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fflljp Daily tar Uptl CAMPUS BRIEFS Contained chemical spill mobilizes quick response An employee at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center called in a small chemical spill to local dispatch Monday evening. According to reports from the scene, a cracked container of a con centrated cleaning product whose principal component was paraffin hydrocarbon was found leaking in front of room 11-110 in the hallway on the center’s first floor. Three firetrucks arrived within three minutes of the call being placed, but one was turned away at the scene when firefighters discov ered that the magnitude and toxic ity of the spill were much smaller than initially made out to be. Employees at the center are instructed through protocol train ing to report suspicious chemical spills to authorities. A representative from the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Division also arrived to survey the reported spill. The paraffins are major con stituents of natural gas, petro leum and low-foaming, liquid cleaning compositions containing paraffins. CITY BRIEFS Chapel Hill man put in jail after driving car onto lawn A man arrested at 6:35 p.m. Monday after police chased him down Franklin Street was charged with driving while impaired, among other things, according to Chapel Hill police reports. Reports state that Isaac Leon Hatcher, 22, of 105 Baskerville Circle, also was arrested on charg es of carrying concealed weapons, resisting arrest, hit-and-run with property damage and driving over the speed limit. Hatcher was traveling east on Franklin Street when he took a sharp left into a private yard at 703 E. Franklin St. and hit two trees before coming to rest in the front yard, reports state. According to reports, Hatcher ran from the scene and was arrest ed by Chapel Hill police at the intersection of East Franklin Street and Roosevelt Drive. Hatcher was released from Orange County Jail on SSOO bail. Agencies give Chapel Hill highest possible bond rating Chapel Hill was evaluated by bond rating agencies, Moody’s Investor Service, and Standard and Poors as a part of the process for the sale of bonds. Both agencies gave the highest possible bond rating, a AAA, to the town’s $4.9 million in general obli gation bonds. The agencies evaluate the town’s ability to repay debt in order to for mulate the ratings. In the past, Moody’s Investor Service gave the town the highest rating, but Standard and Poors has previously submitted a rating one step lower, AA+. Standard and Poors attributed the jump in ratings to the town’s conservative and proactive man agement practices. The two ratings will allow the town to borrow ftinds at the best interest rates, possibly saving tax payers money. The public improvement bonds sold on Oct. 17 will finance projects including streets, pedestrian and bicycle amenities. STATE BRIEF'S Top adviser to Colin Powell focuses on America's future Nearly 200 students, faculty and community members gathered in Carroll Hall on Monday at 7:30 p.m. to hear Richard Haass, who served as a top adviser to Colin Powell. He discussed the problems of globalization and foreign policy issues in Iraq but focused mainly on America’s future. Visit www.dailytarheel.com for the full story. Durham man's request for appeal denied by court A federal appeals court refused to grant anew hearing Monday to a Durham man convicted of kidnap ping his girlfriend and beating her to death 13 years ago. Attorneys for Isaac Jackson Stroud, 52, who was sentenced to death, had argued that the state’s short indictment form wasn’t con stitutional because it didn’t specify death as a possible sentence. But the three-judge panel unan imously ruled that the indictment used by North Carolina was suffi cient. Stroud was convicted in 1995 for killing Jocelyn Mitchell in a beating on May 1,1993, that lasted seven hours. Mitchell was an art teacher and track coach at Durham High School.— From staff and wire reports Town mulls tech consultant BY TOM HARTWELL STAFF WRITER A proposal from Town Manager Roger Stancil to hire a consultant to assess Chapel Hill’s technology needs and capabilities received mixed reviews at a Town Council meeting Monday. Stancil pro posed hiring RHJ Associates, a company he has worked with before. ONLINE The council also discusses the giving kiosk, among other issues. Some council members complained that the firm’s proposal was too general and did not offer enough technical information. Another complaint was that RHJ’s proposal did not include enough information about munici pal wireless systems. “I think we have a really had voter participation rate. So I think it’s good idea to try to get the word out ” amy smoker, DEMOCRACY N.C. c& t •* •• L>: - _ l SbmL i m 9 % ik Ik v ® ® fii i I—- iil W! mSa i r9Hr Wo** 1 F Ife „ Mil | V** B ® ft m ■ jssk-- |- r n ' l&fcJLaaißfcrPg:;- % 4 * jit bSWr-Ft® ■ mm M&m saap / jgi DTHTTIMOTHY REESE Sophomore Kathryn Wilson volunteers in Carrboro through APPLES on behalf of Democracy North Carolina on Monday evening. Volunteers for several organizations, taking part in a phone bank, made calls to registered voters to remind them to vote in the Nov. 7 elections. CALLING ALL VOTERS BY ERIC SHEPHERD MARTIN SENIOR WRITER Volunteers of several organizations began a telethon Monday in an effort to increase voting in North Carolina. Held in Carrboro and Raleigh, the phone bank is a joint effort between more than 25 statewide organizations, including Democracy North Carolina, Equality North Carolina and the Conservation Council of North Carolina. For the next two weeks volunteers will call members of each organization who have not voted in the recent past in an effort to get them to the polls. The groups involved will also send letters to members of their organizations and try to spread the word to 45,000 North Carolina Congress faces new election Halloween race bars tricks with treats BY KEVIN KILEY STAFF WRITER Results from last Tuesday’s Student Congress special election in district six were overturned last week after a candidate was found to be distributing bags of candy at her off-campus neighborhood. Anew election will be held Oct. 31. It also will include runoff elec tions in districts seven and nine. Sophomore Jessica Thompson said didn’t think she was doing anything wrong when she passed out Dum Dum Pops and bubble gum while campaigning. But because of that action her vic tory in district six was voided. She was cited for violating election laws by using incentives to gamer votes. Thompson is running against junior Stephanie McLamb, soph omore Pedro Carreno, junior Quintin Byrd and junior William Schwarzer for two open seats. McLamb had claimed the other opening in the first election but still will have to run in the new election. Election bylines state that a can didate cannot offer an incentive of cash value to persuade a student to vote for him or her. Top News “I don’t think they got the mes sage that this was important to us,” Mayor Pro Tern Bill Strom said. Council member Laurin Easthom said it might be in the council’s best interest to look at other consultants. “There are other consultants out there who might show more advanced technological knowledge on their proposal,” she said. The proposed cost of hiring RHJ would not exceed $40,000. The firm’s proposal also received criticism during the public com ment phase of the discussion. “I can tell you this proposal is a little bit dated,” said Chapel Hill resi dent John Ager, whose background is in corporate information systems. But Stancil vouched for RHJ’s ability to serve the town. residents this year. The effort began in 2004 to encourage North Carolinians to vote in the presidential election, said Antony Khamala, organizer for Democracy North Carolina, a Carrboro based equal rights organization. “In 2004 we actually called over 20,000 people,” Khamala said. The Democracy North Carolina building in Carrboro houses many of the phone bank volunteers. Khamala said that although the phone calls might seem intrusive, the effort is necessary. “Phone banking is the second most effec tive way, next to knocking on doors, to get people’s attention,” Khamala said. Carrie Clark, executive director of the Although Thompson won with 247 votes, the top four vote-getters were within 22 votes of each other. “The district’s close vote total played a big part in the decision to have another election,” said Jim Brewer, chairman of the Board of Elections. Thompson will be allowed to ran in the new election but will be charged $3.18 for the violation. “In the (Student) Code it says students seeking office have a responsibility to know the election rules,” Brewer said. “However, we can’t say that Jessica knowingly violated the rale, so it isn’t really fair to disqualify her.” Thompson’s error was discovered when board members were audit ing campaign finance reports. “We found that she spent almost all of her campaign funds on candy and Ziploc bags,” Brewer said. He said before campaigns begin, the board holds a mandatory meeting where candidates are briefed about campaigning rales. “We are trying to send the message that incentives will not be tolerated, whether you know about it or not” Second elections traditionally “This particular consultant helps us to assess exactly where we are not only in terms of technology assessment but with our organiza tional structure,” he said. In addition to possibly hiring a consultant, the town also recently formed a committee to develop a master plan for technology. Mayor Kevin Foy said the issue was not strictly about a town wire less program but about changes to the infrastructure. “This is a proposal for internal work and contemporary assess ment of where we stand,” he said. “Wireless may or may not come about in the future, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.” Other council members dis agreed with him, saying that wire less access is a major reason for Conservation Council, which works to improve the state environment, said that in 2004 each of the two places hosting the phone bank had seven to 15 volunteers working each night. This year volunteers have been tougher to find. “It’s been harder to get people stimulated about votes this year,” Clark said. People were still signing up to volunteer as of Monday night. Volunteers who couldn’t call from the offi cial phones used their cell phones to spread the message. Clark said the effort targets people who would be especially likely to vote if moti vated because most of the people being SEE PHONE BANK, PAGE 7 “The question is how to motivate people for this new election now that they’ve already voted once.” QUINTIN BYRD, CANDIDATE draw fewer student votes, as was the case during February’s race for senior class officers. The first election saw about 1,500 votes and a following run off drew about 1,100 votes before Senior Class President Meg Petersen and Vice President Eric Schmidt were elected. Technical difficulties last October also prompted a second election. That election drew about five times more voters possibly because Homecoming king and queen, and the senior gift were on the ballot. Byrd, who was 15 votes off a Congress seat, said he thinks he had a better chance in the first election. “The question is how to motivate people for this new election now that they’ve already voted once.” Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2006 assessing town technology. “I think we do need to be thinking about municipal wireless,” council member Mark Kleinschmidt said. “I think the citizens who spoke articulated that need.” Council member Bill Thorpe weighed in to say he trusts Stancil’s recommendation. Thorpe made a motion to accept Stancil’s proposal to hire RHJ. Council member Jim Ward sug gested the council defer a vote until RHJ provides more information. Stancil said the information could be given at the council’s next business meeting, which is Nov. 6. Thorpe withdrew his motion until then. Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu. Allred says relationship between branches good BY KELLY GIEDRAITIS STAFF WRITER The sun might have reached its apex in James Allred’s stint as stu dent body president, but he isn’t breaking a sweat yet. Despite some recent disagree ments with Student Congress, Allred said his administration’s relationships with the two other branches of student government couldn’t be better. He said Today: /JP \ Student C \. Government %/^t^ Rela,io " S that tensions with Congress have subsided and that the judicial branch is running smoothly. iMCinF “I don’t think INSIDE relations are bad Congress will with Congress,” consider over- Allred said. “I riding a veto of thinkwe’redoing ticket legislation, a good job.” PAGE 7 Questions about a strain between the two branches arose in September when Allred criticized Congress members who opposed the nomination of senior Kris Gould for a spot on the Board of Elections. ‘Trials’ takes center screen Darryl Hunt the subject of movie BY AMY ZHANG STAFF WRITER Justice sometimes can be elu sive. As the documentary “The Trials of Darryl Hunt” attempts to depict, justice might take about 20 years, two convictions, DNA testing and the perseverance of a wrongly incarcerated man and his defense team. The documentary will be shown at 7 p.m. at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. The event is a part of the Center’s Diaspora Festival of Black and Independent Film and is co sponsored by the UNC School of Law and its Innocence Project and Death Penalty Project. Now, two years after his exoner ation, the story of Darryl Hunt, the incorrectly convicted man in the 1984 rape and murder of Deborah Sykes in Winston-Salem, is now being presented to national and international audiences. “People in North Carolina are fascinated because they know the story,” said Katie Brown, the film’s producer. “It’s close to them, it’s their community, but it’s in a dif ferent context.” But the messages and lessons of this story transcend Hunt’s case, Brown said. “I think that it’s bigger than the criminal justice system his story is microcosmical to what’s hap pening,” she said. “It’s happening all the time; it’s happening all over the world.” And even though Hunt’s story is native to the South, the sage has a universal qudß^fU^^ “There is an impression around the country that the South is more racist,” said Mark Rabil, Hunt’s defense attorney. “But generally, in California to Arizona to New England, people recognize that the film deals with issues in their own communities.” Ricki Stem and Annie Sundberg, the film’s directors, didn’t originally foresee the impact of this film. “The film evolved from the story. The story informed the film,” Stem said. The filmmakers had to approach the project with open minds, because the direction the film would take was unclear. “We went down with very open minds and a very neutral perspec tive,” Sundberg said. According to Stern, she and Sundberg learned of Hunt’s case in 1993 when both were living in New York, well before his exoneration. What attracted them, she said, was “the big investigative question” the story posed. Sundberg said getting to know SEE HUNT, PAGE 7 ATTEND THE SCREENING Time: 7 p.m. today Location: Stone Center theater Info: www.ibiblio.org/shscbhe/ events Debate also was spurred earlier this month by a series of e-mails sent over the Congress listserv. Allred sent a message to Congress members alerting them of a recent committee meeting that he said was in violation of N.C. open meetings laws. A reply by Congress Speaker Luke Farley claimed Allred’s reac tion was unprofessional. More recently Allreds veto of a bill that would prohibit the Department of Athletics from setting aside tickets for certain student groups reaffirmed fears about a growing rift. Congress will have the opportunity tonight to override Allred’s veto. “I think this whole thing has been blown out of proportion,” Allred said of the ticket-distribu tion bill. “If we have one point of contention over the course of the year, that’s pretty good.” Farley said Allred is more involved in Congress than past stu dent body presidents. The increased debate might be a result of Allred’s participation, Farley said. But this tension is not counter productive, he said. SEE ALLRED, PAGE 7 3
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