Daily ®ar Ttol
Eating for Peace
A Carrboro benefit raises
money for nonviolence.
See Page 3
Rally Set
To Lobby
Legislature
Today's event, scheduled for
noon, will address tuition
increases and state office
campaign finance reform.
Bv Damel Blank
Staff Writer
Several lobbying groups will rally at
the N.C. General Assembly today in
protest of tuition increases passed last
month by the UNC-system Board of
Governors that will now go before the
state legislature for consideration.
Participants also will focus on cam
paign finance reform in state elections.
The rally will begin at noon in front of
the Legislative Building in Raleigh.
Speakers at the rally include former
UNC-Chapel Hill Student Body
President Justin Young; UNC-system
Association of Student Governments
President Andrew Payne; Rep. Verla
Insko, D-Orange; and Tara Purohit,
organizer of the UNC Common
Cause/Democracy Matters Student
Alliance for Campaign Finance Reform.
The rally is organized by UNC-CH
alumnus Dennis Markatos, youth coor
dinator for the N.C. Common Cause
Education Fund, a lobbying organiza
tion promoting open and accountable
government.
Markatos said the rally is the end
product of several movements to bring
about change in the areas of tuition and
campaign finance. He said that his orga
nization keeps a close eye on state pol
icy and that the rally is necessary to
allow politicians to hear their con
stituents’ voices.
“The state is not living up to its
responsibilities, so we’re like a watch
dog organization,’’ he said. “This is the
culmination of many efforts of tuition
battles and campaign finance reform.”
Markatos added that the organiza-
See RALLY, Page 4
Winmore May Be Too Expensive for Employees
By James Russ
Staff Writer
Officials have expressed concerns that the
Winmore mixed-use development might not
be affordable to all the University employees
and Carrboro residents in need of inexpen
sive housing.
Winmore is a 62-acre satellite tract of the
Horace Williams tract that the UNC Board of
Trustees voted March 28 to sell to Winmore
developers.
The project will combine residential and
UNC Receives an Increase in Applicants, Mails Letters to Class of 2006
By Joy Buchanan
Staff Writer
It’s the time of year when many high school
seniors make frequent and frantic trips to their
mailboxes, checking to see if colleges across the
country have sent them narrow envelopes or
thick packages.
But applicants to UNC-Chapel Hill will not
have to wait much longer for their envelopes.
The UNC-CH Office of Undergraduate
Admissions last week sent out the acceptance
and denial letters for the class of 2006.
Stephen Farmer, associate director of under
graduate admissions, said the office was more
selective this year because there were more
applicants than last year.
Farmer said 748 more students applied this
year, bringing the total number of applicants to
17,454. But the office admitted 502 fewer stu
dents, which Farmer said is “significandy lower
than last year.”
Farmer said that because the office aimed for a
Well, you and I would differ on what's ignorance and education.
Sen. Ernest Hollinqs
Officials Will Cut DPS Budget to Fix Deficit
By Ruthie Warshenbrot
Staff Writer
Chancellor James Moeser said
Thursday that the administration will cut
expenses from the Department of Public
Safety’s budget rather than resubmit a
proposal for night parking fees.
On March 28, the UNC Board of
Trustees rejected the UNC administra
tion’s proposal for a night parking fee that
would have alleviated DPS’s projected
budget shortfall of nearly $2 million.
A
DTH/BRENT CLARK
Octavio Gomez, a resident of Carrboro, watches and contemplates his next move as several of his friends fight for control of the
ball during an early Thursday evening soccer game at Carrboro Community Park. Gomez and his friends play soccer together two
or three times a week at the parks soccer fields.
retail space for residents.
Although the mixed-use project is expect
ed to include houses and apartments, only the
apartments are designed to be affordable for
employees of the town of Carrboro, UNC
and UNC Hospitals.
Developer Phil Szostak said that while the
definite price for the rental units has not yet
been set, the range will be from S4OO to SSOO
per month.
This rate is calculated based on a
Carrboro ordinance that limits the yearly
rent for affordable housing to less than 12
freshman class of 3,500 for the 2002-03 academ
ic year, only 5,839 applicants were admitted. He
said this figure is mainly a response to last year’s
over-enrollment. The office aimed for 3,500 stu
dents in the class 0f2005, but 3,687 enrolled.
Farmer said there is no concrete way to
determine how many students to admit to meet
the admissions goal. “Predicting the number of
students who’ll say yes to you is a tricky thing,”
Farmer said. “It’s an art, not a science.”
Farmer said the office aimed for 3,500 students
again this year because it was a number in line
with earlier projections. “The University enroll
ment is more or less negotiated with the office of
the (UNC-system) president,” Farmer said.
The University usually determines enrollment
goals for a particular class a few years in advance.
Farmer said enrollment goals are established
when the University does its biennial budget.
But the number of students projected to enroll
for a given class are not etched in stone. “The
projections may be fine-tuned once you get clos
er to the year you’re talking about,” Farmer said.
Serving the students and the University community since 189^1
Tax Day Cometh
Officials encourage students to file
their tax forms online.
See Page 4
The proposal was sent back to
Moeser and his vice chancellors with a
request to submit a balanced budget
without a night parking plan.
Carolyn Elfland, associate vice chan
cellor for campus services, said data will
be collected to determine what the
potential costs and impacts of cutting
expenses would be. She said a group
within DPS will meet internally today to
begin discussing various alternatives and
their consequences.
Cheryl Stout, assistant director of
SOCCER AT SUNDOWN
percent of the median income level for a fam
ily of four in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel
Hill area.
The median income for residents in the
Triangle is $46,000, although the same figure
for Orange County residents is $41,169.
Under the ordinance, the rent could not be set
higher than $460 a month.
The ordinance also stipulates that the
rental apartments must be affordable for at
least the next hundred years.
Although the houses at Winmore are not
specifically targeted to be affordable, Szostak
Because of grim budget projections, UNC
system officials began looking this year at
tuition to fund future enrollment growth. Last
month, the UNC-system Board of Governors
passed a systemwide tuition increase of 8 per
cent for in-state students and 12 percent for out
of-state students to support enrollment growth.
In response, the UNC-CH Faculty Council
passed a resolution expressing the need to slow
enrollment growth to maintain the quality of
education in the face of budget cuts, although
the idea is not supported by BOG members.
But Farmer said the state’s budget problems
had little effect on this year’s admissions deci
sions. He said that the office made projections
before the budget cuts but that the cuts did
have some impact.
He said the office is more sensitive to over
enrollment to keep class size reasonable and to
protect the University’s quality of education.
“(The budget cuts) reminded everyone here
See ADMISSIONS, Page 4
High Standards
The gymnastics team
competes in NCAA regionals.
See Page 5
parking services, said she will be at the
meeting. She said that nothing is estab
lished at this point but that participants
of today’s meeting will discuss what
needs to be done next.
Elfland said that after this group
meets, it will make suggestions to a larg
er group of key leaders of groups that
use parking and transportation services.
This group, which she said will meet
next week, will give input and cite what
its members predict will be the impact of
budget cuts in their respective areas.
said the houses at the lower end of the price
range at Winmore might be affordable to
lower-income government employees with
the assistance of a state financing program.
But Szostak said the prices of these houses
probably will escalate quickly.
“The homes range from $132,000 to
$175,000, but if you buy one, the price will
escalate as the property value escalates,”
Szostak said.
These prices contrast with other affordable
See AFFORDABLE HOUSING, Page 4
r
Representatives from the Employee
Forum, Faculty Council, student govern
ment, the Division of Student Affairs and
UNC Hospitals are all possible members
of this committee, Elfland said.
Moeser said the committee will look
at several different scenarios for reduc
ing parking expenses.
But Elfland said there are no plans to
cut any services that would affect safety.
“I do not envision us at all doing any
thing to reduce security,” she said.
Elfland said there are two ways to bal-
Few Are Chosen
The admissions office reported that more students applied to UNC-Chapel Hill for the fall 2002 semester than the year
before. The number of those admitted, both in-state and out-of-state, dropped to compensate for overenrollment in 2001.
Fall 2001 Fall 2002
6,341 / 5,839 \
Admitted Admitted
38% i 33.5%
U tr
16,706 Total 17,454 Total
Applicants Applicants
Weather
Today: Mostly Sunny; H 60, L 31
Saturday: Sunny; H 60, L 31
Sunday: Partly Cloudy; H 65, L 41
ance a budget. She said DPS can either
increase revenues or cut expenses.
Because the BOT rejected the adminis
trators’ proposal, which would have
increased revenues by charging for night
parking, the only option left is to cut
expenses, she said.
Elfland said no one has finished going
through the budget to determine poten
tial cuts. But she said there are certain
areas of the budget that cannot and will
See BUDGET, Page 4
N.C. Supreme Court
Hears Republican Suit
On Districts' Legality
The Democrat-backed district plan passed in
November was declared unconstitutional by
lower courts but is now being appealed.
By Alex Kaplun
State & National Editor
RALEIGH - As the state’s top politicians looked on, the
N.C. Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday in a case that
could determine the balance of political power in the state leg
islature.
Lawyers representing the N.C. Republican Party argued
before the seven-member court that state House and Senate
district lines drawn by the N.C. General Assembly last fall vio
late the state constitution.
The court did not come down with a ruling Thursday, and
it is unknown when it will do so.
State district lines were approved last November by the
General Assembly, where both chambers are controlled by
Democrats. Not one member of the Republican caucus voted
for either plan.
Republican leaders filed a lawsuit challenging the newly
drawn districts shortly after they were approved by the legis
lature.
A lower court judge ruled in February that the districts were
unconstitutional because they split too many counties. The
House district map split 70 counties, while the Senate district
map split 51. That ruling has already forced the N.C. State
Board of Elections to postpone the primary elections, which
were scheduled for May 7.
But lawyers for the state argued Thursday that the 1968
N.C. constitutional provision that called for legislators not to
split counties lines when drawing legislative districts is unen
forceable and violates federal voting rights laws.
Julius Chambers, former chancellor for N.C. Central
University and prominent civil rights attorney, argued for the
state that the 1968 provision was intentionally created to weak
en the minority vote and that it would have the same impact
if it was enforced today.
If the constitutional amendment is enforced it would direct
legislators to draw some large districts, such as Wake and
Mecklenburg counties, with about 10 representatives and
some smaller, majority black districts that would only have
one or two representatives in order to comply with federal vot
ing rights laws.
“You would have to create huge districts - huge, white dis
tricts - to surround black districts,” Chambers said. “You’re
telling black voters you’re going to have one person to vote
See COURT, Page 4