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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1987)
Inside: •New acting provost, Page 4 •Chinese Skylight Refectory, Page 7 •Simply Red, Page tO ——Oregon Daily- v Emerald Thursday, October 1, 1987 Eugene. Oregon Volume 89. Number 21 Task force differences widen By Stephen Maher Emerald Associate Editor Five members of the F.ugene Nuclear Free Zone Task Force presented the Kugene City Council with a new1 version of the nuclear free zone ordinance Wednesday, moments after charging other members of the task force with scuttling the original ordinance. "It’s both pro-business and pro-peace," task force member Dean Baker said of the new' ver sion during a morning news conference. "It puts F.ugene clearly in the business of peace and not war." "This ordinance clarifies what's allowed and what's not in terms of nuclear materials and nuclear war." Baker said The new version was created after the task force couldn't come to a consensus over the scope of the ordinance and elected to forward two recom mendations to the City Council. The task force was appointed by the City Council to clarify legal issues associated with the ordinance. The new version addresses all the legal and constitutional deficiencies of the original or dinance. said Steve Johnson, vice-chairman of the task force "Yet at the same time this version remains as true as possi ble to the original act and the will of the people of Eugene.” Johnson said The original ordinance pass ed with 58 percent of the vote during the 1986 general elec tion. establishing Eugene as one of 132 nuclear free zones in the United States. Six areas of concern over the legality of the ordinance were identified by city attorneys in lanuary 1986, said Martha Evans, one of the task force members who presented the new version on Wednesday. Those areas dealt with the pre emption of state, federal anti ci ty authority, and the vagueness with one of the clauses "The version that is being presented to the city today ad dresses the six issues the City Council brought up It looks at the legal problems, it ad dresses those legal problems and it does no more. It main tains what the voters passed and solves the constitutional issues." Evans said. But according to Nancy Willard, a task force member not present at the news con ference Wednesday, other legal and economic questions arose during task force discussions, "especially around the issue of clarity." "Those issues came more and more apparent as we were work ing with the language of the or dinance." Willard said The five task force members drew up the new version because it became apparent tin task force as a whole wouldn't allow the document to t>e presented to the City Council or to the public, Johnson said "The task force as originally appointed had people represen ting business interests that felt they could be threatened hv the original ordinance, and it had (Hiuple opposed to the original ordinance." Johnson added. Willard, on the other hand, said the five members who presented the new version are "using guerrilla tactics." “There's a whole bigger issue going on here than just the nuclear free zone. In this task force, a group of people have lieen willing to go along w hen it was going their way. When it Turn to Force, Page 3 Bomb threat leads to evacuation A bomb threat at the Universi ty Bookstore on Wednesday morning forced evacuation of hundreds of students on one of the store’s busiest days. No bomb was found. The store received the call at about 10:45 a m and was clos ed from about 11:10 to 12:15, according to store manager )im Williams The caller had a “college aged sounding male voice.” said Capt. Tim Birr, spokesman for the Eugene Police Depart ment. The caller neither iden r tified himself nor revealed a motive. The bookstore receptionist said she answered the phone "and gave my usual rigamorale." The caller then said. "There's a bomb in the store set to go off at 12." The receptionist said she replied. "What do you want to do that for?" She said the caller made no response at first, then said. "There’s a bomb in your store set to go off at 12. Have fun." He then hung up. The receptionist then went through the store's emergency procedure: informing Williams, the police department and the University's Office of Public Safety. It was William's decision to evacuate the store Williams, other bookstore employees and police officers conducted the search. Bomb searches are usually left to building employees, because they are more likely to spot irregularities than police officers, according to Birr. 1 University moves closer to semesters By Ingrid Petersen Emerald Reporter This year's freshmen are urged to complete clusters and required course sequences before the University im plements the semester system during the 1990-91 academic year, said Mavis Mate, chair woman of the semester transi tion steering committee. The committee oversees the University's transition from the quarter to the semester system. Students who have com pleted only part of a two or three course sequence before the implementation of the semester system will overlap their studies when completing that sequence under the semester system, said Mate. who also is head of the history department. However, students won’t get lost in the transition, she said. Each department will have a plan to counsel and ad vise students who will be mak ing the transition. The University’s individual departments will be responsi ble for scrutinizing and ad justing their curriculum for easy convergence into the semester system. The depart ments. which must have cur riculum changes finalized by early 1990, are just beginning to examine what changes should be made. The State Board of Higher Education approved changing Oregon's eight higher educa tion institutions to the semester system last spring based on the belief the semester system will further the quality of education. “It was the belief of at least the majority of the board that the somewhat longer period with broader exposure that is generally believed to come out of the semester system just serves quality education bet ter." said Ray Hoops, assistant vice-chancelor for academic affairs, who has taught, ad ministered and studied under both systems. "The reason being is that the quarter system is just so very truncated." he said "The trend nationally is toward what this system is do ing. toward the early semester system." Hoops said. Current ly 54 percent of the nation's higher education institutions use the early semester system Turn to Semester, Page 3 Solitude in studies Malcolm Horton, a first-year architecture premajor from New lersey, takes time out in his mom at Schaefer Hull to keep abreast with his classes. Photo by Shu-Shing Chen City council discusses urban renewal plans By Andrew LaMar Emerald Reporter The Eugene City Council met for lunch on Wednesday and discussed the updated version of the Urban Renewal Plan, which has guided the city's development of the downtown area since it was written in 1968. The updated draft was com pleted |une 19 and the council plans to meet several times to discuss it before taking final ac tion Nov. lb. Abe Farkas. director of the ci ty development department, said the downtown area employs 12,000 people, two and a half times what the University employs, and is as important to Eugene as Eugene is to the surrounding region. Eugene's competition. Salem, has committed five times the land area to its downtown area and spends more money it. he said. “From our perspective, in order to be competitive with other (ities and regions, one has to at least maintain or build upon the market share of the jobs and businesses in our cur rent area,” Parkas said. Greg Byrne, the city's com munity development manager, said the city has met many of the objectives of the original 19(>8 plan hut has not com pleted the plan. The city hasn’t provided enough parking to meet the demand of new com mercial development and has not surrounded the downtown area with parking facilities, both of which were objectives of the plan. The assessed property value of the downtown area has in creased at about the same rate that value has increased for the county since 1973, Byrne said. From 19B8 until 1973. that value was not increasing, he said. "1 think the evidence is over whelming" that the (dan is working for the downtown area, said Mike Gleason, the city manager. The city should con tinue with the plan until all the objectives have been met. Turn to Council, Page 4
