Grounds committee to suggest BOC site soon
By Jennifer Talhelm
Associate Editor
Debate about a free-standing black
cultural center will resurface in the next
few weeks, but it might be a month
before any decision about the new build
ing is reached, UNC officials say.
Although discuusion about whether
to build anew BCC and where it should
be located was heated in March and
April, BCC supporters have been rela
tively quiet for more than a month as
they wait for the administration to take
the next step.
On Wednesday, Chancellor Paul
Hardin’s Buildings and Grounds Com
mittee met in a closed meeting to dis
Council to trim
departments in
future budgets
By Kelly Ryan
Associate Editor
After two and a half hours of plug
ging through the 1993-94 town budget,
the Chapel Hill Town Council decided
Tuesday that it would try to trim depart
mental budgets next year to make the
town more efficient.
At a budget work session, town coun
cil members Joyce Brown and Mark
Chilton told the council that the town
could have proposed a budget without a
tax increase if it had streamlined indi
vidual departmental budgets.
Chilton said he thought the council
should have asked the town employees
who were most intimately connected to
a department to suggest ways to reduce
costs.
For example, about s2,ooois included
in this year’s council budget for cater
ing council and Stormwater Manage
ment Committee meetings, he said.
“With all due respect to the
Stormwater Management Committee,
I’m not sure we need to cater their
meetings or our own,” he said. “Few
would suggest that the Town of Chapel
Hill is at its most efficient.”
Brown and Chilton recommended 5
School board election
attracts four residents
By Kristen Laney
Staff Writer
Although only two candidates offi
cially have announced theirplans to run
for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of
Education, four more have expressed
interest in one of three open seats.
Grainger Barrett, a local attorney and
parent, announced Saturday his candi
dacy for the Nov. 2 election. Barrett, a
longtime resident of Chapel Hill, is a
member of a blue-ribbon task force
charged with studying the performance
of black students in the school system.
Barrett also is a Little League base
ball coach and president of the board of
directors of the Chapel Hill Freedom
House, an alcohol detoxification facil
ity.
“The key to success in life is to have
the philosophy that you learn some
thing new each day,” Barrett said.
The school board seats of Doug
Breeden, Ted Parrish and Chairwoman
Mary Bushnell are open. Breeden and
Parrish already have announced that
they will not run for re-election.
Mary Bushnell said she still was not
sure whether she would seek another
term. “I probably will run, but I am not
announcing yet,” she said.
Parrish said he was not running be
cause the issues he was interested in
already had been considered by the
board. “Sixteen years is enough public
service for anyone,” he said.
University student and parent
LaVonda Burnette, 22, who graduated
from Chapel Hill High School, an
nounced her candidacy in March.
Several other prospective school
board candidates attended an orienta
tion meeting June 9, but none said they
were sure if they would run.
The four additional Chapel Hill resi
dents who attended the informational
meeting are:
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cuss the possible location for anew
BCC. The results of the meeting will
have a profound effect on which way
the administration will take the issue.
And June 24-25, the Board of Trust
ees will meet for the first time since
March. The BOT has agreed to discuss
the BCC issue although they aren’t
scheduled to vote on the issue until they
hear the chancellor’s report on the BCC.
The Buildings and Grounds Com
mittee will recommend a site for the
new BCC to Hardin. The chancellor
then will bring his proposal to the Board
of Trustees.
“I’d like to have the report ready by
July,” he said. “If there’s anything con
troversial about the BCC that happens
percent cuts in all departments. The
memo they drafted for the council’s
consideration says the council should
try to eliminate waste, rather than elimi
nate services.
Although council members agreed
that Town Manager Cal Horton should
involve the town staff in recommend
ing departmental cuts, most said they
thought it was too late to make such
amendments to the 1993-94 budget.
The council must adopt a budget or
an interim budget by July 1 when the
fiscal year begins.
Council member Alan Rimer said
because the council was two weeks
away from adopting a budget, it was
much too late to ask each department to
study its programs.
“What that forces each department to
do is to look at each of their programs,”
Rimer said. “I would not ask them to do
that at this point in the budget cycle.
That would be a herculean task which
frankly results in inefficiency in look
ing at the programs.”
Horton said it would take several
months to study ways to cut departmen
tal budgets, but Brown said she hoped
See BUDGET, page 4
■ Alan Belch, (dFjrftrSFdrjt
who said he was WWWWW, *
waiting to decide
whether to run so . A''
he would have %
time to make a
responsible deci- -*
si on: -'G*
■ Richard SchOOl
SteiffsS [ Board
grade teacher at Estes Elementary
School, who said he attended the infor
mational meeting to understand the
intracasies of the school board;
■ Mark Royster, chairman of the
blue-ribbon task force, who said he
thought the school system should be a
school for all students, parents and teach
ers; and
■ Leon Peace, a longtime area resi
dent, who said he thought he would run
after learning what the job would entail.
Peace said he also was considering run
ning for a seat on the Chapel Hill Town
Council.
Barrett said he planned to concen
trate on pursuing the success of black
students, spending educational money
wisely and exploring innovative class
room programs.
“We can’t teach our kids the way we
as parents were taught,” he said.
Educational money should be con
centrated in a couple of areas to make
certain programs very strong, Barrett
said.
“This means that we may have to
simplify rather than diversify our pro
gram offerings,” he said.
Burnette said if she were elected, she
would pursue a plan to guarantee a first
rate education for all students who at
tend the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City
Schools. She added that she wanted to
increase community involvement in the
See SCHOOL, page 4
CAMPUS AND CITY
before then I may wait until the students
get back so I can meet with them.”
Buildings and Grounds Committee
Chairman John Sanders on Monday said
he didn’t expect the committee to be
able to give the chancellor a recommen
dation for the next few weeks.
“We’re not aiming to have some
thing in the chancellor’s hands in time
for the June meeting,” Sanders said.
The possible site for anew BCC has
been an emotional issue during the past
few months. Two locations are being
considered —one between Coker Hall
and the Bell Tower and the other be
tween Wilson Library and Dey Hall.
UNC officials have not endorsed either
location, but BCC supporters say they
N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jim Exum, far left, swears in new BOG members, including UNC law student Mark Bibbs, third from left
BOG swears in 15 new members Friday
By Yi-Hsin Chang
Editor
Fifteen new members of the UNC
Board of Governors, including UNC
CH second-year law student Mark
Bibbs, were sworn in Friday by N.C.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Jim
Exum although their terms officially
will not begin until July 1.
The swearing-in makes Bibbs, 22,
by far the youngest BOG member.
The next youngest member. Sam Neill,
43, had been the youngest on the board
for the last eight years.
“I think that my age is an asset for
me,” Bibbs said. “I hope I can repre
sent a different view than most of the
people on the board.”
Bibbs, who majored in political
science as an undergraduate at UNC
CH, had served as an ex-officio mem
ber of the BOG for the past two years
as president of the UNC Association
of Student Governments.
Derrick Griffith, a graduate student
Task force studying fairness of county elections
Byjada Overton
Staff Writer
Elections for Orange County Com
missioners could be unfair to residents
living in the rural part of the county,
according to members of a task force
studying the issue.
Rural residents of Orange County
can be outvoted by residents from the
more urban Chapel Hill and Carrboro,
said Marc Marcoplos, a member of the
Committee for Fair Representation.
The task force was formed last month
to determine whether county elections
were unfair to residents from the west
ern and northern parts of the county.
Marcoplos, who ran as an indepen
dent candidate fora commissioners seat
in 1992, said the issue had been sim
mering for years. “The task force is a
direct reaction my campaign,” he said.
“It’s probably the best thing that came
out of it since I lost.”
The task force held a public hearing
Wednesday and will hold another today
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only will accept a BCC built on the
Wilson-Dey site.
The Wilson-Dey site, however, is in
demand by other departments. The sci
ence departments have claimed the site
is the best location for a physical-sci
ences library.
At their Wednesday meeting, the
Buildings and Grounds Committee as
sessed a report issued by the Facilities
Planning Committee, which was com
missioned by buildings and grounds to
evaluate the two sites and decide which
was more suitable for the planned li
brary.
At press time, Sanders said commit
tee members would discuss the issue at
the Wednesday meeting. Sanders will
at UNC-Charlotte and current ASG
president, was not present Friday but
will take Bibbs’ place as an ex-officio
BOG member in July.
Of the 18 members elected by the
General Assembly in February and
March, only one— John Garwood of
North Wilkesboro was not present
for the swearing-in ceremony.
Two members former Gov. Jim
Martin and Winston-Salem resident
Valeria Lee took their oaths of office at
the May meeting. They were appointed
to open seats, and their terms will expire
in two years.
Only half of the 18 new members are
really new to the board. Nine were re
elected to four-year terms: Garwood,
Neill, Roderick Adams of Durham, Lois
Britt of Mount Olive, Wallace Hyde of
Raleigh, Jack Jordan of Mount Gilead,
Ellen Newbold of Rose Hill. Maxine
O’Kelley of Burlington and Harold
Webb of Raleigh.
The nine members beginning their
first elected terms are: Martin, Lee,
in Hillsborough to study the issue.
“We want to determine who it’s not
fair to,” said Moses Carey, chairman of
the Orange County Commissioners.
“We want the committee to make a
recommendation on a system that will
make it fair.”
Marcoplos said 65 percent to 70 per
cent of the Orange County population
lives in the Chapel Hill and Carrboro
area, so those residents easily can domi
nate county elections.
Carey said he thought the task force
would have a recommendation in the
next two months. “This is something
that doesn’t take two or three years to
study. Either it’s fair or it’s not.”
Marcoplos said the task force planned
to ask for an extended deadline. “These
folks think that they’re going to have
two public hearings, meet one time af
ter that and turn in a report which will
deal with how we represent ourselves.”
Verla Insko, a member of the county
commissioners, said she thought the
committee would have enough time to
The Daily Tar Heel/Thursday, June 17, 1993>
write a report based on the committee’s
decision.
“I hope the committee will be ready
to make some decision,” Sanders said.
University officials have come un
der fire from BCC supporters who claim
the administration is frying to delay the
issue as long as it can.
The recent freeze put on the BCC’s
funds by Donald Boulton, vice chancel
lor for student affairs, has caused BCC
supporters to question the University’s
motives again.
BCC Director Margo Crawford, who
has called the freeze a “witch hunt” to
single her out for criticism, said she
thought the administration was trying
to make the BCC look unstable before
Bibbs, Irvin Aldridge of Manteo, John
Cecil of Biltmore, Bert Collins of
Durham, Helen Marvin of Gastonia,
Wayne Peterson of Raleigh and H.D.
Reaves Jr. of Fayetteville.
Aldridge, a 1959 UNC-CH law
school graduate, said he was excited
and ready to go to work on the BOG. “I
hope I’m able to make a contribution to
the Board of Governors.”
Reaves said he was looking forward
to his term on the BOG. “I think it’ll be
a great challenge, but it’s a great oppor
tunity for service.”
Reaves said that he had no personal
agenda, but that he was concerned about
faculty salaries, library cuts and budget
restraints. He also wants to help main
tain the UNC-system’s national reputa
tion, he said.
In other business, the BOG elected
Neill as its new secretary. Beginning
July 1, Neill will complete outgoing
member Charles Flack Jr.’s term as
secretary. Flack, a real estate and insur
ance executive in Forest City, has been
determine if there were a problem. “But
it’s not enough time for a proposal that
would be a solution,” she said.
Marcoplos said he thought the board
of commissioners should be expanded
and its members elected from districts,
so that rural residents would have their
voices heard.
“If there were a couple of representa
tives from rural areas at the table, it
would open up communication and let
people know that they are part of the
community,” he said.
Marcoplos said he thought there was
a disparity between the county’s urban
and rural residents. “The incomes are
lower (in northern Orange County),
there's a lot of agriculture and they are
politically more conservative,” he said.
Marcoplos added that it was these
differences that made fair representa
tion important to the people in the rural
part of the county. “If we could come up
with a fair representation system, the
tension level would come down and we
could do a much better job of taking
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the June BOT meeting.
“I think they’re trying to defame the
cultural center,” she said. “I think that
it’s quite obvious the University does
not value the black cultural center at any
extent or my contribution to it
“I think my contributions have been
used —and this is not the first time
to degrade the fine work we’re doing
here.”
But Hardin said Crawford’s claims
were “not well grounded.” He said he
planned to meet with the trustees before
he gave his report to try to convince
them that the new BCC was necessary
to the University. “I hope that we can
make a case for the value of a black
cultural center.”
on the board since 1977.
Neill said he was not surprised to be
elected secretary. “I’m excited about
it.” The Hendersonville attorney added
that he wafiteef to ioCus on the same
issues he had been interested in for the
past eight years: pushing for a more
open selection of university trustees,
communicating with each of the 16
UNC campuses and seeking a broader
range of representation on the BOG,
especially younger people like Bibbs.
UNC-system President C.D.
Spangler expressed confidence in the
newly-elected secretary. “He’ll make
a fine secretary of the board. He’s
faithful on his attendance every time.”
BOG Chairman Samuel Poole
thanked and presented framed certifi
cates to the seven outgoing members,
whose terms officially will end June
30. Of the seven, two Reginald
McCoy of Laurinburg and Maceo
Sloan of Durham have served on
the BOG since the board’s inception
in 1972.
care of issues,” he said.
One source of tension between county
residents was the 1992 passage of a $52
million school bond referendum. The
bond will pay for anew middle and high
school in Chapel Hill-Carrboro, anew
Orange County middle school and tech
nology upgrades county wide.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Edu
cation member Ken Touw said Chapel
Hill-Carrboro schools will receive about
S3O million from the bond, while county
school will receive $22 million.
“They feel like they’re being cheated
in the division of that money,” he said.
Touw said Chapel Hill-Carrboro
schools needed the new facilities to
meet the needs of a growing student
population. “Chapel Hill schools are
experiencing larger growth than the
county school.”
Former Orange County School Board
member June Haas, who served on the
board at the time of the bond’s passage,
said, “The Orange County school sys
tem has never gotten their fair share.”
3