THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED SINCE 1889 BY THE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1989
(USPS 650-640)
VOL. 99, NO. 131
94 die at British soccer match
The Associated Press
SHEEFIELD, England — Lawmakers Sunday demanded changes in stadium designs, including a ban on anti-riot fences, after a mad rash at a soccer match trapped thousands of fans behind one of the steel barriers. At least 94 people died.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited Hillsborough Stadium and promised a public inquiry into Saturday's disaster, which turned a soccer cup semi-final into a national event. Nottingham Forest into a piknighthorn.
The investigation was expected to focus on why so many fans were still outside as the match began and on allegations that many entered the sold-out stadium, which has a capacity of 54,000, without tickets or with forged tickets.
In Liverpool, the Roman Catholic Cathedral was filled to overflowing for a requiem Mass for the victims — most of them from the northwest port city. The Anglican cathedral's bell toiled 94 times to mark the deaths.
Survivors broke down in tears as they described watching children die and people hit each other in the frenzied fight to survive Britain's worst sports disaster.
Steve Ellis, a photographer, said he could hear and see children screaming as they were pressed into the fence.
"More were coming in from the back, pushing forward. . . I can still see the young lads behind the fence shouting, 'Save me!' I'll never forget it until the day I die,' he said.
Seventeen-year-old Wayne Adams said he was about five rows
from the front of the crowd. "I realized it was serious when I saw one of the lasses standing near me just turn blue in the face. She went down. She was dead. 'That was it,' he said.
The sturdy 10-foot-high fence angled in at the top to stop people from scaling it, prevented them from escaping over the top to the field. Some were crushed to death. Others suffocated or were trampled trying to fight their way out of the crowd or when the barrier collapsed.
South Yorkshire's chief constable, Peter Wright, said a senior officer decided to open the gates to save people's lives and to relieve the crush outside.
Survivor Stephen Dooling, 34, defended the action. "The police had to open the door because the lads at the front were screaming. They would have died there at the turnstiles instead of in the ground," he said.
Outside the stadium, people lay flowers and team scarves in memory of the dead.
Many victims were teen-agers and children, because the cheap standing-room-only section is favored by young fans.
Pratt said 170 people were injured. Seventy-one people were hospitalized, many in extremely critical condition.
At the Spanish booth in the 37th annual Festival of Nations celebration Friday in front of Stauffer-Flint Hall, Fernando Rodriguez, Madrid, Spain, freshman, and Mercedes Mullina,
Alcante, Spain, Lawrence High student, perform a native Spanish dance. The festival was sponsored by the International Club.
Unpaid BID fees prompt lawsuits
by Merceda Ares Kansan staff writer
Although dissolution of BID was favored by many, controversy remained over whether those who had not paid their BID assessment fees would be required to do so.
Lawrence downtown merchants may not have to pay business improvement district assessment fees in 1990.
Kelly Arnold, city analyst, said 151 of the 367 downtown businesses had not nailed 1989 fees.
Six of the eight BID advisory board members voted Friday to dissolve BID at the end of 1989. Their recommendation now goes to the City Commission.
BID assessment fees were levied on downtown merchants in 1987 to provide money for improvements and promotions.
Susan Bateman, chairman of the BID advisory board, said merchants would be required to pay the 1989 fees.
"We do have a contract for 1989, and I would assume that the city would honor that contract," Bateman said. "The monies will be expended according to the BID budget."
The city has brought lawsuits against those who have not paid.
Charles Boyd, chairman of the Pro-Downtown Committee, said the issue of unpaid fees would divide downtown merchants.
"Once a suit is filed, it takes years for it to go through legal procedures." Boyd said. "We need to stop now and get a fresh start. Mayor (Bob) Schumm has said in the past that he wants to be mediator. I think it's time he stood up and played that role."
Jerry Harper, the one board member who voted against dissolution, said that not requiring all fees to be paid would be unfair to those who had paid already.
"It would be like people were being rewarded for not paying fees," Harper said. "It will cause hard feelings on the other side."
Mike Vieux, president of the Downtown Lawrence Board of
Directors, presented a contract from downtown merchants stating their position on the dissolution of BID.
The contract stated that although merchants thought BID fees had been responsible for many downtown improvements, BID should be dissolved to end division among downtown merchants.
Two stipulations in the contract required that BID be continued until some other kind of promotion could be set up and until all downtown merchants had paid fees.
Harper said he was opposed to the dissolution because he thought only a minority was speaking out against BID.
"To the best of my knowledge, the majority of downtown business people support BID," he said. "But because a vocal minor is against something, it ought to be abolished. If that logic is correct here, I suggest that it is impossible to have any type of government activity.
"My preference have been to have some type of a ballot to see if there is still majority support and if there is, go ahead with the BID."
Carol Brown, advisory board member, said she abstained from voting because she thought there might be some other solution.
"I had hopes that all groups could come together for the welfare of downtown on a lesser budget," Brown said. "I couldn't kill it, and I couldn't work with it as it was, so I decided to abstain."
Bruce Blane, co-owner of Lawrence Massage Therapy, said BID could be used as a learning experience to avoid future mistakes.
"I would suggest we look at this as a win-win situation," Blanc said. "Look at it and see the problems. I don't think the vast majority of businesses are against the downtown plan. I think it's the way it was handled. They felt there was no clear delineation of where the money was going."
Vieux said he was not sure if there would be a future BID program.
"We have a lot of people in our membership who gave a lot more than the BID fees," Vieux said.
Service conducted for Haskell freshman found dead in river
by Angela Clark Kansan staff writer
The man has been identified as John Sandoval Jr., a 19-year-old Haskell freshman who disappeared from a party in November.
A memorial service was held Friday for a Haskell Indian Junior College student whose body was found last week in the Kansas River.
About 100 people attended the service. A drum beat and a white tenepe was erected.
Sandoval's roommate, Nathaniel
Tolth, reported Sandoval missing November 10, 1988. Tolth told police that he had left Sandoval at a party five days before and had not seen him since.
In a police report, Toth said Sandoval, a resident of Concitonc, N.M., was a student who was doing well in school. Toth told police that his roommate was drunk when he left the party.
He was found in the river Wednesday afternoon by three KU students who were canoeing. The body was severely decomposed. Sandoval was identified through dental records.
In an autopsy, no cause of death was determined, although Allan Sanders, assistant coroner for Douglas County, suggested that the cause might have been drowned.
Tolth became alarmed when Sandoval did not appear at his room in Osceola-Keokuh Hall or attend classes, which was unlike him, the report said.
Loren Anderson, Douglas County sheriff, said the investigation was continuing and that no signs of foul play had been discovered.
Computer crash alters Kansan look
by a Kansan reporter
In case you didn't notice, the Kansan has taken on a new look for today's edition. And it's not on purpose.
Because the Kanans Mycro-Tek computer system crashed for about 12 hours yesterday, today's news section was produced on Macintosh computers.
"The system's old. We knew it was going to go down sometime," Adam said. "There are going to be typos in the paper. We didn't have time to fix them all."
Julie Adam, Kansan editor, made the decision to switch systems about 7 p.m., after conferring with staffers and computer technicians.
The crash, the third in a week,
for the first time forced the use of
another computer system to produce
the paper.
Both of the Mycro-Tek system's hard disk drives, which store all stories, wire services and classified ads, were not functioning yesterday afternoon and were not fixed until about 1.4 m today.
Richard Rensch, senior field engineer for Mycro-Tek, said the hard disks became too hot and began losing data. The disks are kept in the Kansan's production
Tom Eblen, Kansan general manager and news adviser, said Kansan staffers handled themselves well.
room, which was above the 82-degree temperature limit last night.
"This is rather common for this time of year," Rensch said. "Until they turn the air conditioning on, there can be problems."
"There's a positive attitude and a willingness by the students who, in many cases, know little about what they're dealing with," Eblen said of the switch to Macintosh computers. "They're working against adversity."
Beirut bomb ambassador kills Spanish
The Associated Press
Beirut, Lebanon — Spain's ambassador to Lebanon and at least 17 other people were killed yesterday in fierce artillery exchanges between Christians and an alliance of Syrian and Muslim gunners, police said.
Ambassador Pedro Manuel de Aristegu, 61, died while undergoring surgery to remove shrapnel
fragments that hit his head when an artillery shell blasted the villa in the Christian suburb of Hadad, East Beirut, police reported.
Police said his Lebanese father-in-law, poet Tewfc Youssef Awwad; and one of Awadd's daughters, Samia, and a Lebanese bodyguard were killed when the shell exploded.
The envoy's Lebanese wife,
De Aristegui had served in Lebanon since June 1984. He was kidnapped shortly after he took up his Beirut assignment and told an interviewer recently, "If you are afraid of death, you should leave this country."
Haskell student newspaper may be printed for first time in 5 months
Jomana Awwd, was seriously wounded and his two-year-old son, Diego, suffered unspecified injuries, police reported.
by Mary Neubauer Kansan staff writer
The student newspaper at Haskell Indian Junior College may be distributed on Wednesday for the first time since Oct. 28
Patrick Nichols, Topek attorney representing the Indian Leader Association, the student group that publishes the newspaper, said the details of publication were ironed out Friday in a meeting with Kurt Sheruk, assistant U.S. attorney and representative for the Haskell administration.
Nichols said the Haskell administration tentatively would be allowed to publish the student version of the Indian Leader, the student newspaper.
At a March 30 hearing, U.S. District Judge Richard Rogers put a restraining order on publication of
The order was in response to an earlier version of the newspaper that Nichols called a sanitized faculty version of what should be a student newspaper.
After the order was issued, students put together another version of the Indian Leader that contained all the stories from the first version and stories about recent controversy at Haskell. Students contend that stories pertaining to the ongoing controversy at the school were not included in the earlier version.
the newspaper. That restraining order expired April 7.
Nichols said the administration would publish camera-ready pages of the newspaper prepared by students and would distribute the newspaper by Wednesday. According to the agreement, if the new paper is not distributed by Wednesday, the
administration will have to release $2,000 for the students to have the newspaper published at Klaren Colour, in Kansas City, Mo., he said.
Dario Robertson, KU associate professor of law and co-counsel for the students, said Klaraen Colour was sympathetic to the students' position. Two weeks ago the company helped them print 100 copies of the student version of the paper, he said.
Nichols said the two parties involved hoped to have reduced to writing early this week an agreement to all issues involved with the paper. They hope to have the issues resolved by Wednesday, when the newspaper is scheduled to be published.
"But hope is one thing, an agreement is another," he said.