Investment policy to prompt reply
By LAURIE WOLKEY
Staff Renorter
A reply from the KU Committee on South Africa will be drawn up in response to the Kansas University Endowment statement about investments in South Africa.
The Endowment Association released a policy statement Friday saying contributors could request that none of their donations be invested in companies in South Africa.
The Endowment Association is a nonprofit organization that administers private gifts
As of June 1978, the Endowment Association had assets of $92.6 million. Of that amount, $7.5 million was invested in municipal and corporate bonds, $1.8 million in preferred stocks and $25.1 million in common stocks.
The policy states, "Any donor to the Kansas University Endowment Association, past present, fearing that none of them will ever do business in South Africa, need only make their desires known to the Endowment Association and the Association itself."
ED DUTTON, associate professor of social welfare and a member of the KU Committee on South Africa, said the Endowment Association had invested more than $5 million in corporations with interests in South Africa.
Seymour said the policy statement had been released because the association recently had received an invitation to meet with the KU Committee on South Africa.
However, Todd Seymour, president of the Endowment Association, said he did not know the amount the association had invested in South Africa.
The KU Committee on South Africa, which was organized more than a year ago, is made up of about 40 student and faculty members. It encourages American corporations to withdraw investments from South Africa.
WHEN AMERICAN support is withdrawn, committee members say, the oppression of South African blacks, Colored and Asians will decrease in that country. Currently, 4 million whites make decisions that affect 18 million blacks, 2.5 million white men and a quarter of mixed ancestry and three quarter of a million Asians, Dutton said.
Last spring, the committee sent a letter to the Endowment Association requesting that KU's investments in these corporations be withdrawn.
But until its policy statement was released Friday, the Endowment Association had not responded to any of the committee's requests.
SEYMOUR SAID that the policy statement had evolved after deliberations by the executive committee of the Endowment Association.
"We are just offering an opportunity donors," he said, adding that the donor contributions could be individually invotede
He said he did not think the new policy would significantly affect contributions to the NHS.
By announcing this policy, the association said it also would allow student and faculty beneficiaries to refuse to accept gifts that are unacceptable to them.
HOWEVER, beneficiaries of the gifts probably would not be notified by the Endowment Association as to the origin of their gifts.
Seymour said that the association would assume that donors and beneficiaries would be aware of the new policy, but that the donor would not inform each donor at perpetuity.
"If they request it, we will be glad to give them a solicitic statement." he said.
Referring to the new policy, Dutton said, "That whole area about beneficiaries seems to be displacing the endowment's responsibility on others."
THE POLICY statement says, "One group contends that there is a moral obligation on the part of educationally disadvantaged people to protect the stock of all such corporations. This contention holds that such divestiture would apply force to those corporations to move their corporations from South Africa, and in turn to harm his unearthly and its resultant social injustice."
Jonathan Ungar, acting assistant, professor of East Asian studies and a member of the committee, said, "In order to provide them with universities and church groups control a sizable percentage of all stocks and bonds. If these groups withdrew their investments from companies and banks which invest in those companies, it would most of these companies would withdraw."
However, the Endowment Association's policy also says, "Another group feels that a major positive factor in bringing about a change from the apartheid system, creating better living conditions and opportunities employed by such American corporations."
Masterly maestro
Staff photo by TRISH LEWIS
Frederick Fennell was a guest conductor yesterday during the performance of the KU
Symphonic Rand, Femail is conductor of the University of Miami Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra. See related story page three.
KANSAN
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Vol. 89, No. 102
Monday, February 26, 1979
Lid compromise possible
Bv GENE LINN
Staff Renorter
TOPEKA—The fight over spending lid proposals will be renewed when Democratic Gov. John Carlin's own spending limit bill is introduced in the Kansas House today.
The Kansas Legislature's spending bill had was killed Friday morning when the Republican-dominated House sustained Carlin's veto of the legislation.
The bill will have clamped a 7 percent lid on spending increases from the state's general fund. The general fund is made up of all state tax revenue.
House Speaker Wendell Lady, R-Overland Park, said Friday afternoon that he would allow Carlin's bill to be introduced in the House Ways and Means Committee.
The legislation also would have required a minimum balance in the state treasury at the end of the year at least 8 percent of anticontrol state tax revenue.
Only House Republican leadership can introduce a bill in House committees. Bills passed in both chambers are
because it is too late in the session for individuals to introduce legislation. Republicans control every House committee.
HOWEVER, LADY made it clear that Carlin's bill would be extensively amended either in the committee or on the House floor.
"As far as backing off the 7 percent spending lid, or the 8 percent ending balance or the definition of what is spending and what is not spending, as far as I am concerned," Lady said.
Carlin's bill would not limit spending to a specific percentage. Instead, each year the Legislature would mandate an ending balance high enough to restrict spending.
Leftover money beyond the ending balance could be used to provide tax relief. The Legislature's bill would have set the minimum balance at 8 percent, while Carlin wants a 10 percent minimum balance of anticipated state tax revenue.
THE DEFINITION of tax relief is a point of contention because Carlin considers aid to local units of government the most important factor in determining Republicans insist such aid is not tax relief.
Aid to local government would be used to lighten the burden of property taxpayers, which Carlin says is one of his top priorities. But Republicans say local officials sometimes use state aid to increase expenditures, not to lower taxes.
Lady said be would be willing to negotiate with Carlin about whether to include supplemental appropriations and spending for capital improvements in the spending lid.
Supplemental appropriations, which are made to cover unforeseen expenses, would not be included in the Legislature's bill. not be included under the spending lid in Carlin's bill, but were included in the Legislature's bill.
CARLIN HAS criticized the Legislature for not including spending for new buildings
or major renovation projects within its proposed spending lid.
House Minority Whip Donald Mainey, D-Topeka, was more optimistic than Lady last week about the prospects of a compromise on the spending lid issue.
"The governor has some serious objections to the Legislature's version, but we will continue with it."
He said the governor's insistence on flexibility in spending limit legislation possible could be fulfilled if the statute's bill were enacted for only one year.
"That would probably be a good compromise. Carlin doesn't think the state should be committed to the same percentages every year."
However, House Majority Leader Robert Frey, R-Liberal, rejected the possibility of a vote on the bill.
Heartings on Carlin's bill tentatively scheduled for Wednesday in the House Ways
Meacham defends his bills
By TAMMY TIERNEY Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
TOPEKA-Nobody seems to be taking Mike Meacham seriously.
Meacham, 26, is a Republican state representative from Wichita who was elected in 1976 while still a KU law student. This year he is receiving a large dose of what he calls "Joe college publicity" for several bills he has sponsored.
Nobody, that is, except Mike Meacham.
"I didn't go out this year and try to be Mr. Controversial," he said, "I thought my bills were good ideas and I really believed in them."
But, Friday as he sat in the legislators' lounge on the fifth floor of the state capitol, Meacham sighed heavily and mourned the several of his recent legislative attempts.
"I was really hoping the coal slur bill would get through. After the basketball bill, I needed it to establish some credibility," he said of his team's 2014 attention-battening bills he had sponsored.
See related story page five
THE FIRST, the coal slurry pipeline bill, would have allowed Energy Transportation Systems Inc. of Wichita "limited eminent domain" in laying down a 1,400 mile pipeline. The pipeline would have carried a mixture of crushed coal and water from Wyoming through Kansas to Arkansas.
However, the Kansas House Judiciary Committee last week killed the bill after Energy Transportation Systems and the Energy Transmission Corporation agreed to settle their differences without legislation. Commission Chairman Joseph Hoagland said that he hoped to never see the bill again and that because the bill was not approved, Meacham had little choice but to agree.
The basketball bill would have required the University of Kansas and Kansas State University to play Wichita State University (WKSU) for three years, too, was defeated, with plenty of laughter.
"I took a lot of abuse over the basketball bill," he said. "I tend to be a little thin-skinned, but it got thicker that day. I thought they'd have some fun with it, but I don't think I was prepared for as much fun as they were."
ALTHOUGH THE basketball bill made it out of委员, legislators on the House floor amended it, re-amended it and finally sent it back to committee.
For his efforts, Meacham received the Canine Award for the Doggist Piece of Art.
Despite the ribbing and the publicity, Meacham said he did not regret sponsoring
Mike Meacham
either the coal slurry or the basketball fun and thought both focused on valid issues.
1 TRULY BELIEVE the U.S. will become heavily dependent on coal and that
"As for the basketball bill, I wanted to make a point and I think I made it. I agree
The biggest problem with the two bills, he said, is the republication is gaining because
you can't legislate the scheduling of basketball games, but you can make a bell of a point. And, I guarantee that bill will pass the House next year, so I hope the appropriate parties hear and make a good faith effort to get the games scheduled."
"I've gotten so much publicity that some people must think I not a very serious person and that I not a very serious about job; that I not some kind of Joe college type."
Part of the reason, Meacham said, is that she bills are interesting, but "not in my best interest."
"I don't regret sponsoring them, though." His personality also could influence his business.
"I not say m', I'm pretty open and I not afraid to say what I think. But, if you don't say what you think in behalf of your people, then you're not doing your job."
Despite the possible misfortunity he would receive, Meacham is supporting a baby safety grant to support licensing requirement from baby sitters who keep more than six children, and a night court bill, which would require Sedgwick county courts to be held during the day.
"I'm saving the night court bill until next year, though. I think I've done enough this."
City may get new district
Committee member John Sobach, D Lawrence, said yesterday that the full house probably would act on the vote. The vote mapping map on Wednesday or Thursday.
The map of Douglas County approved by the committee last week would place two House districts within Lawrence for the first time.
The 44th district is represented by
State Rep. Mike Glover, D-Lawrence and is the only district entirely in the city now.
State Rep Hoe John Vogel, R-Lawrence, represents the 43rd district, which holds a majority in the southeast corners of Lawrence. The proposed map places Vogel's district over Hoe's.
The new district, the 46th, would be made up mostly of areas in east Lawrence that have been represented by Glover and Vosel.
Solbach's district, the 49th, still would include the northwest and southwest corners of the city.
Milty's gets license back; beer law changes possible
Lawrence residents can fight city hall.
Milton Collins' beer license for Uncle
Rudy is up for sale. Please contact Priddy
Friday at skirtstock.com to view
The license had been revoked by the city in January when local residents and Haskell Indian Junior College officials complained about fighting at the tavern.
The city called the tavern a "public nuisance" and used that as a reason for the ban.
But Judge Ralph M. King said in his decision that "There is no legal basis for the defense."
The decision, which King made after considering the case for two weeks, said, "A search of the ordinances of the city of Lawrence reveals no provision for the revocation of a ceral malt beverage retail license on the basis of public nuisance."
Collina, who quickly restocked the tavern for business Friday night, said. "I knew I was going to have it."
But Commissioner Barkley Clark suggested the city may need to amend its ordinance to include "public nuisance" as a reason for revocation.
Commissioner Jack Rose said he was ambivalent about the issue.
If the commission does act, he said, it probably should establish uniform standards.
Rose suggested that guidelines similar to the state license licensing regulations might be needed.
"They don't take a license permanently," he said. "They just suspend it for three days."
Rose also said the hearing had not conclusively decided the issue.