The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, April 20, 1973, Image 1
f cou mi friday, april 20, 1 973 lincoln, nebraskan vol. 96, no. 1 03 Devaney tackles ticket proposal , " -f :i -f : - , ' - ft x Liitmn-iimmnr ij , in. i , tii , i m... rn .m .urn. ., .,. i n .LnLnr..,,.,, photo by Gail Folda Devaney..."all of the Big Eight schools are satisfied with a no-transfer policy. "We're living in a world of fringe benefits," UNL Ticket Manager James Pittenger said Thursday. However, permitting students to transfer UNL athletic tickets apparently should not be included in those benefits. Addressing the Council on Student Life (CSL), UNL Athletic Director Bob Devaney and Pittenger said they do not support a CSL report, adopted by the Council in January, which would allow students to transfer athletic tickets. "We feel that students have a right to attend UNL football games," Pittenger said, "but when they get a choice of seats and two-thirds off the ticket price, that right becomes a privilege. With privileges come responsibilities. That includes not giving tickets to friends or making money by scalping." The CSL report proposes that the words "not transferable" be removed from University athletic tickets and also recommends that students and faculty continue to receive special rates on athletic tickets. Other recommendations made by CSL include allocating 20 per cent of tickets for away games to students and 50 per cent of migration game tickets to students. According to Devaney, the policy of not allowing the transfer of athletic tickets is "both a matter of administration and of principle." Only three or four universities in the nation have a real problem with the supply and demand of athletic tickets, Devaney said. "Even so, all of the Big Eight schools are satisfied with a no-transfer policy. It seems like they probably have tried transferable tickets and have gone back to this policy." During the 1 972 UNL football season, 1 25 student tickets were confiscated, Pittenger said. All but 29 of the tickets were returned to the owners. Faculty members, who also receive tickets at special rates, are not checked for ticket transferals. According to Devaney, faculty members' wives and children also receive discount rates on tickets. It would be difficult to check faculty families for transfered tickets because wives and children are not issued identification cards, he added. Asked if the Ticket Office would support a plan to offer students the option of buying tickets at regular prices and transfering them, Pittenger said, "We're trying to fulfill the desire of students to see the game." "This may sound a little bit corny, but at our football games, I'd like to see our student body there," Devaney added. However, the percentage of tickets allocated to students for migration games is lower than demanded because "we're trying to run an athletic program here," Devaney said. "We need to take care of the people who contribute to our department because we're a self-supporting unit. Those contributors keep students from having to pay an athletic fee." In other business, Union Board President Mary Cannon told CSL that the Board is still studying several plans for charging a check cashing fee at the Union. Ticket trials tire Tribunal by Adella Wacker Some UNL student tribunal members rather would not have to listen to student complaints about having football tickets confiscated during the season. Whenever stadium gate keepers discover a ticket being used by another person, or being sold, the NU ticket office says it has the right to pick up the ticket. The student can appeal the loss of the ticket to the student tribunal through the UNL Office of Student Affairs. Both students and faculty sit on the tribunal, a disciplinary advisory board. "It's trivial" for the tribunal to be concerned with football tickets, said member Joan Conway. Ron Gierhan, discipline officer in Student Affairs, said the tribunal seems to feel that a football ticket appeal isn't a critical issue compared to other things like dormitory theft. But faculty tribunal member Margaret Penney said, "As long as it's a University rule, the tribunal has a responsibility to meet and act on this kind of thing." Other members agreed. After hearing a case last fall, the tribunal "recommended very strongly" a change in the ticket policy, Gierhan said. Members' estimates of how many cases the tribunal heard last fall ranged from one to six cases. Gierhan said another six to 12 students came to ask him about the appeal procedure but didn't follow through. Ombudsman Jim Suter estimated 20 persons came to him last fall after their tickets were confiscated. Ticket office manager Jim Pittenger said between 200 and 300 student tickets were taken up last year, and many were returned. Over 19,000 students bought football tickets last season. According to Suter, the ticket office can enforce its current policy and confiscate tickets because the tickets are stamped non-transferable. He said there's an informal agreement at the ticket office that if the ticket was confiscated after being loaned to a member of the student's family, it will be returned. Whether or not he helps a student get his ticket back depends on what he did with it, Suter said. He said he does not feel students have a right to make money by selling their football tickets. However, he said he believes once a student buys a ticket, he should be able to let anyone take his seat in the stadium. Senators pass budget, adjourn for vacation by Steve Arvanette State senators passed and sent to Gov. J. James Exon without a vote to spare the 1973-74 fiscal budget and later decided to go home for an 11-day vacation. Exon's unamended $227.8 million general fund budget needed 33 affirmative votes to go into effect July 1. When the vote appeared one short, 32-16, Sen, Harold Simpson of Lincoln announced he was changing his vote from "no" to "yes" in order to keep the state from lapsing into financial chaos. Had the bill not been passed with 33 votes and the emergency clause, it would not have gone into effect until 90 days after the Legislature adjourns-sometime in late August. Prior to final reading of the bill, which took nearly 30 minutes, a series of amendments was soundly rejected. Easily turned back were amendments which Exon said were necessary additions. Also easily defeated was Omaha Sen. Ernest Chambers' motion to kill the bill. In a closer vote, senators turned back 18 24 a plea from Sen. Shirley Marsh of Lincoln to add the Appropriation Committee's amendments to the budget bill. More than three months of work by the committee on amendments to the bill was rejected "Monday with the full approval of Budget Chairman Sen. Richard Marvel of Hastings. In an extraordinary address to the Unicameral Monday, Exon hold out the possibility of lowering the state sales tax if senators resisted the utge to add funds to his budget proposal. Senators agreed Tuesday to consider all bills which have no fiscal impact, until the 90 day session is completed. All bills calling for the expenditure of state funds would be postponed until next year. Perhaps the major area hit by the money freeze is the state capital construction budget. Although not finally approved, the University appeared in lint; for a possible $10.2 million in construction funds. The Appropriations Committee was just putting the finishing touches on the state's capital construction budget before the decision was made to freeze further expenditures. All that remained was a decision on whether UNO should receive a new library. It appeared before Monday's decision that the committee would recommend S7.76 million in construction funds for UNL. The largest chunk of that money-$4.2 mill ion - would be for the construction of a smaller-thanrequested new life science building. The long requested new building for the Law College will also have to wait for another year. The committee had appeared ready to go along with the full $3.1 million request for the new structure. For the UNO campus, the Board of Regents had requested $5.9 million to construct a new library. Exon had recommended against such a structure at this time. The Legislature's fiscal staff had recommended to the committee that a smaller $5 million librar y be built. 11 V J ; ". , r . r I f . - W SI. . .A ''v,'; f photo I'V Toil Kirk Norman Otto, administrative assistant to Gov. E x on .. .Thursday defended Exon's budget recommendations when visited by a group of UNL students.