LoCAL/STATE
The Michigan Daily - Thursday, April 10, 1997 - 5A
15 protest
at local
park for
contracts
By Katie Plona
Daily Staff Reporter
Before placing a road barricade that
blocked one of only three entrances to
the Barton Hills Village section in Ann
Arbor, roughly 15 newspaper strikers
planned their protest strategy in nearby
Bandamer Park.
"Our main purpose always is to get
word out that we are locked out," said
Dia Pearce, unit chair for the
Newspapers Guild at the Detroit
News. "Our goal is to get contracts.'
Pearce said they protested yesterday
in response to the companies' --The
Detroit News, Detroit Free Press and
the Detroit Newspaper Association -
refusal to follow up on the union's con-
tract offer.
According to the protest fliers,
"Heath Meriwether, Free Press pub-
lisher and Barton Hills Village resi-
dent, has been leading the company's
deceitful media campaign against
workers."
During a February agreement, the
union members offered to return to
work after 20 months of resistance
without settling theirscontracts. But
Pearce said that not all strikers have
been able to return.
"We made an offer to return to our
jobs'" Pearce said. "The company
accepted our offer, but unfortunately,
they called back a handful. So there
are about 2,000 of us out."
Soon after the protesters put a wire
across the entranceway at Barton
Shore Drive and Whitmore Lake Road,
they pulled away in their cars, careful
not to run into the police.
Sgt. Don Steele of the Washtenaw
County Sheriff's Department said
they were unable to track down the
protesters, and police officers
removed the barricade about 35 min-
utes after it was secured by the pro-
testers.
"It's a public safety issue," Steele
FUNDS
Continued from Page 1A
Martinez said she agreed with the
removal because it is the "legislative
position that universities set their own
standards for residency."
The subcommittee did not reach a con-
sensus on a clause deleted by Engler that
states, "Michigan residents shall compro-
mise a substantial majority of each uni-
versity's undergraduate population."
Wilbanks said diversity at the
University is not lacking.
"We have not been supportive of a
specific percentage of in-state and out-
of-state students," Wilbanks said. "Our students en
Also at yesterday's meeting, Glenn they must compete
Stevens, theV
director of the
Japan Center for The ca
Michigan
Universities, affectt&
requested an
increase in fund- students.
ing. The Japan
Center for-
Michigan Stater
Universities is a
consortium of
all of Michigan's universities that sends
e needest
- Donald Gilmer
rep. (R-Augusta)
ter a world where
on a very interna-
tional basis,"
Stevens said. "It's
also the only aca-
demic program
where Michigan
universities all
work together.
Jordan Pollack,
of the Office of
international
Programs, said
that since 1989,
about 35 University students have par-
students to study in Japan. ticipated in the program.
JONATH AN SLIMMER f Dily
Protesters from the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News blocked a street
yesterday in the neighborhood of Free Press Publisher Heath Merlwether.
said. "This is unique. It's something in
22 years I've never encountered -
blocking a road like that."
Steele said they would keep an eye
on the area all night, which he said is
the best they can do.
He also said his department has
been in touch with the Meriwether
family.
"We have made contact with them
and they're alright," Steele said.
Les Adler, an Ann Arbor resident,
waited in his car before turning around
to head out from another exit. While
Adler waited, protesters handed him a
flier explaining their plight.
"I'm supporting this," Adler said.
"I've supported the strike all along."
Adler said he was annoyed to learn
that the Detroit newspapers have not
taken back all of their employees.
Barton Hills Village resident Chris
Holmes said the protesters honked
their car horns and possibly put fliers
in residents' mailboxes.
Holmes said she originally thought
the four-car procession was a wedding
party until one of the cars stopped and
someone asked her if she wanted a
flier.
"They're probably taking a small
risk," Holmes said. "I sort of see it as
an adventure."
Holmes said she has "seen them
outside the lower gates two times
before."
However, Pearce said one of the rea-
sons for the protest was "mainly
because this is an area we haven't had
a lot of visibility in."
4angler launches pilot program
for at-risk school districts
DETROIT (AP) - A new, privately
funded education institute that is mod-
eled after a successful pilot program
was announced yesterday by Gov. John
ngler as a resource for troubled school
stricts.
The nonprofit Institute for Education
Reform, to be housed at Eastern
Michigan University in Ypsilanti, will
focus on helping school districts that
struggle with low test scores and other
problems to improve.
"The Institute will draw upon the
tremendous accomplishments of Oak
Park Schools and other education inno-
vations to provide a statewide resource
Gr 'at-risk' schools interested in
achieving success," Engler said at a
news conference at Key Elementary
School in Oak Park.
Engler didn't help plan the insti-
tute, and the state will be just one of
several partners involved in it, along
with Consumers Energy, EMU, the
EMU Foundation and other business
leaders.
But the governor wanted to highlight
the facility as a "center of excellence"
that school districts could go to to avoid
being taken over by the state, a highly
controversial proposal Engler
announced in January.
Districts deemed academically bank-
rupt, or fearing they could become so,
could voluntarily contract with the
institute and solve their problems with-
out state oversight, Engler spokesper-
son John Truscott told the Detroit Free
Press for a story yesterday.
"The governor said all along, it's not
his goal to take over districts," Truscott
said. "It's his goal to improve districts.
But if all else fails, we can't just ignore
the students in those districts that aren't
improving."
In its efforts to help schools, the insti-
tute will use the same 16-step improve-
ment plan developed and used in Oak
Park, as well as in Albion, Saginaw and
Muskegon Heights, by the Oak Park
Education Initiative.
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