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PAGE 2: Asian-Pacific forum nations near free-trade pact
COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA SINCE 1901 VOL. 94 NO. 60 _
Florida,
Haiti hit
by storm
By Chris Torchla
the Associated Press
Tropical Storm Gordon stirred up
turbulent seas and pelted Florida with
horizontal rain driven by 50 mph
winds early today after at least 100
people were killed Monday by the
storm in Haiti and Jamaica.
The heavy rains and floods swept
across Haiti Monday triggering land
slides and washing away makeshift
homes in the slums of Port-au-Prince.
Terrified people fled their homes
in the morning darkness as flood wa
ters poured in. Some spent the night
huddled on their rooftops in the down
pour.
“I didn’t save anything, only my
self,” said Lekeas Dorvilier, 35, who
jumped out the window of his two
room home minutes before it
crumbled into a ravine.
Bodies lay in the sun m some
neighborhoods. Many of the victims
lived in flimsy tin shacks on hill
sides. Rescue workers said they ex
pected the death toll to climb.
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
flewoverhis battered nation in a U.S.
military helicopterto survey damage
from the 1994 Atlantic hurricane
season’s deadliest storm.
“Obviously we will do what we
can to help the Haitian government,”
said Col. Barry Willey, a U.S. mili
tary spokesman.
Thousands of U.S. soldiers arrived
in the Caribbean nation in September
to help restore Aristide’s elected gov
ernment. Aristide, who was ousted in
a 1991 coup, returned Oct. 15.
The main highway from Port-au
Prince to Jacmel was cut and trucks
from the charity CARE, which feeds
about 300,000 people, couldn’t cross
shaky bridges to reach the group’s
warehouse in Gonaives, north of the
capital, officials said.
U.S. Army meteorologists said
more than nine inches of rain fell in
Port-au-Prince during the 24-hour
period ending Monday morning and
14 inches fell in Les Cayes on the
southern peninsula.
Two deaths also were reported in
Jamaica, where the storm caused
widespread flooding and mudslides.
See STORM on 6
Jeff Haller/DN
Qlonn Simonson tlos Ns 2>yoaHHd daughter, Cays’s, shoo In tho vostlbulo of tho Nsbraska Union. Last wook, Simonson
brought a sign and a camNo In honor of David Ball, a friond who dlod In tho union oarflor tNs month.
Board faces homeless’ use of Union
ly J»ff Randall
Staff Reporter
The death of a homeless man in
Nebraska Union has raised cam*
pus awareness of homeless
people’s use of the building.
The Nebraska Union Board has
formed a subcommittee to identify
problems with homeless people us
ing the union and to find solutions.
Subcommittee member
Stephanie Nelson said the Ne
braska Union Board had been con
sidering dealing with the problems
for awhile, but the Nov. 6 death of
David Ball, a 47-year-old home
less man, pushed the issue to the
forefront.
Nelson said the main goal of the
board was to serve students, and
the presence of some of the home
less people in the union may be
interfering with that goal.
“The problems we have are with
just a few of them,” Nelson said.
“For the most part, there aren’t any
Erobleras, but there are a few who
ave bad tempers and make the
students nervous.”
Helping homeless people who
currently frequent the union find
other places to go for shelter was
one way to solve the problem.
Nelson said.
She said the best solution would
make the union accessible to both
students and the homeless, an op
tion she hoped the subcommittee
could achieve once its study is
completed.
“Just as much as we would like
to move them (homeless people),
we would like to help them,”
Nelson said. “We don’t want to
extend cruelty at all.”
Robb Goff, a junior secondary
education major, said he had no
problem with homeless people us
ing the union.
“They have as much a right to
be here as anyone,” Goff said. “This
is a state-funded building, and it’s
as much of a home to homeless
people as it is to students.”
Daryl Swanson, director of Ne
braska Union, said vagrants may
stay in the union during the day
because it is open to the public.
Police can ask them to leave only
when they panhandle, sleep, con
sume alcohol or disrupt others.
Police are called when any of these
situations occur, Swanson said.
“I believe our community has
been very tolerant of these people,”
Swanson said. “The number of
complaints has been very low.”
Brian Parish, who is homeless,
frequently visits the union because
he likes to watch television and get
something to drink. If he couldn’t
stay in the union, he said, he would
probably hang out on the streets of
downtown.
He said he usually arrived in the
union around noon and spent the
next four or five hours walking
around or watching television. The
students seem to accept him, he
said.
“They don’t care if I’m here,”
he said. “I think they understand
me, what I’m doing, and don’t
worry about it too much.”
Parish will generally stay in the
union during bad weather until it
closes at 11 p.m. He walks around
downtown after he leaves the
union, he said. He said he sleeps
anywhere he can.
UNL Police Sgt. Bill Manning
said homeless people rarely caused
trouble at the union.
“Obviously, it’s no crime to be
homeless.” Manning said. “If we
receive a complaint, our first ques
tion to the caller is what specific
problems are occurring.
“The union is a public building.
If they aren’t breaking any laws,
we don’t even get involved.”
Swanson said he was worried
homeless people may deter stu
dents from using the union.
“The most frequent complaint
from students concerning the
homeless is their personal hygiene,
or lack of personal hygiene,” he
said.
“We’ve had reports that stu
dents won’t use the 24-hour ATM
machine in the south branch be
cause of them,” he said. “We're
working with NBC Bank on that
problem.”
Swanson said more homeless
people began loitering in the union
See HOMELESS on 3
December vote probably won’t end engineering debate
By Brian Sharp
Senior Reporter
An apparent end to the engineer
ing debate may be just another begin
ning.
A December
vote by the NU
Board of Regents
was meant to bring
the year-and-a
half-old debate
over a separate
Omaha engineer
DEBATE coli58<= Jo a
close. The deci
sion, however, may only spawn fur
ther debate, one regent said.
Regent Robert Allen of Hastings
said that with two new regents join
ing the board in January, he would
expect the losing side to make an
other push.
Losing side of Lincoln vs. Omaha likely to make another push
“I doubt ifthis would be the end of
it,” Allen said. ‘‘The fight will go
on.”
The fight began Aug. 10,1993, at
a meeting of private businesses in
Omaha. From there, a coalition would
develop, eventually totaling 80
Omaha businesses advocating a sepa
rate engineering college at the Uni
versity of Nebraska at Omaha.
That month, disgruntled UNO fac
ulty also met with UNL Chancellor
Graham Spanier and Stan Liberty,
dean of the college of engineering.
UNO had a college before joining
the NU system in 1968. After the
merger, some programs were com
bined with UNL’s. Night classes at
UNO were closed in 1980. The draft
ing and design program was elimi
nated in 1991.
In September 1993, regents began
exploring options for meeting the
needs of UNO engineering students.
Among them was the possibility of a
separate college.
On Sept. 10, Regent Rosemary
Skrupa of Omaha proposed a sepa
rate college to the board.
Regent Chairman Charles Wilson
said it would have been inappropri
ate for the board to vote at that time
without further information and go
ing through the proper channels. The
proposal bypassed all administrative
and academic channels, he said.
Regents did postpone the vote,
opting instead to hire independent
consultants to review NU programs.
They later approved four consultants
Oct. 15.
“Because of the way it (the pro
posal) was done, it really arrived in
the public conscience as a bomb
shell,” Wi Ison said. ‘‘It arri ved highly
polarized and it has been that way
ever since.”
At that time, J.B. Milliken, corpo
ration secretary for the board, said
the plan was to wrap things up by the
end of the year. The projected cost of
hiring the consu Itants was $ 15,000 to
$20,000, which would be paid for by
University Foundations.
Wilson said the report, which came
back in March 1994 “offered an opin
ion, but it failed to providing any
supporting information.” He said that
information was what regents were
looking for.
After L. Dennis Smith took over
as NU President in March, die uni
versity assembled a second, nine
member task force. It was charged
with developing a plan for engineer
ing in the state, including a plan that
would implement a separate college
in Omaha.
The panel submitted its report to
Smith om Friday.
Smith is expected to bring a rec
ommendation to the board for its
Dec. 9 and 10 meetings.
Allen said the confusion and delay
created by the second task force al
lowed both sides to become more
entrenched.
The question now is simply who
will prevail, Allen said — Omaha or
Lincoln.
While the debate continues, stu
dents will suffer, he said.
Walter Scott, who provides
money for engineering scholarships
See HISTORY on 3