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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 4, 1995)
inside [T [uesday Sports UCLA wins national title, page 9 Arts & Entertainment Lied Center unveils its 1995-96 season, page 12 April 4, 1995 Jump in Travis Heying/DN Dan Werner, a senior finance major, reacts to a play during the first half of Monday nights NCAA Championship basketball game. Werner and a group of friends watched the game from big screen televisions at Brewsky’s Food and Spirits. Illegal betting pools thrive on campus By Matthew Waite Senior Reporter Eli Moore gets a little more of a kick out of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament than most. Moore has his own basketball pool, and, going into the championship game, is sitting one gameaway from winning it. IftheUCLA Bruins defeat the Arkansas Razorbacks, he will be $80 richer. But Moore, a junior who has been run ning pools since he was a freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said it wasn’t about money. “It’s more for bragging rights than money,” he said. “Ifyou think you are going to win it, you’re probably crazy.” When the tournament seedings started coming out, so did the basketball pools. From offices across the city to residence-hall floors and greek houses across campus, bas ketball pools sprung up. But in Nebraska, state law says they are illegal. Lt. Bill Hobbs, an investigator for the Nebraska State Patrol, said that if the state -v'vl' . ' * , * . patrol were to get a report of a pool, it would investigate. However, Hobbs said, in the 18 years he has been with the state patrol, he can not remember ever getting such a report. “It’s just not one that’s highly reported,” he said. Hobbs said, however, that “a violation of law is a violation of law.” But when looking to investigate an office pool with up to 10 people in it or a bookie who handles bets for 500 people, he said the people of Nebraska would be better served by investigating the bookie. Chuck Rensink, the complex program director for Harper-Schramm-Smith resi dence halls, said university housing out lawed all forms of gambling. “We can’t do much about them if we don’t know where they are,” he said. If a complaint was made about the pool, Rensink said, the pool would be broken up. He said, however, that starting a pool would not get the person removed from university housing. Moore, who lived in the residence halls for three years, said that almost every floor in the halls started a pool. Some floors have two or three, he said. “You ’ ve got so many opportunities to get into pools it’s not even funny,” Moore said. “You have to reject some of them.” Moore’s pool, as it stands now, involves 15 people who paid $10 each. He said that was down from years past, when he would have 25 to 30 people in the pool paying $2 an entry. Setting up a pool is relatively easy, M oore said. The easy part was photocopying the seedings and gettingpeople to join. The hard part was getting their money. Moore said people entering pools felt their type of gambling was different. “I don’t believe you fill out pools to make money,” he said. “In gambling, you expect to win. With pools, you give your donation and hope for the best.” And Moore’s secret to playing basketball pools? “I’ve done enough to realize that a col lege basketball tournament is so crazy you can’t pick favorites throughout,” he said. “You can’t know what is going to happen.” Phone trials may cheapen long-distance By Paula Lavigne Senior Reporter Lincoln telephone customers may soon find it cheaper to “reach out and touch someone” if local companies change their long-distance ac cess fees and open up the local market for competition. Tlie U.S. Justice Department announced Monday that it would hold a local service com petition trial for customers in the Grand Rapids, Mich., and Chicago areas, said Mark Trierweiler, regional public policy director at AT&T. The trial would determine if big carriers, such as AT&T, MCI and Sprint could break into local monopolies, he said. “Tomorrow it might be possible for AT&T to provide end-to-end services,” he said. “The eyes and ears of the world will be watching this trial. “It could be the prototype for other forms of competition. It could reach Lincoln.” Lela Kelliher, spokeswoman for Lincoln Telephone and Telegraph, said the Nebraska Public Service Commission announced a mo tion to investigate the effect that local competi tion would have on Nebraska. But, she said, it was too soon to determine how any changes would affect LT&T’s ser vices. . . ... ...... i rierweuer said mai over me last 11 years, long-distance competition forced rates down 66 percent. The Justice Department wanted to see ifthe same competition was possible in the local exchange. “What it means to the local customer is that ifthe local competition turns out to be possible, consumers could expect more choices, lower prices, faster service, more features and innova tion,” he said. Long-distance also was the issue on Thurs day when the Federal Communications Com mission decided to cut the access charges long distance carriers pay to local phone companies to begin and end long-distance calls. Trierweiler called the access fees a “mo nopoly bottleneck, through which all calls must pass.” About 45 percent of each long-distance charge goes to local companies. Without access fees, long-distance carriers could lower their rates, he said, which would result in a 2.3 percent lower phone bill. On a $50 bill, that would equal $1.15. Kelliher said she expected the long-distance companies to reduce their rates accordingly, but she didn’t know how that would financially affect LT&T because of a “stimulation effect.” When long-distance companies lower their rates, she said, customers might be stimulated to call more often. So, instead of having to make up for the lost revenue from access fees, she said, LT&T may profit from the change. If both changes take effect, telephone bills would be cut $1 billion nationwide, but the actual savings would be about $.34 per cus tomer. AT&T and Lincoln Telephone Long See TELEPHONE on 8 Williams’ representation questioned Potential conflicts leadpublicdefender, lawyers to withdraw By Brian Sharp Senior fteporter The question of who will represent death-row inmate Robert Williams is back in the courts. In a motion filed Friday afternoon, Public Defender Dennis Keefe asked that his office be withdrawn from the case and other legal counsel be ap pointed for Williams. Williams’ previous lawyers, Paula Hutchinson and Vince Powers, asked last week to be taken off the case. Lancaster County District Court Judge Paul Merritt said late Monday he had not decided who would be named. Merritt ruled last week that a public defender should be appointed to the case after Williams’ federally appointed lawyers withdrew. In a three-page affidavit, Keefe stated the county attorney’s office could call as witnesses public defend ers assigned to Williams’case in 1977. After checking with an official at the State Bar Association, Keefe said he was told the issue of former em ployees of his office serving as wit nesses for the state would “‘clearly’ constitute a conflict of interest.” Keefe went on to state that he had spoken with Hutchinson, and said Williams also believed there was a conflict of interest and that other legal counsel would be appropriate. Williams was convicted and sen tenced to death in 1978 on two counts of first-degree murder. On March 22, he came within three hours of his scheduled execution. A last-minute stay was issued by the Nebraska Supreme Court pending a hearing on possible juror misconduct dating back to the original trial. Polls open for elections From Staff Reports In addition to today’s primary election in Lincoln, residence hall students can also vote in the RHA elections today. Polls open at 8 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. in the city election. Mike Johanns is running unopposed for mayor, and three seats for the city council are unopposed. For Residence Hall Association elections, polls open at 8 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Students who live in the halls can vote in their food ser vice buildings. „ The two parties running this year are Eclipse and Beetles. The Eclipse presidential candidate is Phillip Cilliers. Beetles’ presidential can didate is Jeremy Vetter. The vice presidential candidates for the parties are familiar faces. Chad Pekron, the presidential can didate for the Access party in the recent ASUN election, is on the Beetles’ ticket. But Pekron’s vice presidential candidate in the ASUN election, Eric Vander Woude, is his counterpart on Eclipse’s ticket.