By Sarah Fox
Staff writer 1
Lincoln residents filled the City Council
chambers Monday night to argue about 1.3
miles of road construction.
But those 1.3 miles pass by Guitars &
Cadillacs, Gateway Mall and a number of
other highktraffic businesses on East O
Street
The City Council and a Nebraska
Highway commissioner listened to Lincoln
residents’ comments about a .$15.2 million
plan to widen East O Street to three lanes in
each direction.
Construction would start in 2002 and last
two years.
An average of31,700 vehicles travel onO
Street each day, said Linda Weaver Beacham,
deputy vice president of The Schemmer
Associates.
Schemmer is Lincoln^ engineering con
sultant for the project
Wiliam Safris, who owns toe property of
Subway on 53rd and O streets, said toe con
struction would hurt business at the restau
rant.
The Subway has toe best sales in the state
because of high traffic, he said.
A restaurant could have good owners and
a good product but bad business without an
accessible building, Safris said.
“It boils down to location, location, loca
tion and access,” he said. “The access prob
lem is extremely detrimental but not only
during construction.
&Our sales may go down after the road is
completed.”
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It boils down to location, location, location and
access. The access problem is extremely detrimental
but not only during construction.”
William Safris
property owner
The Subway would also lose sales
because it is on a section of O Street that
would lose left-turn lanes.
Kerri and Bryan Peterson have owned the
Subway since July 1998. Kerri Peterson said
most Of Subway’s lunch traffic entered
through a left-turn lane from westbound East
O Street to 53rd Street. This left-turn lane
would be closed.
“If you take this away from us, we will
have to close, and there will be another empty
building on O Street,” Kerri Peterson said.
The plan would take out left-turn lanes on
O Street between 56th Street and Cotner
Boulevard.
Both 56th Street and Cotner Boulevard
would be one-way streets to P Street on the
north and N Street on the south.
John Weinberg, vice president of real
estate for Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. at
Cotner Boulevard and O Street, said he didn’t
think making Cotner Boulevard one-way
would work.
“We think it’s confusing and problemat
ic,” Weinberg said.
“We’ve asked for months for examples of
where one-way, pairs (of streets) have
worked.”
First Federal Lincoln Bank, 1235 N St.,
wasn’t told that O Street would be changed,
said Ed Swotek, first vice president.
“The only way I learned about this project
was when I read about it in the newspaper
about a year ago,” Swotek said.
Swotek was also opposed to the one-way
streets.
“The East O Street plan is absolutely dev
astating to the accessibility of First Federal
Lincoln Bank,” Swotek said.
Schemmer mailed fliers to the businesses
along East O Street in March 1998, Deputy
Vice President Beacham said.
She said Schemmer also bought newspa
per ads and a television commercial to tell
Lincoln residents what would happen.
Duane Acklie, a Nebraska Highway com
missioner, may make recommendations to
the Nebraska State Highway Commission at
its Dec. 17 meeting.
Safris said he hoped his Subway property
would still be profitable if the highway com
mission and the council approve a plan.
“I just got this horrible feeling that we’re
not going to win,” he said.
City contract
extension OK’d
From staff reports
The City Council voted 7-0 Monday to extend a
contract with a Colorado company to continue
working on telecommunications and wireless ordi
nances.
River Oaks Communications Co. in Colorado
Springs, Colo., had started a project last April with
the city of Lincoln and Lancaster County.
The company is advising the city and county to
write ordinances that are compliant with federal
laws. -
River Oaks agreed to consult the city and coun
ty about telecommunications laws for six months at
the cost of about $59,000, said Steve
Huggenberger, assistant city attorney.
“Over the last couple years, there’s been a lot of
activity in the telecommunications area,”
Huggenberger said.
“Communications law on the federal level is
moving fast.”
The ordinances weren’t finished in six months,
so the council approved an extension for $24,000.
The city and the county will split the cost.
Telecommunications laws refer to lines in the
ground, and wireless laws refer to towers.
City Councilman Jgrry Shoecraft said he voted
for the resolution because the council recommend
ed it.
“It was no big deal,” he said. “It appeared to be
something the city was supporting.”
By Jake Bleed
Senior staff writer
Vandals damaged a cast-iron
sculpture on display in the Sheldon
Memorial Art Gallery’s Sculpture
Garden early Sunday morning, uni
versity police said.
The damaged sculpture is a set of
10 black balustrades, designed by
Louis H, Sullivan, that were originally
part of die Carson Pierie Scott build
ing, built in Chicago in 1899.
The top half of one of the
balustrades was broken off by vandals
at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday. The bottom
half of the same balustrade was bent
in.
“It’s a pretty hefty chunk that was
ripped off,” said Dan Siedell, curator
of the Sheldon.
University Police Sgt. Mylo
Bushing said the missing pieces have
not been found.
The cost of die attack has not been
estimated, Siedell said, adding that the
sculpture could probably be repaired.
“There are a lot of variables that
have still yet to be determined,”
Siedell said.
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p-—--—
We just have to understand we have to
work in the public domain, and things are
going to happen now and then.”
Dan Siedell
Sheldon curator
The balustrades were a gift made
through the Art Institute of Chicago to
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
from Carson Pierie Seott and Co. in
1970.
Sullivan (1856-1924) is best
known for his work on American sky
scrapers around the turn of die centu
ry. He posthumously received a gold
medal award from the American
Institute of Architects.
The vandalism is the third incident
in two years when art in the sculpture
garden has been damaged.
On Oct. 12, vandals smeared pizza
sauce on the “Fallen Dreamer,” a
sculpture of a large bronze head lying
on its side, causing the sculpture’s pro
tective outer layer to rot.
Another sculpture, “Man in the
Open Air,” was ripped off its base and
later recovered on East Campus, after
Nebraska’s victory in the Orange
Bowl on Jan. 2,1998.
Siedell said he has met with uni
versity administrators to find ways to
better protect art in the sculpture gar
den, but because it is a public area,
increased security would be difficult
to maintain.
“We’ve been talking about it with
UNL administration and police for a
couple of years,” Siedell said “We just
have to understand we have to work in
the public domain, and things are
going to happen now and then.”
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Civilian Y2K tips
given at meeting
By Kimberly Sweet
Senior staff writer
What do a bottle of Clorox, a whis
tle and a 2-liter pop bottle have in com
mon?
According to cooperative extension
agents, all three items should hold a
place in disaster kits put together before
the calendar is set to switch to Jan. 1,
2000.
The 2-liter pop bottle will hold
water. Four drops of bleach will purify
it
And the whistle can be used to
attract attention or gather people togeth
er during an emergency.
Extension agents from the
Lancaster County Extension Office
passed on these and other tips during a
Y2K workshop on Monday night
The workshop was the last in a two
part series on emergency preparedness.
“It doesn’t really matter what the
source of a disaster is, it's a good idea to
be prepared, “ said Tom Dorn, extension
educator.
Being prepared means bottling
water ahead of time, knowing ways to
dispose of human waste, securing food
and having alternate heat and light
sources.
Instead of stocking up on expensive
bottled water, people should collect 2
liter pop bottles, Dorn said.
The plastic in the bottles is food
grade. Unlike plastic milk jugs, it won’t
degrade. It is also important not to use
milk jugs because they can’t be cleaned
out as well as pop bottles, Dorn said.
Once the water is in the bottle, four
drops of unscented, chlorine bleach
should be added to disinfect it, Dorn
said. After shaking the water and letting
it sit for 30 minutes, the chlorine scent
should still be present. If it isn’t, four
more drops should be added.
The water should be replaced after
six months.
When deciding how much water to
store, people should keep in mind that
one adult requires a half-gallon of water
for drinking and a half-gallon for cook
ing each day, Dorn said.
When thinking about what food to
stock up on, people should consider
foods that have a lower salt content so
they won’t be thirsty, said Alice
Henneman, extension agent v
Most Lincolnites shouldn’t have to
worry about disposing human waste,
Dorn said. But for those who live in
places where the sewer isn’t controlled
by gravity flow, portable toilets used for
camping can be purchased at area
stores, Dorn said.
For those who don’t want to invest
the money, some holding tank deodor
ant can be added to a 5-gallon bucket to
make a portable toilet, he said.
Other supplies people will want to
invest in for Y2K or any emergency
include lanterns and kerosene heaters.
There are a number of other items
that should make up a disaster kit
■ A first-aid kit that includes basic
first-aid items.
■ Non-prescription drags such as
aspirin, antacid and laxatives.
■ Tools and supplies along with
extra batteries, matches and a fire extin
guisher.
■ Sanitation items such as toilet
paper, plastic garbage bags and person
al hygiene items.
■ A waterproof container that con
tains important family documents
Along with having these items, each
family should have a disaster plan, said
Lorene Bartos, extension agent
“These are things that are common
sense, but they are things you need to
have,” she said.