I taanr
Ninety-nine years of editorial freedom
Vol. C, No. 10 Ann Arbor, Michigan -Wednesday, September 20, 1989 ea s*
Hurricane
Hugo
devastates.
thousands
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)
- National Guards with automatic
rifles patrolled San Juan yesterday to
prevent looting after Hurricane Hugo
devastated the island, leaving tens of
thousands of people homeless and
causing food and water shortages.
Hugo walloped thenortheastern
part of the island, then skirted its
populous northern coast on Monday.
It churned on to the northwest and
toward open water, and whirled past
but missed the Dominican Republic.
Water in some of areas was reported
cut off or in short supply, and resi-
dents of poorer communities outside
San Juan used buckets to bathe in or
to store drinking supplies.
Puerto Rican Gov. Rafael Colon
said,"This is a tragedy of major pro-
portions." He also said that losses
from the storm would amount to
"hundreds of millions of dollars... At
least 50,000 people lost their homes
or had them severely damaged."
Relief officials asked for cots and
plastic sheetings to use for shelters
for the thousands of islanders whose
homes were crumpled by Hugo, and
Colon said he would react by asking
the federal government to declare the
island, a U.S. commonwealth, a dis-
aster area and seek immediate relief
aid.
MSA
new i
passes
udget
ease
Cuts to be equalized
among committees
A resident of Point-A-Pitre looks at the damage caused by hurricane Hugo
hurricane killed 80 and left more than 10,000 homeless.
However, American Red Cross
spokesperson Brian Ruberry said in
Washington there were reports of 12
deaths and 100 injuries in Puerto
Rico, and that three-fourths of the is-
land's residents were without power.
Coast Guard vessels from Puerto
Rico scoured the waters off the is-
land because of reports "there are a
lot of people stranded (on boats) out
in the water," said Coast Guard Lt.
Stan Douglas.
The governor initially estimated
late Monday that 27,900 people had
been made homeless by the hurri-
cane.
Two people died on Puerto Rico
while trying to remove a TV antenna
Sunday in preparation for the storm,
according to Maria Oronoz of the
governor's office. She said no other
deaths had been reported on the is-
land.
At least 25 people in the
Associ,, ress
on the Place of Victories. The
Caribbean died from the storm, said
Cizanette Rivera, a spokesperson for
the Civil Defense in Puerto Rico.
She also said two Puerto Ricans
were among those 25 as Hugo
slashed through the region Sunday
and Monday with 125 mph winds.
Looting by machete-wielding
mobs was also reported on the island
of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin
Islands.
by Mark Katz
and Josh Mitnick
Daily Staff Writers
The Michigan Student Assembly
overwhelmingly passed a signifi-
cantly amended budget last night de-
spite persistent objections from
President Aaron Williams.
By a vote of 26 to 5, with two
abstentions, the assembly approved a
budget that contained amendments
designed to equalize budget cuts orig-
inally slated for committees and
commissions.
Williams repeated charges after
the vote that the amendments were
politically motivated. "Dolgan and
his cohorts have opposed me as long
I have been on the assembly," he
said.
He called the cuts "hasty" and
"fiscally irresponsible." Williams de-
fended the budget produced by the
summer assembly - the budget he
proposed at last week's meeting -
claiming that every committee and
commission had an opportunity to
contribute to the budget process, but
most didn't choose to participate.
One abstention came from Vice
President Rose Karadsheh.
"Unfortunately it turned out to be a
big political move and I didn't want
to get involved in that," she said.
The amendments were drawn by
Rackham Rep. Corey Dolgan and set
base cuts of 40 percent for all but
two committees. It also reallocated
$1,500 from MSA's advertising
budget to the Communications and
Minority Affairs Committees.
After the amendment passed, two
attempts to table a vote on the bud-
get to next week's meeting failed.
Earlier in the meeting, University
Vice President for Government
Relations Richara Kennedy and
Director of Public Relations Walter
Harrison each offered presentations
explaining their respective roles at
the University.
Kennedy discussed how the
University obtains funding from the
state and other sources, and then how
that money is disbursed throughout
the University via the budget.
MSA delegates questioned
Harrison about the University's mi-
nority recruitment policy. "We don't
know what our figures will be (for
minority recruitment), but it doesn't
look like we'll do as well as we
thought we would in terms of first-
year students," Harrison said.
In other assembly business, rep-
resentatives from the Palestinian
Solidarity Committee (PSC) made
an appearance at the meeting to dis-
cuss the experiences of a delegation
which traveled to the Middle East
this summer.
Former MSA delegateMike
Peterson and third-year law student
Donald Blome were the MSA-spon-
sored members of a group which met
with "students of all ages" in Israeli-
occupied territories, said Tom
Abowd, a PSC member who accom-
panied the delegation.
"We talked with elementary, sec-
ondary, and kindergarten students
who established underground schools
to learn while the schools were
closed," he said. The PSC members
said it was difficult to meet with
Israeli students when they were
there.
See MSA, Page 2
Political
by Noelle Vance
Gaily Government Reporter
groups
seek
For the University's College
Democrats and College Republicans,
political involvement in recent years
has mainly focused on congressional
and presidential campaigns.
But in this off-election year, as
membership increases, both groups
are seeking a more visible role in
campus and state-wide issues.
For the Democrats, greater in-
volvement begins at the state level,
where the issue of abortion is being
hotly debated.
College Dems., Reps. focus
on state, University issues
impact
issues as their rallying point.
"Campus Issues come first," said
College Republican Chair Glenn
-Kotcher, an LSA senior. "We're
looking for the same type of student
government that (MSA President)
Aaron Williams supports... We
don't want MSA to be used as a rad-
ical platform for students on campus
anymore."
Kotcher said the group will lobby
MSA for more for campus services
like Safewalk, the nighttime walk-
See POLITICS, page 5
Rallying behind pro-choice
groups like Planned Parenthood and
the Ann Arbor National
Organization of Women, the
Democrats are launching a major
campaign to protect what they be-
lieve are women's reproductive
rights.
The issue gives the group a plat-
form that most individuals can agree
upon, said College Democrats
President Roger Kosson, an LSA
senior. The urgency of the issue may
be one reason membership in the
College Democrats increased this
year, Kosson said.
The Republicans, on the other
hand, are looking towards campus
,Area group,
fights possible
hazardous
*dumpl si~te
by Sara VanLooy
Concerned citizens of a local community are work-
ing not only to keep their town free of toxic waste,
but to help other midwesterners fight similar piob-
lems.
Members of Milan Citizens Against Toxic.
Substances (M-CATS) have been working for over a
year to prevent Milan, a town of 4,500 residents south
of Ann Arbor, from becoming home to an 1,800-acre
toxic waste dump. The dump is planned by the
Augusta Development Corp., and would include an
incinerator, holding tanks, and 400 acres of landfill.
"This is probably the most important environmen-
tal siting decision in recent Michigan history," said
Michael Garfield, Environmental Issues Director for
the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor.
Local residents are concerned. The site includes 140
acres of designated wetlands, and is atop an aquifer
(underground water) which extends under Lake Erie.
The landfill would be the second largest such operation
in the nation, receiving wastes from the entire East
Coast.
The presence of a railway at one edge of the planned
gte suggests that waste will be transported by rail,
concerning some M-CATS members who remember
the recent derailment in Freeland, Mich., that drove
people from their homes for a week.
Many worry that this will set a difficult precedent
to break. "Building a huge new incinerator/landfill
would be counterproductive to efforts to properly man-
age toxic waste," said Kimberly Dunbar, chair of M-
'U' students building
solar car for
1990
race across country
by Ian Hoffman
While Icharus dreamed of reaching the
Sun, a group of about 75 University stu-
dents will be content with just harnessing it.
Their work on the solar car Lux Fiat,
Latin for "Let there be light," began last
January and will culminate in the 32 school,
10-day GM Sunrayce U.S.A. The 1,800-
mile race will be run in July, 1990, from the
Epcott Center in Florida to the GM Tech
Center in Warren
University project Chair Susan Fancy, an
engineering and LSA senior, said she spends
about 35 hours a week coordinating all
aspects of the project, including planning,
fund raising and publicity. "This is the op-
portunity of a lifetime," she said. "Even if I
weren't getting credit, I would be doing
this."
Fancy, along with about 60-100 other
engineering students creating the car, will
earn three engineering credits.
Academic credit is instrumental in draw-
ing students to the project, Fancy said. She
said about 250 engineering students have
shown interest in working on the car.
"We were praying that we would get the
people, and we obviously did," Fancy said.
So far the group's biggest setback has
been fundraising; the students are hoping to
raise a half million dollars to help bankroll
the project.
"It's simple - money dictates speed,"
said second-year Business School student
Michael Lynch, the administrative manager
of the project.
But not all of the students are in the
College of Engineering. "This is breaking
ground. No project that we know of at the
University has ever had the multitude or
amount of interdisciplinary scope of this
one," said technical consultant Bill
Kaliardos, an engineering senior.
There are 12 Business School students, as
well as others with art, meteorology, jour-
nalism and math backgrounds, devoting their
time to perfect the Lux Fiat.
Though primarily student run, engineer-
ing Prof. Bill Rivens serves as a faculty ad-
visor to the project. "Rivens serves as an in-
terface between students and the things they
need," Kaliardos said. "He cuts through the
red tae.
The purpose of the first ever GM-spon-
sored Sunrayce is twofold, said Tom
Stumpo, the race's public relations director.
"We are holding this race for the benefit of
student engineers in North America and be-
cause we think it will serve as a vehicle to
encourage young people to go on to careers
in science and engineering," he said.
See RACE, page 2
ASlot.d Press
And you thought we had it bad...
Students at Michigan State University search the stacks of an East
Lansing bookstore. Classes begin this week at MSU; maybe these poor
students will be out of line in time. Come to think of it, when did MSU
students learn how to read?
Gorbachev attempts to
reform Kremlin