I
October 21Copyght 90
Vol. CI., No.19 Ann Arbor, Michigan -Tuesday, Otbr2, 1990 The Michigan Daly
Bush
*criticizes
Iraqat
U.N.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -
President Bush said yesterday that
*Iraq and its leaders must be held li-
able for "crimes of abuse and destruc-
ion" in the takeover of Kuwait. But
he also suggested to Baghdad that an
unconditional military withdrawal
could help speed an end to the Arab-
Israeli conflict.
Bush, in a speech before the U.N.
General Assembly, blended condem-
nation of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein with an overture for a
resolution of the two-month crisis.
"We seek a peaceful outcome, a
diplomatic outcome," he said in his
prepared remarks.
Bush said all nations hope that
military force will not be required to
drive Iraq from Kuwait. Still, he
won applause by vowing anew that
Iraq's annexation of Kuwait "will
not be allowed to stand."
Praising the U:N.'s resolve, Bush
said, "This challenge is a test we
cannot afford to fail. I am confident
we will prevail."
Even as Bush was speaking, the
White House announced that the
United States was sending two
batteries of Patriot air-defense
missiles to Israel on an emergency
basis.
Presidential spokesperson Marlin
*Fitzwater said the weapons will help
Israel defend against an increased
threat from ballistic missiles in Iraq.
Nearly every seat in the General
Assembly hall was full as President
Bush combined a blistering indict-
ment of Iraq with an overture for
Baghdad to end the two-month old
Persian Gulf crisis.
"Iraq's unprovoked aggression is
a throwback to another era, a dark
relic froma dark time," Bush said.
"It has plundered Kuwait, it has
terrorized innocent civilians, it has
held even diplomats hostage."
Aligning himself with remarks
last week by Soviet Foreign
Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, Bush
said Iraq and its leaders "must be held
liable for these crimes of abuse and
destruction."
Shevardnadze said afterward Bush
had delivered "a brilliant speech."
See GULF, page 2
City
searches
for solution
to
waste deficit
Council calls on Borgsdorf to
present alternatives for action
KRISSY GOODMAN/Dafl}
Double major
Irving Goldberg, an LSA senior majoring in Economics and History, studying in Liberty Plaza yesterday.
Local groups wrkt
shelter Clty's homeless
by David Rheingold
Underneath Ann Arbor's popular
image as a typical college town ex-
ists the same problem that plagues
many other cities throughout the
country: homelessness.
Those who do not have protec-
tion from the often-frigid Michigan
weather have an alternative during
the winter due to the work of a local
shelter organization and the Ann Ar-
bor Housing Commission.
The Shelter Association of Ann
Arbor, a private, nonprofit corpora-
tion, was created in 1984 through a
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church vol-
unteer effort to provide temporary
shelter for the homeless. It has since
expanded its facilities to include a
night shelter on W. Huron St. and a
walk-in day program on S. Ashley.
The night shelter on W. Huron
houses 50 people. It served 869 peo-
ple last year, and has welcomed 685
so far in 1990, said Ralph Bogle, an
administrative assistant at the Shel-
ter Association. Fifteen local syna-
gogues and churches, along with the
Embassy Hotel, provided extra bed
space for an overflow of people last
winter.
Occupants at the shelters can take
advantage of a variety of programs
offered by the Adult Literacy and Ed-
ucation Center, including basic liter-
acy skills training and individual tu-
toring. Many of the women con-
tribute to Athene, "A Journal for
Homeless Women's Self-Determina-
tion and Freedom," which features
stories, poems, and artwork.
Bogle praised the facilities and
said the city was supportive of its
homeless, but added that the ultimate
solution must be more permanent.
"It would have to be low-income
housing," he said.
The Ann Arbor Housing Com-
mission currently maintains 342
low-rent public units said Bonnie
Newlun, its executive director. One
hundred and seventy-nine of these go
to senior citizens, disabled, and hand-
icapped; the rest are designated for
families.
Tenants pay 30 percent of their
income for rent while the city pro-
vides all their utilities, including wa-
ter, gas, electricity, and sewage. The
average rent is $98, Newlun said.
Some of the these housing units
do not meet housing codes and re-
quire costly maintenance. They are
currently unfit for tenant use and re-
main vacant.
The city provides the Housing
Commission with $10,000, but this
money is designated only for senior
citizen programs. As a result, the
Commission relies entirely on the
federal Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) for
funds.
HUD last week approved more
than $1 million for the renovation of
several Ann Arbor affordable hous-
ing sites, Newlun said. The sum was
substantial considering that HUD's
federal funding has plummeted nearly
75 percent since 1980.
The problem is further com-
pounded by a waiting list for the
city's affordable housing, which
swelled from 61 to 1061 during the
summer.
Although the situation seems
bleak, those without homes have not
given up hope. Consider part of an
anonymous poem published in the
July issue of Athene: "All of us
work miracles sometime, some-
where, somehow: it could be possi-
ble for you to work one right
now..."
by Donna Woodwell
Daily City Reporter
The Ann Arbor City Council
passed a resolution last night 9-1 to
call for City Administrator Del
Borgsdorf to prepare alternative
strategies to make up for a $1.7 mil-
lion deficit in the city's solid waste
department.
The resolution was an amended
version of a Democratic proposal to
slash the city's general fund by 4.7
percent to generate funds to make up
for the deficit. The budget cuts were
a counter proposal to the hotly-de-
bated user fee for garbage pickup.
"We are caught in a situation
which I consider a crisis and an
emergency," said councilmember Liz
Brater (D-3rd Ward), the primary
sponsor of the original Democratic
resolution. She said budget cuts are a
better long-term approach to the
deficit because an interim user fee
would be "confusing to the public"
and an unfair charge before weekly
recycling programs are instituted.
The proposed user fee would have
charged households a $1 pick-up fee
for each additional bag or can after
the first 35 gallon can. According to
several landlords, such an increase
would have resulted in higher rents
next fall.
The City Council approved the
use of user fees Aug. 20 by a unan-
imous vote. However, many Ann
Arbor residents voiced serious objec-
tions over the proposed user fee.
"We need to all be honest enough
to admit that we made a mistake (in
proposing user fees)," said coun-
cilmember Nelson Meade (D-3rd
Ward).
Debate over the Democrats' reso-
lution was divided over party lines.
"Sitting around and calling each
other names is contrary to the pro-
cess," said councilmember Anne
Marie Coleman (D-1st Ward).
Borgsdorf cited the city's loss of
revenue from fees that were formerly
paid by other municipalities for use
of the city's own landfill, and addi-
tional costs of paying to use the
Browning-Ferris landfill in Salem
Heights as the major contributors to
the solid waste department's deficit.
'We are caught in a
situation which I
consider a crisis and
an emergency'
- Councilmember Liz
Brater (D-3rd Ward)
Borgsdorf will have several weeks
to compose a proposal and report
back to the council with his
suggestions.
"If this resolution accomplishes
nothing else it's that we get you
(Borgsdorf) to think creatively," said
Brater.
Borgsdorf said only a user fee, re-
duced solid waste service or across-
the-board budget cuts could make up
for the deficit.
The city's own landfill is full and
under expansion financed by $28
million raised in a bond issue vote
last April. These funds are earmarked
by cleaning up the city's landfill,
construction of a recycling plant and
monthly curbside pick-ups and do
not cover increases in solid waste
disposal costs.
"Until all conditions are resolved
it leaves the city in a precarious po-
sition," said councilmember Thais
Anne Peterson (D-5th Ward).
"The point of the whole exercise
is to face the shortfall in one way or
another," said Meade. "However it is
amended we must face our fiscal re-
sponsibilities."
Plant Operations faces 'crisis' budget reductions
by Jay Garcia
Campus grounds and University
buildings and labs may be suffering
due to a financial "crisis" in Plant
Operations, the University depart-
ment which maintains campus facili-
ties, said its director, Russell
Reister.
In the last ten years the depart-
ment has had to work with decreas-
ing budgets and Reister expects yet
another reduction to take place
January.
Because of the lack of funds,
Plant Operations has been forced to
defer maintenance on a number of fa-
cilities. "We have recorded $44 mil-
lion of deferred maintenance," said
Reister, adding that such a backlog
inevitably leads to even further
repairs.
Last year Reister wrote a memo-
randum to the then-Director of Busi-
ness Operations explaining his con-
cerns about the reductions. One
statistic he used showed that 20
years ago 40 hours of maintenance
service was provided for every 1,000
square feet area. In 1987-88 only 29
hours of service were provided for
the same amount of space.
"We don't have a full staff," but
"maintenance is about the same,"
said Betty Megbaje, a custodial
worker at Angell Hall. She and other
plant employees agree that im-
provements and more workers are
needed
Different types of maintenance
work is required for newer and older
facilities. Older buildings typically
need work that will minimize the
damages acquired over time while
newer buildings, because of their
high-tech and complicated mechani-
cal systems, demand highly special-
ized, and often costlier maintenance,
Reister said.
Plant Operations has received an
increasing number of complaints
over the last year from building oc-
cupants concerning mechanical fail-
ures. Often these complaints involve
the "controlled and precise mainte-
nance of labs," Reister said. The
laboratories require this precision in
order to perform many experiments,
he said.
Since maintaining the functional
integrity of University buildings is
Plant Operation's main duty, news
of mechanical failures is a direct re-
minder to the department of how re-
ductions have affected their level of.
efficiency, Reister said.
Maintenance heads tend to see the
problem of cuts as more severe than
do the academic employees who
work in the buildings. Dr. Jack
Novodoff, Director of Chemical
Laboratories, said the "level of
maintenance has remained the same"
in the years he's been here.
Horace Bomar, Facilities Man-
agement Director for the Medical
School, said each individual depart-
ment should have "a rapport with
maintenance." Unless a good rela-
tionship is created, he said, those us-
ing University facilities will always
be unsatisfied.
The "University will hurt over
time" if Plant Operations, for what-
ever reason, cannot efficiently con-
duct its duties, Bomar said.
Signatures encourage
Lithuania's freedom
i
By Jennifer Hiri
Daily Staff Reporter
* Supporters of Lithuanian freedom gathered
outside the Michigan Union yesterday to col-
lect signatures as part of a worldwide-
campaign.
Members of The American Society for the
Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property
(TFP) asked people to sign the petition, which
stated: "We shared in the burgeoning hope that
swept Lithuania when recent events made the
recovery of independence possible after fifty
years of cruel captivity...
* "We raise a cry of indignation and protest-
has generated more than five million signa-
tures, breaking the Guiness Book of World
Records of 3.1 million collected signatures.
The United States alone has raised 800,000
signatures, including those of 40 members of
Congress.,
. Paul Folley, the Colorado regional coordi-
nator for TFP, said, "For many years, we have
been giving help and encouragement to the
captive nations-those under communism."
Folley explained that the petition will help
demonstrate that Lithuanians are not the only
ones that care about the issue of their freedom.
"We have received quite a good reception. The
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