Giant killers?
The national polls all but ignored the women's basketball team,but surprising Kansas might have the chance this weekend to polish off another nationally
ranked team. The Hawks are young — "very, very young." Coach Marian Washington says — but they shocked 12thranked Vanderbilt. See page 14.
Fair High, 50. Low, 20s. Details on page 3.
The University Daily
KANSAN
Vol. 95, No. 67 (USPS 650-640)
Friday. November 30,1984
State law broken five regents admit
By MARY CARTER
Staff Reporter
TOPEKA — The Board of Regents yesterday admitted breaking the state open meetings law and agreed to open future meetings more than the law requires.
After a 1½-hour closed session, the Regents in a 5-2 vote accepted a consent judgment that had been negotiated by the attackers' office and the Regents general counsel.
A consent judgment is an settlement that is agreed upon by those involved in a lawsuit.
The session was closed under the lawyer's relationship clause of the open meeting.
"WE'RE ADMITTING, AT least five members are, that we broke the law." Regents Chairman Wendell Lady said after the meeting
"I think our intent was correct, but our procedure was wrong. In my opinion, we should have been careful."
The lawsuit accused the Regents as an agency and nine current members and one former member of breaking the open meetings law by discussing academic program and budget cuts and the declining enrollment of Emporia State University on six separate occasions between June 29 and Oct. 18.
The lawsuit was the result of an investigation by the attorney general's office that began in October when two newspaper editors filed a complaint with that office.
Under the judgment, which was approved yesterday afternoon by Shawnee County District Judge Fred Jackson, the Regents admitted that they, as a group or as individual members, had violated the open meetings law on the six occasions.
THE JUDGMENT ALSO indicated that the Recipe did not intend to break the law.
In a prepared statement, Attorney General Robert T. Stephan said the Regents had done more than admitting the violations and
In the statement, Stephan also criticized Stanley Koplik, Regents executive director, and said he regretted that the law allowed Koplik's members to be named in the lawsuit.
agreing to follow the law in the future. He said the judgment required the Regents to take extraordinary measures to open their meetings to the public.
"The board's executive director, who has been outspoken in his misinterpretation of the open meetings law to exclude the public from affairs of the board, should have to share the embarrassment of being named in the suit." Stephan said.
"THE HAS A POSITION of great responsibility, is highly paid and should serve the board and the public better than his record on this issue demonstrates. Board members acted on his advice and with his concurrence in their violations."
As part of the judgment, the Regents agreed to give notice to the public of all meetings, including committee and sub-committees, that they may involve as few as two Regents members.
The Regents agreed to abandon their previous interpretation of "personnel matters" for closing meetings, which Stephen called a "ridiculous reading of the law."
Under the law, meetings may be closed to the public for discussion of personnel matters. Stephan has ruled that specific individuals must be discussed when the meeting is held. The Regents interpreted "personnel matters" as any matter that affected employees.
REGENTS JOHN G. MONTGOMERY of Junction City and James Pickert of Emporia voted against the settlement.
"I feel really that they're writing new law," Montgomery said after the meeting "I'm not agreeing to the stipulations because I don't agree with the attorney general's interpretation of the personnel clause. And
Phil Mansfield, a Salvation Army bell ringer, sings Christmas carols to Shannon Powell, Ft. Scott sophomore, left, and Susan Robison, Ft. Scott freshman, Mansfield, who
said he has collected donations for the Salvation Army for three years, serenaded the two women downtown on a recent afternoon.
See REGENTS, p. 5, col. 1
Computer change to be debated
By JULIE COMINE
Staff Reporter
A $2.25 million plan that would replace part of the KU academic computer system over the course of two years will be discussed this afternoon by faculty members and adminis-
Jerry Niebaum, director of computing services, will present the proposal at 3:30 p.m. on Friday.
"WE NEED MORE computer power for administrative data processing and plan to start upgrading the system next semester." he said.
Niebaum said yesterday that the two International Business Machines Corp. systems now used for administrative computing "desperately need to be upgraded."
William Bulgren, acting chairman of the department of computer science, said the conversion "might not be to the best advantage" because the computer science students were faculty members.
According to Niebaum's proposal, a large IBM system or one that could use IBM equipment would be installed for both administrative and academic work in July 1985. The conversion, estimated to cost about $2.25 million, would be completed by July 1987. Niebaum said.
The University of Kansas' computer system is split between administrative functions, handled by IIS systems, and access to databases, handled by IIS systems. Homewell computer systems.
BULGREN SAID, "IT will be up to the faculty and students to convert their software not the administrators." Students are in favor of the heaviest users of the Honeywell systems.
About 63 percent of the IBM systems are used to store information on student transcripts, enrollment, financial aid, library cataloging and circulation, and records for
See COMPUTER, p. 5, col. 1
Leading economic indicators show continued slowdown
By United Press International
WASHINGTON - The government's index of leading indicators lost another 0.7 percent in October, the Commerce Department said yesterday. It fell 1.8 percent last year from the economic slowdown.
Both private and administration analysts said they hoped lower interest rates would re-ignite consumer enthusiasm and save the economy from another recession.
On Wednesday most major banks aligned
themselfs with the now prevailing prime rate of $11\frac{1}{4}$ percent, half a point lower than
"IN LIGHT OF THE indicators and all the other information we have, I believe we have a slowing of growth a pause," William H. Gillis, President's Council of Economic Advisers, said.
"But I don't think there is any reason to predict a recession in any traditional sense."
Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldridge said he expected the index "to improve in
November." He also predicted "a faster pace of economic activity next quarter."
The index for October was 163.8 compared to a base level of 100 in 1967.
The new number, together with some revisions in the last five months, brought the decline in the index since May to 2.8 percent. The subsequent deterioration prior to the last three recessions.
THE MONTHS PRECEDING the last recession, in 1981-1982, saw the composite index of leading indicators fall 2.1 percent. Prior to the 1978-1979 recession the indicators
were down only 1 percent. Before the recession in the mid-1970s, the indicators fell 1.9 percent.
The index uses early signs in current data to anticipate the future, so the latest decline suggested the third quarter slowdown is worsening in the fourth quarter.
One economist said, however, he thought the current October-December quarter would still manage a slight improvement.
"The drop in the leading index tells you that the fourth quarter will be only marginally better than the third," said
economist Jerry Jasinski of the National Association of Manufacturers.
SEVEN OF THE 10 available indicators were negative, led by an increase in new claims for unemployment compensation in October.
The index was up 0.6 percent in September and up a scant 0.1 percent in August, both revised figures. But the index dropped 1.8 percent in July and 1 percent in June, anticipating the much slower growth rate of the gross national product in the third quarter.
Surrender ends Atlanta hijacking
Ry United Press International
ATLANTA — An ex-Marine with a drinking problem who hijacked a computer plane, held the pilot hostage and threatened to explode a bomb, sur-rendered yesterday after a four-hour standoff at Hartford International Air
ATLANTA — FBI agents tackle hijacker Judson Dean Tallley, 20, Augusta, after he threatened to blow up an Eastern Metro commuter plane at Hartfield International Airport in Atlanta. Tallley walked off the plane yesterday after four hours of negotiations and after releasing the plane's passengers.
"The hijacker had requested to talk to her and she agreed to talk with him over the radio-telephone," said Phil Peters, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. "She talked to him three times for no more than five or six minutes. About 4 o'clock, she talked him out of the plane." Peters said.
FBI agents said the hijacker, Judson Dean Talley, walked off the 19-passenger Eastern Metro Express plane after talking to former gubernatorial aide Tina Barron.
BARRON, WHO WORKED FOR former governors Jimmy Carter and George Bushe, is the aunt of Talley's girlfriend, officials said.
She knew him through the dates he had with her niece. He trusted her and asked for permission.
Talley stepped off the plane, which had parked near the end of Hartfield's Concourse C, he hit a cigarette, was caught by FBI agents and taken into custody.
The FBI said Talley had no explosives or weapons. He was immediately charged with hijacking and was to be arraigned today.
No one was harmed during the hi
jacking, which began about 11:30 a.m. as the twin-engine turboprop Jetsstream 31 was nearing the end of flight from Angusta, Ga., to Atlanta.
"He was threatening to bomb us" one passenger said
ANOTHER PASSENGER, WALLY Schmidt of Warren Township, N.J., said Talley duh have a gun and a duffle that was open at one end and he kept the
bag next to him as he walked up the aisle
bag next to him as he walked up the aisle. Talley, a husky blond 20-year-old ex-Marine who had been a patient at the Georgia Regional Hospital in Augusta this afternoon, tried to open the coolpad door but her car came off in his hands, passengers said.
When the pilot opened the cockpit door,
Tala spoke to him, wrote something on a
See HIACK, p. 5, col. 4
A bus to West Campus ready to roll in spring
By JOHN HANNA Staff Reporter
KU on Wheels will begin a trial run to West Campus next semester
The Transportation Board decided last night to ask the Lawrence Bus Co., which provides the KU on Wheels service, to send a single bus on a New West Campus route. The route will cost about $18.000 for the spring semester, said Melanie Brianham, board member.
Stops on the route include Nichols Hall, the Frank R. Burge Union, Learned Hall, the Kansas University and Gortrude Sellards Pearl River from about a 4 m. to 5:30 p.m.
BRANHAM SAID THE bus would provide service for students who wanted to go and from West Campus — an area that KU on Wheels has not served in the past. The route is an experiment in the service. If demand is sufficient, the service may be continued
"West Campus has never had access." Braham said.
But Duncan Ogle, president of the Lawrence Bus Co., said that such a schedule would make it less difficult for people to get there.
Originally, the board considered incorporating a run to West Campus into its Heatherwood Drive route. The Heatherwood route has two bases, one of which would have been routed to include West Campus sites that would have stopped on an hourly schedule.
route and that those students would be reluctant to buy bus passes the next semester.
THE BOARD ALSO approved a letter requesting that Steve McMurry, former KU on Wheels director who emblazed more than 300 women with the name to repay the money over the next 35 years.
The letter, which was drafted and signed by Branham, will be presented to the state parole board considering McMurray for parole. His board hearing is scheduled for Dec. 10. A public hearing on his parole will be held between 9:30 and 11 a.m. today at the Topeka Public Library, 1515 Southwest 10th St., Toneka.
"The board sees no reason to further incarcerate Mr. McMurray if restitution is instigated upon his being granted parole," the letter said.
On July 8, 1983, McMurray was sentenced to between eight and 20 years in state prison on five counts of embezzlement and ordered to pay $7.17 in resentment to the University of Kansas.
IN THE LETTER, the board requests that money be repaid over 35 years at a rate of $7,344 each year, based on the assumption that McMurry would have 35 working years ahead of him after his release on parole.
"The board realizes that this amount per annum may be unrealistic immediately subsequent to parole; however, it should be noted that some means of monitoring
See BUSES, p. 5, col. 4.