WEPg41v at One hundred three years of editorial freedom S C Ar r ,.g- r , , 44g Stern quits tenants' *board due to conflicts MSA vice president- elect resigns from the Ann Arbor Tenants' Union board of directors By RONNIE GLASSBERG DAILY STAFF REPORTER After months of trying to keep LSA Rep. Jacob Stern off its board of directors, the Ann Arbor Tenants' Union (AATU) has agreed to recog- nize him as a board member follow- ing mediation. 0 However, the move may have come too late. Stern, vice president-elect of the Michigan Student Assembly, resigned from the position yesterday due to conflicts with the pro-tenant organi- zation. Yesterday, MSA President Craig Greenberg said half of the $22,000 allocated in September would return to the MSA internal budget after AATU missed a deadline for a report detailing student use of AATU and a review of the organization. AATU Director Pattrice Maurer she had not been told the date of the deadline and said an MSA employee told her that today was the deadline for the report, which she turned in Tuesday. According to the AATU report to *MSA, the tenants' union served 1,500 students last term. Stern, who currently serves as chair of the MSA Budget Priorities Com- mittee, made a motion at Tuesday's meeting that would move $11,000 of funds to his committee that had been originally allocated to AATU. Following the passage of the mo- tion, the Central Student Judiciary #(CSJ) -the court governing MSA - blocked MSA from using any of the $11,000 until it heard a case filed against the assembly by AATU in CSJ. At AATU board meetings, Stern said he was threatened by other board See AATU, page 2 PASS THE MATZAH White House takes offensive in Whitewater LSA senior Loren Shevitz participates in the Reform Havurah Freedom Seder last night in East Quad. In case of emergen cy, call onMichia ota or LOS ANGELES TIMES WASHINGTON - White House officials, concerned that Whitewater will remain a vexing issue, have launched a public relations blitz to defend President Clinton and the first lady and to keep the controversy from interfering with the president's con- gressional agenda. The Clintons feel an obligation to continue responding to questions about Whitewater and plan to take a leading role in the campaign after returning to Washington this week- end from a week-long vacation, se- nior White House aides said yester- day. The president and Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to various cities next week promoting health care re- form and other legislative goals while also responding to queries about Whitewater, the aides said. In addi- tion, Cabinet secretaries and Demo- cratic members of Congress plan to participate in 70 different "events" related to the legislative agenda. The overriding message of the public relations campaign, officials indicated, will be that the Clintons are being fully responsive on Whitewater and that the American people do not want the controversy to become an excuse for the legislative gridlock that has characterized Washington in re- cent years. "I think a lot of the concern we have in the country about Whitewater arises more in the question of whether it's going to disrupt government than what may have happened 15 or 16 years ago" in the Whitewater contro- versy, said presidential counselor David Gergen. That message, said Gergen, who served as an aide to Republican Presi- dents Nixon and Reagan, also has been heard by "a lot of Republicans" who are now talking about seeking bipartisan answers to important policy issues. Among them, he said, are House Republican Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.) and House Republican Whip By JUDITH KAFKA DAILY STAFF REPORTER It's your first time down-hill ski- ing. You're doing pretty well, so you head for the moghuls. Things get out of control and before you know it, you're stuck in traction for a month. The last thing you want to do now is CRISP. Thanks to a new service offered by the Michigan Mortar Board, Uni- versity students won't need to worry about situations like this. The Mortar Board, which is a na- tional honor society for seniors, is now operating an Emergency Sup- port Service for students with emer- gency situations. "It's for real emergencies," stressed Pam Friedman, a co-facilita- tor of the new service, "for instance, a death in the family or if a student is hospitalized." For students dealing with these situations, the Mortar Board can now provide services such as contacting professors, delivering homework, supplying updates on classwork and even standing in line for CRISP. "We want to help students deal with these situations," Friedman said. Beginning this week, the service, which has been operating on a limited basis since last fall, is available for all undergraduates. The board may ex- pand the program to include graduate students in the future. The idea for the service stemmed from an essay submitted as part of an application to Mortar Board. "The question was something ,about ideas for improving student life on campus, and the applicant had gone through an emergency and wished there had been a service like this avail- able to her," Friedman said. "It's taken a while to get off the ground," she added, explaining that the board needed time to find funding and set up a structure for the idea. In addition to the board's fund- raising, the Office of Student Affairs and the Michigan Student Assembly provided funds for the service. Right now a committee of five board members is set up to run the service, "but if we have a lot of calls, everyone can help," Friedman said. U To utilize the service, students should call the board's office at 936- 0534 and leave a message with a name, the date, a brief explanation of the situation and a phone number. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) Gergen and two other senior White House aides - Chief of Staff Tho- mas F. McLarty and congressional liaison Pat Griffin - discussed the administration's plans to defend Clinton and promote his policies at a breakfast session with a large group of Washington journalists. Asked if the first lady has the same obligation as the president to respond to Whitewater questions, Gergen said she already has fully disclosed how she parlayed a $1,000 investment in commodities futures into a $100,000 profit in the late 1970s. "I think she feels it's important to be responsive" to questions about Whitewater, he said. The Whitewater label has come to embrace not only the Clinton's failed real estate investment in the Whitewater Development Corp. and White House meetings allegedly held to protect the Clintons from the con- troversy, but also questions about Mrs. Clinton's financial affairs and her role as a Little Rock lawyer. White House aides insisted that despite Whitewater, Clinton's legis- lative goals remain on track. How- ever, McLarty said the continuing furor tends to make people equate Whitewater with gridlock and make them lose "a sense of perhaps opti- mism in the future." Because Whitewater dominated Clinton's news conference last week, Gergen said he and the other officials had hoped that much of their 75- minute session with journalists yes- terday would focus on the president's policies. It was dominated by Whitewater questions, reflecting a preoccupation with the controversy that some Clinton aides concede could be a serious distraction for the admin- istration in the months ahead. Griffin, who only recently became Clinton's chief assistant for congres- sional relations, denied reports that Whitewater already has adversely af- fected the president's agenda. State gets tough on underage drinking DETROIT (AP) - The penalties for sanctioning underage drinking get tougher June 1, and a prosecutor is warning parents they could go to jail if they allow alcohol at graduation parties this year. Parents or other adults who rent limousines or allow their homes to be used for graduation celebrations should know that they now will be legally responsible for any underage alcohol use that takes place. The state law change takes effect June 1. "If the adult allows those premises to be used by individuals less than 21 ver of axe to conume alcohli *Court grants 'U' reprieve in r N 'U' will not force former regent to turn over 'private' papers from 1988 search By JAMES R. CHO DAILY STAFF REPORTER The University Board of Regents has been granted a reprieve in its ongoing court battle with The Ann Arbor News and the Detroit Free Press over four documents that a former regent refuses to hand over. Washtenaw County Circuit Court Judge Patrick J. Conlin ruled yester- day that the University cannot be held in contempt because Thomas A. Roach (D-Ann Arbor) refuses to hand over handwritten notes taken during the University's ill-fated 1988 presi- dential search. University Director of Public Af- fairs Lisa Baker said, "The motion was a sanction against the University. The judge denied the motion and we will not be held in contempt." The two newspapers filed the motion to make the University re- trieve personal notes kept by Roach. On Feb. 11, Conlin ordered the University to release documents per- taining to the presidential search. Conlin's order stems from the state Supreme Court decision last Septem- ber that found the University in viola- pres. sea tion of the Open Meetings Act during its presidential search. Roach is withholding four pages of notes he took during a telephone conference near the end of the search. Roach has already released many other handwritten notes which he believed were covered by the court order. "I turned over thousands of pages of files, but these are different," Roach said. "These were private notes I took in telephone conversations I had with two University faculty members and two University presidents. They were used to help me form my decision. They were never copied or shared with other regents." Roach said he feels the documents rch case do not fall under the court ruling. "This raises the question what Conlin intended in his decision and whether it is proper to disclose the information," he said. Conlin's ruling means the Univer- sity cannot be penalized for Roach's actions. An attorney for the Free Press reported in The Ann Arbor News yes- terday, "The newspapers will pursue the issue to prevent a precedent al- lowing public bodies to avoid public scrutiny by stashing records with in- dividuals.". The attorney added that the news- papers are likely to continue to obtain Roach's papers. *Roach China clears way for inspection of North Korean nuclear sites "ON