Send out the clouds
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Details. page 2
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Tuesday
April 7, 1987
Vol. 97, No. 127
(USPS 650-640)
City, downtown owners await mall decision
Editor's note: This is the second in a two-part series that examines the effects of Lawrence's proposed downtown mall.
By TODD COHEN
Staff writer
Like the Kansas River a few yards to the north, the 600 block of downtown Lawrence has been quiet and calm lately.
However, the rest of the town has been like a river eddy, swirling, raging currents all drawing closer and closer together around the block.
The political tides peak today as Lawrence residents vote on a three-question advisory referendum asking whether the city should continue to pursue construction of a mall in the 600 block of Massachusetts and Vermont streets.
Political observers have said if the citizens vote against the mall, the downtown mall idea would die.
But if the mall is given a green light, and voters give the mall final approval in the fall, the 24 owners and 32 businesses in the 600 block will enter a lengthy, complicated period of condemnation and relocation.
The owners, however, don't act if they are in the center of a controversy. The blue "Keep Downtown Downtown" signs that flooded the other downtown blocks are absent.
Neither a "Save the 600 block" campaign nor a call for an onslaught of bulldozers has occurred among the owners.
Michael Lechtenberg, owner of Electric Supply Company, 616 Massachusetts St., said it was evident that Lawrence suffers from a "duck syndrome."
"The way I see it, we have a whole bunch of ducks down here," he said. "It doesn't matter how the election turns out of the pack and lead us around."
of the pack and read us all at home. Lechtenberg said he didn't get involved in city politics. Each new city commission changed the plan, he said, and the duck syndrome probably would prevail again this time.
Hannes Zacharias, city management analyst who has worked on the project for the city, said. "The deviseer was a lot longer than the political time line."
Dale Kring, owner of Parsons & Kring Floor Covering, 634 Massachusetts St., said he supported the mall promotion but avoided getting involved because his efforts would be misinterpreted.
"Naturally, I'm not pleased much about moving. This would be one heck of a job to move," he said, surveying the rolls of carpet in his showroom and warehouse.
But people would think he only wanted a share of the money the city would pay for each property owner's land and to relocate all the businesses, Kring said. He said that might create a bad image.
Lawrence and the developer,
Jacobs, Visconsi & Jacobs, are prepping the block for construction of a $55.7 million mall
Almost $60,000 of public money and 14 years of work have been put into preliminary studies for a mail project, according to city reports.
The stock was declared "blighted" in August 1986. This was the first step before the city could claim "eminent domain" and force the land owners to sell. Zacharias said.
The city estimated that acquiring the block's 48 lots of land would cost $5.9 million. It also has been estimated that the relocation of the 32 businesses in the block would cost $656,000.
Lynn Goodell, city community development department director, said the city would pay to move the stores, including a possible subsidy to help re-establish the businesses.
The city also might pay for new signs and stationery, Goodell said. For the Lawrence National Bank, the
See BLOCK, p. 9, col. 1
KANSAN GRAPHIC
Residents decide mall issue today
By TODD COHEN
Staff writer
Four Unified School District Board of Education members also will be
After a long campaign dominated by talk of a downtown mall, the polls opened at 7 a.m. today across Lawrence for citizens to elect three city commissioners and vote on a three-mess question referendum.
The results could have a profound effect on Lawrence for years to come. Depending on the results of the referendum, Lawrence will either continue to pursue a downtown mall, or give it up. However, it also is possible that theaters will not deliver a clear mandate to the city commission.
The referendum questions are:
No.1: "Shall the following be adopted? Massachusetts Street and Vermont Street shall not be closed or vacated from Sixth Street to Eleventh Street."
A yes vote would support keeping the streets open. It also would be a vote against the current mall proposal because the mall would close both Massachusetts and Vermont streets between Sixth and Seventh streets.
Question No. 2: "Shall the following be adopted?" The City of Lawrence, Kansas shall spend public funds, be she state, federal or local, for the purpose of assisting in the building of an enclosed shopping mall in the central business district of Lawrence, Kansas."
A yes vote would permit the city to spend public money to help finance the mall construction.
Question No. 3: "Shall the following be adopted? None of the streets in the central business district of Lawrence, Kansas shall be vacated for the purpose of constructing an enclosed shopping mall."
A yes vote would support keeping
See VOTE. d. 6. col. 3
Co-advising causes trouble for some
By KIERSTI MOEN
Co-advising for pre-professional school students was meant to be foolproof but has confused some students, advisers and deans.
In the co-adapting system, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences freshmen and sophomores who want to enter professional schools may see academic advisers both in the college and in the professional schools.
The college requires the pre-professional school students to have a college adviser sign their enrollment cards. But co-advisers in the professional schools also have an option to sign cards after advising students about meeting the schools' requirements.
This policy confuses some students about which adviser's signature is required, advisers say there were to go but don't understand why.
"It's kind of a hassle seeing both advisers. I don't see why a liberal
arts person has to sign it just because you're in the school," said Harlan Harper, a Topea sophomore and plans to major in social welfare.
Harper was waiting to see a social welfare adviser yesterday because he wanted to avoid conflicts in his schedule. he said.
Ra Willis, director of undergraduate admissions in the school of social welfare, said she had received complaints of incidents complains about advising.
"Initially, a lot of students are confused, and they ask, 'Why do I have to run around here?' "Willits said.
Willits said pre-professional school students often were upset about the rules for advising until they understood the system.
Mary Wallace, assistant dean of journalism, said she did not fully understand the system and that some journalism advisers also were unsure about signing pre-journal students' enrollment
cards.
James Carothers, associate dean of liberal arts, said the coadvising system was meant to prevent discrepancies in students' classes if they should change their minds about entering a professional school or be denied admission to that school.
Although he did not think the system was perfect, the college has no plans to change it, Carothers said.
Joe Van Zandt, advising coordinator in the college, said he was unhappy with the policy that allow co-advisors to sign enrollment cards.
"It seems like a mistake in retrospect," he said. "It has provided some confusion for all of us, and we wish we hadn't done it."
Van Zandt said although he saw problems with the co-adviser's optional signature, he liked the principle of co-advising itself.
Pre-professional school students need to see a college adviser in
their freshman and sophomore years to make sure they meet their long-term goals. Van Zandt said.
"There are ways of achieving a job goal that don't hang on a major," he said.
Van Zandt said he thought many professional school advisers treated students who are interested in the professional school as seriously devoted. Students aren't always so devoted, he said.
Students who change their minds about entering professional schools or are denied admission, often are left with many classes that don't conform with the college's requirements.
When they decide to graduate from the college, after all, they often need extra time to meet the college's graduation requirements, Van Zandt said.
Edwyna Gilbert, associate dean in the college, also thought preprofessional school students benefited from seeing a college adviser.
Method may cut acid rain pollution
Bv PEGGY O'BRIEN
City hall career ends for Longhurst
Staff writer
Changes in the method of burning coal in the boilers at the Lawrence Energy Center may reduce the amount of nitrous oxide, commonly called acid rain, emitted by the plant.
The new technology, which was developed in part by the Electrical Power Research Institute, will be of major importance if it does prove to reduce levels of nitrous and sulfur oxide emitted by coal-burning power plants. Lane said.
And if the technology proves beneficial during the next two years, coal-burning power plants across the nation will be able to adopt the process.
The Lawrence Energy Center will be the first generating plant in the country to receive new technology that could prevent acid rain.
"Nitrous oxide is the last major air pollutant produced in plants around the country that hasn't been effectively controlled," said Dennis Lane, associate professor of civil engineering
Modification of the burners will take place this month, and the developments made by the EPRI will be tested to see how effective they are at
the power plant, northwest of Lawrence, is reasonably clean, according to Dan Wheeler, acid rain contact for the Environmental Protection Agency in Kansas City, Kan.
Wheeler said that the Lawrence plant was not a serious contributor to acid rain, but some U.S. plants would benefit from the research.
See KPL, p. 6, col. 5
By JOESEPH REBELLO
"Longhurst," the poster reads. "Leadership for Lawrence."
Staff writer
David Longhurst sits in his cluttered office on Massachusetts Street, a pencil sticking behind his ear. Behind him is a campaign poster that he's about to put away forever.
Longhurst looks at the poster indifferently, as if it is something from the distant past. It is going to be in a box, along with other campaign literature and moved out of his office, he says.
And with that, his career as a once popular but frequently controversial city commissioner will come to a close.
Tonight, almost four years after he was elected to the commission with the highest number of votes. Long-awaited by city hall meeting as a commissioner.
Somehow, between 1983, when he was elected to office with the most votes, and March this year, when he lost a bid for re-election in the city primary, Longhurst went from being Lawrence's most popular commissioner to one of its most resented
ones.
On March 3, Longhurst's bid for re-election was destroyed when voters rejected him in the city primary. Longhurst fell short of his bid to make the ballot by three votes.
“When I made the decision to run for re-election, I supposed I would do well,” he said. “I thought I would have been a very lightly stunned when I didn’t make it.”
And for a few days after his defeat, Longhurst tried to understand what had gone wrong. Finally, in what he called an act of self-defense, he concluded that the people had gone
Alan Hagman/KANSAN
Before entering politics, David Longhurst transformed a basement printing shop into a successful business Longhurst owns and operates House of Usher Printing, 833 Massachusetts St.
A political maverick
In 1983, Longhurst won the cu,
elections with 6,090 votes. But Jack
Rose, a former city commissioner,
cautioned him. "Do your job right
and you'll never get re-elected."
That warning, he says, was cast aside in the euphoria of his victory. Things had to be accomplished in the end. "It was going to be," he was going at them single-mindedly.
Longhurst and two other members of the new city commission that came into office in 1983 were memorialized at a memorial efficiency to the commission, he said.
They made quick decisions, they were united, and they restored a sense of faith in the commission.
"We really turned things around." he said. "We set the tone that things were going to happen, and by God, they were going to happen right."
"I think in my year as mayor the attitude at City Hall was changed." Longhurst said. "It was more important not to subject the city to our personal whims in deciding policy, and to make policy in the best interests of the city."
"He had a strong tendency to go off or his own instead of consulting other commission members," said Nancy Shontz, a former commissioner who served with Longhurst for two years.
But of the five members of the commission, Longhurst was the most impulsive and the least tactful in political issues affecting the commission.
"That sometimes put the commission in extremely embarrassing post-
See LONGHURST, p. 10, col. 1
In 1983, for instance, when Gov. James Blanchard of Michigan remarked that the best thing about Kansas was its Holiday Inn, Longhurst wrote an angry response to him that told him to stay away from Kansas.
INSIDE
Disappearing act
The head of circulation for the University libraries estimated that more than 50 percent of the books checked out were overdue, but said that most overdue books eventually were returned. See story page 3.
Go for the goal
The KU Hockey club upstet Fuzzy's Flyers 3-3 last night in Overland Park and advanced to the championship game of the Kansas City Metro Hockey Association tournament. See story page 11.
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