THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Vol. 86 No.37
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
October 15, 1975
KU-city transit system proposed
By IAN KENNETH LOUDEN
The Student Senate last night proposed to the Lawrence City Commission that the University of Kansas and Lawrence con- tinue together on a local mass transit system.
Steve McMurry, chairman of the Senate transportation committee, made the pronouncement.
He suggested that the city consider an allocation of funds to hire an agency to come to Lawrence and investigate the city's and the University's transportation needs.
THE SENATE HAS ALREADY done a preliminary mass transit study, he said, and has determined a system that used buses would cost $30,000 to $40,000. He said 80 per cent of the money could be obtained from the federal Department of Transportation, which is encouraging mass transit systems.
The remaining 20 per cent could be split by Lawrence and the University, he said. Each would have to pay from $3,000 to $4,000 for the project.
McMURRY SAID that no decisions would have to be made before the study. McMurry, who is in charge of the Senate's "KU on Wheels" bus service, said that although the University was considering buses as the means of transit, it was possible the study
might decide on a system that used a different mode of transportation.
COMMISSIONER FRED PENCE asked whether such a system would be self-sustained.
McMurry said the study would determine that. He said it was possible that a system could end up with a deficit and would have to be subsidized by the city.
"It's time the city decided whether it wants a better transportation system," he
McMurry said the city would be better prepared to make the application for the federal funds for the mass transit system. The University has never asked the federal transportation department for funds, but the city has.
MAVOR BARKLEY CLARK said the city should get the public's reaction to the proposal.
"Mass transit is high in the city's interest," he said.
City Manager Buford Watson said the city couldn't afford to fund a mass transit system.
"No bus system in the U.S. is making money," he said.
The money to fund the system would have to come from some other source, he said. Watson asked whether the Senate wanted the city to help establish a new system so
the Senate could discontinue its current "KU on Wheels" subsidies.
McMurray said the Senate wouldn't have any problem continuing its funding of the agency.
Commissioner Donald Binsn said he thought people would say they were in favor of a mass transit system, but they wouldn't use it.
"Being against a mans transit system is being against God, mother, country, it is being against God."
Clark suggested reviving the old Lawrence tramway.
McMurry said he wanted a decision soon because the federal funds soon would be available, and he wanted the city to put in his bid as soon as possible.
He said he was meeting with Chancellor Archie R. Dykes about the proposed system on Thursday.
Property condemned for city garage site
The commission decided to make a decision about the system at its first regular meeting.
By BRUCESPENCE Staff Writer
Senate reapportionment examined by committee
The commission voted unanimously to notify the city attorney to proceed "with all speed" to condemn the property at Twelfth St. and owned by Orville Ray, 918 E. 12th St.
The Lawrence City Commission last night took another step toward building the city mall.
A rewamped system of Student Senate apportionment is being considered by the board.
ALL SENATE SEATS are now apportioned by schools.
The committee discussed last night the possibility of most student senators being elected from geographic residential schools and then elected from each of the academic schools.
Committee members also suggested that Senate seats now held by representatives from the Interfraternity Council, University of Iowa and U.S.-Scholarship Hall council be eliminated.
The committee also voted unanimously to recommend the elimination of a requirement that student body presidential and vice presidential candidates run as a condition. This change would enable independent candidates to run for a single office.
THE NEW APPORTIONMENT SYSTEM, committee members said, would help keep ballots short and increase voter interest. Paul Rabinovitz, committee member, said candidates ran for eight positions. In fall. Nothing is done, he said, the ballot for next spring's 40 seats could be several pages long.
Rabinovitz said that some voters were frightened off by the 38-candidate ballot.
"They threw it (the ball) down and refused to vot." he said.
Some members questioned the amount of interest in Senate elections in apartment complexes. Others said, however, that a majority of interest was the fault of the candidates.
Britt Buckley, committee chairman, said that organizing students into districts would be useful to the number of students and the variety of living arrangements involved.
RABINOVITZ SUGGESTED the use of computers to study the problem.
Ray's Garage and Auto Salvage is part of the property which has been designated by the commission as the site for the new maintenance garage.
Committee members debated whether all externies, for example should be in the board.
Others said that the districts should be as balanced as possible.
A decision on reapportionment was postponed until after further study.
Rabinovitz said that representation from the academic schools shouldn't be eliminated from the Senate. Academic interest should be represented, he said, and therefore one senator should be elected from each school.
Allotting seats in proportion to schools'
See Senate page eight
He also had applied for a permit to rezone his property from residential to industrial as part of an agreement with city officials, and he signed a city commission agreed to pay Ray $46,000. He waived Douglas County Planning Commission agreed to rezone the property.
Ray had originally sought an injunction against the city's condemnation of his property.
However, last week the planning commission voted against rezoning the property, and the city commission decided to go support the decision.
IN COMPLIANCE with the agreement, Ray must now drop his injunction against the property condemnation. The agreement stated that his original injunction would be dropped with prejudice, which prevents the reinstitution of the injunction.
The Douglas County District Court now will assign appraisers to decide how much the property should be valued.
Steve Rudy, Ray's attorney, said that rezoning the property was in the city's best place to reside in a residential, he said, it would cost the taxpayers more money to condemn it.
WALT HALL, 1205 Almira St., said that the property shouldn't be rezoned and that so do would be frivolous. Since Ray had said that he didn't want the property rezoned, Hall said, the commission shouldn't consider such an action.
Rezoning the property wouldn't be a legitimate use of the commission's rezoning
Artist-in-residence
Staff Photo by GEORGE MILLENER
internationally known pianist Malcolm Fearn, artist-in-
residence in the School of Fine Arts, gives David Wehr, Richmond, Ky., junior, pointers daily afternoon in Murphy Hall. Frager plays about 100 concerts a year in Europe and the United States.
power, Hall said, and wouldn't really solve the problem.
HE SAID THAT REZONING the property would only increase the value of Ray's property and decrease the value of his neighboring property.
Such rezoning would amount to spot zoning, Hall said, and the neighborhood is not affected.
Hall said that he wasn't against letting Ray keep his garage, but that he didn't want to see other business move in. Rezoning to the neighborhood mental to neighborhood stability, he said.
"We're not here to drive anybody out of business," Hall said.
Commissioner Fred Pence said that sometimes there was a great need for such rooms as rock fills, slaughter houses and salvage yards, although they might be unpopular.
HALL SAID THAT he didn't mind the
availage junk but was against industrial
reuse.
Mayor Barkley Clark said that city
builders need to Haskell and Haskasel
the best site for the garage.
"We reached the right decision in the location of the city grage." Clark said.
The commission had been considerate of the neighborhood views, he said, and a city garage, carefully landscaped, could be a benefit to the city.
Parking problem
Parking space is at a premium at the intramural fields at 23rd and Iowa streets. The parking to it is quickly filled and many participants are forced to park in a church parking lot.
Staff Photo by DON PIERCE
Architects relate unique designs
Eventually, all of the events were collected into "The Inflatocookbook," which Schrieer called a how-to for any inflatable project. Included in the book are inflatable fantasies such as inflatable bathrooms and inflatable buses.
By MARSHA WILLIAMS
LORD SAID THAT the main object of the book was to show that architecture didn't necessarily have to be built around a table.
LORD SAID THAT THEY became interested in inflatable structures in reaction to the "brutality" of Houston architecture. Inflatables offered more freedom than the concrete buildings, Lord and Schreer said, "therefore they found them more artistic."
The first inflatable event was a campout in the Houston Astrodome. Participants camped under a giant parachute which was held up by helium balloons.
Other inflatable events included an inflatable space egg, which was erected in front of the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. The United States first put a man on the moon.
It is July 4, 1975. A large crowd has gathered in the parking lot of San Francisco's Cow Palace to view what has been advertised as "the ultimate media event."
At the designated hour, two young men wearing asbestos suits and driving a high-powered 1955 Cadillac, drive at full-speed into a firing wall of television sets.
Upon emerging from the car, one of the men says, "First the TVs go, then the freeways, then the factories and then, McDonald's."
THE EVENT WAS STAGED by Ant Farm. Ant Farm is a San Francisco based group of architects and artists that uses its organization as a vehicle for realizing the needs of members. The title 'Ant Farm' is a metaphor for underground architecture.
The Media Burn, as the television stunt came to be called, was a way to act out the fantasy of wanting to put your foot through the window. The director, architects, Curtis Schreer, said yesterday.
After their graduation, the men began staring what they called inflatable events.
The group was started in 1968 in Houston, where Schreier and Lord had been students at the University of Houston College of Architecture. Both were appalled by the decision to teach that Louis Lord described as being "more like Los Angeles than Los Angeles."
At a lecture in Wescop Hall yesterday afternoon, Scheier and Chip Lord, another Ant Farm architect, gave a multimedia lecture about what had been undertaken by Ant Farm.
Another philosophy of Ant Farm is that even conventional architecture can be made to look unique. For example, Lord Sparrow's chicken farm was a whale. Ant Farm designed an art museum that looked like a warehouse. The important thing is to be creative in design, he said.
ONE OF ANT FARM'S more creative house designs, the Lubetkin House, was named House of the Century by Progressive Architecture magazine in 1973. The Lubetkin House is a vacation house that looks more like a sculpture than a building. It is constructed of cement formed over a frame of wood and chicken wire.
The interior of the house flows from room to room. A story in the July 1973 issue of Progressive Architecture said, "Even the floor is sculptured, sloping down around the fireplace and stopping short of the building's perimeter."
ANOTHER ANT FARM project was the
As indicated by Media Burn, not all Ant Farm projects are architectural. A project called Convention City was a model for the next presidential convention. Ant Farm members approached the convention as if it were a giant game show. Delegates travel in bumper cars around the conference grounds in the United States. The cars were controlled by a feedback system controlled by home viewers.
Lizard said that the convention project was taken quite seriously when presented to the media.
Dolphin Embassy, a house designed for both humans and dolphins. The structure allows humans to react and live with dolphins while studying them.
Ant Farm's next project will be a reenactment of the Kennedy assassination, and his campaign to find a "Dishland island imitation" when the next show "mong observers."
President's car in crash; Ford reported uninjured
HARTFORD (AP) — A Buick sedan ran into the front fender of President Gerald R. Armford's armored limousine last night at a memorial service. He gave a speech. Ford said he wasn't hurt.
There is "no reason to believe it was anything not an accident." Secret Service said.
Hartford police said the driver of the car that hit the limoine indicated the collision wasn't intentional. The crash was under investigation and no arrests were reported.
"I FEEL FINE. I feel great," Ford told a poster after he arrived at the Harford airport.
The pool report said the limousine was
The light-colored sedan carrying five persons hit the right front fender of the President's limousine. Ford was sitting in the rear right seat with Republic State Chairman Frederick Bielbe, whose left wrist was injured in the collision.
The President then jogged up the stairs of Air Force One and flew back to Washington.
One witness, Francis Fink of Bristol, said the driver of the car got out and said that the light of the intersection was green for his direction.
TWO YOUNG WOMEN and three young men were taken away from the scene by police for questioning. It was not known whether they were in the car that collided with Ford or had merely witnessed the accident.
heading north on Talcott Street, a narrow side street three blocks from the Civic Center where Ford had spoken at a Republican fund-raising dinner. As the crowd watched an intersection, a car approached rapidly from the right on Market Street.
THE COLLISION bent the limousine's right front fender so that the fender grated against the wheel, but the limousine wasn't disabled, according to the pool report.
Secret Service agents leaped from one car in the motorcade. With their pistols drawn, they were on their way to the capitol.
One Secret Service car pulled out of the motorcade and stayed at the scene, but the rest of the cars in the motorcade continued to the airport.
The front of the private car was smashed. The front fenders were curled up, and the rear fenders were exposed.
Biebel said it was a very hard crash and the impact threw him to the right and he quickly got back on his feet. He said the President had seen the car coming and had braced himself.
WILLIAM LUKASH, the President's doctor, bandaged Bielbak's hand aboard Air Force One and recommended an X-ray later.
Seated on the left jump seat in front of Bibel was Rep. Stewart B. M.Kinney, R-Conn. McKinney wasn't injured, according to Rumsfeld.