friday, february 6, 2004
news
the university daily kansan 5A
Paymentsanger owner
By Steve Vockrodt
svockrodt@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Downtown businessman dislikes paying for parking facilities
Finding a parking spot downtown can be good for both consumers and businesses. But some downtown business owners are upset that they must pay for parking improvements that they don't feel help them out.
Gary Strong, owner of Strong's Antiques, 1025 Massachusetts St., and Aimee's Coffee shop, 1025 Massachusetts St., hates that he must pay for the parking space on the 800 block of New Hampshire St. With his business two-blocks north of the parking garage, he said he can hardly figure out how the parking space will help him.
"Anyone who is parking that far away wouldn't be coming here anway." Strong said.
The cost allocated to the property owners is added to their real estate tax. Mike Wildgen, Lawrence city manager, said that particular cost was distributed during ten years.
Strong would prefer the burden of the cost fall upon those who used the metered parking lot.
"I just felt like it would never be utilized for me," Strong said.
The parking area was implemented in part to help develop the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire St. Strong said he tried to discuss the issue with the city commission at its meetings but found the issue kept being put off the agenda.
sell antiques so I get a lot of elderly people and they're not going to want to walk that far."
Wilden said Lawrence's relatively inexpensive parking meter rates could not pay off the debt of the project. Half of the cost for the parking space was paid by for the city at large. The rest of the cost fell on the property owners downtown that lie within the 16-block benefit district.
For any city improvement, such as sewage lines, a new road, or in this case, parking, property owners must pay part of the project's cost if their property is within the boundaries of the district. Most of Lawrence's downtown area is within the district.
The conversion of an old vacant lot into a parking garage counted as a benefit to the area, so Strong had to pay.
Property owners must help pay for the improvement because the
addition benefits the area as a whole, Wildgen said. The payments were not about personal benefit. Wildgen said, they were about benefiting the entire downtown area. The additional parking space is intended to provide alternative parking, allowing downtown employees to get cheaper long-term parking instead of parking on Massachusetts St. and constantly feeding the meter.
Strong is still unhappy, but he will go ahead and pay for the improvement in his real estate tax.
"If it'is that much of a necessity, it should be paid for by the people who use it," Strong said. "But there's really nothing I can do about it."
Nolan Washatka, assistant general manager at Tellers, 746 Massachusetts St., said he wasn't sure businesses should have to pay for additional parking, but that more parking was good for people who live and work downtown. Washatka also said more long-term parking would be a benefit to the downtown district because it would give people more time downtown.
— Edited by Henry C. Jackson
EXCHANGE: Icon could change book-buying habits
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students to buy their books from other students at cheaper rates rather than paying bookstore mark-ups.
Andy Knopp, student body president, said he was excited to see the links get up and running this week. Knopp also said he was happy the Union had been willing to risk some of its book profits for the benefit of students.
"They worked with us all along." Knopp said. "I think their perspective was that students will look online for books anyway at places like Amazon, so they'd rather have them do it locally on their own Web site."
Mike Reid, director of information systems at the Kansas Union, worked to make the links a reality.
"We could lose some sales, but it's the same thing students have always had the ability to do," Reid said. "we're just making it easier."
Some bookstore owners aren't happy with the new system. Bill Muggy, owner of the Jayhawk
Reid said the only negative aspect of working on the project was that he couldn't get it done in time for most students who bought their books for this semester. Delays occurred in part because one of the programmers was called back to his home in Russia because of family issues.
Bookstore, 1425 Crescent Rd., said the book exchange links were part of a long history of favoritism for the Kansas Union Bookstore that gave it an unfair advantage.
"I've been dealing with things like this for 28 years," Muggy said. "The Kansas open records law has always bent to what the Union wants."
Muggy currently has to pay the Union bookstore for lists of each semester's required books.
He said that his store would still offer students immediate service that they couldn't get from the online book exchange. The Jayhawk Bookstore, for example, buys books back on the spot.
The reaction of some students suggests that Muggy will still have plenty of business.
Eric Jensen, Sioux Falls, S.D. senior, said he always bought his books at the bookstores instead of online. He said he wouldn't take the time to register his books on the exchange.
"It sounds like too much time and effort," Jensen said. "Usually if you want to sell a book you can just sell it to a friend."
Christopher Wood, Chicago graduate student, said he thought the exchange was a good idea, but he didn't know if he'd be able to use it.
"I'm not very good with computers," Wood said. "If it was easy I might be able to figure it out, but then again, I still don't know how to check my grades from last semester."
The other aspects of "Have a say before you pay" include a mandatory campus-wide vote on all student fee increases and a student-run Tuition Advisory Committee. Knopp said no fee increases had been proposed since the initiative, so that hadn't been tested yet. Fees have increased from $275.50 per semester in 2001-2002 to $281.50 last year, to $287.00 this year. Recent fee increases have gone to Saferide, the new Multicultural Resource Center and the United States Student Association, a national student lobbying group.
The Tuition Advisory Committee is made up of Knopp, Catherine Bell, student body vice president, and a group of student senators. Knopp said administrators worked closely with the committee and took students' tuition concerns seriously.
"Actually, faculty is sometimes frustrated they're not as involved in the process as students," Knopp said. "I've had departments come to me asking students to lobby on their behalf."
Edited by Henry C. Jackson
PROFESORES: Lack of funding prevents hirings
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upperclassmen who have earlier enrollment times.
"It's frustrating going through all the hoops." Sieve said, "but it never made me want to quit taking classes at KU."
Sieve said smaller Spanish classes promoted more discussion and made students more comfortable in speaking situations.
"You're more willing to open up and try," she said.
Anderson said the department requested faculty positions every year from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, but it didn't always receive them. John Grombeck-Tedesco, associate dean of the college, said the Spanish department did need more faculty, but a lack of money was preventing more hirings.
Funding shortages
He said money for one position came from tuition enhancement funds, while normal funding provided for the two other positions. He said budget cuts during the last few years had prevented the college from granting as many positions as the department requested. He also said it was important to look at the needs of other departments and hire there when necessary.
"You do the best you can with the money you have," Gronbeck-Tedesco said.
The college's goal for the department was to continue hiring Spanish faculty and to hire as
Anderson said maintaining this balance wasn't good enough. He said the department needed at least 18 faculty members to provide enough courses for interested students. Right now, the department has 11 tenured, two tenure-track and one visiting faculty members.
a rate that would keep hirings ahead of resignations, Gronbeck-Tedesco said.
Commitment from University administration and pressure from students might help the situation, said Jill Kuhnheim, associate chairwoman of the department and director of undergraduate Spanish studies.
For Josh Briggs, enrolling in two Spanish classes was essential this semester. The Olathe senior was planning on graduating in May, and said he went to class and told professors the situation.
"They told me they would include me in the class, no problem," Briggs said. "They were really understanding about it."
As far as the future is concerned, Anderson said the department would continue to apply for positions each year, with the constant goal of getting more faculty.
Briggs said the uncertainties of not knowing whether he would get in his classes and not being enrolled as a full-time student were the most annoying.
"I don't feel good about it," Briggs said. "I just want to be a full-time student."
Other options
Gronbeck-Tedesco said the
"We want to continue hiring in Spanish. It has a great deal of application to the contemporary world," Gronbeck-Tedesco said. "But there are very legitimate alternatives, too."
college's goals for the department were simple.
He said although Spanish is the most popular and largest department in the college, languages such as Italian, French, German, Chinese, Japanese and Russian are also favored by students.
While Spanish may appear to be the most beneficial foreign language to learn for a job in the United States, knowing any language will make students more desirable to employers, said Kent McAnally, assistant director of University Career and Employment Services.
McAnally said the growing popularity in Spanish was caused by an increasing number of Spanish-speakers in the United States and the realization that knowing the language would be useful in some jobs.
"It's not the first thing an employer will look at, but it's a big plus," McAnally said. "A second language is always a valuable skill."
He said the value of knowing Spanish would depend on the individual job and employer, but he would recommend Spanish if a student was trying to decide which language to enroll in.
There wouldn't be any question in my mind what I would say," McAnally said.
— Edited by Henry C. Jackson
Lincoln Week Lecture Series Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics
Join five of America's leading Lincoln scholars as the Dole Institute celebrates Lawrence's Sesquicentennial.
Feb 8th Douglas Wilson, author of the groundbreaking Honor's Voice, about Lincoln's pre-presidential life, and several other books on Lincoln. Wilson is director of the Lincoln Center at Knox College in Illinois.
Feb 9th Allen Guelzo, winner of the 2000 Lincoln Prize and author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President as well as books on the Civil War and American religious history.
Feb 10th Phil Paludan, the Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair of Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He is the author of Victims: A True Story of the Civil War; A People's Contest: The Union and Civil War; and The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, which won the 1995 Lincoln Prize. He taught for many years in the History Department of the University of Kansas.
Feb 11th Jean Baker, professor of history at Baltimore's Goucher College, and author of Mary Todd Lincoln and a forthcoming biography of President James Buchanan.
Feb 12th James McPherson, Pulitzer Prizewinning historian and author of Battle Cry of Freedom and Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. His other books include To the Best of My Ability: a History of the