©je Saily (Ear Heel
The University and Towns
In Brief
Business School to Host
Postmaster General
William J. Henderson, postmaster
general and chief executive officer of
the U.S. Postal Service, will speak
Tuesday at the Kenan-Flagler Business
School.
A UNC alumnus, Henderson is a 27-
year veteran of the S6O billion-a-year
agency, the world’s largest postal sys
tem.
Henderson will speak at 5:30 p.m. in
the McColl Building’s MauriceJ. Koury
Auditorium. The lecture is part of the
Dean’s Speaker Series and is free and
open to the public.
To RSVP call 962-9252 or send an e
mail to KFBSRSVP@bschool.unc.edu.
Students to Receive
Chancellor’s Awards
Student recipients of the 1999-2000
Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in
academics, leadership and service will
be honored from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Thursday in the Student Union.
Interim Chancellor Bill McCoy,
Provost Dick Richardson and Vice
Chancellor for Student Affairs Sue
Kitchen will present the awards in the
Great Hall of the Student Union.
The ceremony is free and open to the
public.
Also to be honored at the ceremony
are faculty and teaching assistants who
were chosen by students for the 1999-
2000 Teaching Awards.
Jazz Band Seeks Funds
For European Festivals
The UNC Jazz Band is looking for
donors to “adopt a musician” to raise
funds to travel to three European jazz
festivals.
After submitting copies of its com
pact disc, “See the World,” the UNC
jazz Band received invitations to per
form at summer jazz festivals in France,
Switzerland and the Netherlands July 7-
17. Director James Ketch and Professor
Scott Warner will accompany the 23
student musicians.
Through its “adopt a musician” pro
gram, donors can pledge up to $ 1,000 to
sponsor a student for the trip, which will
cost about $2,000 per student. The
University hopes to pay for 50 to 60
percent of the cost per student.
For more information, contactjames
Ketch at 962-7560 or jketch@mind
spring.com.
Local Women’s League
To Hold Voter Forum
The League of Women Voters will
sponsor a forum on Campaign Finance
Reform at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The forum will be held at Chapel
Hill Town Hall at 306 N. Columbia
Street.
The meeting will end at 9:30 p.m.
For more information call Beverly
Kawalec at 942-6396.
Local Booksellers Plan
Discussion Group
Barnes & Noble Booksellers, at 5400
New Hope Commons Road in
Durham, invites residents to come join
a discussion group on Arthur Golden’s
book “Memoirs of a Geisha”
Wednesday night.
The event will run from 7:30 p.m. to
8:30 p.m. Readers are invited for
Cherry Blossom Green Tea and a dis
cussion on the merits of Golden’s novel.
For more information, contact Julia
Caspary at 419-8290.
Storyteller to Appear
At Carrboro Library
Lorenzo “Logie” Meachum will be at
the Carrboro Branch Library in cele
bration of National Library Week.
Meachum will delight children of all
ages with stories, music and poetry.
This event will begin at 3:45 p.m. on
Wednesday. Call 969-3006 for more
information.
Peer Mediation Team
To Hold Local Auction
The Peer Mediation program from
Guy B. Phillips Middle School has orga
nized a fund-raising auction.
Proceeds from the auction will help
the Peer Mediation team of 29 students
and 13 adult leaders raise money to go
to the SPIDR/CRENET Peacemakers
Conference for Youth and Adults in
September 2000.
Goods being auctioned range from
lunch with the mayor to free massages
to T-shirts from Breadmen’s.
Contact Darcy Turner, peer media
tion team coordinator, at 929-2188, ext.
259 for more information.
From Staff Reports
UNC Delegates Help Shape Mission of WRC
By Kathleen Hunter
Assistant State & National Editor
This weekend UNC labor activists
traveled to New York City for the found
ing conference of the Worker Rights
Consortium, a fledgling group UNC
decided recently to join.
The conference aimed to bring rep
resentatives from across the country
together to organize the labor monitor
ing group, which was formed in opposi
tion of the Fair Labor Association, a
rival watchdog group.
Primary opposition came from the
nationwide anti-sweatshop organization
United Students Against Sweatshops.
USAS claimed the FLA was dominated
4 cl
SMGEiP THE STATION
Courtesy Policing
Offers Residents
Full-Time Safety
By Theresa Chen
and Walter Her/
Staff Writer
For some law enforcement officers in Chapel Hill and
Carrboro, their work as crime fighters can follow them into the
home.
Some apartment complexes in the area offer lower rent
incentives to officers in exchange for part-time security work,
said interim Chapel Hill Police Chief Greggjarvies.
“As far as I know, there are five or six complexes in the area
that have an officer living in them for reduced rent in return
for their secondary employment,” Jarvies said.
He said the idea of “courtesy policing” was particularly
appealing to younger members of the force.
“It’s a good opportunity for younger officers who are single
and have no kids," Jarvies said. “They might not be able to
afford anew home in Chapel Hill, and this would provide a
good starter home.”
Carrboro police officer Christopher Atack, a former “com
munity attendant" at Highland Hills Apartments, located at
180 BPW Club Road in Carrboro, said the rent reduction was
his main incentive for acting as a part-time security guard.
“The reason I took the job was so I could afford to live in
this area,” he said.
Jarvies said the idea of these “courtesy officers” was not a
new one.
“It’s been done for years,” he said. “As long as I’ve been a
police officer, for 25 years, it’s been standard practice. It’s a
good way for officers to supplement their salary.”
Foxcroft Apartments, located on the U.S. 15-501 Bypass in
Chapel Hill, has three courtesy officers, said Loisy Garcia,
property manager.
“We have a state trooper, and I think two Chapel Hill police
officers,” Garcia said. “They rotate every month. Usually they
patrol around the property. For example, sometimes I’ll have
one walk around at night and mark which street lights are out
for maintenance to repair.”
Garcia said the officers’ presence helped people feel safer
See POLICING, Page 6
DTH/ MEREDITH LEE
The annual TA Appreciation Barbecue was well-attended Friday afternoon as students and teaching assistants
alike came to fill their plates and listen to the music of Tar Heel Voices, the Loreleis and the Clef Hangers.
Long lines for the food wrapped around South Building and Polk Place.
by large corporations.
Two students and two administrators
from UNC joined representatives from
more than 30 colleges nationwide at the
conference.
Todd Pugatch, a member of Students
for Economicjustice, said the event pro
vided a forum for discussion of the
WRC’s goals. “The purpose of the con
ference was to lay a foundation for the
Worker Rights Consortium, which will
be a collaboration of students, adminis
trators and labor rights advocates to
improve working conditions in the man
ufacturing of university-licensed prod
ucts,” Pugatch said.
The WRC, a primarily student-devel
oped organization, works for the
Local Law Enforcement Personnel
Find New Ways to Prevent Crime
DTH/MARGARET SOUTHERN
■v
Art Englebardt points out a large CD case in the backseat of a car
in the parking lot of the Wesley Center, which puts th| car at risk for a break-in.
Prevention Officers Provide Tips
To Protect Businesses, Residences
By Courtney Weill
Senior Writer
The heftv man in the blue polo shirt glides
around the building, searching for unguarded
entrances, hiding places and unlocked doors
and windows.
But he is not scheming to commit a crime.
He is trying to prevent one.
Jeff Clark, the crime prevention officer for
the Chapel Hill Police Den t" ment, performs
surveys on 10 to 15 homes and businesses each
week. The free service allows home and busi
ness owners to ensure the safety of their prop
erty.
“We start at the street and go up to the house
almost as if we were breaking in,” Clark said.
Clark and his sidekick Art Englebardt check
the lighting, visibility, locks and windows of a
house or business and then offer recommenda
tions to its owmer.
On Feb. 22, the duo surveyed the Wesley
Foundation, a Methodist student center at 214
Pittsboro St., in response to ■ recent inci
dents in which people had eni ,ed the building
during the day without authorization.
TADAY
News
enforcement of labor codes at compa
nies producing collegiate apparel.
Last month, interim Chancellor Bill
McCoy heeded a recommendation from
the Labor Licensing Advisory
Committee to continue UNC’s mem
bership in the FLA for another year,
while committing to join the WRC.
USAS member Courtney Sproule
said the conference was a success. “The
purpose (of the conference) was to bring
everyone together at a starting point,”
she said. “I think it accomplished that.”
Rut Tufts, UNC director of auxiliary
services, was one of the two administra
tors attending the conference.
Tufts said few concrete results came
out of the conference, but several con
cems that various schools had about the
organization were identified.
“There was not a lot of forward
motion, but there is a whole lot better
understanding of the work that has got
to be done,” he said.
Sproule said UNC, like several other
universities, joined the WRC with cer
tain conditions they wanted to see the
organization meet.
These conditions included the for
malization of a set of by-laws governing
the organization and assurance that the
University would have an adequate
voice in determining WRC policy.
Tufts said the universities of lowa,
Michigan and Wisconsin-Madison all
had concerns similar to UNC’s.
“We just wanted some recommendations on
how to prevent that from happening again,”
said Larry Johnson, facilities manager of the
Wesley Foundation.
Clark and Englebardt checked the sur
rounding properties and the entrances. Clark
recommended that the foundation call the
phone company to trim back a tree on the cor
ner of the lot to increase visibility and remove
it from nearby phone lines.
Meanwhile, Englebardt, a nonpolice
employee of the crime prevention division,
scoured the parking lot, noting the cars in dan
ger of break-ins. “Fifty CDs,” he barked, point
ing into a burgundy hatchback. “They can
fence them off at five to 10 bucks a piece. This
would be the first car to go.”
After touring the inside of the building,
Clark sat down at a table to make his recom
mendations:
■ Trim back trees.
■ Remind resident students to close their
doors.
■ Engrave valuables with the Wesley
See CONSULTANTS, Page 6
Officials: Lawsuits
Bolster Fla. Coffers
By Jennifer Hagin
Staff Writer
Florida’s relationship with tobacco
companies has been described as a
catch-22.
Government officials want to keep
pressure on
tobacco firms,
but have a vest
ed interest in
keeping them
afloat because
N.C. Officials
Await Ruling on
Punitive Damages
See Page 7
the money received from various law
suits results in a large percentage of the
state’s health care budget.
Florida state senators are concerned
with maintaining the flow of tobacco
money into state health care programs.
“It’s our unofficial state lottery for
health care,” said Thomas Donaldson, a
spokesman for Democratic Florida Sen.
Mandy Dawson.
And as a Florida jury deliberates the
Monday, April 10, 2000
Sproule said a draft set of consortium
by-laws discussed at the conference was
slated to be officially approved by June.
In the meantime, some student
activists have been putting pressure on
administrators to go a step further and
cut ties with the FLA completely.
Whatever the final state of UNC’s
labor monitoring policy, Tufts said the
WRC now had a direction for dealing
with universities’ concerns, thanks to
this weekend’s conference. “I think in
the next couple of weeks we are going to
get these issues out so that we can work
on them and get down to business.”
The State & National Editor can be
reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.
Cops Put
Name With
Body's Face
Officials have uncovered
the identity of a body found
last week but remain quiet
on additional details.
By Theresa Chen
Staff Writer
Members of the Alamance County
and Orange County sheriff’s depart
ments released Friday the identity of a
Mebane woman whose body was found
last week near marker 260 on Interstate
40.
The woman, Rhonda Eason, of 3107
E. Calloway Drive in Mebane, was
identified by tattoos and fingerprints on
Thursday, but additional details did not
become public until the victim’s family
had been contacted.
Gary Massey, a major with the
Alamance County Sheriffs
Department, said his officers were con
tinuing to investigate the case with
Orange County Sheriffs deputies.
Massey would not comment on any
possible causes of death until the
departments received information from
the medical examiner.
Eason’s body was found 6? N.C.
Department of Transportation workers
at about 2 p.m. Wednesday. The body
was discovered on an embankment 30
feet from the eastbound lane of 1-40.
Thomas Owens of the medical
examiner’s office went to the scene
Wednesday and found no visible signs
of wounds or other injuries but estimat
ed that the body had been there for five
or six days.
Eason was reported missing March
27 at 5:47 p.m. by her husband Phillip
Eason, who said she left their residence
at about 8 p.m. March 25. She had told
him she was “going partying” but never
returned, an Alamance County Sheriffs
Department press release stated.
The cause of her death remains
unknown, said Dr. Karen Chancellor of
the medical examiner’s office.
Chancellor performed the autopsy on
Eason but refused to comment.
The two county sheriffs departments
are the only parties working to deter
mine the circumstances of the death.
Sheriffs department officials are
encouraging anyone who saw Rhonda
Eason between March 25 and March 31
to contact detectives at the Alamance
County Sheriff’s Office at (336) 570-
6300 or the Orange County Sheriff’s
Office at 644-3050.
The City Editor can be reached
at citydesk@unc.edu.
amount tobacco companies must pay in
punitive damages, lawmakers in North
Carolina and Florida are jockeying to
protect their respective economies.
The N.C. General Assembly passed a
bill Wednesday to protect state tobacco
companies and farmers from a Florida
smokers’ lawsuit that could cost the
industry more than SIOO billion.
Lawmakers placed a $25 million cap
on the bond N.C. firms must post before
they can appeal punitive damages in an
out-of-state lawsuit.
The move was not only an effort to
protect the state economy, but also, like
Florida, to keep tobacco money flowing
into a state trust fund to fund health
care, smoking prevention programs and
aid for fanners.
The Florida Senate is also looking to
bolster state coffers, discussing plans to
protect the money tobacco companies
See BILL, Page 6
3