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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1990 » ATHENS, GEORGIA • VOLUME 98, ISSUE 38
Culpepper condones O’Looney brochure
By DAN POOL and
DAVID M. JOHNSTON
Staff Writers
Defeated chief elected officer candidate
E.H. Culpepper and a supporter respon
sible for a controversial brochure at
tacking his opponent both said Tuesday
they still condone its use.
The brochure was credited to the Com
mittee to Elect a Qualified CEO, which vi
olated state election laws in producing
and distributing the brochure.
Holiday Inn general manager Lewis
Shropshire said he produced the brochure
to present facts he felt were relevant to
the voters.
He said the brochure was biased, but
"everything in it was factual, documented
and footnoted.’*
Culpepper said after the election re
sults were tallied Tuesday that he still
supports the use of the brochure, but it
was hard to say how much effect it had on
his campaign. However, Shropshire said
the controversy surrounding the brochure
made it more effective.
Victorious candidate Gwen O'Looney
said Tuesday night, “I hope this will teach
everyone a lesson that negative cam
paigning doesn’t work in this commu
nity."
State officials said Tuesday the Com
mittee for the Election of a Qualified CEO
is in violation of several state election
laws.
The state requires that the names of
three officers be included on any mailing
by independent political action commit
tees ana that the group be registered with
the secretary of state’s office prior to
working on a candidate’s behalf.
Ted Lee, executive secretary to the
State Ethics Commission, said the names
are required to prevent anonymous at
tacks on candidates.
The pro-Culpepper mailing, which at
tacks O’Looney as “a career social
worker" and quotes a 1989 newspaper ar
ticle calling her "a loose cannon on the
deck of City Hall,” was identified only by
the committee’s name.
The group also hadn’t registered with
the state at presstime Tuesday, said Bill
Crane, Secretary of State Max Cleland’s
spokesman.
Shropshire took credit for the brochure
on Monday, but he hasn’t revealed the
names of any other members of the com
mittee.
He said that he was the head of the
committee, the spokesman and the trea
surer.
A financial disclosure filed by
Shropshire on Monday showed that the
only contribution to the committee was
$3,148 coming from the E.H. Culpepper
campaign fund. The committee’s only ex
penditure, for the same amount, was to
Athens Mailing Services.
Culpepper said that he gave a check for
that amount directly to Athens Mailing
Services.
Shropshire said he tried to follow elec
tion guidelines and that any violations
were technical mistakes. Culpepper said
he assumed that the committee wns fol
lowing proper procedures.
Lee said that no complaint had been
filed with his office by presstime Tuesday.
“I’ve got a lot of phone calls and a lot of
talk, but no complaints,” he said.
Anyone can file a complaint by giving a
written statement to the State Ethics
Commission provided they do so within
the next few months, Lee said.
O’Looney said she wouldn’t file any
complaints because she feels that the
community has been divided enough.
Crane said that complaints aren’t nec
essary and the amount of press coverage
may be enough to spur an investigation
into the committee.
Staff writer Gwinn Bruns contributed
to this article.
O’Looney clinches win in CEO runoff;
347 ballots separate two candidates
Gwen O’Looney: Shakes hands with supporters after learning of CEO victory.
From Staff Reports
Gwen O’Looney captured the
seat for the chief elected officer of
the new Athens-Clarke unified
government after a close race
Tuesday night against E.H. Cul
pepper.
O'Looney received 7,877 votes —
51 percent of the vote. Culpepper
received 7,530 votes, which was 49
percent.
Both candidates had expected a
close race, and they anxiously
awaited voting returns at the
Clarke County Courthouse.
O'Looney said the close margin
showed that she’s got her work cut
out for her to unify the community.
She isn’t worried about the possi
bility of a recount, she said.
"I have a tough job ahead of me,"
she said. “We need to get that other
49 percent."
A smiling Culpepper accepted
defeat gracefully, hugging
O’Looney and shaking hands with
her supporters.
He said that his supporters did
their best to see that he was
elected.
“It was a good race, nothing to be
ashamed of,” he said. “A lot of
people worked very hard. They did
everything to get us over the top —
it just didn’t happen.”
O'Looney said it was hard to
keep her mind on campaigning
after the primary.
“I’ve been ready to go to work for
about three weeks now,” she said.
“It was hard for me to do the
runoff. Campaigns tend to be very
shallow in addressing the issues/
O’Looney is going to “start right
away” to prepare to take office in
January, she said.
“I can’t wait to meet with my 10
new partners,” she said. “I want to
sit down with the administrators
and make arrangements for
training and hard work sessions.
‘This is a progressive commu
nity — the unification shows that
this is a community willing to toko
a risk to prepare itself for the fu
ture,” she said. “I represent change
here.”
Culpepper said the whole com
munity should move on to look at
the ways a new unified govern
ment can be successful.
“I knew when I began I was
fighting a very difficult battle,” he
said.
Despite his loss, hell work with
the government in any manner
he’s called upon, he said.
Turnout in the runoff wns ex
pected to be lower than the 59 per
cent who showed up for the Nov. 6
general election because there
were no statewide elections
Tuesday. However, 42 percent of
Clarke County’s registered voters
went to the polls.
Kilpatrick wins 7th
From Staff Reports
The citizens of Athens and
Clnrke County chose Cardee Kil
patrick ns their 7th District com
missioner Tuesday night.
Kilpatrick garnered 1,640
votes, or 53 percent, in the runoff
election.
Her opponent, Danny Daniel,
had 1.454 votes, or 47 percent.
Kilpatrick said she’s been very
accessible to University students
and she’s enjoyed the opportunity
to come to forums and tnem.
“I’ve been on the city council
for four years,” she said. “People
know the representation I will
give.”
Kilpatrick, currently a 2nd
Ward city council member, sup
ports historic preservation and
voted for extended alcohol hours.
She said she is disappointed with
the open-container ordinance be
cause it’s selectively enforced.
Daniel said he wnsn’t able to
get the people back to the polls or
get the vote of the Howard Guest
supporters.
“I’m very greutful for the ones
that did go back to the polls,” he
said.
Daniel said he has no future
thoughts about politics and is dis
appointed with the election.
"I thought I had the progres
sive idens and that the voters
were ready for a change,” Daniel
said.
Students have been overlooked
by past governments and he
wanted to maintain closer con
tact with student activity groups,
he said.
In the Nov. 6 general election,
Kilpatrick received 46 percent of
the vote and Danny Daniel re
ceived 32 percent. The third can
didate, Howard Guest, received
‘I’ve been on the city
council for four years.
People know the
representation I will
give.’
— Cardee Kilpatrick
‘I thought I had the
progressive ideas and
that the voters were
ready for a change’
— Danny Daniel
20 percent of the vote.
In the 9th District commis
sioner race Tom Ohasteen won
with 2,626 votes, or 53 percent.
Chasteen couldn’t bo reached
for comment at presstime.
Chasteen said during his cam
paign that he opposes selective
enforcement of any ordinance. He
specifically referred to zoning
laws and the open-container ordi
nance.
Defeated 9th District candi
date Harry Sims had 2,291 votes,
or 47 percent.
Despite talk that the new gov
ernment may l>e vulnerable to a
court challenge because the dis
tricts dilute the black vote, Sims
said he considers the election
fair.
‘That’s all I could ask — for it
to be fair.” he said.
Cardee Kilpatrick
City hunts parking management; sets aside tree debate
By LANCE HELMS
and LYNN BARFIELD
Staff Wnters
The Athens City Council’s Finance Com
mittee, in the midst of a six-month battle
between tree advocates and developers con
cerning a proposed tree protection ordi
nance, paused Tuesday to consider the fate
of a new city parking deck.
The committee voted 2-1 Tuesday to work
with the Athens Downtown Development
Authority to find management for the
parking deck on Washington Street across
from City Hall.
ADDA wants to hire McLaurin Parking
Company of Raleigh, N.C., to operate the
deck, due to open Feb. 18, said AJ)DA Exec
utive Director Joe Burnett. The deck is ex
pected to cost $369,000 a year to operate.
MPC Vice President Steve McLaurin said
his company will help the city manage the
debt the new parking deck will create.
“We definitely want to help make rev
enue for the city and cover the cost of some
thing greatly needed," he said.
At the committee’s next meeting, set for
Dec. 18, members will vote on a proposed
tree ordinance they've held since May amid
questions about its practicality.
Athens landscape architect Brian Kent
attacked the ordinance at length Nov. 13 at
a finance committee work session held spe
cifically for input on the ordinance. He said
the ordinance was too vague about adminis
tration and enforcement, a9 well ns the ju
risdiction of the proposed city arborist, who
would implement the ordinance.
“He tore apart ours, but he tore it npart
in a constructive way,” said Cardee Kilpa
trick, a finance committee member. The
committee voted to hold the issue until its
next meeting.
“It was almost unenforceable,” said Dick
Bolin, the city’s chief administrative officer.
‘The arborist was trying to do so many
things. You had to have a permit for every
thing.”
Copies of the proposed ordinance and a
similar one from Decatur are available to
the public in City Hall.
‘‘What I have asked is that our staff and
interested people in the city look at the De
catur ordinance," Kilpatrick said. Decatur’s
ordinance has samples of the forms devel
opers need to complete, as well as adminis
trative guidelines.
“I’m hoping that the garden club mem
bers and developers will have a look at it,”
she said.
“Decatur’s is a lot simpler," Bolin said.
“But one thing you have to remember about
Decatur is that it’s four square miles and 98
percent of it’s developed.”
. City administrators will make recom
mendations for the ordinance to Bolin, who
will present u report to the finance com
mittee before it votes Dec. 18. But Jan. 14 —
the date the new commission takes office —
is just around the corner.
“I don’t know if the committee’s going to
have time to do this before the changing of
the guard," Bolin said. “(Mayor Dwain
Chambers has) decided right now the
council will meet on Jon. 8.’’
Speaker: Minority outdated term
By PATRICK FLANIGAN
Staff Wnter
Students and faculty should reach across cultural
lines to learn more about each other instead of la
beling groups, Dawn Bennett-Alexander, an associate
professor otlegal studies, said in a speech Tuesday.
‘To call a given group of people a minority assumes
superiority," she said to an audience of about 50
people at the Tate Student Center.
Bennett-Alexander’s lecture, “Diversity: Listen
Without Prejudice," was the second of the President’s
Lecture Series begun this auarter.
There is room for cultural diversity within the Uni
versity community among both students and faculty
alike — both black and white, she said.
Students who don’t make an effort to attend cross-
cultural events or faculty members who teach only
about achievements concerning white Europeans are
perpetuating ignorance.
If you are one of these people "you don’t celebrate
diversity — you shun it,” she said.
Bennett-Alexander said 50 percent of the American
population will be of non-European ethnic descent by
the year 2000.
She also slammed President Bush for vetoing the
1990 civil rights bill, which she said passed through
Congress with overwhelming bi-partisan support.
Bush misled the public by labeling the bill as a
quota bill, she said.
“Bush knew the public would react negatively if the
bill were called a auota bill,” she said. “Nobody wants
a auota bill, including the black man.”
In its original form, the bill would have strength
ened sections of the civil rights law passed in 1964,
she said. It wasn’t intended to guarantee jobs for mi
norities as Bush would have had people believe.
Bennett-Alexander gave an example of the effect
the bill would have had on civil rights issues.
If a woman were fired from her job only because she
were a woman, it could take her three years to prove it
and get her job back. In that amount of time she could
lose her car or her house.
When she finally proved her case, she would receive
only reinstatement and back-pay as the law stands.
If the 1990 bill were passed, this woman could be
compensated for what she lost in those three years —
her car or her house.
Bush’s reasoning on this issue was that it would
S ve lawyers too much money, so he vetoed the bill,
ennett-Alexander said.
University President Charles Knapp asked Ben
nett-Alexander how she would promote cultural diver
sity if she were the University’s president.
“I’d open up communication on a visceral, everyday
level,” she said.
Students’ cars collide on Lumpkin;
all involved escape serious injuries
By BILL DAVIS
Contributing Writer
Three University students
were involved in an automobile
accident at the intersection of
Baxter and Lumpkin streets at
7:10 p.m. Tuesday.
Kimberly Ray. a freshman
early child development mqjor,
was a passenger in one of the cars
and was taken by ambulance to
St. Mary’s Hospital to be treated
for neck and other minor ir\jurics.
She was released Tuesday night.
Ray was riding in a white 1988
IROC Z-28 Chevrolet Camaro
convertible driven by Andrea De-
Shazo, a freshman business
maior, when their car collided
with a 1989 Ford Escort GT
driven by University student
Wesley Adams. Neither driver
was injured nor did they require
hospitalization.
“I was on my way to work,"
Adams, a sophomore business
major, said. “I was coming down
the hill (on Lumpkin) when we
collided. The road wns old and
choppy where I tried to stop, and
my car started hopping up and
down when I hit the brakes."
Adams’ said his Escort
slammed into DeShazo’s Camaro
on the front passenger near the
engine as she attempted to turn
up Baxter from Lumpkin Street.
The Clarke County Fire De
partment dispatched a rescue
truck to the scene of the accident
which snarled traffic for more
than an hour in front of Ste-
geman Hall.
‘The fire department had to
pop the door oft the Camaro as a
snftey precaution,” Athens
Master Police Officer Dave Lee-
dahl said.
“It was not a ‘jaws of death’
sort of thing, it was done as a
safety precaution only. The pas
senger didn’t seem to be iryured
seriously.”
No one had been cited or is
sued a ticket as the investigation
has not been concluded.
“I don’t want to comment on
whether or not a ticket will be is
sued yet before the investigation
is completed,” Leedahl said.
“I have to do a lot of measuring
and computations before I can
even say the first thing, as for
now I just don’t know."
Athens Police Sgt. Gene Mayes
said, The damaged cars were
towed off to storage yards to
await repairs.