Wednesday June 8,1988
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Vol. 98, No. 146 (USPS 650-640)
Frat may be charged for violating fire code
Bv Karen Boring
Kansan staff writer
City Prosecutor Jerry Little said yesterday he would file charges against the Triangle fraternity next week for failure to comply with city fire codes.
Jim McSwan, Lawrence fire chief,
said in a videotaped press conference
on May 5 that after the April 26, 1987,
fire at the Sigma Phi Epstein fraternity house, the Lawrence Fire Department developed a program to bring all KU greek houses into compliance with the fire code.
The department inspected the 37 active greek houses in June and July 1987, said Fire Marshal Rich Barr. The corporation board of each house was given a list of violations and was required to turn in plans of compliance, including a schedule for completion, by January 1988. A corporation board is a group of alumni that acts as landlord of the house.
The Triangle board turned in a statement to Barr, asserting that all required changes had been made, Little said. However, when the fire alarm came on, the Triangle house on May 2, he found that none of the changes had been made.
The only course of action that the
fire department is interested in with the Triangle house is prosecution." Little said. "The next step is filing charges against that fraternity."
Ron Gast, Triangle corporation board president, said a new board, including himself, was elected in February and that the original plan of compliance had been submitted by the former board. Gast said he and other board members learned of the fire-code problems from the house's student officers after the May inspection.
The board is taking bids so it can make a new plan of compliance, Gast said. He anticipated no problems with meeting the December dead-
"We want to get costs in mind first," he said. "I think we will have a firm plan by this summer and have some of the work completed by Sentember."
Five other greek houses also are under investigation by the city prose-
Tau Kappa Epsilon and Phi Kappa Tau fraternities also have been submitted for investigation.
The Alpha Kappa Lambda and Lambda Chi Alpha fraternities and the Alpha Chi Omega sorority have not come to agreement with the fire department on plans of compliance with the fire code, Little said. The
Normally, the fire department inspects Greek houses twice a year to ensure that existing fire equipment is working properly, Barr said. The present fire-code project, however, involves seeing that the existing equipment adequately complies with today's fire code.
"They either have not submitted plans of compliance or the compliance time frame is not acceptable." Little said. "What I'm trying to do is to open the lines of communication."
"If they do not involve sprinkler systems, because sprinkler systems are a very large project from a structural standpoint, we are requiring those plans of compliance to be completed by December 1988," Barr said at the press conference. "If they involved sprinkler systems, then we extended that deadline by one year."
The project involves obliterating grandfather clauses, under which older structures do not to have to comply with fire codes enacted after they were built, he said.
Dave Niebergall KANSAN
Give it a twirl
Terri Maness, Lawrence resident, twirls batons with glow sticks attached to the ends. Maness entertained golfers during the Moonshine Night Golf Tournament on Saturday night at the Orchards Executive Golf Course. The tournament was a benefit for the Achievement Place Boys' Home.
Water safe, tests indicate
Cancer-causing chemical no longer present at Lindley
Official reverses Hoch ruling
For two weeks, signs were posted inside and outside Lindley Hall warning people not to drink the water in the building. On Friday, they were removed.
By Monica Hayde
Warning notices were posted in the building on May 20 after state and University inspectors found high levels of a cancer-causing chemical in the water in Room 107. But the latest tests have shown that no health hazard exists, a University statement released Saturday said.
Bearse said it was unlikely the water in any other campus buildings was contaminated.
"Tests have not been run camp-wide, but they are in the process of being run," he said. "However, the water coming into Lindley Hall is of acceptable quality, so the water is of acceptable quality going into all the other buildings."
Steve Cater, University environment, health and safety officer, said no one knew why such an elevated level of ethylene dichloride was in the water.
By Paula Messbarger
Kansan staff writer
A state fire official who said in April that Hoch Auditorium might have to be closed because of fire hazards now says it is a safe building.
Paul Markley, who is chief of the fire prevention division for the state fire marshal's office, said after his April inspection of Hoch that the 61-year-old building was too dangerous to use because of fire-code violations.
But Markley said Monday Hoch is safe and can be used by the Univer
ses and con-
state fire marshal's office
Paul Marklev
main concerns when inspecting a building: fire alarms, clear exits and emergency lighting that comes on after the sun sets. Hoch has all three. Markley said,
'Hoch is safe as is. The
emergency lights are in operatior
ation, '
Beyond the pail: Builders
In what turned out to be a two-day beach bash of sorts, they molded sand into a towering 18-foot structure. Builders formed a multitiered foundation by stomping sand into square wooden frames as Top 40 tunes blared into the night. The next morning, armed with palette knives, spatulas and "just about anything that's flat and metal," according to organizer Wade McNary, a Stanford resident assistant, sculptors moved in
nearest shoreline was miles away. But that didn't stop 200-plus members of the Stanford community, from students to faculty and their children, who in March simply borrowed 75 tons of sand from a local concessionaire, a huge sand castle on campus.
Digging for Sand Scholars
MULTIPLE CHOICE
This wasn't a typical beach party. For one thing, there wasn't a beach—the
n low-tech days; students at Middlebury no doubt rushed
daily to their mailboxes to see what the postman brought. Today they rush hourly to their phones to hear what the school's new computerized telephone-answering service may have waiting for them.
As part of an elaborate $2 million phone system installed last summer, college officials included a feature called PhoneMail. The service allows anyone with a campus phone to send, receive, forward and save phone messages. Middlebury has rapidly become obsessed with its new toy Sophomore Kirsten Keppels checks her messages every 45 minutes "Tidn't know how I'd urinate."
Middlebury Gets Messaged
Hoch Auditorium once was used as the home court for the Jayhawks basketball team until Allen Field House was dedicated in 1955. Hoch has had a long history of safety and structural problems, which led to the creation of a building to build a new performing arts center within the next few years.
The system has spawned imaginative uses. Working students looking for substitutes may send a message to
DWIGHT GARNER in Middlebury
for the finer touch. They fashioned windows, turrets and faces, making the structure look like a cross between a Bavarian castle and the huge musks on Easter Island.
"There is an emergency lighting system, and its been there for at least 15 years." he said. "The problem was no one asked the right person."
A local merchant sold organizers lumber for half price, so the entire project cost only $500. Although there was no prearranged work schedule, the castle was completed by the end of the second day. The event attracted about 1,000 people over the two days, not counting who came to dig. Still, Stanford students will have high to match the Guinness world record for tallest castle: a 52.8-foot structure weighing more than 48,000 tons, built in Florida in 1986.
fellow employees. There's even a new drinking game built around PhoneMail—losers must not only drink but record a message, often much to their later embarrassment.
Students also must wade through their share of electronic "junk mail." Broadcast messages can be sent to each extension announcing everything from course changes to campus parties. A "chain message" multiplied until some students were hearing the same words six times a day for weeks. The perpetrators were soon threatened by peers and eventually apologized—not by phone, but in the school paper.
Booze Busters on Rice Patrol
Catch-21: Secret agents track underage drinkers in Houston
He said not having a sprinkler system above the stage would not make it necessary to close Hoch.
Underage imbibers at Rice University parties had better watch out their
James Modig, campus director of facilities planning, said his office and a committee appointed by Judith Ramaley, executive vice chancellor, are reviewing possibilities for using Hoch once the new performing arts building is completed. Modig said some suggestions were offices, classrooms or an addition to the new science library.
Campus regulations require student groups to register in advance those parties where alcohol is served and to sign a liability form taking re-
winter wincer
drinkin' companions just may
be understudied. Since late January, the university has a employed a squad of student monitors to patrol the campus party circuit, checking to see whether alcohol rules are being obeyed. Student reaction has been mixed. Some see the secret squirt as a method to ensure responsible drinking, but others wonder about entrapment. "I don't think it's my place to spy on what my peers do at parties," says sophomore Anne Chang.
ed the lack of a of a sprink- area. Mark- kid be closed corrected the r. However, civil officials formed there tor at Hoch, n, that con- emergency
MAY 1988
NEWSWEEK ON CAMPUS
Markley said. are in opera-
16
"The sprinklers are there to protect the buildings," he said. "We care about the buildings, but our main concern is getting the people out."
dalbano KANSAN
Tom Anderson, director of facilities operations, said the problem with the original inspection probably was a result of a KU Facilities and Operations employee who was sent with Markley on the inspection. Anderson said it was common practice for KU employees to assist the fire marshals during inspections. He said the employee probably was not familiar with Hoch and its lighting system.
is it another
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"We're looking for the general needs of the campus." Modi said.
nior and disc she was notcision would
As for the near future, not much will be done to Hoch, he said. Some of the stonework will be repaired this year under the fiscal year 1988 budget. But there will be no projects for the fiscal year of 1989 because the Board of Regents did not approve the requests.
The Associated Press
Michael Dukakis clinched the Democratic presidential nomination with a four-state flourish Tuesday night and forecast a "golden opportunity" to win the White House in 1988. Republican George Bush labeled himself the underdog heading into the fall campaign but said, "I'm fighting back."
Dukakis finishes with nomination
Dukakis dominated Jesse Jackson coast to coast on the final night of a grueling Democratic primary marathon. He was winning primaries in New Jersey, Montana, New Mexico and California by margins of 2-to-1 or more.
The three-term Massachusetts governor began the night needing about 150 delegates to achieve a mathematical lock on the nomination. He was winning more than 131 in New Jersey, Montana and New Mexico combined, and early returns from California showed him ahead for more than 200 delegates.
Dukakis emerged as the winner of the Democratic primary marathon and owner of a lead over Bush in the nationwide public opinion polls. But Bush, who wrapped up the GOP nomination six weeks ago, holds formidable Electoral College advantages in the South and West, and Republicans have won four of the last five presidential elections.
Thus, the prospect is for a close general election, and Bush and Dukakis seemed to share an eagerness to begin.
"My friends, what a golden opportunity this is for us," Dukakis said as he savored his nominating triumph in a speech in California. He pledged to use his campaign to stand up for factory workers thrown out of their jobs with no warning, to ease the burden of families hit by medical bills and to "share the rage" of those living in neighborhoods threatened by drugs.
"Every day between now and November, the American people will want to hear how we intend to build a strong and vibrant future for our country," he said. "They aren't interested in slashing attacks: They want to judge our positive ideas for change."
Bush posted uncontested primary victories in all four states and said, "I think I can overcome this deficit (in the polls)," he said.
In a television interview, he likened Dukakis to Walter Mondale, the landslide Democratic loser in 1984, for refusing to rule out a tax increase. "I'll rule it out," Bush said in an interview with CBS, and rely on a spending freeze to reduce the deficit.
He decried the "gloom and doom" that he said was emanating from the Democrats and said the polls would change as he began to establish his own political identity. "When we get through in the fall talking about opportunity and peace and numbers of jobs and how much better things are and what I'll do to keep it that way, I think I can overcome that deficit," he said.