etr4ian Daty 420 Maynard Street, Ann Arbor, Mich. Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of the author. This must be noted in all reprints. Thursday, May 20, 1971 News Phone: 764-0552 NIGHT EDITOR: ROBERT SCHREINER City budget priorities AST WEEK, Ann Arbor's City Council approved a budget of $13 million - larger than any previous one but sorely inadequate to meet the city's needs. Officials, naturally, were dismayed because it meant increased public dissatisfaction as the level of city services inevit- ably dropped. They also knew a personal income tax would not be long in coming. But sympathy granted to these men and their efforts would be misplaced. When it came right down to it, the needs of those least represented and most oppressed were those most ignored in the city's budget. The only black on council, Democrat Norris Thomas from the First Ward, expressed what are likely to be the sentiments of his constituency when he spoke before the budget was unanimously ratified. "It's hard to see," he said, "why a few thousand dollars should keep us from funding community programs when we have a budget of $13 million." What Norris was saying was thatit had taken weeks of haggling to insure even modest funding for programs for the poor and minority groups in this community. City Administrator Guy Larcom - a veteran at his post who should have developed some sensitivity to minority needs by this time - had no money slated for the experimental child care center or summer youth employment and had planned a $3,000 cut in funding for the recently estab- lished post of city grievance officer in his initial budget draft. Supposedly, according to Larcom, this was because there was no indication of whether there would be ade- quate private support for these programs to add to city funds. To go along with this reasoning, one would assume no community program could be established by the city alone. And the only reason for devoting $15,000 to a program to improve conditions in the black community would be because a federal program called Model Cities also dished out $15,000. j TNFORTUNATELY, a close approximation of this rea- soning forms the basis of city decision-making here in times of financial strain. Cuts are made where they are expedient, and the values which go into these decis- ions are difficult to discern. New programs to help the disadvantaged are likely to be cut first, since they have not been in existence long enough to have developed an elaborate bureaucratic justification. City officials in high administrative posts received the same nine per cent pay hike low paid employes will get. Because the city's garbage collectors still have a weak union with no political punch, they absorb the brunt of the slated 43 city layoffs. And because it is much easier for the city's govern- ment to treat the heroin epidemic as a police problem, a scant $10,000 is allotted for a methadone program to rehabilitate addicts, rather than imprison them. The list, or more accurately, the lack of one, is end- less. Despite the fact that city officials found about $50,000 more to give to community causes after a group of angry mothers protested the decision to cut off child care funds - a relationship which officials claim is not causal - the change is little reason for celebration. Even though the child care people will get $18,060 and the city's grievance officer $10,000, the lack of funding for these programs is still deplorable. Before the community is willing to give our evenly split council its gratitude for their generosity, it might be useful to consider other political considerations at work. Though $11,000 for a summer youth employment program is an improvement over nothing, the astronomic prospects for unemployment among city youth this sum- 'mer make it only logical that a pittance would be allocat- ed out of fear of the consequences rather than concern for employment problems peculiar to youth. Similarly, the $6,000 reluctantly allocated to Ozone House for helping young people this summer appears more a frantic effort to temper the increasing tensions between police, schools and youth rather than a significant effort toward seek- ing solutions to these problems. THUS, WE HAVE once again witnessed the kind of government we have been assured by officials will not exist, where the first thought is to see that the machine works in an orderly manner rather than in a way in which the community's needs - especially those generally ignored in wealthy Ann Arbor - are served. -MARK DILLEN Letters to The Daily Ensergency plea To The Daily: AT 4:15 TUESDAY, May 18, I received a phone call from my good friend, Prof. Bernard Lewis (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), in which he gave me the latest de- tails on what is fast becoming an international scholarly cause cele- bre - a case which demonstrates the raging inhumanity, callous- ness, and cruelty that can be practiced on a human being in the Soviet Union. Mikhail I. Zand, a renowned Soviet specialist in Persian and Arabic studies and member of the Institute of Peoples of Asia at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, requested that he and his fam- ily be granted exit visas to emi- grate to Israel. This request was submitted on March 12. On March 25, he was arrested during a peace- ful demonstration in the office of the Moscow Public Prosecutor, R. Rudenko. Zand was then sent- enced to 15 days in prison on the charge of 'hooliganism. He spent those 15 days on a hunger strike and was close to death when re- leased. On May 10,. the Zands were granted their exit visas. I write these words this sa m e Tuesday evening only an hour after Bernard Lewis told me that he' had just spoken to Eand on the phone and was relaying the latest details. On Sunday, t h e Zands were ready to leave for the airport when a message arrived calling Mikhail to the office of OVIR, the official Soviet agency that deals with exit visas. There he was informed that the visas were cancelled; all of his papers, documents, and plane tickets were taken from him, and he was told to return on Tuesday at 11 am. The Zands returned to their now tot- ally bare apartment - all their furniture had been sold or given away so they then spent the ne xt two nights sleeping on the floor. On Tuesday, he was kept waiting all day in the OVIR office and then was ushered in to an official who informed him that since the issuance of the exit visa on May 13 required his renunciation of his Soviet citizenship, he and h i s family were now 'stateless per- sons'. Re was also told to return to the offire this coming Friday. Lewis told me that it was clear from Zand's voice on the phone that he was in a weakened condi- tion and that the situation seemed hopeless. It was clear that t h e Soviet authorities are trying to break him physically and psychol- ogically. The only thing we who are his friends can now do is to bombard the Soviet Union with telegrams declaring our support of this most gentle and able schol- ar. One sidelight: while Zand was in prison, a meeting was held at the Research Institute where he has worked for so many years and he was denounced as a traitor and expelled from his job. Who de- a "Has it occurred to any of you that he might- withdraw A LL the troops and leave us here?" of * nounced him? None other than his own teacher, Joseph Braginsky, from whose very lips I o n c e heard these words, "You k n o w, Mikhail was one of the two best students I've ever had in my whole life." At this meeting two of Zand's colleagues, to their eter- nal credit, voted in his favor. Shortly thereafter, his daughter, Inna, was expelled from her third year medical school class because of the treasonous activity of hav- ing requested permission to emi- grate to Israel;uZand's son was also thrown out of his high school. Such is collective respon- sibility. At the moment, I wait in fear and trembling to hear of Zand's fate. Lewis' closing words to me were, "Herbert, I'm afraid that now it's a matter of life and death. We must do whatever we can in these next few days." I CALL ON EVERT concerned scholar who is mindful of the fate of a fellow scholar and human be- ing to cable the Soviet Academy of Sciences and/or the Soviet Em- bassy to demand, request, urge, plead, or otherwise register their interest in Mikhail Zand's re- lease and in the reinstatement of his exit visa. I myself have t h is night sworn that if any hurt comes to Zand or to any member of his family, I shall do everything within my power to urge non-co- operation with Soviet science and its representatives. This action against my friend and colleague only confirms what Solzhenitsyn has chronicled in fiction and what Nadezhda Mandelstam has now detailed inher memoirs. The Soviet Union and its scientif ic establishment stand further de- graded and condemned by this sadistic treatment of one of its most respected scholars. -Prof. Herbert H. Paper Dept. of Linguistics Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Litera- tures May 18 Pakistan appeal To The Daily: MUCH IS STILL confused and uncertain about recent events in EastrPakistan. But several points seem clear to most observers in the United States. 1. In the 1971 Pakistan election the great majority of East Pakis- tanis voted for candidates favor- ing much greater autonomy for East Pakistan. 2. The government of Pakistan, largely controlled by West Pakis- tan military officers, refused to accept the implications of the election and instead used force to subdue the growing movement for autonomy in East Pakistan. Amer- i c a n equipment unfortunately played an important part in this military action. 3. Great devastation has result- ed in East Pakistan, with many lives lost, much destruction of property, and considerable dis- placement of persons from cities to countryside and from East Pakistan to eastern India. E as t Pakistan was already one of the poorest areas in the world, and Its southern districts were only be- ginning to recover from a disas- trous cyclone in 1970. This new man-made destruction promises suffering and perhaps starvation for many of East Pakistan's 70 million persons. This is an appeal for funds to be used to provide food, medicine, and other non-military ,upplies for East Pakistani victims of thin latest disaster. Money collected will be kept in an American bank through a legitimate and effective relief organization to East Pakis- tanis in need. No money will be used for weapons, and no money will be sent directly to the gov- ernment of Pakistan or to a n y other government directly involv- ed in the conflict. We expect to use organizations ik e the Red Cross, the American Friends Ser- vice Committee, or other neutral groups. THE NEED is great. Please send your donation to the East Pakis- tan Relief Fund, Ann Arbor bank, South University Branch. Contri- butions are tax deductible. --Prof. Howard Schuman Dept. of Sociology Chairman, East Pakistan Relief Fund The Editorial Page of The Michigan Daily is open to any- one. who wishes to 'submit articles. Generally speaking, all articles should be less than 1,000 words. .. "Ithought you said that judge was a friend of yours . .." -0. 1