The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, February 27, 1980-Page 7 Few attend mass meeting on drinkage 10 BY CATHY BROWN Representatives of the Citizens for a Fair Drinking Age (CFDA) and two state legislators kicked off a drive at the University last night to lower the drinking age in the state to 19. Fewer than 20 people attended the mass meeting sponsored by the com- mittee, which is spearheading a state- wide petition drive at colleges and universities to lower the legal drinking *age, raised from 18 to 21 in 1978. "BASICALLY WHAT we need to do is circulate petitions and get people to sign them," said Kim Wheeler, chair- woman of the University segment of the CDFA drive. Wheeler said she hopes the campus petition drive will be un- derway by March 28. ] The group needs 286,000 signatures by July 7 in order to place the proposal on the November ballot. According to Rep. Perry Bullard (D-Ann Arbor), the drive twill aim for 30,000 signatures in Ann Arbor. Wheeler said her strategy includes "hitting key points on campus, the dorms, the UGLI, the Fishbowl, the diag, CRISP lines, etc.," and to branch out to locations around the city later. CDFA STATE chairman Doug Hargett said the group now has com- mittees in about 30 campuses state- wide, and hopes to have at least 50 committees organized by the end of PMarch. "If not," Hargett said, "We won't make the ballot." Proposal D, which raised the legal state drinking age to 21, passed due to lack of organization on the part of those fighting it, Hargett said. "I won't lower the drinking age, Representative Bullard won't lower the drinking age, you will. It's up to you to corral interest," Hargett told the student organizers. Hargett said Proposal D was aimed both at preventing high school students from drinking and decreasing traffic accidents caused by drunk drivers. "NINETEEN WOULD do it. The State Board of Education has endorsed us on this," Hargett said. Traffic fatalities are up six per cent since Proposal D went into effect, Hargett added. The reason the law failed and traffic deaths increased, he said, is because of poor enforcement and the increase in the number of young people drinking in parks and in cars in- stead of in bars. The reversal in 1978 of the right to purchase and consume alcohol was a take away due to student apathy," said Bullard. He stressed the importance "to try and get the history" of the laws concerning the drinking age. Bullard said the initial lowering of the drinking age to 18 in 1971 was due to the youth movement of the '60s. "To reverse the situation, we need a renewal of the youthful idealism that led to the change of the drinking age to begin with," he said. Daily Photo by JOHN HAGEN A STUDENT VOLUNTEERS to be a petitioner for the Ann Arbor drive to lower the drinking age while State Rep. Perry Bullard (D-Ann Arbor) who also attended last night's mass meeting, looks on. MSA supports planned boycott of 0X7 IU r Cr ,TMSA member Tom Robinson said the Yorkievits also said she feels the BY 1V ITCHbTUART By a narrow margin, the Michigan, Student Assembly (MSA) last night voted to support a package of anti-draft registration activities including .a boycott of classes on March 14. The eight and one half to seven vote expressed MSA support of a series of events March 13-16' which includes a teach-in, a rally, the boycott, and other activities which supporters called "educational." That description of anti-registration activities was one reason for the close' vote, as many of the resolution's op- ponents said a boycott of classes would be contradictory to the planned educational activities. Proponents of the resolution, however, said students would learn things in a teach-in they would not learn in the classroom. They also cited a teach-in as an effective way to increase student awareness and knowledge. PRIGIM member Dan Carol said, "The idea is to promote awareness and to get people involved in this:" boycott is a "symbol" that will be recognized on a national level. The boycott was also considered last night at the Rackham Student Gover- nment meeting, but according to Vice President and Acting Chairwoman impact from undergraduates is much greater on lawmakers and other policy- makers, mainly because they are within the age group that would be affected. GREG SCOTT, president of the 'Boycotting classes is equivalent to ciil disobelien('e.' -Carol Yorkieritz, Racklam Stu(lent (orernmti nt rice-president and( facting clIailcomiil classes religious reasons. Scott added, "We may commit ourselves to a more supportive position as things develop." Scott said, "On a legal basis, GEO has a virtually perfect right to call for something like this." ALSO LAST night, MSA approved Ross romeo as this year's election director. Romeo, an LSA junior and Communications major, was assistant election director for last year's LSA- Student Government election. Last night he said he hopes to run the MSA general election in a similar way. Romeo added he doesn't see any obstacles to this plan. The appointment at this time was in stark contrast to last year's election director appointment, which occured a spare two weeks before the election. Members of the election board cited impartiality, leadership ability, and experience as qualities they looked for in choosing the director. Carol Yorkievitz, no action was taken due to the lack of a quorum. YORKIEVITZ SAID, "My thought on the subject is that boycotting classes is equivalent to civil disobedience." "The situation for gradaute students is a bit different. Some of the graduate students are teachers," she said. There n ight be a conflict, Yorkievitz said,. etween, boycotting classes and teaching responsibilities for graduate students. Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) said the executive committee resolved to lend at least minimal support to the boycott. "What we decided to do was to urge, at the very minimum, that teaching assistants follow the Yom Kippur Rule. We're not saying that they shouldn't go further than that," Scott said. He said the "Yom Kippur Rule" urges teaching assistants not to penalize students for missing class for N-plant shuts down due to instrument failure From AP and UPI CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla.-A nuclear power plant reactor shut down automatically .yesterday when its instruments and control systems lost power. Some radioactive water was spilled inside the plant when an emergency cooling system switched on,. said officials of Florida Power Corp. There was no leakage of radioactive material outside the Crystal River No. 3 plant and no danger to the public, said the utility and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NRC SPOKESMAN Ken Clark said. some "non-essential employees from some areas inside the plant" were evacuated. "-There has been no measured off-site release of radioactive material," said an NRC statement issued in Washington, and conditions "appear to be stable." NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said in Washington that the water was confined to the containment building, which houses the reactor. THE UTILITY estimated as much as 60,000 gallons of the radioactive water escaped into the building, where sump pumps began collecting it into storage tanks. Bill Johnson, spokesman for Florida Power, said some "clerical and administrative" employees were sent home, but employees were not evacuated, although the NRC declared a site emergency and dispatched a team of five experts to investigate. Johnson said the accident began when the 825-megawatt reactor's control and instrumentation system lost power and the reactor shut itself down., For unknown reasons, congressional and NRC sources in Wasington said, the reactor's emergency cooling systems flipped on, forcing extra cooling water into the core. The extra water drove radioactive coolant water out of the primary system-probably through the defective valve-and into the containment building. NRC may lift stay on nuke licenses WASHINGTON (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is ready to begin licensing nuclear power plants again for the first time since the Three Mile Island accident, NRC Chairman John Ahearne told Congress yester- day. Ahearne said his agency's self- imposed moratorium - he called it a "pause" - could end in the next few days when the NRC considers granting an interim operating license for a plant near Chattanooga, Tenn. BARRING UNFORESEEN com- plications, a license will likely be issued to allow the plant to begin "low-power" operation within the next few weeks, Ahearne said in testimony to a House Appropriations subcommittee on energy. If no problems develop after this shake-down period, the plant could then go to full power four to six months later, he testified. The plant - the Tennessee Valley *Authority's Sequoyah Unit No. 1 - is first on the NRC's list of 14 new plants that could be put into operation in 1980. NEXT ON THE NRC's list of almost ready-to-go plants is Virginia Electric & Power Co.'s North Anna No. 2 plant in north-central Virginia, Ahearne said. No nuclear plants have been licensed since the accident last March 28 at the plant near Harrisburg, Pa. - the nation's most serious commercial nuclear accident. Ahearne said the 11 months since the Three Mile Island accident have seen a major revision of NRC safety standards and procedures. 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