Union contractors
behind own schedule
By Kasey Berber
Staff Reporter
The Nebraska Union expansion
project is behind schedule, but not
as much as organizations located in
the union had feared.
Some student organizations had
been told their area might not be reno
vated until weeks cm* months later than
scheduled.
Larry Blake, union expansion
project manager, said confusion arose
over dates originally planned for the
union and those now set by Builder’s
Inc., the construction company han
dling the expansion project.
Blake said a “strict schedule of
dates” was originally set for the
project, but the schedule was re
vised shortly before the union board
began accepting bids.
“We were very concerned about
getting a favorable bid for this
project,” Blake said. “We eased off
the dates because contractors might
see them as an added cost.”
As a result, Builder’s Inc. was
given a list of “critical dates” after
their bid was accepted.
Yet those dates were guidelines
because no specific clauses were in
cluded in the contractor’s contract
requiring the company to complete
each stage of construction by its
assigned critical date, Blake said.
These clauses are often called
“liquidative damages,” he said.
Daryl Swanson, director of Ne
braska Unions, said placing such
clauses in the contracts offered no
substantial advantages.
Blake agreed.
“With liquidative damages, you
tfc
We eased off the
dates because
contractors might
see them as an
added cost»
Larry Blake
expansion project manager
have to prove a specific financial
loss,” Blake said. “That’s often a
hard thing to do.”
Instead, Blake said, it was im
portant to keep an open mind with
Builder’s Inc., especially when it
comes to delays. The company is
currently behind its own schedule
by a small margin, he said.
This could be attributed to as
bestos removal in the union, a 2
week delay on constructing a west
entrance and other construbdon
“discoveries,” Blake said.
One such discovery included I
to 2 feet of sand under the union
plaza’s concrete slabs, he said.
“Students might have seen it and
thought of a beach,” Blake said. “It
was just another unforeseen aspect
of the construction.”
But Blake said it was just a
small example of the many difficul
ties that will be experienced later
by Builder’s Inc.
“It’s kind of like a can of
worms,” Blake said. “You just en
counter a lot of problems.”
I “Without the experience w t
the Daily Nebraskan, I never
would’ve gotten a job at Gannett’s
4th largest newspaper right out of
I college.”
_kJh Laura Wilson
Account Executive
CourriefiJournal
Louisville, Kentucky
Get the experience that will get you where you want to go.
The Daily Nebraskan Advertising Department is now hiring
Account Executives for Summer & Fall 1997. Bring your resume to
Room 29, Nebraska Union, by 5 pm Thursday, April 3.
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Act of Bravery
Daniel Luedert/DN
ERIN MCLAINE, left, defends herself against the attack of Heather Currie Tuesday in front of Love Library.
McLaine and Currie are second-year graduate students practicing for their certification as actor combatants.
Tests on cats stir protests
PETA and Boys Town
battle on ethical, legal
issues of performing
research on kittens.
By Jim Goodwin
Staff Reporter
The recent controversy surround
ing animal testing conducted by an
Omaha research hospital won’t end the
federally funded practice, a hospital
spokesman said Tuesday.
Randy Blauvelt, spokesman for Boys
Town National Research Hospital, said
the validity and necessity of the
hospital’s search for a deafness treatment
outshined attempts by an animal rights
group to quell the practice.
'• Eighteen members of People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
protested in a Boys Town office March
14, calling attention to their efforts to
end the use of kittens for research.
The disagreement between Boys
Town and PETA revolves around the
need to use kittens in nerve regrowth and
regeneration research designed to find a
correctional treatment for deafness.
The program, conducted by hospi
tal researchers Edward Walsh and JoAnn
McGee, is federally funded through a
$2 million grant from the National In
stitute on Deafness and Other Commu
nication Disorders, a branch of the Na
tional Institute of Health.
Jason Baker, PETA campaign co
ordinator, said from the group’s Nor
folk, Va., headquarters that he thought
computer modeling and other research
avenues could effectively simulate the
testing done on kittens by the hospital.
Baker also said that PETA has on
file the professional opinions of prac
ticing veterinarians. They say enough
differences exist between deafness in
cats and humans that comparisons be
tween the two aren’t useful.
“We’re basically working to get
Boys Town to stop these experiments,”
Baker said. gjyt
Blauvelt disputed both of Baku’s
points, saying the hospital had the .sup
port of veterinarians who believed me
use of kittens in the research is scien
tifically founded and effective.
He added that researchers also used
computer models and human trials in
their studies, and the hospital would not
use kittens if it were not necessary.
“Believe me, if we didn’t believe
that to be true, we wouldn’t be doing
this,” Blauvelt said.
Behind closed doors
The controversy resulted from al
legations PETA made in August that
the kittens’ treatment and living con
ditions were substandard
Baker said tnat on Aug. 14 the orga
nization presented photographic and vid
eotaped evidence showing the hospital’s
“filthy cages, sloppy surgical work and
animals languishing in pain for days and
months without pain killers.”
He said a former Boys Town em
ployee notified PETA early last year of
what the worker believed was unethical
— if not illegal — violations commit
ted by his employer against the kittens.
In response to the employee’s alle
gations, PETA sent an undercover in
vestigator to the hospital in 1996 to
gather evidence supporting the claims,
Baker said.
After obtaining its materials, PETA
held a press conference, calling for an
end to the testing, Baker said. He
wouldn’t disclose the employee’s iden
tity or former employment status.
Blauvelt said PETA’s allegations
were unfounded and pointed to an in
vestigation by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture that absolved Boys Town of
all but a few record-keeping infractions.
Blauvelt said he was familiar with
the allegations PETA made at its Au
gust press conference, but wouldn’t
comment on them.
“The truth is we do use animals for
research that does use surgical proce
dures,” Blauvelt said. “The way they
(PETA) pitch things is so overly dra
matized and misleading that I won’t go
back to their records and say, ‘This is
accurate’ or ‘This isn’t accurate.’”
PETA alleges Boys Town research
ers “cut open the skulls of kittens and
sever nerves at the base of their brains.”
Other allegations include a failure by
scientists “to properly train and super
vise staff experimenting on and caring
for kittens and cats.”
Blauvelt said as far as he knew, the
former employee was a security guard
who quit his job, only to return six
months later to spy on PETA’s behalf.
He added Boys Town hasn’t de
cided whether or not to take legal ac
tion against the former employee.
In the clear?
USDA spokesman Jim Rogers said
his department made its first of two
unannounced inspections of the hos
pital on Aug. 20, almost one week af
ter PETA’s conference.
Rogers said the USDA cited the
hospital for record-keeping violations,
storing outdated medicine in the labo
ratory where the kittens were kept and
not having a standard operating pro
cedure for handling sick animals. He
said inspectors found no actual “han
dling or care problems.”
Return inspections on Sept. 30,1996,
and Feb. 7, 1997, found all violations
had been corrected, Rogers said.
As for Boys Town, Blauvelt said
testing on kittens for the purpose of
alleviating deafness would continue.
Baker said PETA also would con
tinue making mass mailings and tele
phone calls and staging demonstrations.
“I would just like to generate pub
lic interest in this issue,” Baker said.
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