Newspapers / Elon University Student Newspaper / Sept. 22, 2010, edition 1 / Page 3
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THE PENDULUM NEWS WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. 2010 // PAGE 3 Hit-and-run driver cliarged witli felony Anna Johnson Managing Editor The Elon woman arrested for hitting and leaving an Elon University student Sept. 15 was also found guilty on four counts of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle in 2008. Robin Stanfield Ragsdale, of 500 James Toney Drive, was arrested and charged with a felony hit-and-run Sept. 16. Ragsdale allegedly hit first-year student Toorialey Fazly as he rode his bicycle to his 8 a.m. class. Fazly sustained injury to his second and third cervical vertebrae and has a leg fracture, said Elon Police Chief LaVell Lovette. Elon Police Lt. James Perry said a witness informed police that a black woman in a black sedan stopped at the scene, got out and looked at the victim before getting in her car and leaving on Williamson Avenue. Lovette said Fazly was airlifted to Duke Medical Center. According to an Elon Police Department press release, Ragsdale fled the scene because she panicked. Two e-mails were sent from Smith Jackson, vice president for student life, about the accident and Fazly's condition. In an e-mail sent Thursday morning, shortly before 8 a.m., Jackson wrote that Elon staff members are with Fazly and “his condition is stable and he is in very good spirits.” According to the e-mail, Fazly is expected to be released and able to return to classes this week wearing a neck brace. Ragsdale — under the name Robin Michelle Stanfield — was found guilty in a July 2007 accident that left four people dead. Pedestrians were attending to a broken-down car on University Drive near East Haggard Avenue when Ragsdale's car ran off the road and hit the stopped car. Michael King, 43, of Swepsonville, and Mildred Isley, 57, Freddie Coulter, 55, and his wife Sandra Coulter, 51, all of Graham, were killed in the accident. Larry Isley Jr., of Graham, was the only survivor. Students can drop off cards for Fazly at the Moseley Desk or the Office of Student Development (Moseley 206), and visitors can contact the Isabella Cannon Centre in Carlton for visiting hours. Elon Police reports show there have been five bicycle-related accidents in the past two years, including the April 2009 accident that resulted in the death of chemistry professor Eugene Gooch. In the Town of Elon’s 2008 Bicycle, Pedestrian and Lighting Master Plan there have been a total of two bicycle accidents from 2001 to 2006. Recommendations in the plan call for improvements along Williamson Avenue, St. Marks Church Road and Haggard Avenue. Town of Elon rezones land as university plans upperclassmen housing COREY GROOM | Staff Riotograpbof The university-owned property along Williamson Avenue, across from the fire department and called Firehouse Fields, was recently rezoned for student housing. Anna Johnson Managing Editor Elon University is one step closer to building the on-campus residence area for upperclassmen known as the senior village. The Elon Board of Aldermen approved the rezoning of land along Williamson Avenue across from the Elon Fire Department, also known as the firehouse fields, at the regularly scheduled meeting Sept. 14. The request to rezone the property as a public institutional planning district came at the urging of the university, which owns the property. The Williamson Avenue property is the intended location for the senior village and when built will add approximately 320 beds to campus. University officials are still working on the finances of the project, said Gerald Whittington, senior vice president for business, finance and technology. After the finances are in order, architectural drav\ungs will be tompleted and bids for the project can begin. “There is a window to when you can start something and have it opened by the start of school,” Whittington said. “If you miss it, you have to wait for the next year.” For construction to begin fall 2011 would be unlikely, he said, but fall 2012 seemed more probable. None of the present aldermen voted against the project. “I think that is good use of that property, and 1 am very anxious to see how that develops out there,” Elon Mayor Jerry Tolley said. When the property was zoned under a town center planning district, it was more ideal for a retail setting, Elon Town Manager Mike Dula said. “W'hatever (the university) wants to build will go through a long and detailed process," Dula said. “We’ve changed the zoning. We didn’t approve anything yet." The senior village mirrors a similar project in Wofford College. Elon University administration met with Wofford College officials to tour the senior village and to discuss the various benefits and disadvantages of the village. “It has been a great thing for our students,” said Robert Keasler, Wofford College’s vice president of operations and finances. “It's a concept of promoting interaction of buildings and outdoor space and promoting interaction between students and faculty. (The senior village) was a natural extension.” Xhe idea for the village, Keasler said, was to brjng the senior class back together before graduating and to promote neighborhood interactions. “We wanted them to have big living spaces, living rooms, dining rooms, porches,” Keasler said. “We provide rocking chairs and grills and all sorts of things. We wanted to have the feel of a neighborhood. We wanted a transition between college life and dorms to a feeling of home and a neighborhood.” The village at Wofford College was built in a series of phases and is located on campus. The location for Elon’s senior village is surrounded mostly by residential homes. Keasler said Wofford students didn't feel an economic impact from the senior village, and the village costs about the same as traditional residence halls. In other Elon Board of Aldermen business: The board also agreed to give Elon University's Campus Safety and Police jurisdiction over the new railroad underpass.Normal jurisdiction would go to the Town of Elon Police Department. The board also approved the following individuals to the Town of Elon Planning Board: Clark Bennett, Bob Harris and Mark Podolle as members and Ralph Harwood as an alternate member. Town Table employees see lag in tips as students pay with meal dollars MOLLY CAREY | Staff Photographer Katelyn Barbiasz serves customers at Town Table. After the restaurant worked in order to take meal dollars, waiters are seeing fewer tips because the plan doesn’t allow students to add tips. Jack Dodson News Editor When Town Table first opened last semester, owner Chris Russell worked with ARAMARK in order to accept meal dollars, a part of Elon University's meal plan that doesn't allow paying tips. But since then, many Town Table employees are making less money because students aren't tipping. According to manager Mark Bayliff, while management and employees were happy to be taking meal dollars because it brings in extra business, students who come in aren't realizing they can’t tip with the plan. “We were graciously allowed to have meal dollars,” Bayliff said. “And it’s always been ARAMARK’s policy that you can pay for food but you can't pay for services with meal dollars.” Jeff Gazda, regional district manager for ARAMARK at Elon, said the policy on tips has always been they are not accepted on meal dollars. He said he doesn’t recall anyone from Town Table coming to talk to him about the tipping issue at the restaurant. Bayliff said Town Table is working within ARAMARK’s rules for meal dollars. “We work hand-in-hand with them, and we’re operating under their guidelines,” he said. Part of the problem, according to Laura Ingalls, a server at Town Table, is that students associate meal dollars with eating locations where they wouldn't usually tip. “It’s not realized that this is not just a cafeteria,” Ingalls said. “I highly doubt that students would go into any other restaurant in town and just not tip.” She said meal dollars is a great benefit to the restaurant, though, because it allows students an extra way to pay, bringing them more business from Elon students. Bayliff said while he's noticed the use of meal dollars has hurt the tips for the employees, he hasn’t seen anyone get less than minimum wage. According to Harvard-affiliated PayWizard.org, restaurants have to pay employees to cover a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour if they aren’t receiving that much in tips. He said the reception to the restaurant’s opening has been good from the surrounding community, and because of that Town Table has done well since it opened in April. But when students come in with meal dollars as their only method of payment, he said they don’t have any way to tip the waiters. “You put your best foot forward, treat them like they’re at home,” he said. “It’s just frustrating.” Servers Nickie Bate and Jordan McDonough, seniors at Elon, and Tom Gaboriault, a graduate student, said they have noticed a drop in the amount of tips they receive because of meal dollars. “I would say 90 percent don’t tip," Bate said. For Bayliff, the issue is part of a bigger one in that people aren't educated about tipping. “It’s an education process — tipping is customarily 15 percent,” Bayliff said. “Some people just don’t know, they don’t understand tipping. More times than not, kids are coming in to pay with meal dollars and because they’re not allowed to leave a tip, they're just not tipping at all.”
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