. The sound of knuckle upon cheek-bone should not echo from the stands and divert attention from a great football team. Will it be necessary to plant police amidst the Law School section to insure peace for others? I hope not.
Sincerely
Christine Haefele
Topeka senior
Mary Beck
Council Grove senior
To the Editor:
It is indeed unfortunate and terribly embarrassing that college graduates, enrolled in Law School, can't conduct themselves in a more adult and civilized manner than ours have done at recent home football games. Surely these people most of all, should know about and care about the rights of others.
I do hope those persons involved will conduct themselves better in the future than they do now, or perhaps never tell anyone they are from the University of Kansas.
Richard Konn
Canajorarie, N.Y., senior
*****
It's too bad about OGDEN'S NUT GONE FLAKE by the Small Faces on Immediate (released through Columbia).
The front side of the album is good. There are some good songs, done well, with some interesting effects, by an accomplished group.
The album cover is great. It is a picture of a box of Ogden's Special Nut Gone Flake Tobacco. The cover is round. When you have unfolded it, there are pictures inside of the Small Faces.
The second side of the album loses. It is called "Happiness Stan." It is 19 minutes of Jabberwocky set to music. It is a story about some guy going some where doing some thing, but it is told in such a garble and with such a heavy British accent, it is almost non-understandable. It's too bad about that, because it ruins an otherwise good album.
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