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POLICE
roundup
University
Wednesday, Feb. 15
■ A UNC employee reported the lar
ceny of her wallet in Taylor building be
tween 2 p.m. and 4 p.m Tuesday, accord
ing to University police reports. The em
ployee did not realize her wallet was miss
ing until the State Employee’s Credit Union
called and said someone had cashed two of
her checks, police reports state.
Gerald David Atwater, 33, a UNC
housekeeping employee, was arrested
Wednesday and charged with three counts
of forgery and uttering after trying to pass
a third check, according to police reports.
Police officials also issued warrants to
Atwater for felonious financial transaction
card theft and misdemeanor larceny while
he was in custody of the Chapel Hill police,
reports state.
Atwater confessed to the crimes and
instructed police officers that he had left
the wallet in the fourth-floor lounge of
UNC Hospitals, according to reports.
■ Investigators interviewed a student
who reported an alleged second-degree rape
against her in her dorm room on Jan. 14 by
another student, reports state.
Tuesday, Feb. 14
■ A student reported the larceny of his
bookbag, wallet and jacket from Woollen
Gymnasium atabout 4:20p.m., according
to reports. Other items missing were discs,
S3O and miscellaneous items from his wal
let and bookbag whose total value was
$265, reports state.
■ Another wallet larceny was reported
by a student in Woollen Gymnasium as
having happened at about 8 p.m. while the
student was playing basketball, reports
state. The total value of missing items is
$Bl, according to University police reports.
■ Vandalism to a Carmichael Audito
rium window and visitor’s parking sign
was reported by an employee at about 8:30
a.m., according to University police re
ports. Total damage was SBO, reportsstate.
■ The UNC administration building
was evacuated at about 9:15 a.m. because
of gas fumes, according to police reports.
The Chapel Hill Fire Department was
called in and nothing was found, so em
ployees were allowed to return, reports
state. The fumes were said to have possibly
been coming from an idling car outside,
according to reports.
■ The South Orange Rescue Squad re
sponded to a call at a first-floor ladies’
room in the Hanes Art Center, where a
student was complaining of stomach pains,
according to University police reports. The
student was taken to the infirmary, reports
state.
■ A UNC student reported her wallet
lost or stolen at Playmakers Theatre at
about 9 a.m., according to University po
lice reports. The wallet was last seen Mon
day, according to police reports.
Monday, Feb. 13
■ A UNC medical student reported her
briefcase stolen at about 11 a.m. in the
Room 101 lounge ofßerryhill after she had
awoken from a nap, according to police
reports. The total value ofher property was
$167, reports state.
■ A money bag was reported missing
from the UNC Ambulatory Care Facility
at Mason Farm Road in the morning by an
employee, according to University police
reports. The employee said the bag had
been locked in a desk drawer on the third
floor, reports state. The bag contained $75,
according to reports.
■ A Health Affairs Maintenance Shop
employee reported larceny of some shop
equipment during the past three months,
according to reports. Items missing are a
dual-feed sewer machine, portable genera
tor and three piecesofcopperpipe, totaling
$2,539, reports state.
City
Wednesday, Feb. 15
■ Kenneth Avery Smith, 30, of2OON.C.
54 Bypass PlO3 was stopped by police at
1:25 a.m. after he was observed driving 68
miles per hour in a45 mph zone, according
to reports.
Smith, who teaches in the Durham City
Schools, was found to have a .12 blood
alcohol level, reports state. A check with
the Department ofMotor Vehicles revealed
that he was driving with a revoked license,
according to police reports.
■ Police were called to settle a domestic
dispute at Local 506, located at 506 W.
Franklin St., at 4:03 a.m., according to
reports. The argument was between an
employee ofthe business and his girlfriend,
reports state.
Tuesday, Feb. 14
■ Police received a report at 2:12 p.m.
that a coat had been stolen from a coat rack
at Chapel of the Cross, located at 311 E.
Franklin St. The coat, a tan double-breasted
trench coat, was valued at S6BO, according
to police reports.
■ Police responded to a report of at
tempted robbery and assault at the comer
of Elliott and Audubon roads at 6:40 p.m.
An unknown suspect pointed a handgun at
a person and demanded money, reports
state.
■ Police received a report of a prowler
looking through the window of a residence
on Brookside Drive at 2:17 a.m.
■ Police received a report at 8:05 a.m.
that a vehicle had been stolen from the
parking lot of the Airport Road BP. The
grey 1991 Jeep Wrangler, valuedat $4,500,
was taken Monday night, reports state.
FROM STAFF REPORTS
Vigil Raises Issues About Abortion
BY RYAN THORNBURG
CITY EDITOR
The daylong drizzle couldn’t stop a small
band of faithful vigilants from gathering
Wednesday in front of the Franklin Street
post office to protest the use of violence in
anti-abortion protests.
Organizers of the noon vigil said their
rally was not a response to any event in
particular. However, with the upcoming
trial of John Salvi, a man accused ofkilling
two abortion clinic receptionists in Massa
chusetts, and the addition of abortion ser
vices to the Chapel Hill Planned Parent
hood, the community continues to deal
with a national issue that is hitting home.
“It’s a terribly important issue because
the radical anti-abortion activists are actu
ally killing people now,” said Robert G wyn,
iiioHImSM B Jf
DTH/CHRIS REUTHER
Kevin Cook drags one of the Chapel Hill Flying Club's Cessna airplanes off the runway to its parking place at Horace Williams Airport. Cook
recently completed his check ride with an FAA inspector, the last step in landing his pilot's license.
Local Club Helps Fliers Earn Their Wings
BY JULIE TWELLMAN
STAFF WRITER
Some of us equate flying with cramped leg
room, peanuts and lost luggage. Others see it as
atrouble-free method of transportation.
But whether you view fly ing as a nuisance or as
an adventure, for most it is a passive activity where
you have to leam to trust the pilot and relax.
Some Chapel Hill residents and students, how
ever, have taken a more active role in the airborne
experience.
The Chapel Hill Flying Club, which has been in
existence since 1961, has about24o members who
spend time practicing and perfecting the art of
flying. Many of the members are students and
faculty members at UNC who spend hour upon
hour at Horace Williams Airport in Chapel Hill
“No prior experience is needed,” said Robert
Bailey, a volunteer with the club. “We get a lot of
people who have never flown before, and if you
can think clearly and have good vision, it’s easy to
get started.”
Ray Kirk, associate director of the Human
Student Voter Turnout
Comes Close to 4,000
BY ADAM GUSMAN
UNIVERSITY EDITOR
Voter turnout in Tuesday's election was
lower than last year, but 3,985 students did
cast ballots.
Stacey Brandenburg, student body presi
dent candidate, said she thought the turn
out was relatively normal. “I thought it
was about average voter turnout. It is usu
ally low,” Brandenburg said.
Brandenburg received the most votes in
Tuesday’s student body president race, but
she will face Calvin
Cunningham in
next week’s runoff
election.
Cunningham
said he thought
voter turnout had
been higher than he
tw
had expected. “We anticipated going into
this that turnout would be low. Somebody
got people to go to the polls, and we want
to get to the bottom of that," he said.
A computerized system was used in
order allow the4,oooballots to be scanned
more efficiently.
“The computers helped things to go
more smoothly. I wouldn’t say that people
waited more than 10 minutes," said Ross
McKamey, vice chairman of the Elections
Board.
McKamey also said he believed that the
voting system was simpler than it had been
in the past—both for voters and for poll
tenders.
UNIVERSITY & CITY
a UNC professor emeritus and one of the
seven members of the Women’s Interna
tional League for Peace and Freedom who
was at the vigil.
Others said they couldn’t understand
why a town the size of Chapel Hill, which
already has several abortion clinics, would
need another one.
“I can’t imagine Planned Parenthood
going forward with this thing, and I’m
speaking for myself, but there’s big busi
ness involved,” said Jean O’Connor, who
works with the Respect Life Committee of
St. Thomas More Catholic church.
Joe Straley, who is involved in WILPF,
said that if there was a need for abortions,
the service should be provided.
“After all, any service that people want
should be available,” he said. “I guess this
is sort of a free enterprise.”
Services Research Laboratory at UNC and a flight
instructor with the club, said the convenience and
location of the airport had been influential in his
decision to take a job here. “I had to fly a lot at first
for my job,” said Kirk, who has been flying for
about 30 years. “Now, I am able to fly myself to
meetings and conferences across the country in
stead of using commercial flights.”
Kirk added that he liked the format of the club.
“Since it is nonprofit, they only charge enough
to pay for the maintenance of the airplanes, which
are even equipped better than most of the ones you
could rent out of commercial places.”
Safety is the main concern for Jim Yankaskas,
an associate professor of medicine and pulmo
nary physician at UNC.
“One of the main reasons I joined the club was
to have a good, safe place to use planes, ” Yankaskas
said. “And they really do have excellent safety
records and programs here, like classes twice a
month and an annual flight review of each mem
ber. My standards are very high, and the standards
of the club are way above the national average.”
Like Kirk, Yankaskas has found the use of
Student voter turnout has fluctuated
greatly during the previous five years. He
said several factors affected student turn
out.
“I know last year a big contributor was
a referendum to change student fees, and
that was going to affect graduate students,
so that got a big push in the graduate
districts to get out and vote,” McKamey
said. “You can tell by those who won with
one vote in graduate districts that there was
not a very big turnout in those districts.”
Steve Hoffmann, who was running un
opposed for the office of Graduate and
Professional Student Federation president,
expressed surprise Tuesday that the elec
tion returns had indicated that he had re
ceived no votes from law school students.
McKamey said he was not sure why it
appeared that Hoffmann had received no
votes from that poll site. “Maybe the
Scantron didn’t read it because it was the
first poll site to be counted by the ma
chine,” he said. Hoffmann, who served as
GPSF vice president this year, was elected
president with 112 votes.
Brandenburg said she and her campaign
staff were planning no changes in strategy
or tactics during the few days remaining
before the runoff election.
Cunningham said his campaign staff
was looking to reinforce areas of already
existing support during campaigning this
week. “We’re going back to the people
who we think went out to the polls for us,
and we’re encouraging them that the fight
is not over.”
Several people in Chapel Hill familiar
with the abortion issue said they thought
there was more acceptance of abortion
clinics in Chapel Hill than in other parts of
the state and nation because of the Univer
sity community and the town’s young,
liberal population.
Straley said the University provided a
site for debate based on feet, not emotion.
“I think the presence of the University
helpskeepitreasonable,”hesaid. “What’s
going on on the University side of the street
is a quest for the facts. ”
But others said they believed that the
reason Planned Parenthood referred nearly
600 abortions last year was because of a
sexually active University community.
“I think it’s just a shame we try to make
young people today so sexually active,”
O’Connor said, pointing out the risk of
private planes to be convenient for his job; he has
to travel every month or two for business research.
“I’ve been all over for different meetings,” he
said. “I’m doing research on cystic fibrosis right
now, so I just got back from Orlando. Next will be
Dallas. It’s great, too, because at no extra cost I can
take my family with me on trips."
In order to fly independently, all you need is
some practice time and a little spare cash, Bailey
said. Members pay monthly dues of $35, after
which they can begin private instruction and work
toward a flight certificate.
Because many instructors volunteer with the
club, it is possible to complete initial training in as
few as 65 hours, Bailey said.
Instructor Brian Boehlecke, also an associate
professor of medicine at UNC, joined the club to
pick up where he had left off with flying. He had
taken flight lessons before but took a 10-year hiatus
from the activity. “I had always wanted to leam to
fly, and I really enjoy doing it,” he said. “Since
joining the club, I ha ve gone on to get my instructor 1 s
certificate. Besides being useful, it’s always very
challenging and interesting.”
New 18-Member Chancellor’s Committee
To Plan Academic Future of the University
BYMICHAEL HATCH
STAFF WRITER
Chancellor Paul Hardin announced the
creation of anew 18-member committee to
help chart the future course of the Univer
sity.
The new committee will be in charge of
coordinating the various campus planning
efforts currently underway. Recently, these
planning efforts have included the
reaccreditation self-study, the planning for
the outlying Horace Williams and Mason
Farm tracts, and planning for future fund
raising efforts to replace the Bicentennial
Campaign for the University that ends this
June.
The 18-member committee will be
School Board to Delve Into Issues at Retreat
BY JENNIFER MARSHBURN
STAFF WRITER
Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Educa
tion members will make plans for the up
coming schoolyear at their annual retreat
Friday and Saturday at the Friday Center
0nN.C.54.
The retreat is open to the public and will
be a forum for ideas from school board
members, parents and principals from area
schools. It will provide a chance for admin
istrative officials to look at proposals for
the 1995-96 school year.
“The purpose of the retreat is to allow
the school board an opportunity to focus
diseases caused by unprotected sex. “They
just leave themselves open.”
Several counseling services that provide
abortion alternatives operate in the area.
Mimi Every, executive director of Preg
nancy Support Services in Durham, oper
ates the cross-denominational Christian
ministry, which encourages women to carry
their babies to full term.
“I don’t think (Chapel Hill) is represen
tative of the entire nation,” she said. “But
naturally what happens in the news media
is that you don’t get the conservative view
point.”
Gwyn said he was concerned that po
litical pressure would soon lead to the
complete repeal of Roe vs. Wade.
“I suspect that the time is not too far off
that Chapel Hill will be the only place you
can get legal abortions.”
Town Set to Give
Its Wish List to
State Legislature
Rough Draft of Potential Requests Includes
Money for UNC Fire Services and
Entertainment Tax on Smith Center
BYANGELAMOORE
STAFF WRITER
The Chapel Hill Town Council met Monday and approved a
list of potential requests to go before the state legislature for
approval. Mayor Ken Broun called this list “a very rough draft on
which we are seeking public comment.”
The public will get its chance to voice opinions about the list of
potential legislative measures in a public hearing Feb. 27 at the
Chapel Hill Town Hall. After that, the council will amend the list
if necessary and hand it over to a town legislative delegation, which
will make the final changes.
“We could always reconsider any of the measures,” council
member Joyce Brown said. “It’s not written in stone.”
The list includes a request to replace the intangibles tax that the
General Assembly is in the process of repealing. The intangibles
tax is a tax on stocks and bonds that many towns use to increase
revenue. In Chapel Hill, the tax generates $638,000 annually.
Council members said that they hoped the General Assembly
would find a way to replace the lost revenue but that nothing was
definite.
The possibility that the General Assembly will not act to replace
the lost revenue raises the issue of an increase in taxes. “I certainly
strongly believe that taxes should not be increased,” Broun said.
However, he said the council could consider a decrease in services,
such as less funding for parks and recreational facilities.
Council member Pat Evans said the loss of the intangibles tax
could result in an adjustment to existing services rather than a
complete elimination. “The services that would be adjusted aren’t
cost-effective anyway,” she said. She said transportation system
routes could be changed or parking violation fines could be
increased to regain the lost revenue.
Another important measure requested in the list was an in
crease in state fending to the town’s Fire Department. Currently,
Chapel Hill annually from the state to pay for
fire protection for the'University and UNC Hospitals. About 30
percent of the calls to the fire department are from the University
and the hospitals, a much higher percentage than the state fending
covers. The council wants the amount of fending received to be
proportional to the fire services provided.
Evans said she had worked on the legislation delegation that
tried to pass that measure in the General Assembly last year. The
delegation held back from actively pursuing the legislation on the
advice of state legislators. She said the climate in the current
assembly was even less conducive to the change than last year.
Broun said he doubted the assembly would pass the town’s
fending request for the Fire Department. “It’s a remote possibility
only,” he said. “The state has not been receptive in the past.”
One item on the list that would affect the University is a
proposed $ 1 entertainment tax on all tickets for events in the Smith
Center and Kenan Stadium. “The entertainment tax has generated
a lot of interest but hasn’t been granted so far,” Brown said.
The potential legislation list also included a request for low
income housing provisions, an impact tax, an increase in the motor
vehicle license fee and a statewide gun-control referendum, among
other items.
“Our most important focus is
to create a Universitywide
conversation about the
University’s academic goals in
the years ahead. ”
DICK MCCORMICK
UNC provost
chaired by Provost Dick McCormick and
will consist of faculty members, students
and administrators who have been involved
in the University’s planning efforts.
McCormick said he hoped the
on the big picture and lay all ideas on the
table,” said Ken Touw, chairman of the
school board. “It is a chance for board
members to make informal presentations
and take a look at long-range goals.”
School board member Mary Bushnell
said the retreat gave the school board a
chance to discuss issues in greate; detail.
“This retreat is a real opportunity to talk
at greater length about broader issues,”
Bushnell said. “If we did that at board
meetings, we would be there until even
later than we already are.”
The retreat differs from the typical school
board meetings in that the atmosphere is
much more laid back, and dress tends to be
Thursday, February 16,1995
Mai r
DTH/ERIK PER£L
Women's International League for
Peace and Freedom members brave
the weather during the vigil.
committee’s influence would be far- reach
ing. “Our most important focus is to create
a Universitywide conversation about the
University’s academic goals in the years
ahead,” he said.
In a memorandum to committee mem
bers, Hardin stated that he hoped the new
committee would establish a foundation
forbroad, sustained, campuswide academic
planning while focusing on several long
and short-range goals.
Hardin stated in his memorandum that
the committee’s long-term focus should be
on the University’s most vital academic
goals. Members were instructed by Hardin
to identify and discuss the University’s
See COMMITTEE, Page 4
more casual than at other board meetings.
The format of the meeting consists of open
dialogue between school board members
and other people at the meeting, instead of
the usual formal presentations and ques
tior.-and-answer sessions, Touw said.
Despite the casual nature of the retreat,
the board does not take it lightly, he said.
Board members use the informal meeting
to formulate plans for action in later board
meetings.
“We hold this retreat about this same
time every year to initiate planning of
projects, such as the budget, which we will
See RETREAT, Page 4
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