2 Wednesday, February 15,1995 Law Students Work to Take Guns off Streets BY MEGAN HANLEY STAFF WRITER A group of UNC law students are fol lowing in the tradition of “Buy Back the Hill" and plan to sponsor a gun buyback program in April. The program will allow people to sell back their guns in order to get them off the streets. “We wanted to know what we could do to make our community safer, involving guns specifically, and we decided this more than anything was a tangible result,” said UNC law student Allen Baddour, who is the task force chairman. The task force is a group of law students who have come together to prevent gun violence, he said. Chi Psi fraternity became involved with “Buy Back the Hill” after an Appalachian State student was killed at its house last year. The fraternity sponsored a gun buyback program in May, and although Chi Psi is no longer involved in the project, several members of last year’s group are SBP FROM PAGE 1 “We will continue to get the message out.” Cunningham’s platform includes bring ing national bands and speakers to UNC, providing Internet services in dorms, and expanding peer advising and the Point-2- Point service. Other items on Cunningham’s platform are installing more lights and call boxes, making the University more attractive to minorities, and taking a visible role in COMPAa The latest in Desktop and Portable Computers from the world’s leading maker of Personal Computers! Bill . 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AUiilfiTMlilLf filliilf EXPIRES 2122195 GOOD ONLY AT THE RAM SHOP ♦Association of Shareware Professionals Approved. 1 1 advising the new task force, Baddour said. “They (Chi Psi members) and the Buy Back the Hill group disbanded in January and kind of put out a call for new involve ment, and we’ve pretty much taken over the group,” he said. “Our purpose is the same thing.” The downtown shootings Jan. 26 prompted some to join the task force. “My initial reaction (to the shootings) was a sense of helplessness, that a person could take every precaution and still become a victim in such a senseless tragedy,” said Jennifer Davis, vice chairwoman of the group. “I’ve tried to combat my helpless ness by working on the campaign and help to prevent gun violence in Chapel Hill." Most funding for the campaign will come from private contributions. Money from last year’s effort is being held in escrow by the town. Baddour went to the Chapel Hill Town Council on Monday night to ask for a resolution to obtain the leftover funding. The Council referred the matterto the town lobbying. “We put forth a good effort,” he said. “We have the energy, and we’re ready to move forward.” Both candidates said they planned to continue to campaign this week, with no major changes in their campaign strate gies. Brandenburg and Cunningham’s victo ries eliminated the four outsider candi dates from the race for student body presi dent. Jen Fiumara ended up with 389 votes; Andrew France had 270 votes; Robert staff, and it will probably come up at the next meeting, Feb. 27, council member Lee Pavao said Tuesday. Several fund-raising events will also be held in early spring. The task force hopes to sell T-shirts, hold a benefit concert and set up a booth at local malls, Baddour said. The Chapel Hill Police Department helped handle the purchasing and evaluat ing of the guns during the buyback last year, and the task force hopes to have its assistance in this buyback, too, Davis said. Residents selling their guns could re ceive as much as SSO last year, depending onthetypeofgun. Thisyear’sbuybackwill not have an upper price limit. “We decided to not limit the upper end in hopes of having more people to sellbacktheir guns,” Baddour said. He added that people who turned in guns would remain anonymous. The returned guns are usually disabled, and a local artist is trying to build a sculp ture with the dismantled guns. Members of the new task force will be able to decide Simes received 131 votes; and Kelly Jo Gamer had 131 votes. Fiumara said she was satisfied with her campaign efforts. “I think third shows that an outsider can make a good showing,” she said. “I hope my miming will convince some one in the fiiture to run a similar cam paign.” Simes said he was not disappointed with how the results came out. “We ran an honest campaign that dealt with the issues,” he said. “I just want to wish both candidates good luck.” CITY what to do with the guns. “We make sure that it (a gun) is not recycled back into the community; it’s forever disarmed,” Baddour said. Some high-quality guns might be used for police training, he said. The group decided to hold a buyback because it thought it was a way to directly affect the community, Davis said. “We can’t assume that a gun buyback will pre vent gun violence, but if it prevents one accident, one suicide or one child from using a gun, then in njy mind it’s had a positive impact on our community.” After the buyback, the group hopes to become involved in educational programs, such as awareness and gun safety pro grams. The task force wants to involve other members of the University and town com munities. Currently, all members of the task force are law students, but Baddour said he hoped other faculty, students and townspeople would support the task force and give it more ideas. Brandenburg received many ofher votes from the Student Union and Chase Hall polishes. She and Cunningham each re ceived about the same number at the law school and Hanes Art Center. Tuesday’s total voter turnout was just under 3,700, a significant decrease from last year’s total of more than 4,200 voters. Over the past several years, student turn out has varied widely from one election to the next. The turnout in 1994 was the highest since 1990,but the previous fouryears had seen a steady decrease. Orange County Looks at Alternatives for Children BY LAURA GODWIN STAFF WRITER The Orange County Department of Social Services is looking for alternative ways to find care for the 35 emotionally or physically challenged children in the county’s custody. Because of a lack of suitable facilities for the children in Orange County, the chil dren are being placed in locations outside of their home county. A county task force has been investigat ing the problem of placing emotionally and physically handicapped children for about six months, DSS Director Marti Pryor-Cooksaid. “Theneedhasbeenbuild ing for a number of years,” she said. Pryor-Cook said DSS was in the process of looking for ways to treat and house hard-to-place children within Orange County. “By this time in 1996, we will have a plan,” she said. “We are looking at short-term emergency resources as well as long-term care.” Child Protective Service Supervisor Patty Clarke said the cost to the county to place a child in another jurisdiction could range from SI,BOO to SIO,OOO. “We are placing the children out of our county and paying tremendous amountsfortheir care,” she said. Clarke said that by keeping the children in Orange County, the county would save money and the children would reap the benefits. “The cost (to the county) is more than I like to think,” said Moses Carey, chairman of the Orange County Board of Commis sioners. “It cost anywhere from SSO to S3OO a day for each child.” Despite the department’s best efforts to keep hard-to-place children in Orange County, the specialized care many chil dren need is simply not available in the county. Asa result, the county must place the children in other counties, Mack said. Pryor-Cook said DSS spent a great deal VOTING FROM PAGE 1 which was then given to representatives from the Elections Board to post in 106 Carroll Hall. Wingate said that although it might make candidates more nervous, he thought releasing the information poll site by poll site was better than giving it out all at once. “It makes for a much more interesting elections process to do it in batches be cause candidates are stronger in certain areas than others,” he said. Elections Board Chairwoman Erin Lewis said improvements made from last year’s tallying of student voteshad speeded up the process this year. rt “This year, it was a lot easier for poll tenders to just come in and start working, ” Lewis said. “The instructions were self explanatory and easy.” By 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, election results were reported from four of the six poll sites —and the remaining two, the two largest, were reported just before midnight. Mike Thomas, who designed the sys tem used at the polls this year and last year, said he had been able to avoid some poten tial problems through his experience from the previous year. Black History Month Spotlight Eugenia Charles Knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1991, Dame Eugenia Charles has served as the prime minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica since 1980. She is the first black woman ever to head a country. Dubbed by her contemporaries as “The Caribbean’s Iron Lady,” Charles is credited with having turned around Dominica’s weak economy. Now, at age 75, she is completing her third and final term in office. fro UARANTEED DELICIOU S Our bagels have to make the grade before they make the basket. A Bruegger s, our bagels are made with the freshest ingredients, kettle-boiled, and baked to a golden finish on a real stone hearth. And every single one has to be perfect. Because they’re guaranteed. If you don’t like them, we eat them ourselves. Not that we mind. BRUEGGER’sTiAGEL BAKERY” The Best Tiling Round® Now Open at Mission Valley Shopping Center, Raleigh Ralbghi Mission Valley Shopping Center, 2302 Hillsborough St; Pleasant Valley Promenade; North Hills Mall; Sutton Square on Falls of the Neuse Rd. Cary: 122 S.W. Maynard St Chapel Hilli Eastgate Shopping Center, 104 West Franklin St. Durham: 626 Ninth St. Open Seven Days a Week ®lje Saily oar Heel of time searching for care for emotionally and physically challenged children. “The department goes all over looking for group homes or specialized care,” she said. “It takes an awfal lot of time to try to find the resources.” According to a DSS report, a hard-to place child fells into one of four different categories: children between the ages of 5 and 11 who suffer from severe psychologi cal and emotional problems who require periodic hospitalization; children who fre quently run away; children who are diag nosed as having mental retardation as well as psychiatric problems; and teenagers who have sociopathic behaviors resistant to treatment. The county is responsible for these chil dren because “the county will go to court and request custody of the children in a few instances when the family is unable to work with the Department of Social Ser vices,” said Julia Mack, director of pro gramming for Guardian Ad Litem, a vol unteer advocacy group for abused and ne glected children in Chapel Hill. The group is often appointed by the court to care for hard-to-place children. Although DSS tries to work with each family to avoid taking the child out of the home, neglect and abuse often warrant the child’s removal, Mack said. When appropriate homes and treatment cannot be found quickly, children can be placed in temporary housing with an avail able family, she said. “This is not designed to be permanent.” Sometimes, the children have a long wait before they are placed in a permanent home, Pryor-Cook said. “The children are moved from family to family,” she said. DSS presented the alternatives to place ment outside of the county to the Orange County Board of Commissioners. Carey said the board would wait until a final plan for action was issued by the county task force before budget consider ations were made. “Last year, I didn’t have that much time to come up with something,” he said. “But this year, I had experience and knew what problems would come up.” Thomas said the tallying of election results had been a collaborative effort be tween several University departments, in cluding the two different sections of OIT, the Office of the University Registrar and Administrative Data Processing. He said 10 to 12 OIT computers were used at various poll sites this year. “Last year, we were basically operating on bor rowed computers,” he said. “There were seven or eight computers campuswide.” He said the computerized system pro vided several conveniences. “It moves the line along quicker, and it solves the problem of students voting twice.” Thomas also said poll-tenders could automaticallytell on-campus studentswhat district they lived in by typing in their social security number. “Students don’t usually know what dis trict they live in,” he said. “This saves students having to look at a sheet.” Thomas said off-campus students were still on the honor system to tell what dis trict they lived in. “Still, that’s about 6,000 students who live on campus.” Campus Calendar WEDNESDAY 10 a.m. CAMP DAY - summer jobs, Great Hall. 11 a.m. SFC Volunteer drive in the Pit. 1 p.m. Peace Corps presentations inUnion2l3. 3 p.m. Support Group for Women Graduate Students in the counseling center, 101 Nash Hall. Dissertation/Thesis Support Group in the Uni versity Counseling Center. 3:30 p.m. Lesbian Support Group in 210 Nash. Job Hunt 101A: decide which career field is best for you, in 209 Hanes Hall. Sponsored by UCS. 4 p.m. Panel on Science Careers in 210 Hanes. 5 p.m. Guided “tour” of Iran in the Union.

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