2 MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2004 Ballantine, Easley keep sniping Spar over issues during last debate BY ERIN GIBSON ASSISTANT STATE & NATIONAL EDITOR RALEIGH The bickering continued Friday during the final debate before Election Day between Democratic Gov. Mike Easley and his Republican challenger, former state Sen. Patrick Ballantine. The sit-down debate, closed to the public, was held at WRAL studios with INSIDE Kerry takes a slight hint of momentum after debate PAGE 5 the two candidates and moderator David Crabtree. Crabtree asked a series of questions on the budget, taxes and immigration, as well as some suggested by voters. Both candidates said they were more effective in balancing the budget than the other, citing exam ples from their terms in office. Easley said he worked to reduce the state’s large deficits while Ballantine spent his time in the legislature voting against many of those plans. “It’s hard balancing a budget after someone like Patrick blew a hole in it,” Easley said. But Ballantine said he and his party were responsible for the bud gets and actually balanced them Tilley, 58, Union finance manager BY JOHN RAMSEY STAFF WRITER Glenda Sykes Tilley, finance and personnel manager at the Student Union, died Tuesday at Duke University Medical Center. She was 58. Tilley worked in the Union for 30 years. Before becoming man ager, Tilley worked in the Student Activities Fund Office. “Glenda gave her whole career to UNC because she loved it,” said Deborah Horne, director of the office. “Carolina was her family.” Tilley continued to work even after she became eligible for retire ment, and she seemed to be friends with everyone, Horne said. “You could not walk across cam jHHHHHpjiHMrnn|9^£- rr Mpj 1 & 2 Bedrooms r Washer St dryer in every apartment FREE gym membership Only 1,5 miles from campus On 5 bus lines X X \sunstone%^ Basketball court Jy ’-?'}?•*'■' '". ' ’" ’v'* ' "' 24 hour fitness room / £’' l? ®**f "^**4, / .y/ '\^/ / Sparkling pool X UNC Pumpkin for a | WICKED Good Deal! Offer expires 10/31/04 > Restrictions apply. .^JIH Call for details. Hours: M-F 9-6 Sat 10-5 Sun 1-5 TH| 1-888266-3431 shadowood@aimco.com A H www.shadowoodapartments.com Jm 110 Piney Mountain Road Af; Chapel Hill, NC 27514 M while voting to raise teacher sala ries to the national level. Ballantine and Easley also dif fered on the topic of taxes. The governor said he decreased income taxes for people and temporar ily raised the sales tax to recover from the deficit, but Ballantine disagreed. “Look at Easley’s record,” he said. “Easley raised taxes three times.” Both candidates agreed about the need to halt the state’s surge in illegal immigration. But Ballantine said Easley has not done enough to make sure ille gal immigrants are not coming to North Carolina and getting iden tification. He said the state should require more documentation, including a Social Security card, before issuing an identification card especially in light of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks. “He blames me for 9-11 now,” Easley retorted, adding that he is limited by federal regulations in taking action against illegal immigration. While the first debate was devoted solely to education, the topic did come up again during the second debate. Easley again plugged for a state education lot tery, and Ballantine again said it’s not a good plan. “He wants alotteiy trust fund, but you can’t trust him,” Ballantine said, adding that Easley wiped out trust funds and used the money in areas pus with her without being stopped by everyone,” said Don Luse, direc tor of the Union. “And if you ever needed anything, Glenda knew who to talk to.” Tilley was known to take Saturday shopping trips from sun rise to sunset. “She always looked like she stepped out of a page in Cosmopolitan,” Home said. Family and co-workers lauded Tilley’s reliability and her sense of humor. “I think if you could sum Glenda up in one sentence, you’d never met her,” said Michael Vollmer, accounting technician at the office. Tilley was never above having .ill iSIm DTH/LAURA MORTON David Crabtree shows the results of a coin toss deciding who will start Friday's debate between Gov. Mike Easley and challenger Patrick Ballantine. for which it was not designated. But the governor denied the misuse of funds and said he did not clear out any trust funds. “You can go to the budget office Web site ... to get the state’s tax rates and see mine are right, his are wrong,” he said after the debate. Since some voters expressed con cern about the candidates’ behavior after the first debate earlier this month, Crabtree asked both men to say two nice things about each other. After almost a full hour of neg Friends said UNC employee Glenda Sykes Tilley had a unique dedication to the University. some fun and always wore a cos tume to work on Halloween. “Every year, students would come to the office to see what she dressed as,” Home said. “And she would always have trick-or-treat candy for them.” Tilley’s colleagues also remem bered one story in particular that exemplified her fun-loving nature. News ativity, the pair was hard-pressed to come up with two positive comments. But finally, Ballantine com mended Easley on his clemency decisions, and Easley thanked Ballantine for his support concern ing teacher pay several years ago. And both men, following the example set by presidential candi dates during debates, said they like each other’s wives. Contact the State £2 National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu. “We had a lengthy meeting and pretended to have an argument,” Horne said. “I stormed into my office and slammed the door, and she followed me in like she was going to chew me out. Everyone in the office thought she was mad, but I couldn’t keep a straight face.” Tilley graduated from Chapel Hill High School in 1963. The funeral was held Friday morning at Antioch Baptist Church. Union offices closed Friday afternoon in memory of Tilley. Tilley is survived by her hus band of 40 years, Mack Tilley; her son, Greg, 39; and two grand children. Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu. Krovfafcrk JM is r*op*t\it\<j tkis Saturday! Coirv< in for k STILL SERVING BREAKFAST ALL DAY LONG! I ih tkis coupon for I CU p .I Hill • 9*7-7110 - 9• sv* B ®f/ AVAILABLE! KiBBIB School board takes aim at inequalties Sessions focus on minority success BY TED STRONG STAFF WRITER The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education sponsored its third annual Summit on Equity and Excellence on Saturday. The summit addressed the dif ferences in academic performance among ethnic groups. This year’s report’s differences in the number of minorities having to re-test on end-of-grade tests and in performance on the Scholastic Aptitude Test are recent signs that have called attention to an achieve ment gap. Neil Pedersen, district superin tendent, gave a speech Saturday on problems in today’s school system and outlined the district’s approaches to dealing with them. Problems included “re-segrega tion” —a situation in which stu dents socialize only with others of their own race unequal access to period zero early morning classes and an overabundance of white students in upper-level classes. “Students can’t learn when they’re feeling racially isolated,” he said. The district’s solutions have included creating equity teams in each school and clustering non white students into classes togeth er, rather than randomly dispersing them through all available sections of the course. Many theories exist about the origins of the achievement gap. Pedersen said it is the product of a multitude of factors. “I think no one really knows the cause of the gap, said Marny Ruben, assistant principal at Seawell Elementary School. “In our school, I think the gap is clos ing, but I still think we have a lot of work to do.” After the speeches, participants attended two of many smaller ses sions. The sessions focused on a variety of topics, ranging from par ent-teacher conferences to bullying and gangs to school nutrition. Presenters included a police offi (Ihp Sailg ®ar Hppl cer, a pastor, administrators, teach ers and parents. There were also booths from various local organizations pro viding information throughout the forum. The groups included Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina, the YMCA, the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Pines of North Carolina Girl Scout Council, the Orange County Health Department and the Orange County Rape Crisis Center. Parent Carleton Hilliard, who has four boys enrolled in the dis trict, said he came for a variety of reasons and felt he had accom plished a lot in coming. Hilliard said he especially liked the session on involving adult men in the education process. Parent Froyd Nonaseo said he went by to get information on the school. He said that if there were another summit next year, he would attend. Another parent, Adrianna Herrara, was at the school looking for information on the academical ly gifted program and for ideas for emphasizing math to her child. Although Saturday was consid ered a success, most said there was still much to do. “I believe we’ve made significant progress over the last 10 years but that we can’t rest until the gap is completely closed,” Pedersen said. “It really is a community effort that will help us achieve our goals.” Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu. !a% sar Hppl P.O. Box 3257, Chapel Hill, NC 27515 Michelle Jarboe, Editor, 962-4086 Advertising & Business, 962-1163 News, Features, Sports, 962-0245 One copy per person; additional copies may be purchased at The Daily Tar Heel for $.25 each. © 2004 DTH Publishing Corp. All rights reserved

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