Smokin' Out
Students "die" for
cause. See Page 3
latlg (Jar Heel
www.dailytarheel.com
Fla. Court Makes Ambiguous Recount Ruling
The Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Honda’s
high court gave the go-ahead Thursday
to ballot recounts in the state’s chaotic
presidential election but left
unanswered the question of
whether the results will matter.
“There is no legal impediment
to the recounts continuing,” the court said
in a case brought by Palm Beach County.
Within minutes, county officials
announced they would join adjacent
Broward County in reviewing hundreds
In n. Wake
By Ginny Sciabbarrasi
City Editor
It all began in the early 19705, when
energy giant Carolina Power & Light
Cos. decided it wanted a nuclear power
plant in Wake County.
When the plans were unveiled, a
group of residents joined together and
formed Citizens Against Shearon Harris
to protest the opening of the nuclear
power plant.
Allen Spalt, a member of the
Carrboro Board of Aldermen, said he
recalls a Chatham County
Plant Neighbors Eye Expansion With Caution, Concern
DTH/MILLER PEARSALL
Woodrow Goodwin of New Hill fears that the potential Shearon Harris plant expansion might
take over part of his land. Goodwin was born and raised on his farm since 1933.
Executions Lead Activist to Campaign
By Daniel Thigpen
Staff Writer
Capital punishment made Robert
Meeropol an orphan at the age of 6.
And in his lecture “Fatally Flawed:
The Death Penalty From the
Rosenbergs to Mumia Abu-Jamal,”
Meeropol was able to offer a deeply per
sonal perspective to the ongoing debate
over the death penalty.
Meeropol’s parents, Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg, were convicted in 1951 and
Executed in 1953, during the height of
■mti-communist sentiments in the
United States, for charges of espionage
ind attempting to transmit the secrets
oehind the atomic bomb to the Soviet
Union.
A man likes marvelous things; so he invents them and is astonished.
Edgar Watson Howe
of thousands of ballots by hand.
The Palm Beach count began
Thursday evening. A state judge was to
decide as early as Friday whether to
overturn the Republican secretary of
state’s decision to reject any fur
ther recount totals from
Democratic-controlled counties.
In the overtime campaign
‘tPii
between Bush and A1 Gore, the ruling
was a victory for the vice president, who
had pressed for manual recounts in four
counties in hopes of overturning the
Texas governor’s 300-vote lead. About
Commissioners meeting where the vote
to rezone, which would allow the plant’s
creation, went against CP&L.
“The commissioners came out; peo
ple were cheering the decision; it was
remarkable,” he said.
But a vote the following week
reversed the decision, construction
began in 1978 and Shearon Harris went
into operation 11 years later.
“The Shearon Harris complex came
out of a pro-nuclear mentality - it was
planned at a time when concerns for
safety were much less and the cost was
much less,” Spalt said.
Meeropol has spent the last three
decades as an anti-capital punishment
activist. His speech focused on drawing
parallels to the execution of his parents
to the case of Philadelphia journalist
Mumia Abu-Jamal, who faces the death
penalty for the murder of a police officer.
Senior John Johnson, who coordinat
ed the event with the Campaign to End
the Death Penalty, said he hoped
Meeropol’s words would encourage stu
dents to unite for an end to capital pun
ishment. “We like to have people who
can tell personal stories and motivate
people to get involved here,” he said.
Johnson said Meeropol and his broth
er are the only people in the United
States to have both of their parents exe
cuted by the government. “(The lecture)
35,123
That's the magic number for men's
basketball ticket distribution.
The range is 34,001 to 39,721.
Serving the students and the University community since 1893
2,600 overseas absentee ballots remain
to be counted, but so far there is no dis
pute about them.
“The Supreme Court’s clear and
unambiguous ruling that the counties
are authorized to proceed with a manu
al recount is a victory for everyone who
wants to see the votes counted clearly
and fairly here in Florida,” Gore cam
paign chairman William Daley said.
Republicans called the decision
minor. “The one-paragraph, interim
order of the Florida Supreme Court has
just been presented to you as the best
Now the company wants to expand
its nuclear waste storage capacity, and
those who fought the plant’s opening
have once again joined the fray.
“Since we didn’t want (the Shearon
Harris plant) to begin with, we certain
ly don’t want it to expand,” said Sen.
Ellie Kinnaird, D-Orange.
CP&L wants to open two more exist
ing cooling pools at the site for storage
of spent fuel, thus making it the largest
storage for nuclear waste in the country.
“The capacity of radioactive material
See ACTIVISTS, Page 2
puts a human face on the death penal
ty, one you don’t often see,” he said.
Meeropol vehemently expressed his
opposition to capital punishment and
made strong ties between his parents’
situation and Abu-Jamal’s. “As with my
parents, Mumia has a family,” he said.
“What does it feel like to have a parent
on death row?”
Because Abu-Jamal was a radio jour
nalist who frequently exposed police
brutality, Meeropol said many believe
he was unfairly convicted and will be
sent to death for political motives, just as
the Rosenbergs were. “He is the first
political prisoner in this country to face
execution since my parents,” he said.
Meeropol said international move
ments to save his parents’ lives were
thing since night baseball,” said Bush’s
recount manager, former Secretary of
State James A. Baker 111. He said, in
fact, the order “does nothing more than
preserve the status quo.”
Bush running mate Dick Cheney said
the state’s official count and recount
showed Bush was the winner -with the
overseas absentees still to come -and
barring any change he expected
Secretary of State Katherine Harris to
declare Bush the winner on Saturday.
Cheney said in an interview with Fox
News Channel that recounts by hand do
reaclibn
Today: The People
.ttSjßPir % ■
DTHFILE PHOTO
Mark Marcoplos of N.C. WARN carries the state flag
in a protest march at the CP&L building in Raleigh.
By Kellie Dixon
Assistant City Editor
With the possible on-site expansion of
a nearby nuclear plant forthcoming, res
idents say they are less concerned with
potential safety hazards than with the
expansion itself.
The expansion would fulfill Carolina
Power & Light Co.’s desire to open two
existing cooling pools to store spent fuel,
making the Shearon Harris Nuclear
Power Plant home to the largest amount
of nuclear waste in the country.
CP&L’s plan would not entail physical
expansion, at least for now, and many
residents say they have learned to coexist
with the plant.
But some, such as Woodrow Goodwin,
say they are concerned about how their
own property would survive if the plant
began looking beyond its own bound
aries. “I just hope they don’t expand (the
plant) because if they do, they might get
me,” he said.
Goodwin’s farm, located at 4300
Shearon Harris Road, stretches across
190 acres. Bom and raised in New Hill,
he has farmed in the same area for 67
years. “Daddy bought the place in 1915,”
sparked prior to their execution and said
the same is happening with Abu-Jamal’s
case.
While explaining people’s various
justifications for opposing capital pun
ishment, Meeropol explained his per
sonal ideology. “The system has to be
perfect,” he said. “The problem is
human beings are incapable of perfec
tion. You get the inevitability of innocent
people being executed.”
Meeropol said the greatest problem
facing the movement to end capital pun
ishment lies within the government “It’s
a national system that is in force by pri
marily our elected officials.”
He said this reflects the ideals of the
See DEATH PENALTY, Page 2
<<&.
not give a more accurate result “It is no
longer really counting, it is manipulation.”
The seven-member Florida court, all
chosen by Democratic governors, issued
its unanimous, one-paragraph order as
Bush lawyers looked to a federal appeals
court in Atlanta to halt the recounts.
One of the four counties, Volusia,
completed its new tally in time to meet
a 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline established
by Harris. She has said the state will not
include any of the post-Tuesday recount
figures in its official tabulation, which
she intends to announce Saturday.
A three-part series probing the controversial
proposal to make Wake County's Shearon Harris
Nuclear Power Plant the largest nuclear waste
repository in the country.
he said. “I’ve been down here 67 years
and farmed (the land) all my life. I always
milked cows and grew tobacco.”
Goodwin said plant officials first
approached him in 1970 when they ini
tially thought more land would be need
ed for plant construction.
“They said they were going to (take
my land) before now, but they run upside
a bad stump when they hit me,” he said.
“I told him, ‘You might take it, but I’m
not going to sell it to you.’”
Beth Goodwin, Woodrow Goodwin’s
daughter-in-law who has lived in New
Hill for seven years, said she was not con
cerned about expansion of the plant, as
long as it was contained.
“I don’t really have a problem with
(the expansion) as long as they don’t
come across the new U.S. 1 and keep a
buffer zone,” she said.
But Beth Goodwin said there are signs
the plant won’t stay put for long.
Her home at 4232 Shearon Harris is
only two miles from the plant itself, and
with each day, more trees are being cut
down, she said. “It’s bad enough they’ve
cut down these trees,” she said. “You used
See RESIDENTS, Page 2
fl
DTH SOMMER BASINGER
Robert Meeropol speaks about capital punishment on behalf of the
Campaign to End the Death Penalty on Thursday night.
Weekend
Today: Cloudy, 49
Saturday: Clear, 47
Sunday: Rain, 49
Friday, November 17, 2000
A decision concerning the Florida recount
could give Republican George W. Bush
or Democrat Al Gore a win in the state
as early as Saturday.
BOT Talks
Of Growth,
Tuition
Some UNC professional
schools could see tuition
increases as large as $8,500
over the next four years.
By Rachel Clarke
and Stephanie Horvath
Staff Writers
Trustees approved tuition increases
and discussed Master Plan blueprints at
the Board of Trustees meetings
Wednesday afternoon and Thursday
morning.
The BOT approved large tuition
increases for five of UNC’s professional
schools Wednesday, and the matter will
now be put before the Board of
Governors, which will meet in January.
Chancellor James Moeser articulated
the need for the increases to the board
members at Thursday’s meeting.
“Ultimately, the tuition increases will
benefit the state of North Carolina by
continuing to produce the quality pro
fessionals the state needs,” Moeser said.
If they pass, the tuition increases will
affect the Kenan-Flagler Business
School, the School of Dentistry, the
School of Law, the School of Medicine
and the School of Pharmacy.
In-state increases would range from
$2,202 over three years for the phar
macy school to $8,500 over four years
for the business school.
Out-of-state increases would range
from $1,200 over three years for the
pharmacy school to SB,OOO over four
years for the business school.
The funds from the increases would go
toward student financial assistance, facul
ty salaries and hiring new professors.
The trustees reconvened Thursday to
discuss the Master Plan with architects
and Chapel Hill neighbors. The BOT
must approve the Master Plan before it
can be made a reality.
While much of the meeting was spent
BOT, Page 2