THURSDAY,SEPT.6,2001
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 3P
Student Senate to debate living wage
Committees pass resolution favoring local measure By Luke Delay
Kansan staff writer
The Kaw Valley Living Wage Alliance — an organization attempting to establish a living wage in Lawrence — had its resolution pass through the first Student Senate committee meeting last night.
Full Senate will debate the passed resolution during a meeting next Wednesday.
The group will provide a final vote, determining whether or not the University supports a living wage.
If Senate votes to approve the resolution, a living wage would not necessarily be established.
Mark Horowitz, president of the KU Living Wage Alliance,
said the group needed a resolution to pass through the full Senate for a living wage to be supported in the community.
"We're going to show that this is what the community wants as a whole." Horowitz said.
The living wage is based on what it would take to provide for a family of three — a much higher amount than the national minimum wage of $5.15 per hour.
Horowitz said businesses receiving tax breaks from the city should provide workers with a living wage 50 percent above the national poverty rate.
Lawrence does not currently have a living wage. The alliance would like to establish a living wage of $9.14 per hour plus benefits.
"We're going to show that this is what the community wants as a whole."
Horowitz also said the increase in salary would cause disadvantaged families to spend more money in the community.
He said support from the community had grown substantially
Mark Horowitz KU Living Wage Alliance president
in the past eight months.
"After having 60 signatures, in the last couple of months, we've got 1,300 now," Horowitz said.
"People are very supportive of this issue."
In other business, Senate committees;
Tabled a bill allocating $421 to the Society of Open-minded Atheists and Agnostics.
Attorneys at Law grant $399 to the Latin American Solidarity.
What happened
Senate committees approved a resolution which provides support for establishing a living wage in Lawrence.
What's next:
Full Student Senate will vote on whether to support a living wage in the community next Wednesday. The final vote will not establish a living wage.
Tabled a bill giving $5,000 to KU Habitat for Humanity.
Passed a bill allocating $175 to the Medical Ethics Club.
Passed a bill giving $559 to the Black Graduate Student Association.
Association.
Passed a bill allocating $272
the KU Ad Club.
Contact Daley at 864-4810
Kansas Union brings music to lunch
Brown Bag Classics features faculty, student shows
Allyson Walters, McLouth doctoral student performs yesterday during the Brown Bag Classic concert in Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
By Eve Lamborn Kansan staff writer
Betsy Gaydess heard music wafting through the Kansas Union yesterday and decided to see where it was coming from.
see what the Basehor sophomore followed the sound into Alderson Auditorium and joined about 20 other people who were scattered across the room watching Allyson Walters, McLouth doctoral student, performing on the piano.
"It was a very relaxing, very enjoyable way to take a break," Gavdess said.
Brown Bag Classics, sponsored by the School of Fine Arts, are free concerts from 12:30 to 1 p.m. each Wednesday that feature fine arts students and faculty.
Michelle Bullins, series coordinator, said her main goals for this semester were to bring a larger variety of performers and to widen the audience base.
Bullins said the school was promoting the program by posting fliers around campus that highlighted the concerts and the free drinks provided by the
Union. This semester's offerings include an opera workshop and a panel discussion.
She said regulars made up a majority of the audience and she would like that group to expand.
would like him to perform.
Walters, yesterday's performer.
also performed last semester.She said the audience was about the same size yesterday as it was last year.
She said a larger audience would be nice, but she still enjoyed the concert.
"It's a good experience to perform, and it's good practice," Walters said.
Contact Lamborn at 864-4810
Family sues Kmart after teen's suicide
The Associated Press
The Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY — Not long before his suicide, Ryan Elsinger appeared to be responding to treatment for paranoid schizophrenia. He told his mother he felt like he was waking from a coma. He told his father he loved him.
But on May 23, the 19-year-old committed suicide with a shotgun he'd bought the previous day at Kmart. Eslinger's parents blamed the store and sued the Troy, Mich.,-based retailer for wrongful death. They said the 17-year-old clerk should not have sold him the gun.
During opening arguments yesterday, Kmart attorney Rodney Parker told jurors Ryan Eslinger, though mentally ill, was responsible for his own deliberate act.
But Sandra and Phil Eslinger allege Kmart violated federal gun laws when its sales clerk—a high school acquaintance of Eslinger's—sold him the shotgun without seeing proper identification. Eslinger used his passport that did not show his address, a
requirement for gun sale paperwork. The Eslingers also allege Kmart was negligent in its hiring and employee training.
Parker said it is natural to feel sympathy for the Elingers loss but the case was about personal responsibility and individual choices.
Doctors diagnosed Eslinger's condition as paranoid schizophrenia in 1995 and declared him mentally defective. He was involuntarily committed in 1996 after cutting his throat in a suicide attempt. But on the gun application form, he denied he had ever been hospitalized for mental illness or adjudicated mentally defective.
A day after buying the weapon, Sandra Eslinger went out of town and her son returned to Kmart, where security manager Dan Willoughby assembled the shotgun for him. That night, Eslinger killed himself.
"If she didn't see any danger signs, I don't know how (the Eslingers) expected Kmart to see danger signs," Parker said.
Portland relocates shanty-town dwellers
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. - Most of the homeless people in a tent village beneath a downtown bridge packed up their belongings and left yesterday, bowing to city demands.
But a handful of homeless people said they wouldn't budge from the site they call Dignity Village, and would let themselves be arrested instead.
City officials ordered roughly 75 people to move several miles from the downtown village to a field near a composting facility and the Portland International Airport.
Airport. Some agreed to go to the new site, while others said they would go to a location in a Portland suburb offered to them by a private landowner.
The Oregon Department of Transportation, which owns the land, said neighbors had complained and that the camp under the towering freeway ramps was unsafe and a liability.
The village, a collection of dusty tents, tarpaulin shelters
The residents of Dignity Village had voted Monday to ignore the order. They said the city's site was too far from services they need, such as grocery stores and public assistance offices. They were also angry that the city this week erected a fence around the site.
The city has said the fence is needed to protect homeless people from trucks and other heavy equipment at the composting facility.
Police Sgt. Jim Powell said the city had volunteered two buses to move residents to the site near the airport, but that the buses would not make the roughly 30-mile trip to the suburban site.
and portable toilets, was created last year by homeless people who dislike the city's shelter system. They say the shelters are overcrowded, split up couples and families, and don't allow pets.
Last week, the City Council voted to order the homeless campers to relocate to the field near the airport.
Students who:
are parents
are married
are single
are veterans
commute to campus
are a bit older,
or sometimes more!
work for a living
Welcome, Nontrads & Commuters! Come make: CAMPUS CONNECTIONS
with current students, faculty & staff
WHEN: Thursday, September 6, 2001, 2:30-5:00 p.m.
WHERE: Big 12 Room, Level 5, Kansas Union
WHAT: Brief introductions, Meet-A-Profeessor, Info Fair and a chance to meet folks (and have a snack!)
WHY: Your best chance for one-stop info "shopping" to help you settle in at KUI
ESPECIALLY FOR NONTRADS,PARENTS,COMMUTERS,& VETERANS! Come when you can!
Co-Sponsored by:
Student Development Center
New Student Orientation
Office of the University Registrar - Veterans Services
Coca-Cola Company
Call 064-4064 for more information.
IMPERIAL GARDEN WHERE QUALITY COMES FIRST
2907 W. 6th St.
841-1688 - 841-3370
Open 11-3 and 5-9 every day
BEST BUFFET IN LAWRENCE!
$1.00 OFF
Dinner Buffet
for 2 or more people
DINE IN ONLY
10% OFF For take-out and delivery
for 2 or more people
请妥善保管
Grand Opening Sale Sept. 7th & 8th
to celebrate the opening of our new Lawrence location at 1023 Massachusetts.
Mention this ad and get two-for-one drumsticks or guitar strings.
Want to be heard? kansan.com/forum
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