10
Tuesday, April 17, 2001
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Jonathan Chaney
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
Kim Minugh
UNIVERSITY EDITOR
Ginny Sdabbanasi
CITY EDITOR
Board Editorials
Boosting Efficiency
Student Health Service is planning to trim its operating hours.
The move will save money —and still adequately provide care.
A significant change in UNC Student
Health Service is approaching. Reduction in
operating hours for SHS is planned to begin
May 21, assuming University approval.
The plan, which looks to eliminate idle time
at SHS, will create a more productive atmos
phere for students who seek medical aide.
There is a low demand after-hours for medical
care, thus the manpower presently available is
superfluous and going underutilized.
Under the change, the proposed hours of
service for fall and spring semesters are 7
a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday. The
weekend hours will be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and
summer session hours will be 8 a.m. to 5
E.m. Monday through Friday. The after
ours service charge of S4O will not change.
With the reduction in hours, one might
have concern. But there is no need to worry.
Plans are in effect for other avenues stu
dents can use when needing medical care.
Health Link (966-7890), a free 24-hour service
in which nurses from UNC Hospitals will be
available to answer callers’ health questions.
An official registered nurse will be avail
able to advise a student to go immediately to
the emergency room or offer self-help skills
and have the student wait until SHS is open,
Added Protection
State lawmakers have pondered opening up the state's child abuse
registry to screen day-care workers. It's an idea worth investing in.
As more and more parents in North
Carolina require day care for their children,
the state must take steps to ensure that these
day-care establishments provide a safe envi
ronment and are run by responsible adults.
It is imperative that North Carolina allow
state licensing officers and day-care employ
ers to check the state’s child abuse registry.
Currendy in North Carolina, child-care
employees must undergo a criminal back
ground check. But since fewer than 5 percent
of verified child-abuse cases ever make it to
court, there are thousands of people against
whom abuse charges have been substantiat
ed but who can still easily work in child care.
This must be changed.
More than 214,000 children are in child
care in North Carolina in various day-care
establishments. Ensuring that those day-care
establishments are adequate is essential to
the health of our state’s children.
By screening child-care employees on a
child-abuse registry, day-care employers and
licensing officials can weed out prior offend
ers. This would decrease the risk of child
abuse in day-care establishments and limit
the access prior offenders have to children.
Opening the registry would serve the state
greatly in adequately protecting children. If
For the Record
In the April 12 editorial "Presumed Guilt,” it was incorrectly stated that alcohol violations and not
reporting underaged drinking are Honor Code violations. They are not Sanctions for underaged drink
ing are handled through the housing department. The Daily Tar Heel regrets the error.
Readers' Forum
RSWP Organizer Wishes
To Thank All Participants
For a Successful Project
TO THE EDITOR:
The annual Chapel Hill-Carrboro
RSWP event (Restaurants Sharing V/5 &
V/5 Percent) held in November 2000 has
been the most successful in the project’s 12-
year history. As of April 11,100 of the 105
participating restaurants have sent in their
10 percent donation for a current total of
$22,023. Both the number of restaurants
participating and the total amount of
money raised have set anew record for the
project.
The Durham program, which benefits
St Philip’s Community Kitchen, reports
that pledges from 41 of 49 restaurants total
$6,300 and the Food Bank of N.C. in
Raleigh has collected SB,OOO thus far,
bringing the Triangle-wide total to more
than $36,300 and counting. Again, a
record! The cumulative total for Chapel
Hill-Carrboro RSWP program has now
reached $170,000, with the Triangle-wide,
11-year total approaching $300,000. I
attribute the obvious Chapel Hill-Carrboro
Matt Dees
EDITOR
Office Hours Friday 2 p.m. -3 p.m.
Alex Kaplun
STATE & NATIONAL EDITOR
Rachel Carter
SPORTS EDITOR
Jermaine Caldwell
FEATURES EDITOR
depending on the medical severity. So even
if SHS is closed, students will still have access
to medical professionals who can advise
them of a proper course of action.
And if a trip to the emergency room is
deemed necessary, students enrolled in the
Student Health Insurance Plan can waive the
SIOO deductible. Students can also apply for
reimbursement of up to SSOO in personal
patient charges for emergency services not
covered by a health insurance plan.
The University training room, an untapped
resource, can also be used for any orthopedic
needs. It is located in Fetzer Gym and is open
to any student. Changes in hours will be a
more effective use of student fees. Reallocation
of hours will also create more appointment
slots for students, making doctors more avail
able for personal office hours. Medical officials
would not have to fulfill as many on-call duties
as the old SHS hours called for.
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Sue
Kitchen will meet with Chancellor James
Moeser and his Cabinet next week to insti
tute these hour changes.
The changes are appropriate and needed.
They will give students a more efficient
Student Health Service.
the registry were open, an appeals process
would be in place to make sure the ruling of
social workers is a fair and accurate one.
Currently there is no appeals process in
North Carolina. And since there are so many
cases that never go to court, a social worker’s
ruling is never really checked. Establishing
an appeals process would ensure that justice
is served on both sides of the issue.
Though the cost to institute an appeals
process would be $750,000, the money,
would be a worthy investment. There are
several other states that successfully utilize a
mix of the criminal background check and
child-abuse registry.
North Carolina should follow suit.
The multitude of parents who entrust their
children to day-care centers across the state
would be more than willing to foot the bill to
open the registry to employers. The added
peace of mind alone is worth it.
The problem of child abuse is worthy of
closer attention. Cases of convicted or veri
fied abusers having access to children
through day-care cannot occur - though it is
possible to slip through the cracks today.
Opening the state child-abuse registry
would best serve the interests and futures of
our children.
advantage to the loyal support of our
University community and would like to
thank everyone who helps to make this
project so successful.
Alpha Phi Omega fraternity president,
Angie Lindsay, coordinated the distribu
tion of the posters and table tents to all of
the downtown participating restaurants.
Aaron Nelson, then the interim director of
Greek affairs, helped to distribute fliers list
ing all of the participating restaurants to all
the fraternities and sororities and the office
of resident housing for doing the same for
residence hall residents. Antoine Peuch of
West Franklin Preservation Partnership
sponsored free trolley rides between the
medical complex and downtown during
the lunch hour. The pick-up bus stops were
identified with balloons contributed by
Balloons and Tunes. Each one contributed
in their own way to the success of the
event.
The Daily Tar Heel promoted the event
with many pertinent feature articles relat
ing to hunger in our community, restaurant
participation and the importance of eating
out on RSWP Day. Chrissy Beck, director
of marketing, published the complete list of
participating restaurants as community ser-
Opinion
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Ashley Atkimoa
ARTS St ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
Caiolyn Haynes
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Seftonlpock
PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
To Protect and Serve - And Seize
Willie Jones was startled by the heavily
armed men in the Houston airport
who were demanding his money.
Especially since the thieves wore badges.
Willie had paid cash for a plane ticket and
had $9,600 more to buy plants for his land
scaping business. Federal agents deemed this
suspicious and seized his money.
This true story of “civil asset forfeiture”
should be fiction in a land whose Constitution
declares that no person shall “be deprived of
life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law; nor shall private property be taken for
public use, without just compensation.”
This isn’t just another of many “drug
exceptions” to our once-cherished Bill of
Rights. Though the lure of prohibition profits
was the reviving force, police now abuse for
feiture widely. In 1996, the Supreme Court
upheld the forfeiture of a woman’s car after
her husband used it to score a hooker.
Civil forfeiture derives from a medieval
precedent. When Joe Peasant’s ox got mad
and stomped his neighbor’s grandma, aristo
cratic lords blamed -and confiscated - the
ox. Joe kept his head and the lords kept the
ox. (Poor Grandma kept nothing.)
President Reagan liked the concept, but not
the unlikely image of a suitcase of drug
money leaping up to stomp Grandma. In a
“better” precedent, John Hancock, the first
signer of the Declaration of Independence,
once had his ship seized by the Crown.
Apparendy Reagan figured that tactics used
to steal from peasants and harass our found
ing fathers were perfect to fight his drug war.
So Reagan seized the opportunity to per
manendy fund another ever-increasing pro
gram for his beloved federal government He
signed the law that allows federal agencies to
seize close to a billion dollars a year, based
only on probable cause. Eighty percent of the
victims of these seizures are never charged
with a crime. How does it work?
The feds charge the property, not the per
son. Which, the rare times these reach the
courts, leads to names like “United States v.
$405,089.23 U.S. Currency”, “U.S. v. 92
Buena Vista Avenue” and “U.S. v. One
Mercedes 560 SEL.” Cars and houses and
vice ads for several days before the event.
These are all great reminders to the UNC
students and faculty to Eat Out! or Take
Out! for a good cause. Several restaurant
owners and managers admit that they join
the project because of encouragement
and/or gratitude from their regular patrons.
Thank you all very much.
With due respect to the many generous
and community-spirited restaurateurs who
agree to donate 10 percent of their receipts
for a whole day; to the many diners who fill
these restaurants on RSVVP Day; and to
the great promotion by the sponsors, I do
believe that the loyal support of the
University community offers that special
“edge” to our local efforts and for this, I am
most grateful. Those who benefit from the
hunger-relief programs of.the Inter-Faith
Council - the Community Kitchen and the
Family Services Emergency Food Pantry -
join with me in thanking you. I share the
joy of this success with all of you.
Irene T. Briggaman
RSWP Chairman
Chapel Hill-Carrboro
The length rule was waived.
Beth Buchholz
DESIGN EDITOR
Jason Cooper
GRAPHICS EDITOR
Josh Williams
ONLINE EDITOR
fib
A
RUSS HELMS
HEALING OUR WORLD
cash have no rights, so the government can
grab a home on the same evidence it needs to
look inside. This includes anonymous witness
es and paid informants. Remember the recent
DEA-informant peijury scandal?
Courts have even ruled that cops can seize
property on a hunch -as long as they can
produce probable cause before the official
hearing, if there ever is one. And to be seized,
an object only needs to “facilitate” a crime.
So when Billy Munnerlyn, an entrepreneur
with a charter plane service, ignorantly took a
fare from anew customer whose suitcase was
stuffed with money, the feds seized his plane.
They charged the plane with “facilitating” the
cash. The cash, also seized, presumably was
“facilitating” some other wild-and-crazy prop
erty with its vicious crime. No humans were
charged, and Billy was left to try to prove his
plane innocent. Justice or skyjacking?
A 41-apartment building in New York is
seized on a hearsay warrant. Hotels are for
feited when one room is used by guests for a
drug deal. Forget to warn the teenager that
prank 911 calls are serious? Police take the
house, the land and the bank account used to
buy the tomato seeds for the garden.
These are the same police we trust to res
cue cats from trees and carry guns and wear
badges and break down the doors of the bad
guys at 3 a.m. Are you confident that they’re
breaking into homes to catch a dangerous
criminal, not because it’s a swank house?
That house is worth a lot of R.V.s. Or as
Sheriff Bouchard of Oakland County,
Michigan calls the $300,000 toys, “mobile
command centers.” As one wag says, “Don’t
forget the mini-bar, sheriff.”
Second Amendment Not
For Gun Owners, but
To Protect State Militias
TO THE EDITOR:
Russ Helms should have reviewed con
stitutional law before submitting his col
umn (“Gun Control Costs Innocent Lives”
April 3) supporting the individual’s right to
bear arms supposedly found in the Second
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Second Amendment does not guar
antee a virtually unfettered right to arm
oneself in defense of life, property and
against the possibility of government
imposed martial law. Contrary to Helms’
opinion, historians, scholars, and most
importantly, the courts, have virtually all
concluded that: the Second Amendment
was designed to protect state organized
militias rather than the individual right to
own a gun. It is a collective right and not an
individual right. The Supreme Court has
never struck down a gun control measure
as unconstitutional under the Second
Amendment.
Helms alleges the need for a gun to use
in self defense. But in 1997, for every time
Lauren Beal fit Kathleen Hunter
MANAGING EDITORS
Brian Frederick
READERS’ ADVOCATE
Laura Stoehr
SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS EDITOR
Some cops seize so much they can “forget”
where they stashed all those unmarked dead
presidents. The Prince George County (Md.)
Sheriff’s Department guarded a “forgotten”
$45,000 booty until a fiscal manager - his job
since eliminated - tipped off auditors.
The biggest weakness of the federal forfei
ture law is that police face a conflict-of-interest
by benefiting directly from the seizures.
“The bare financial facts of this case shine a
light on the corrupting incentives of this
arrangement,” judges wrote in one forfeiture
case. “We see aggressive but marginal claims
asserted on dubious jurisdiction to seize chari
table funds raised for the relief of abject
orphans in an impoverished country, so that
the money can be diverted for expenditure by
the Department of Justice.”
To combat such fears, North Carolina pro
vides extra constitutional and legal protections
to citizens in forfeiture cases, and demands that
seized funds be used to pay for education.
But when justice department pitched anew
“adoption” scheme to N.C. lawmen,
“Everybody’s eyes lit up,” according to congres
sional testimony. N.C. police give seizures to
federal agencies, who “adopt” the money under
federal law, then return 80 percent to the police.
Some $4 million a year is laundered this way by
N.C. law enforcement, circumventing the legis
lature’s plans to spend it on the children.
N.C. law prevents turning seized property
over to the feds without a court order, so the
DEA “deputizes” cops, who then seize prop
erty as federal agents to bypass state law. One
prominent officer told the Kansas City Star,
“Just because there is a state law doesn’t nec
essarily mean that that state law is correct.”
So needed reforms will be difficult. The
conflict-of-interest has eroded everyone’s trust
in the police. Consider the police reaction
when Bill Wright, Utah speaker pro tern, insti
gated discussion on seizure reform. About the
debate on the floor of the state legislature, the
law-and-order Republican said: “I have never
been more intimidated in my life to look out
there and see 200 officers in uniforms with
guns on their hips, staring me down.”
E-mail Russ Helms at rhelms@bios.unc.edu.
a firearm was used by a civilian to kill in
self-defense, there were 4 unintentional
deaths, 43 criminal homicides and 75 sui
cides. In 1998, for every time a woman
used a handgun to kill a stranger or inti
mate acquaintance in self-defense, 385
women were murdered by a stranger or
intimate acquaintance. Guns killed 32,436
people in the United States in 1997.
The proposed Firearms Safety and
Consumer Protection Act before Congress
will allow our country to address these
sobering statistics.
Matthew Oliver
Freshman
Public Policy
Firearms Safety Project Manager
N.C. Consumers Council Inc.
Get a Job
The Daily Tar Heel is taking applications
for back-page columnists, cartoonists and
editorial board members. They are available
at the front desk of the DTH in Suite 104
of the Student Union and are due April 25.
Still have some questions? Contact
Editorial Page Editor-select Kate Hartig at
Hartigk@aol.com with any concerns.
Sljf laily SJar MM
j?
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