The University Daily
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
KANSAN
Tuesday, November 9,1982 Vol. 93, No.57 USPS 650-640
Planners urge denial of rezoning request
By DOUG CUNNINGHAM Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
The Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission recommended last night that the City Commission deny a request to rezone about 600 lots in East Lawrence.
In an unexpected move, the planning commission also decided by a vote of 5-2 to reopen consideration of the East Lawrence neighborhood plan. This decision would make decisions about zoning ratings in the area.
The City Commission will discuss the planning commission's recommendation to deny rezoning of the lots at its Dec. 7 meeting. The lots are in an area roughly between Rhode Island Street and the Santa Fe Railroad tracks from Ninth Street to 18th Street.
THE LOTS presently are zoned for multiple-family, industrial and commercial uses. The request was to change those zoning ratings to allow housing of structures such as apartment houses.
Mark Kaplan, president of the East Lawrence Improvement Association, said the planning commission's actions were "an insult to the neighborhood. They don't want the land in East Lawrence used the way we want it used so they just reopen the plan."
VON ACHEN and several other commissioners said the rezoning request had prompted a great deal of public comment.
The planning commission's reopening of the plan and its recommendation to deny rezoning followed more than two hours of public comment and discussion among the commissioners.
Commissioner Kurt von Achen said the 600- lot rezoning request was too large to consider at
"I don't believe it's planning in the larger sense of planning — it's more political expediency," he said.
Commissioner Mike Miller said, "I've never been stopped on the street and harangued on an
However, Commissioner Nan Harper said
rezoning to single-family was necessary for the stability of the neighborhood.
She also said the neighborhood plan for East Lawrence did not need to be reconsidered.
"We can't negate the work that we've done," she said. "Our goal is to follow the guidelines that we have set."
But before the vote, Miller said that to recommend approval of the rezoning request would hurt those who wanted to develop their property.
RICHARD KERSHENBAUM, a representative of the ELIA, said the city had a commitment to maintain the character of the neighborhood, which he said was essentially
Commissioner Dean Harvey said the improvement association did not represent a majority of the people and asked Kershenbaum how many people were members.
A denial of the rezoning request would not send a good message to the residents of Eskayak
Kershenbaum said. "We really didn't want to force this down anybody's throats. We tried to be very careful to make sure there was a consensus in the neighborhood for doing this."
Harper said after the meeting that the neighborhood group did represent the people in
"These are not 12 people who came to take over the world." she said.
Several residents near that lot asked the improvement association for help.
THE REQUEST for rezoning originally came from the improvement association in June, after a local real estate agent built two houses on one lot in the East Lawrence area.
After it received the request, the planning commission instituted a petition policy for permission.
The planning commission held a special public hearing on the request Oct. 20 but deferred consideration of the request until last night to allow the planning staff more time for study.
The City Commission in September then told the planning commission to study the 600- lot request more and report back with a recommendation.
After two public meetings and several hours of discussion, the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission recommended last night that about 600 lots shown in the shaded area not be rezoned to a single-family rating. The commission also decided, in an unanticipated move, to reopen consideration of the East Lawrence neighborhood plan.
Weather
Computer problems slow enrollment
Tomorrow will be mostly cloudy with a chance of showers and a high in the lower 60s.
Tonight will be cloudy with a 30 percent chance of showers and a low in the mid-to-
Today will be cloudy with a 20 percent chance of showers and a high in the low to mid-60s, according to the National Weather Services will be from the south at 10 to 20 mph.
By DIRK MILLER
Staff Reporter
KU's new computerized enrollment system, adopted to cut down on problems experienced by students at Allen Field House, caused its own problems yesterday as some students waited about a half-hour longer than expected to early enroll.
Early enrollment for classes, one of the phases of the new system, was interrupted four times yesterday and once Friday when computer problems forced the system to be shut down by Mr. Elliott, assistant director of records in the educational services department.
JERRY NIEBAUM, director of the Academic Computing Center, said he thought there was a problem with either the computer programs
Students waited patiently outside room 111 in Strong Hall while terminals and printers for the computer were turned off the computer used for enrollment, were turned off the computer between 10:20 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. yesterday.
developed for enrollment or the computer's original programs.
Technicians were trying to find the problem, he said. After 3:30 p.m., yesterday all terminals on the IBM system except those used for responding to messages from technicians tried to isolate the problem, he said.
Rich Bireta, assistant director of KU information systems, said there were 10 different programs or software that were used for the enrollment process. A comparison of data from the enrollment programs worked on Friday and Monday, so it would lead to the solution of the problem, he said.
"Amost certainly, it's the software," he said. Ilieta said he hoped to have the problem solved in a few weeks.
ELLIOTT TOLD the waiting students yesterday afternoon that they could early enroll today if they were not able to wait until the system was turned back on.
Gary Thompson, director of student records and registration, said the enrollment plan had enough time built into it to handle delays like computer problems. KU scheduled 180 students
each hour on fifteen terminals acquired from the University of Kansas Medical Center, he said.
"At K-State, in their first early enrollment, they scheduled 300 students an hour on the same number of terminals," he said.
FIGURES SHOWED that yesterday's early enrollment took care of 147 fewer students than Friday but eight more than Wednesday, Elliott said.
Students were originally scheduled for six-minute periods at the terminals, but the early enrollment process can be as short as 40 seconds, she said.
Jerry Hutchison, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, said that 20 percent of the students scheduled to enroll had early enrolled by Friday.
She said that after the system went down, programmers took about 20 minutes to catch up with it.
"I don't know how to interpat that, but it was probably not good enrollment," he said.
The early enrollment will continue until Nov.
23
Begin testifies aides ignored army warning
By United Press International
JERUSALEM—Prime Minister Menachem Begin's Cabinet ignored Israeli army warnings that Lebanon's Christian Phalange militia was "sharpening its knives" to massacre Palestinian civilians, a probe of the Beirut killings revealed yesterday.
In testimony to an investigating panel, Begin said the warning by Lt. Gi. Raphael Eitan, army chief of staff, went unbeheaded by the entire Cabinet, which did not oppose the Phalanigist entry into two West Beirut Palestinian refugee camps Sept 16-18.
There was no explanation during the questioning why Eitan brought his warning to the Cabinet two hours after the militia already were inside the Chellat and Sabra camps.
QUOTING FROM A Cabinet protocol from the night of Sept. 16 when the Phalange went into the camps, reserve Maj. Mj. Onah Efraf, an investigative panel, repeated Efraf's words:
"The second thing that will happen is an outburst of revenge. This will be an unprecedented outburst. I can see in their eyes what they are thinking. (Phalange) system is sharpening its knives."
Begin, in reply, said, "I can only state the fact that no red light was lit for any minister after this statement."
Begin also testified that Defense Minister Aristel Sharon told of having sent the Lebanese Phalangists into the camps only after the Christian villagers were inside massacring Palestinian civilians.
BEGIN, WHO is to visit Washington Thursday, provided what was the high point of three weeks of hearings before a three-man judicial panel that ordered him and his daughter of Palestinian refugees in West Beirut.
Begin said in 45 minutes of testimony that Sharon ordered the Christian Phalange militias into two refugee camps without telling the authorities where they were. The minister for the apparent breach of procedure.
Nor did Begin's testimony clash with that of Sharon, who appeared before the inquired board two weeks wgo. Sharon told the commission he had every right to permit the Phalange to enter
See BEGIN page 5
Staff positions open for spring
The Kansan is now accepting applications for the positions of editor and business manager.
Applications are available in the Kansan business office, 118 Flint Hall, the office of the dean of journalism, 200 Flint Hall, the Student Senate office, 105 B Kansas Union and in the office of student organizations and activities, 220 Strong Hall.
America's passenger trains struggle to stay on track
A handful of early morning travelers board the only Amtrak passenger train that stops at the Lawrence depot at New York and Seventh streets. The popularity of passenger trains has waned in
the past few years, replaced by cars, buses and planes, but a faithful few continue to include the scenic railroad views and sleeper cars in their travel plans.
By MATTHEW SCHOFIELD Staff Reporter
In the last few decades America's passenger rail system has been slowly, and reluctantly, grinding to a halt.
Once uncontestably powerful, perhaps the backbone of American transportation, now, at least in the West, the passenger rail system is besieged by problems, and relief is not in sight.
Every industrial nation in the world, except the United States, has spent the last 50 years developing and refining its passenger rail system. Its network includes that of Missouri-Kansas Rail Passenger Coalition.
"The reason people don't ride trains now is that they don't have the trains to ride, not that we do."
"In 1929 there were more than 25,000 passenger trains running in the United States, more than 150 in Kansas. Today less than 250 and only one in the United States," only one in Kansas."
RAIL TRAVEL'S decline in popularity was brought about by the growth of automobile, bus and airplane travel. he said.
NOW, THE SMALL Lawrence station owned by the Sante Fe Railway Co., with its
"Amtrak can never compete for the really long trips because planes are just too fast," he said. "But for distances between 200 and 600 miles it should be very competitive."
Trains are not completely riderless, though. Sharon Holt, Pueblo, Colo., junior, said she had ridden trains to and from Lawrence on five different occasions.
The only train that passes through Lawrence's lonely station travels under the shade of night, like a nocturnal animal, with an eastbound train at 5:40 a.m., and a westbound time of 12:20 a.m.
crack-riddled platform and empty lounge, resembles the empty shell of a large crustacean more than a functioning depot.
No more than two or three people nightly make their way through the desolate streets of town to catch the sleek Amtrak Southwest train. but when KU and Haskell Indian College let out for vacations — the peak periods for rail workers here — the station gets more crowded.
The trip to Puerto Coulot Holl $76, and she said she liked traveling by train. But such an attitude, which was dominant in the United States as little more than a passing fashionable prevalent — especially in Kansas and the West.
Mills said that train travel is the most economically efficient means of land travel. Considering that very few passenger trains are in use, the present system is woefully insufficient, he said.
"Russia, France and England all have very efficient electric trains," he said. "The United States had most of its electric tracks torn down."
EXCEPT FOR A few thousand miles of electric truck in the Northeast, American trains
Many other countries, such as France, Great Britain and Japan, take total financial responsibility for their rail systems, he said, whereas in India, the system is expected to survive on its fares.
"No passenger-carrying system has ever been able to support itself on what it collects from the farebox. There's no way to do it, it's too expensive," he said.
"Rail is the only totally self-sufficient means of travel. How many miles of highway has Greyhound built, and how many airports have the airlines built?
"But railroads have built all of their stations and paid for all of their roads. Passenger rail service cannot survive in the United States
See TRAINS page 5