CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, October 14, 1992
3
Registration deadline nears
By Stacy Morford
Kansan staff writer
Douglas County residents have four days left to register to vote in the Nov. 3 election. At 9 p.m. Monday, the county clerk will stop registering voters.
The clerk will sign registration cards from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. this week and Monday at the Douglas County Courthouse, 11th and Massachusetts streets. Kansas law requires the office to extend its hours beyond its regular 5 p.m. closing time to allow daytime workers ample time to register.
"It takes about a minute and thirty seconds to do," said Jo Dalquest, deputy county clerk. "You don't need a driver's license. You don't need anything if you're a U.S. citizen. You just need to have a Lawrence residence."
Fifty people marched to the Douglas County Democratic Party headquarters to register following Hillary Clinton's speech yesterday on Campanile Hill.
More than 2,600 students already have registered on campus with the help of Associated Students of Kansas. Almost half of those students registered during last week's 'Hawk the Vote' registration drive in front of Wescoe Hall and in the residence halls.
"This is an all-time high for sure," said John Schwartz, ASK co-director. "This year we've seen the strongest effort to register students ever in Douglas County."
Voters' designated polling locations are listed on voter identification cards, which are sent after a person registers. The county clerk also can answer questions about voting and voting locations.
Registered voters living in Oliver Hall, the residence halls on Daisy Hill and in Jayhawker Towers will vote at Allen Field House. There are 50 off-campus polling locations in Lawrence for all other voters.
Paul Kotz / KANSAN
"Voting is a right that was given to you," Schwartz said. "There are almost 30 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 24, and the trend there is 35 percent of them register, and only 20 percent vote. That has to be higher."
Students voting outside of Kansas who requested absentee ballots should send the ballots to the county clerks in their home counties. The ballots must arrive by Election Day.
"We are a deciding force in who runs this country," Schwartz said. "Voting is a decision I don't know how you could not make."
Douglas County Democratic Headquarters volunteer Diane Low, right, Lawrence resident, helps Carrie Burkemper, left, St. Louis sophomore, find her assigned voting location, Jennifer Starr, center, Northbrook, Ill., sophomore, brought Burkemper to the office on the corner of 10th and Massachusetts streets yesterday to register for the presidential election. Registering for the election will continue until Wednesday.
Despite booze ban, football fans able to drink
By Lynne McAdoo
Kansan staff writer
After the first three home football games, KU police has not encountered any serious problems with football fans violating the ban of 3.2 beer on campus property, said Burdel Welsh. KU police representative.
"We have seen a decrease in overall problems and trash both on the hill and the stadium," he said.
But fans still sneak alcohol into the stadium and on Campanile Hill, violating an ordinance passed in April by the Lawrence
City Commission. State law already banned liquor on the University's grounds. Lt. John Mullens of KU police said he thought people stopped buying kegs and were buying liquor that was easier to conceal or pour into a glass. But he did not think that was unusual.
"That is something that has gone on for years," he said.
after 130 liquor bottles were left in the stadium after Saturday's game against Kansas State University.
Often the police can determine how much drinking occurred during a game by the number of bottles and cans picked up after the game by the maintenance crew.
Darren Cook, athletic department facilities supervisor, said the number of bottles found in the stadium after Saturday's game was not unusual.
"You have to equate it to a larger crowd," he said. "It was probably proportional."
Welsh said that many people traveled long distances to attend the games and could not know about the ban. Right now, KU police officers usually do not ticket
people on their first violation.
"We warn them and tell them to dump it,' Welsh said.
If they fail to get rid of the liquor then the officer will ticket them, he said.
Walsh said that even though police were not strictly enforcing the policy now, students should not think they can easily get away with drinking anywhere on campus.
"Be aware that at some point in time there will be more enforcement," Welsh said. "We can educate and then deal with the lack of compliance through enforcement."
Kathleen Driscoll / Special to the KANSAN
In search of a gas leak, Kansas Public Service employee Scott Davis uncovers a pipe on the southeast side of Malot Hall.
Officials evacuate Malott after suspected gas leak
Fire department determines scent from vapors in sink drain
By J.R. Clairborne Kansan staff writer
A suspected gas leak caused police and fire officials to evacuate Malott Hall for about an hour yesterday.
At 1:57 p.m. the KU police department received a report of a strong scent of mercaptan coming from room B008 in the basement of Malot, a room that has no natural gas outlets. Mercaptan is a non-toxic chemical scent added to odorless natural gas so leaks can be detected.
The three wings of all six floors were emptied by 2:10 p.m. after firefighters determined that the odor was strong enough to pose a potential problem, said Lt John Mullens.
Larry Wayjack, captain and hazard materials coordinator for the department, said the base of the U-shaped pipe under a sink is normally filled with water that acts as a seal, stopping odors
The fire department later determined that the smell in the room was not a natural gas leak but vapors emanating from a sink drain.
Wayjack said someone could have dumped an experiment down a drain somewhere in the building. After traveling through the drainage system, the sink in B008 was the only escape for the vapors, he said.
from escaping from the drain. If the water is allowed to evaporate, there is nothing to stop escaping gases.
At 3:25 p.m., while doing follow-up testing of the gas meter outside the southeast corner of Mabott, Stan Harden, leak inspector at Kansas Public Service, found a natural gas leak in the underground pipe that feeds gas into the building.
Although the leak does not pose a serious hazard at this time, crews from KPS and facilities operations uncovered the underground pipe to allow for ventilation of the leak and will rectify the problem today.
Mike Miller, assistant director of mechanical systems in facilities operations, said gas leaks were not uncommon in Malott.
"I have been here three years and this is the third chemical-related response I can remember in Malott," he said.
Oregon will put to vote anti-gay plan Measure 9 would allow for censorship, firings
By Stacy Morford Kansan staff writer
Homosexuality may become grounds for firing employees, banning books and censoring educators in Oregon if Ballot Measure 9 is approved by the state's voters on election day.
The measure, which KU students have spoken out against, would amend the Oregon Constitution to state: "All governments in Oregon may not use their monies or properties to promote, encourage or facilitate homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism, or masochism."
"We're simply trying to stop the government from promoting these lifetimes with our money," said Loretta Neet, state membership director for the Oregon Citizen's Alliance, the group leading the fight to pass the measure.
The OCA presented a petition with 137,000 signatures, 51,000 more than needed, to Oregon's Secretary of State to get the measure on the Nov. 3 ballot. Neet said the measure was a response to a bill, passed by the Oregon State Senate but not by the House of Representatives, that would have granted homosexuals the same protection of rights as racial minorities.
Neet said that even metropolitan areas such as Portland had registered support for the measure. The group recently polled 26,000 voters in Portland, one fifteenth of the city's population, and 50.6 percent of those polled said they supported the measure.
"We always said that if we can get 40 percent of the vote in Portland, we can carry the state," Neet said. "We're going to win this. It is going to pass."
Not all polls share Neet's optimism. A September poll conducted by Portland television station KPTV showed the measure failing statewide by 57 to 27 percent.
Patrick Dilley, KU AIDS task force chairperson and a member of Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas, said that the measure endangered more than the rights of homosexuals. It would censor every journal on sexuality and every Oregon state employee, including school counselors and teachers, he said.
He said it would also affect library holdings, classes offered at universities, student scholarships financed by the government and academic freedom, which allows instructors to teach the information they choose in whatever manner they choose to teach it.
"Measure 9 would give a basis for discrimination." Dilley said. "It is the denial of basic human rights. In theory it enables the state to fire anyone who is gay or lesbian because if you take it to its fullest, you are paying for their lifestyle."
Dilley said it was possible that up to 20 percent of the state's population was either gay or bisexual.
"Even if it is overturned in a few years, we're still going to have a few years of people being denied basic human rights and people losing their jobs," he said. "But proving that is where it gets really scary. Someone would have to say 'On this date I did this with this person.' It would turn into a McCarthy witch hunt."
Dilley said that most midwestern states would oppose such intolerance, but seven other states, including Colorado, have passed bills forbidding special rights for homosexuals. He said that Kansas' small size and religious force potentially could support a similar bill.
KU's Student Senate joined Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and more than 20 other universities by passing a resolution protesting Measure 9.
Oregon natives at KU are not supportive of the initiative either. Most are showing their distaste by marking "no" for Measure 9 on their absentee ballots.
"For lack of better terms, they're trying to appeal to the rednecks in Oregon," said Lee Trent, Salem, Ore., senior. "But there are a lot of rural areas, a lot of small towns, that might not be as liberal minded as the metropolitan areas."
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