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CITY BRIEFS
Kaela and Rajah selected
as names for tiger cubs
The Carnivore Preservation
Trust’s newest male and female
tigers were given names Tuesday
after more than 4,000 votes were
submitted last week.
Kaela and Rajah were chosen
with 49 percent and 42 percent of
their respective votes.
Almost 300 suggestions for
names initially were submitted.
The trust whittled down both lists
to five for last week’s voting.
The about 7-month-old cubs
found wandering a road between
Cleveland and Gaston counties in
January are expected to arrive
at the trust, located in Pittsboro, in
late March.
The trust continues to raise
funds for the $70,000 goal set for
the cubs’ rescue. Completion of
the cubs’ new habitat can be spon
sored for a one-time gift of $3,000
or named for five years for $5,000.
Donations may be sent to: Save the
Tigers c/o CPT, 1940 Hanks Chapel
Road, Pittsboro, NC 27312 or made
online at http://www.cptigers.org.
Middle school chess team
wins state championship
The chess team at Phillips
Middle School won the state cham
pionship held in Charlotte last
weekend. It is the fourth champi
onship in five years for the team.
Local robotics team qualifies
for national competition
The Orange County Robotics
Team 587 competed in a region
al robotics competition held in
Richmond, Va., last weekend, plac
ing 23rd of 62 teams.
NASA Langley, Virginia
Commonwealth University’s
School of Engineering, has hosted
the competition for six years.
The county team’s OCCAM 5
played both defense and offense,
leading the way in several matches
when the other robots were unable
to score.
The team moves on to compete in
the national competition in Atlanta
in April. Photos of the competition
can be viewed at http://www.vir
giniafirst.org/photos.html.
CAMPUS BRIEFS
Students toss extinguishers
from South campus balcony
Two fire extinguishers were
thrown from a balcony in Morrison
Residence Hall at 7:50 a.m.
Saturday, according to University
police reports.
Reports state that a resident
assistant called the police after
hearing the first fire extinguisher
land on the basketball court.
According to reports, the RA
saw Russel Cope, a resident of
Morrison, throwing the second fire
extinguisher as Fergus Harrington,
a resident of Craige Residence Hall,
took pictures. Police estimated the
total damages at $95.
Bonfire damages car at
Fraternity Court on Sunday
A student reported Sunday that
his vehicle was damaged by a bon
fire after the UNC-Duke men’s
basketball game, according to
University police reports.
Reports state that the rear por
tion of the car, which was parked
at Fraternity Court, appeared to
be warped by heat, and the paint
on the car also had bubbled. Police
estimate damages to the vehicle at
SI,OOO.
STATE 8 NATION
NJ. lawmakers aim to name
tomato as state vegetable
TRENTON, N.J. The humble
tomato might technically be a fruit,
but lawmakers here consider it a
vegetable.
Members of the Assembly
Agriculture and Natural Resources
Committee on Monday approved
a measure designating the Jersey
tomato as the official state vegeta
ble. A similar proposal is pending
in a Senate committee.
Sponsors of the measure get
around the fact that the tomato is
considered a fruit by using a cen
tury-old U.S. Supreme Court rul
ing that slapped a vegetable tariff
on tomatoes, similar to the tax
placed on cucumbers, squashes
and beans.
In squeezing tomatoes into the
vegetable category, justices on the
1887 high court reasoned that if
it’s typically served with dinner,
and not as a dessert, it must be a
vegetable.
The Jersey tomato’s ride through
the legislature began after a group
of fourth-graders wrote letters urg
ing lawmakers to adopt a state fruit.
The beloved blueberry won out, and
it not the tomato took its place
last year as the official state fruit.
TTiere currently is no official state
vegetable in the Garden State.
From staffand xtrire reports.
YD aims to bring Begala to campus
BY GREG STEEN
STAFF WRITER
UNC Young Democrats hopes
to garner attention by bringing
Paul Begala, formerly of CNN’s
Crossfire, to campus.
The group wants Begala to
speak on April 18 but is struggling
to come up with enough money to
pay his fee.
At last night’s finance committee
meeting, Anisa Mohanty, treasurer
of YD, requested $10,529 for the
event from Student Congress but
was advised that the group likely
“If lives are going to be repaired and reshaped,
these things have to be in place, chris moran, executive director, inter-faith council
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DTH/WHITNEY SHEFTE
Jocelyn Dawson, a volunteer from the Orange County Literacy Council, shows the art of Frida Kahlo to a client at the Homestart Shelter
of the Inter-Faith Council on Tuesday night. Dawson and another volunteer asked participants to write their responses to Kahlo's art
HILLSBOROUGH
TO EYE SHELTERS
BY CATHERINE SHAROKY
STAFF WRITER
The town of Hillsborough soon might
be adding another weapon to its arsenal
in ending area homelessness, as the plan
ning board revisits tonight the possibility of
allowing homeless shelters in the town.
The meeting at 7 p.m. in the Hillsborough
Town Bam will provide board members with
information to use in making a decision on a
proposed amendment to town zoning rules,
which allow for the building of halfway
houses but not homeless shelters.
Board members requested a special meet
ing to learn more about homeless shelters
and to look at the feasibility of operating a
shelter before proposing the amendment to
the Hillsborough Town Board.
“They are all still trying to really under
stand the day-to-day operations of the shel
ter,” said Margaret Hauth, town planning
director. “It’s all a very new topic for them.”
Board members’ concerns include wheth
er shelters would go in residential or com
mercial areas and legal issues such as liabil
ity, Hauth said.
Chris Moran, executive director of the
Inter-Faith Council, which operates the
Board takes aim
at traffic worries
BY MEGHAN DAVIS
STAFF WRITER
The Carrboro Board of Aldermen
is trying to prevent multiple proj
ects around the downtown Chapel
Hill-Carrboro border from con
gesting the area’s traffic flow.
At a work session Tuesday, the
aldermen discussed issues surround
ing several proposed development
projects near Brewer Lane, none of
which have received land-use per
mits from the town.
“(The discussion) raises a lot of
possibilities of how we should be
more proactive about this area and
the potential there,” said Mayor Pro
Tern Diana McDuffee.
Among the suggestions was
rezoning the site of a proposed 164-
unit apartment complex on Merritt
Mill Road, now a residential zone,
into a business area to reduce the
volume of permitted development.
“I’m far from convinced that a
purely residential development on
this site is what’s best for Carrboro
and best for downtown,” Alderman
Mark Chilton said.
If the area were rezoned for
business, developers would have to
Top News
will receive less money. Mohanty
said the group has three weeks to
secure Begala’s $5,000 booking fee
his speaking fee is SIO,OOO and
airfare will cost $529.
“I think it is feasible for us to
eventually fund the full $5,000,
but I do not feel comfortable doing
that now,” said Daneen Furr, chair
woman of the finance committee.
She told Mohanty that the com
mittee would recommend $2,000
to $3,000 for now.
The amount the group receives
will not be final until full congress
community shelter in Chapel Hill, will
attend tonight’s meeting to answer ques
tions and offer guidance on how to set up a
successful homeless shelter program.
“He can tell us the horror stories and the
great stories of the good and bad things
that come from operating shelters,” Hauth
said.
Moran said he will share his knowledge
of how facilities should be staffed and oper
ated, how local volunteers can be used and
how congregations can become involved in
the shelters.
“If lives are going to be repaired and
reshaped, these things have to be in place,”
he said. “Otherwise, we’re setting up people
for failure.”
Hillsborough already took a step toward
ending area homelessness when the Town
Board decided Feb. 14 to join other local
municipalities in supporting the county’s
Partnership to End Homelessness.
The planning committee for the part
nership has been working for about a year,
gaining support from local governments and
nonprofit organizations in the fight to end
homelessness, said Emily Dickens, partner
ship chairwoman and Chapel Hill mayoral
match residential space with park
ing space, which would reduce the
town’s worries about having too
many residences too close together,
said town Development Review
Administrator Marty Roupe.
On top of the apartment complex
and the possible changes to the 300
E. Main St. shopping center, anoth
er residential project is proposed for
the area, but details haven’t been
fleshed out. The aldermen con
sidered how each proposal would
affect the area and each other.
“I think there probably is some
room for discussion with property
owners about how to make these
streets work,” Chilton said. “We need
to identify specific road connections
that need to be made in future.”
As proposed, the Merritt Mill
apartments would be accessible
mainly through an entrance on
Guthrie Avenue, a private driveway
for the Ready Mix concrete plant.
Chilton offered several comput
er-drawn diagrams of ways to make
the complex accessible, including
making the avenue a public road.
SEE BREWER, PAGE 5
Former
"Crossfire" host
Paul Begala
might speak at
UNC in April if
enough funding
is secured.
meets next Tuesday.
The Young Democrats expect to
garner funding from local demo
cratic groups and candidates that
they have worked for in the past,
but they encountered problems
aide.
The last additions to the partnership
Hillsborough and the town of Carrboro,
which joined March 1 join the town
of Chapel Hill, Orange County, the IFC,
the Orange Congregation in Mission and
the Community Initiative, formerly the
Continuum of Care.
With the roster of representatives com
plete, the group, which will meet Friday, can
focus on addressing the county’s homeless
ness and finding ways to end it.
“This is a serious problem,” said Tara
Fikes, partnership member and county
housing and community development direc
tor. “It’s not just something that we’re giving
lip service to.”
Dickens said the next major step for the
partnership will be a presentation in May to
the local governments of a plan to develop a
local 10-year plan to end homelessness.
Hillsborough’s planning board antici
pates having a text amendment dealing with
homeless shelters ready by the Town Board’s
April 26 public hearing.
Contact the City Editor
at city desk @ unc.edu.
Credit card proposal falters
BY KRISTIN PRATT
STAFF WRITER
A proposed amendment to
bankruptcy legislation in the U.S.
Senate would have placed increased
restrictions on credit cards for peo
ple under 21.
The measure, proposed by Sen.
Chris Dodd, D-Conn., failed to win
support Tuesday but likely will
resurface during this session.
The amendment stipulated
that people younger than 21 only
could get a credit card with the
signature of a parent or guardian,
a signed statement showing that
the individual can cover any debts
incurred and proof that the indi
vidual has passed a credit counsel
ing course.
Dodd made similar proposals in
1999 and 2002 in an effort to help
decrease the number of people fil
ing for bankruptcy.
The senator plans to contin
ue pushing for the regulation,
said Sean Oblack, an official for
Dodd.
During Senate debate Friday
about the Bankruptcy Act, Dodd
said the number of bankruptcies
filed by people under the age of 25
is more than six times as high as it
was in 2000.
“Debt among this group has
gone from around SI,BOO a year to
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9. 2005
requesting money from other
University-related sources.
“The problem is, since it is YD,
they will not fund something that
is partisan,” Mohanty explained to
the committee.
Erskine Bowles, John Edwards,
John Kerry and Patsy Keever are
among the donors the group is cur
rently courting.
Begala first gained notoriety
when his consulting firm helped
Bill Clinton with his 1992 presi
dential campaign. He also served
as counselor to Clinton during
y BMBBL.. jraSil
DTH/ALEX MONTEALEGRE
Meredith (left), an employee at Buffalo Wild Wings, returns a credit card to
a customer. A U.S. motion to restrict card access saw little support Tuesday.
over $3,000 a year,” he said.
“I am not opposed to people
under the age of 21 having credit
cards,” Dodd said on the Senate
floor.
“Credit cards are a great asset to
a lot of people. I am not opposed to
them, but they must be issued and
used responsibly.”
The key problem with credit
card use and young adults is the
his administration. He authored
the best-selling book “Is Our
Children Learning?: The Case
Against George W. Bush” and he
co-authored the best-seller “Buck
Up, Suck Up and Come Back When
You Foul Up” with James Carville.
Begala garnered most of his
name-recognition while serving
as co-host of CNN’s Crossfire. He
currently works as a research pro
fessor at Georgetown University in
Washington, D.C.
SEE BEGALA, PAGE 5
2 show
up for
name
change
MLK Street sees
little controversy
BY ADAM W. RHEW
STAFF WRITER
After an area road renaming
sparked controversy last year, local
leaders are making every effort to
hear the voices of affected residents
before undertaking another name
change.
Members of the Chapel Hill
Town Council’s naming commit
tee held the first of two meetings
Tuesday with residents who live
along Martin Luther King Jr. Street
the subject of this year’s renam
ing conversation.
The council’s unanimous deci
sion in December to change the
name of Airport Road to Martin
Luther King Jr. Boulevard meant
that the street name also would
have to be changed to prevent con
fusion for emergency personnel.
And while conversations about
the Airport Road renaming drew
crowds in the hundreds, only two
residents showed up Tuesday to
meet with the committee.
“The people in the neighborhood
are going to come if they want to,”
said Janie Riggsbee, who has lived
on the street for 24 years.
“I just wanted to be here, so I’m
here,” she said.
Despite the low attendance,
committee members went forward
with the renaming talks. And it was
the name— not the process that
received the most attention.
Mayor Pro Tern Edith Wiggins
said the committee would prefer to
name the street after someone who
is deceased.
“Extraordinary circumstances
would have to exist for (a living)
person’s name to be used,” she said.
Riggsbee suggested Jackie
Robinson or Garrett Morgan, who
invented the traffic signal, as two
options for the new name.
But perhaps the most thought
provoking suggestion came from
the youngest person in the room.
Several committee members
nodded after 12-year-old Devante
Riggsbee suggested civil rights
champion Rosa Parks as an option
for his street’s new name.
SEE RENAMING, PAGE 5
lack of financial literacy and edu
cation about credit, said Peter
Burns, vice president and direc
tor of the Payment Cards Center
at the Federal Reserve Bank of
Philadelphia.
“If you’re smart enough to
take microbiology, you should be
smart enough to handle credit,”
SEE CREDIT, PAGE 5
3