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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 1985)
Oregon doily emerald Stic* tho stars conic out on Pa”!! 1 2. w'' CAPRICORN 4 • Monday, January 7, 1985 Eugene, Oregon .. Volume 86, Number 71 Mayor, councilors will begin tenures tonight at the Hult By Cynthia Whitfield Of Dm Emerald Eugene Mayor-elect Brian Obie and five city councilors will be sworn into office today in a 7 p.m. ceremony at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts. Obie and outgoing mayor Gus Keller will present state-of-the city addresses during the ceremony in the Silva Concert Hall. A reception in the Hult lobby will follow. The public is invited to both events. Obie. an eight-year council veteran, will begin a four-year term as mayor. Incumbent councilors Ruth Bascom, Debra Ehrmann and Cynthia Wooten, and newcomer Roger Rutan will begin four-year terms as well. Jeffery Miller, who was chosen by the council in December to fill the Bethei Danebo seat vacated by John Ball, will also take office tonight. Miller will complete Ball’s term of office, which ex pires in January 1987. Ball resigned his council seat after he was elected to the Lane County Board of Commissioners in November. Bascom was elected to the council in May and took office in August when Betty Smith / Brian Obie resigned her council seat five months early. Ehrman was also elected in May, and took office in June when Mark Lindberg left in a similar fashion. Wooten was first elected to the council in January 1981. Miller and Rutan are joining the council for the first time. Local restaurant owners are supplying donated refreshments for the reception following the ceremony. Music will be provided free of charge by local musicians. School and state officials react to funding decision By Mike Sims Of the Emerald The State Board of Higher Education’s Dec. 14 decision to spend most of a tuition revenue windfall on legal expenses has drawn criticism from several quarters. The board unanimously voted to spend $900,000 in surplus tuition fees to help cover legal costs incurred by the Department of Higher Education in defending three lawsuits, the most expensive of which is a $40 million class action sex-discrimination suit — Penk vs. State Board of Higher Education. The department’s $1.6 million tuition revenue surplus was realized when 1983-85 enrollment figures at the University and Western Oregon State College exceeded earlier projections. Other lawsuits pending against the department involve the proposed divestiture of South Africa-related stocks in the depart ment’s investment portfolio and ownership of a Eugene residence used by the chancellor of state higher education. The Department of Higher Education’s an nual legal budget usually runs between $200,000 and $300,000. The department had budgeted $500,000 for legal expenses for 1984-85. The University will receive $588,000 and WOSC will receive $112,000 from the addi tional funds after money earmarked for legal fees is deducted. University Pres. Paul Olum said Saturday, “My general feeling is one of unhappiness that we didn’t get money we could use for teaching students that were never funded.” Olum was referring to cuts that were made in the University’s base budget by the 1983 Legislature after an enrollment decline was projected for the University during the 1983-85 biennium. The University had enroll ment increases above the projected declines during each of the last two academic years — approximately 1,225 students in 1983-84, 825 this year. Olum suggested that if the department’s legal expenses had been divided evenly among the eight state colleges and universities, the University would still have had to pay a share of the costs but would have still received its fair share of the tuition revenue surplus. Sherry Oeser, Oregon Student Lobby director, called the board’s decision to use stu dent tuition monies for legal expenses “inappropriate.” “By diverting the tuition money like this, the students wind up paying,” Oeser said. The OSL’s next step, Oeser said, will be to ask the board and the Legislature to re examine policies regarding appropiiate use of tuition revenues. “Actually, we’ve asked the Legislature to re-think it’s tuition policy before,” she explained. “Now seems like a good time to do it again.” State Sen. L.B. Day, R-Salem, reacted angrily to the board’s action. “If I had my way, I’d fire the chancellor and the whole goddamn board,” he said. Continued on Page 8 Legal action imminent in assault-theft case By Julie Shippen Of the Emerald Eugene attorney Douglas Haldane says he now has enough evidence to press for mal charges against a fraternity and cer tain individuals he believes were involv ed in the alleged assault of Rob Seyler on Oct. 28. Haldane says a claim will^je filed in Lane County Circuit Court within the next two weeks charging the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and its alumni association with negligent supervision of house ac tivities. including serving alcohol to minors. In addition. Haldane says a separate claim will be filed holding three in dividuals responsible in the alleged beating and robbing of Seyler, 20. a former University student. The three will be charged with assault and battery, outrageous conduct and non-criminal theft, Haldane said. Seyler hired Haldane after Eugene police found him naked, beaten and un conscious in front of a sorority house near the Beta house on the morning of Oct. 28. Seyler said he was invited to visit the house that night after the func tion, although Beta members deny in viting him. Seyler also claims doctors told him he had blood-alcohol poisoning, a concus sion and hypothermia when he was found. In addition, he says $350 was stolen along with his clothes that evening. In the meantime, the Beta Rho Alumni Corporation has been investigating the charges through the coordination of Portland attorney and alumni member William Schaub. Schaub responded to a demand letter from Haldane's office last week, denying any negligence on the association’s or fraternity’s behalf. He says the fraternity and its board of directors are not liable as the incident happened after the function and involv ed individuals outside the house. However, Schaub did not dismiss possible responsibility on the part of fraternity members who may have been involved and said that one member had already been disaffiliated as a result of the incident. Schaub says that if his organization is liable, then the University Athletic Department should be held responsible as well. Schaub claims that two football players were directly involved and says that officials of the department are also conducting an investigation. However, Athletic Director Bill Byrne denies any such involvement. Byrne says that two men, presumably from the Interfratemity Council, ap proached him following the publication of an article on Nov. 12 regarding the assault, requesting that University athletes not attend fraternity functions unless they are invited. The University’s student conduct pro gram also has investigated the incident during the past two months and is now ready to turn the case over to a student prosecutor to prepare for a formal hear ing later this term. Virginia Bouschey, the program’s coordinator, says that although the results of her office’s investigation are still “cursory,” sufficient evidence was found to aim the case toward a formal hearing. By doing so, Bouschey says the Photo by Michael Clapp A Eugene man who claims he was beaten and robbed after an Oct. 28 function at this house — home of Beta Theta Pi fraternity — is taking the case to court. more serious sanctions, such as expul sion, suspension and negative transcript notation, are still available should any students involved in the matter be found responsible. “We want to make sure that we don’t preempt ourselves so early in the process as to rule out the possibility of asking for those sanctions,” she says. Bouschey says that while her office has no jurisdiction over the possible criminal aspects of the case, students still are liable to the University’s ad ministration for behavior considered im proper or threatening to the community. “Our concern is with communicating to the University community that this is not acceptable behavior and that it will not be tolerated,” Bouschey says. Members of the Interfratemity Council agree. Mitch Vance, former Interfraternity Council president now replaced by Jay Halverson, says the organization’s Tribunal Council will convene this month for a hearing of possible viola tions by the Beta house of the Interfrater nity Council’s guidelines, particularly concerning alcohol in fraternities. Seyler and Beta house president Blair Thompson are currently unavailable for comment.
