Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, February 13, 1991
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City approves abatement for Illinois plant
By Vanessa Fuhrmans Kansan staff writer
The Lawrence City Commission last night approved a 50 percent tax abatement for an Illinois plastics firm, but only after hearing a heated debate on whether the firm would benefit Lawrence residents.
The discussion was spurred by a tax abatement request from Galt Plastics Corporation, a Glenview, manufactures recyclable plastic plates.
Galt Plastics is considering the East Hills Business Park, just east of Lawrence on Kansas Highway 10, as a possible plant site.
Although the commissioners unanimously approved the request, voices from both the commission and the mission spake against the tax abatement.
"I feel we have to support this because of all the investment that we have put in the industry park," Commissioner Mike Rundle said. "But I want to say that I am disappointed."
Rundle said he did not think the proposed wage rates and benefits offered by the company were adequate.
Bill Markham, director of economic development for the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, brought the request before the commission and said the plant would provide 60 new workers and would expand the city's tax base.
Billier Archer, a Lawrence resident, said the city should not use a tax abatement to lure the company to operate its business. The provider would not pay well enough.
"Why are we considering these jobs when they are below comparable salaries based on the Kansas Wage Survey?" she said. "How do
'The wage rates mentioned really caught me by surprise.'
— George Votis a director of Galt Plastics
their salary ranges for Kansas compare to their existing salary ranges in Chicago?"
George Votis, a director of Galt Plastics, said after the meeting that if the plastic company built the plant it would establish competitive wages.
"The wage rates mentioned really caught me by surprise," Votis said. "Highly competitive wage rates have been our goal from day one."
But Allen Ford, professor of business at the University of Kansas, said he was concerned not only about the quality of jobs but about the number of tax abatements the city had approved in the past two years.
"We're going toward a very rapid rate of tax abatements." Ford said, citing 12 abatements since 1989. "Homeowners would be pretty锐ie if they found out that business owners were being taxed at a lower rate."
Commissioner Bob Schumm said the tax abatement would be beneficial because the new jobs and the construction of the plant would have a multiplying effect on the city's economy.
"This company looks to have much more permanence than some of the other companies we've seen, and I wonder why this isn't a 10-year abatement period," he said.
Votis said that the commission's approval had brought Galt Plastics into contact with the plant site but that the company still was considering other locations.
Piece by piece
Troy Blankinship (left), Bert Castle and Kevin Trimble, employees of Weathercraft, prepare to add another section to the roof of Allen Field House. Foreman Brian Eshom said he hoped his crew could complete the project by the middle of next week. Roof repairs began last fall.
Federal financing possible for parkway, trafficway
Kansan staff writer
Uncle Sam may be generous to the South Lawrence Trafficway and Eastern Parkway projects this year.
cumferential System.
By Vanessa Furhmans
That is what officials from both Lawrence and Washington, D.C. said after a city and county delegation lobbied in Washington last week for federal money to finance the proposed Lawrence Cir-
County Administrator Chris McKenzie, who returned from Washington on Monday night, said yesterday that the initial financing the trafficway and parkway already received would give Lawrence an over other cities nationwide that were competing for the same funds.
"The fact that we had already so
mouch state and local funding is plus," he said. "We're right in there."
floating around here because they already have state and local support."
McKenzie said the highway system was eligible for financing from the Surface Transportation Act, a five-year federal highway bill that will be authorized this year, and the annual Highway Appropriation Act.
The South Lawrence Trafficway received $7.2 million in 1986 from the
Surface Transportation Act.
Howard Bauleke, administrative assistant to Rep. Jim Slattery, D-2nd District, said both the parkway and the campus of receiving substantial financing.
Bauleke, who accompanied the Lawrence delegation to meetings Monday with the staff of Sen. Robert Dole, Sen. Nancy Kassebaum and Rep Dick Nichols, Dahl District, both of whom bills would be passed before Oct. 1.
"Certainly a positive step for the Eastern Parkway is the amount of local funding it already has," he added. "It's not a chance than some of the others
University composting keeps piling
By Katie Chipman
Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas is years ahead of Lawrence in the area of composting.
The University has had a compost pile since 1961, but the city did not begin composting until last year.
The compost pile is primarily made up of leaves that are collected in the fall and spring from University lawns. The compost is then directed, director of facilities operations.
Composting is a waste-disposal method that is not harmful to the earth's natural environment.
Compost is made of decomposed material that turns into a nutrient-rich soil. The material can be leaves, grass clippings or vegetable remains, which are high in nitrogen. The nitrogen element acts as a catalyst in breaking the solid waste down into soil.
Richardson said the grass clippings that were cut from University property were left to biodegrade and act as a natural fertilizer for the grass rather than be hauled to a landfill.
The material that accumulates each year amounts to between 300 to 400 yards of compost.
The University uses the compost to condition the soil in flower beds, shrub beds and other planting areas, which are ground up and used as mulch.
"It has been a common practice to compost," Richardson said. "It's also a matter of necessity because when you have so many leaves, you've got to do something with them."
All University trash that is not recycled or composted is taken to the Jefferson-Douglas County Landfill.
Richardson said the compost pile, which is located on West Campus near the construction site of the new building should be moved to another location.
Last year Lawrence began a pilot composting program that ran through the summer months. The program, called Earthbound, was organized by the city in response to a study done on the amount of trash residents generated. The study showed that out of 34 tons of trash generated by the residents, 11 tons were grass clippings.
Patricia Marvin, Lawrence recycling coordinator, said the program was an experiment to show people how to do help to curb the landfill problem.
Marvin said. "The city and county worked together, and we composted 400 tons of material."
The residents of Lawrence generate 150 tons of trash a day, Marvin said.
Bailey spent a lifetime working for world peace and equality
Bv Rick C. Honish
Kansan staff writer
Bailey was known to most people as "Pearlie Mae," a great jazz and blues singer with a sultry growl of a voice and flashy costumes.
As a U.N. delegate, Paul Bailey used her love for humanity to serve the United States, as well as the world.
That reputation preceded her when she was appointed to the U.N. delegation in 1975. But Bailey soon made it clear to her detractors that she was not there to sing a song but to make progress toward world peace.
as a A. u. n. delegate and as a person, she was colorblind. to her, the different hues of people's skin did not draw attention. She considered all people to be members of one race — the human race.
She chose not to ignore the problems of discrimination, but to show by example that all human beings in the world must struggle in their struggle for understanding.
In her autobiography "Between You and Me," she explained how she became frustrated with the behavior of many members of the delegation.
She said that it upset her to see delegates walking out on important issues without listening to differing arguments, but that she never lost hope that "this body of men and women had a way to the peace we all seek."
A spiritual person who earned a bachelor's degree in theology from Georgetown University in 1985, she drew on her religious beliefs to help
African-American History Month
deal with the trials and tribulations that came from being a U.N. delegate.
Bailey had always been politically concerned, but her desire to spread equality and support human rights was strong. She gained experience as a diplomat.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan awarded her the Medal of Freedom.
Bailey said she had done nothing in her life that had made her more proud and happy than serving at the United Nations.
She also had much to be proud of in her first career.
She was born March 29, 1918, in Newport News, Va., and began her entertainment career when she was 15 by winning $5 in a contest singing "Poor Butterfly." She won an amateur contest at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem and on to record such classic songs as "St. Louis Blues," "Toot Toot Tootisie" and "That's Good Enough For Me."
In 1982, she married jazz drummer Louis Bellson. The couple adopted two children — a son, Tony, and a daughter, Dee Dee.
Bailev died Aug. 17, 1990.
Above all, Bailey was an example for people of all races. Her belief that people could co-exist is considered by many to be a timeless lesson. She did not recognize color. She recognized humanity.