City tells police too late to talk
By ROBIN ROBERTS
Staff Reporter
The Lawrence Police took their piera ttor bigger paycheckes in 1980 to the Lawrence City Commission Tuesday, but the city held unanimous that the police were being paid equitably.
Mike Nichols, legal representative for the police, said that陪警员 had risen 13.9 percent since 2014.
The police are currently under a two-year contract for 1979 and 1980 that has a clause to re-open wage negotiations should inflation rise more than 9 percent in a year.
"That is the rate of inflation your occupants are facing today when they buy product."
The police contract granted an overall 9.9 percent increase in wages for 1979 and grants a 6 percent increase for 1980. The police say they could get an additional 1.7 percent increase without violating the president's wage and price guidelines.
BUT KEVIN BURT, city employee relations director, who makes wage recommendations to the city, said he the police contract was fair as it stood.
"This is a very fair and equitable settlement. The police are saying that the president's guidelines are not only a ceiling but a target," Burt said.
Burt said that although skill incentive and merit increases and other special benefits were exempt from the guidelines, they still substantially benefited the police.
"Just because those things are exempt from the guidelines doesn't mean they don't cost the city real money, and doesn't mean they don't really benefit to the police officer." Burt said.
He said that with the special benefits many officers could receive increases of $40,000 per year.
THE CITY COMMISSION was the final
resort for the police to obtain their wage increase because mediation had been approved.
"We think the reason they don't ask for a table was because he would have agreed with us."
The police requested mediation on June 22 but Burt said that a city employee relations resolution, drawn up last year to prevent contract disputes, included a June 3 deadline for hiring a mediator to break impasses in negotiations.
Burt said that there was confusion over the guidelines at that meeting and about what it meant.
"I received a letter in April requesting a re-operator. Burt said, "April 19 we met and discussed serious concerns, which is all the re-operator guarantees."
"I DON'T KNOW, some of those things could very well have been exempted, but 6 percent was our position and it continues to be.
"However, I never heard from the police again and so I wrote a letter on May 22 to force the issue in early June if they wanted to declare an immeasure."
Burt said he met with the police twice in informal meetings in June, but they still faced charges.
"Mediation would have taken a long time, now we're into final budget process," she said.
Nichols said that the city had violated the op-parser clause, which calls for "no" backtracking.
The city as well as the police had the obligation to declare an impasse and ask for mediation by the June 3 deadline, Nichols said. He also questioned whether the deadline applied to mediation instead of just declaring an impasse.
City, county seek alternate landfill to use on wet days
In an attempt to keep the city and county from losing their landfill permit, a Douglas County advisory committee decided last night after a closed executive session to look at a northern Jefferson County rock quarry as alternate landfill site during bad weather.
The committee, a county solid waste advisory board, instructed Mike Dooley, county public works director, and George Williams, an environmental investigator using the quarry as a county landfill.
The city and county are now dumping trash in the city's landfill northeast of Lawrence, a 1971 law requires counties to be required for providing landfills for county-wide use.
City and county officials were told by the state Department of Health and Environment in March that they would have to find an alternate solid waste disposal plan, or face the possibility of having the landfill permit suspended.
THE STATE SAID that water stands in some areas of the landfill, posing a possible health hazard. In its letter to the city, the state gave the city and county three options to avoid having the present landfill permit suspended.
One option was to upgrade the present disposal area to provide for wet weather disposal. Another was to continue to use the present area, subject to possible penalties.
The option chosen was to secure an alternate disposal facility to be used during wet weather. The committee plans to use the present landfill during dry weather, and to use the Jefferson County site during wet weather for the landfill is full. After that, the committee would consider hauling all solid waste to the Jefferson County site.
On other county matters yesterday, Dooley presented the county commission with a plan for improvements at Lone Star Lake and Wells Overlook Park. Dooley said he did not expect the commission to act on his plan.
"I drew up the plan just so they would know what needs to be done over the next several years," Dooley said. "I was just outlining things so they would know."
THE PLAN CALLS for more than $750,000 to be spent during the next five years. Most of the money would be used to repair and improve Wells Overlook, but 800 would be spent improving Wells Overlook.
At Lone Star, the plan includes removing silt from the lake, improving roads around the lake and repairing the floodgate. Dooley said the county hopes to start repairing the floodgate later this summer, at a cost of nearly $50,000.
In May, the county was warned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the dam at Lone Star needed repairs and that the lake needed some improvements.
Trustees refuse to meet with S. Africa committee
By TONY FITTS Staff Reporter
The KU Committee on South Africa's request for a meeting with the board of trustees of the University of Kansas Enowment Association has been denied. A letter received by the committee yesterday, Laird Qare, committee spokesman, said.
The letter, written by Todd Seymour,
president of the Endowment Association,
said the Association would welcome any
"written communication that the KU
Committee on South Africa might wish to
convey." This was, according to the letter,
a resentment to the position originally
communicated to the committee in a letter
mailed March 3.
For the last year and a half, the committee has urged the Endowment Association to sell its stock in corporations which trade with or have branches in South Africa because of that country's racially segregated social system.
This request was made after a meeting with Seymour on March 11. Seymour had refused to meet with the committee in the latter, but 11 members of the committee went to the Endowment Association's office and met with him anyway.
Yesterday, the committee said in a press release that it had "requested the meeting four months ago in order to explain our plans and exchange our views with the trustees."
After this meeting, the committee requested, in another letter, a meeting with the full board of trustees. Seymour said March 19 that he would send a copy of the letter to each trustee and wait for instructions.
The letter received yesterday by the committee is the result of that action, Seymour said. He said the trustees have been kept completely up-to-date on the mat and that the continued insistence on written communication was their instruction.
"First of all, it hasn't been that long," Seymour said. "We have people living all over the country. And second, I am not empowered to make these decisions myself. It takes some contacts with some other people."
The committee's press release said that Seymour's letter indicated the request for a meeting was never actually considered because of the delay and the reference to the March 3 letter, written before the committee had asked to meet with the trustees.
Seymour said the reason the Endowment Association desired written communication was that the trustees needed "things of a factual nature." He said his opinion was that a face-to-face meeting would not be productive.
Seymour said yesterday he would not comment on the press release because he had not read it, but that he had contacted all of them. This was one of the reasons for the delay.
Okie said the insistence on written communication showed how out of touch the trustees were to a movement among the students.
"People tend to get a little excited and drift from the facts," he said.
"15 shows how exclusive a group they are; that they will refuse to meet with a group of students."
Okie said the committee would meet soon to plan new strategy to bring the South down from its current position.
THE SUMMER SESSION
KANSAN
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Lawrence group to discuss mall development-privately
Thursday, July 12, 1979
By CYNDI HUGHES Staff Reporter
A Lawrence group that drew up articles of incorporation yesterday can legally prevent the opponents from interfering with the town hall, mall, the group's chairman said.
BARBARA WILLIES, president of the East Lawrence Association, said her group was drafting a letter protesting the ex officio memberships of Mayor Barkley Clark and City Manager Buford Watson on the Action 80 Committee.
The Action, 80 Committee is made up of Lawrence businessmen, citizens and KU students.
The private status of the group assoc wan not require it to keep the public informed of its activities.
Warren Rhodes, the group's chairman and president of the First National Bank, said last night that the Action 80 Committee, a private, non-profit entity, was "not subject to the sunshine law" and did not have to open its meetings to the public.
In June, JVJ requested an indefinite deferral on rezoning of the Armstrong site to ensure that it would remain a private property.
The 15-member committee will examine the feasibility of a downtown mail as an alternative to a large complex at Armstrong Road and U.S. Highway 59 proposed earlier this year by Jacobs, Visconsi and Jacobs, Cleveland developers.
The letter will be sent to committee members "to appeal to their values" concerning the presence of public officials on the private committee, she said.
As for the neighborhood opposition to the private committee, "right now there's no negativity on the part of the neighborhoods because we don't know what's going on," she said. "We're just concerned with the possibility of residents being relocated and the problems of increased traffic."
"IT'S HARD TO understand why they feel it has to be closed."
Rhodes said the committee did not want downtown mall opponents, such as local housing associations, to assist in bringing developers because "it would not work."
"We're trying to save downtown," he said. "We don't want to get to the point where we have to leave."
Wiechert said Chancellor Dykes asked him to represent the University on the
Committee members also include: Nancy Dykes, wife of KU Chancellor Archie R. Eyken, Todd Seymour, president of the KU Eyken School; Melissa Wierchert, director of facilities planning
THE COMMITTEE wants to "save" downtown Lawrence from the threat of a bomb.
committee. Seymour, however, said he did not know why he was selected as a member.
Rhodes refused to comment on the selection of committee members.
CLARK SAID THE purposes of the committee included:
- Contacting developers.
- Raising money for economic surveys and for travel expenses to study downtown mall locations.
- Advising the city commission on choosing a developer.
- Coordination of downtown merchants with downtown developments.
- Working with neighborhood associations.
He compared the Action 80 Committee to groups in other cities and said such preliminary studies were always financed by private groups.
However, Judel Allen, urban planner for the city of Wausau, Wis., a planned location for a downriver MJL mall, said he was surprised that she would be handling mail negotiations in Lawrence.
ALSO, THE IDEA for a two-block mall in Parsons was started by the city manager in 1966 and was negotiated by the city, said Mr. Clement of the Parsons Urban Renewal Authority.
The private Lawrence group, however, has already started raising funds toward the University's research.
"Preliminary reports show there will be a
substantial amount of money raised, which indicates strong public support," he said.
City Commissioner Robert Schumm said the committee would have to work closely with the city eventually, although there is now no contact between the two.
THE CITY WOULD become involved when the committee requested government funding, rezoning or changes in any areas that would affect the city, he said.
After that, the city could use its power of eminent domain to clear land for use, but on the basis of a legal opinion
“It’s hard to imagine that they count together a large tract of land that would require that,” he said. “It would be used as an ultimate last resort.”
City Commissioner Donald Binks agreed with Schumann that the use of eminent domain should be limited.
"I doubt that it would require anything like that," he said. "There is land available and people want to live there."
Bimsa said he thought private citizens are businesses should handle the preliminary business.
"I prefer that the initiative come from private enterprise. We can then assist it," she said.
"I hope it works. I think a viable downtown is an absolute necessity for viable neighborhoods. This may be healthier for the city."
Throat mending
Staff photo by KEVIN KING
Using microsurgical techniques that he helped develop, Fernando Kirchen, right, professes of otolaryngology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, removes a
growth from the throat of a small child. The microscope gives the surgeon a view of an area without having to make an incision in healthy tissue.
Micro techniques aid surgery
By MARY JO HOWARD
Staff Reporter
the surgeon, Fernando Kirchner, professor of otorhinolaryngology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, was using microsurgical techniques to remove obstructions in the child's throat that had prevented her from breathing properly.
KANSAS CITY, KAN. — A two-year-old boy was asleep on the table, prepped for surgery, and over resting, regulating her breathing through a tube in her throat. The surgeon peered through a microscope and extracted blood from her throat with tiny instruments.
Kirchner, an ear, nose and throat doctor, was among the first surgeons at the Med Center to develop and use microsurgical techniques.
Microsurgery uses a microscope to see parts of the body that ordinarily would be too small for the surgeon to see. It is used both in reconstructive surgery, which involves replacing severed limbs, and in ear, nose and throat surgery.
KIRCHINER SAID that the uses of the microscope in otofirnulariology surgery were different from its uses in reconstructive surgery. Putting a limb on requires a microscope to see and manipulate the skin which a surgeon could not otherwise see.
In ear, nose and throat surgery, the microscope is used to give the surgeon a view of an area without having to make an incision.
For the throat surgery performed on the little girl, Kirchner inserted a long metal tube through her mouth that went down her throat. The microscope was placed directly over the top of this tube to magnify what was at the bottom of the tube.
This allowed Kirchner to see what he was operating on without having to cut into the throat. The alignment of the microscope is extremely important, because improper alignment could give a surgeon an inaccurate view of the area.
THE SURGERY requires special micro-
For the throat surgery, Kirchner used a long metal rod with a wire filament on the end. The rod was connected to a power source and supplied electricity through it to heat the filament.
instruments. In 1969, Kirchner started developing instruments that would be small enough to work on a tiny area of the body and still function properly. Although it is difficult to design instruments that small and still have enough energy to cut through the material she said, he has designed instruments that are less by electricity to counteract the problem.
KIRCHNER SAID his technique was similar to using a laser but not nearly as expensive. Laser equipment costs about $2,000 for a laser conversion to $2,000 for Kirchner's instruments.
When the filament was glowing red, he inserted the rod down the tube in the throat and touched the red-hot wire to the growths. Injecting heat into the growths led the water in them to evaporate. The growths dried up and then were easily removed.
One benefit of this technique, Kirchner said, is that it keeps the tissues from bleeding. Excessive bleeding would obscure the area being operated on, and in areas as small as the ears, nose or throat, could cause inaccuracy.
Although the limits of using microsurgery techniques are not known, Kirchner said, microsurgery is being used more and more for things such as the reconstructive surgery that previously were unthinkable.
In the case of the little girl, Kirchner said microsurgery was an easier and more efficient technique than cutting into her throat would have been. Because it is not known what causes the growths in her throat, the probably will have to have them removed as long as they continue to grow b.a. k she has had surgery twice already.
Kirchner said that by using microsurgery on the child, only the area with the growths was affected, making recovery time much shorter.