1997-02-21; Central Michigan Life

              Central Michigan LIFE
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Volume 79, Number 64
Mt. Pleasant,   MI 48859
©1997 CM LIFE
77 years of serving the community
FRIDAY
February 21, 1997
12 pages
Ruling allows police to remove passengers
By Dave Borough
LIFE Staff Writer	
On Wednesday the United States
Supreme Court ruled in favor of police
safety by allowing officers to order all
passengers out of a vehicle for routine
traffic stops.
The court ruled in a 7-2 decision in a
Maryland case that ordering passengers
not suspected of wrongdoing out of a car
is only a "minimal" intrusion on their
rights.
Martin Trombley, director of Mount
Pleasant Public Safety Department, said
by his understanding, the ruling gives
officers the ability to ensure their own
safety.
"It's not a benefit — it's about safety,"
Trombley said. "Police officers are constantly concerned about what a passenger or passengers are doing."
Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote
in this decision hailed by police,
"Regrettably, traffic stops may be dangerous encounters" for police.
"Danger to an officer from a traffic stop
is likely to be greater when there are passengers in addition to the driver in the
stopped car," Rehnquist added.
He noted that 11 police officers were
killed and more than 5,700 were assaulted during traffic stops in 1994.
"It's  not  a
about safety'
benefit
it's
MARTIN TROMBLEY
Director of Mount Pleasant
Public Safety Department
TVombley said statistical proof shows
traffic violation offenders are committing
some other serious crime.
"It's not my desire to have everyone get
out of the car," he said. "Officers are not
going to order people out of the car on
every stop."
In some circumstances where officers
feel there is reasonable cause, sense
something wrong or observe certain
movements, they may order everyone out
of the vehicle.
Trombley noted just this week in Ohio,
police have on videotape a passenger
coming out of a vehicle and shooting at
officers.
He also said a few years ago a young
Grand Haven officer was shot and killed
during a traffic stop when an escaped
felon shot him from the back seat of the
New gas tax proposed to
repair Michigan roads
LIFE Staff Reports
Funding for repairing Michigan roads is
creating quite a stir among legislators as
two new proposals for a gas tax have
formed.
Senator Jim Berryman, D-Adrian, and
Senator Walter North, R-St. Ignace, each
have designed proposals to repair
Michigan roads by instating a gas tax.
The major difference between the two
proposals is, both the House of
Representatives and the Senate will vote
on Berryman's proposal, while North is
proposing the issue to go before the voters
next November.
Julie Stevenson, administrative assistant for North, said North's plan includes
a 6-cent gas tax increase the first year of
its instatement and after a year an additional 2 cents will be
added on.
Stevenson said
North feels this issue
should go before the
voters due to the
political climate in
the state capital.
She said North
feels a gas tax proposal will not pass by a
t»vo~thirds rn s*ori fcxr
in either house.
North said there
are several state representatives whose
term limits are almost completed and
many representatives are planning to run
for office again. None of these people will
want to vote for any new taxes and have
that on their platform.
"It appears through dialog in the legislature, that people don't want to deal with
it," North said.
Stevenson said the plan fully supports
several reforms Gov. John Engler has put
into place.
There are seven main areas of support,
she said.
•The state trying to get more money
from the federal government for infrastructure improvement;
•Demand greater efficiency from county
road commissions;
•Streamline the Michigan Department
of Transportation by cutting 1,000 employees through an early retirement program;
•Eliminate    the    2    percent    spillage
allowance;
•Reforming how many civil cases
involving highway accidents can be
brought before Michigan courts; and
•Allocating $110 million for bridge
repair and $70 million for local road repair
as Engler proposed in his budget.
Berryman said he feels North's program
will simply not work, because it will take
too long to implement.
Berryman said by putting it before the
voters, the Republicans are just putting off
solving the problem.
"We can't wait until 1999 or the year
2000 to fix our roads," Berryman said.
"The current administration is basically
saying 'there is no
sense dealing with it
now.'"
"The plain fact is,
without a gas tax
increase now and the
longer we deal this
spring and summer,
we are going to miss
this year's construction period," said
Berryman.
He   said   not   only
does     he     feel     the
Engler administration is just putting off
the problem, but he finds several points
wrong with their plan.
"A 6- to 8-cent gas tax is just not going to
do it," Berryman said.
He said this will delay paying the
amount to fix roads too long and will not
even cover the $500-million bond that is
currently due that Engler borrowed a few
years back to fix the roads.
Berryman said his plan would create a
gas tax of 8 cents a year, which would
bring in about $600 million dollars in just
the first year to fix the roads.
Berryman said his plan also will repeal
the diesel discount that entitles truckers
to pay lower rates for diesel fuel.
See TAX Page 2 •
The two dissenters, Justices John Paul
Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy, said
officers should be allowed to make passengers get out of a vehicle only when
they actually suspect possible danger.
Kennedy wrote that because the court
last year bolstered officers' authority to
stop motorists in some cases, the new ruling "puts tens of millions of passengers at
risk of arbitrary control by police."
Trombley said, "The bottom line is the
officers are doing what they are doing to
ensure their own safety. Officers have to
be careful. Safety is very important."
The Associated Press contributed to this
story.
New minor
should be
available
by fall
LIFE Photo/Gabriel Guerrero
Michigan drivers, like Mount Pleasant resident Eileen Sonnad, may soon be paying more at the gas pump to repair Michigan roads. One gas tax proposal currently being considered by lawmaker would increase the gas tax 6 cents the first
year and 2 cents the next year.
Run-off election will decide final Tribal Council position
By Lenny Padiila
LIFE Staff Writer
The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe
will hold a run-off election Monday to settle a dispute over questionable results
from last month's tribal election.
Tribal District 1 voters will determine
whether Thomas Kequom or Susan Durfee
will hold the 10th and final spot on the
Tribal Council, the governing body of the
Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe.
"There's mixed emotions because there
are two sides to the story," said Tribal
Chief Kevin Chamberlain. "But we'll  let
the people decide what they want."
When the final votes were tallied at the
end of the Jan. 14 election, Durfee and
Kequom were deadlocked at 142 votes
apiece.
However, two late absentee ballots
broke the tie in favor of Kequom, 144-142.
Following the election, the tribe formed a
judicial oversight committee which ruled
in favor of approving the final election
results.
Kequom has held a position on the council in the interim.
"Both sides want to interpret the ordi
nance to meet their needs," Chamberlain
said of Durfee and Kequom. "But each side
has equal and valid concerns.
Durfee filed a protest with the tribe
within the allowed seven-day time period
following the election in order to hold a
run-off. The Tribal Council then approved
a run-off by majority vote.
"I think it is important that the tribal
council supports each other," Chamberlain
said.
Much of the problem which led to the
run-off stems from a primitive election
process, Chamberlain said, and the tribe
has been looking to improve that. They
have been looking to other governmental
bodies for answers about how to run a concise and accurate election.
"Our (election) rules just aren't clear
cut," he said.
According to Chamberlain, the two
absentee ballots that spawned the debate,
were found in the mail a day after the election. Both were apparently overlooked
because they were incorrectly labeled.
The polling booths will be open at the
Tribal Center Monday from 8 a.m. to 8
p.m.
■ Environmental minor
will require around 25
credit hours total
By Matthew J. Roberge, Jr.
LIFE Staff Writer	
By next fall, students
interested in environmental studies should
be able to minor in it.
Jane Matty, assistant professor of geology and director of
environmental studies, said
currently, only an environmental studies major is offered. The
major requires students to double major in another discipline.
Matty said "the reason we
introduced the minor is it really
is not feasible for students ■who
are getting business or education majors to get a double
major."
The minor is "a trimmed
down version of the major,"
Matty said.
She said the minor will
require around 25 credit hours
total. The major now requires
over 50 interdepartmental credit hours.
This, Matty said, will allow a
greater variety of people to
receive training in environmental studies.
Matty said through talking to
students she is aware of a
demand for the new minor.
She said she is hoping to
have everything finalized and
the minor available to students
by the Fall '97 semester.
The Academic Senate
approved the minor at their
Feb. 11 meeting.
The Academic Senate also
approved adding a GPA
requirement of 2.7 to the environmental studies major.
This requirement was added,
Matty said, "because we want
to make sure all students are
taking the program seriously."
She said the requirement was
added because students who do
not take the environmental
studies program seriously could
make CMU look bad to the
company providing the internship.
All environmental studies
majors must complete an
internship.
There are about 90 students
registered for the major, which
was introduced in the fall of
1994.
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Detroit newspapers prepare job offers for striking workers
The Associated Press
Detroit newspaper officials
Thursday prepared job offers for
some striking workers, one day
after accepting the workers'
unconditional offer to return to
work.
But the unions were preparing
to seek a court injunction to
immediately restore jobs for all
non-fired strikers who -want
them.
Some of the job offers for
returning workers could go out
as soon as Friday, newspaper
officials said. They declined to
say how many offers would  be
Union strikers move towards injunction attempts
made in coming days.
One newspaper official said
the job offers are being slowed
because the unions haven't told
the papers how many striking
workers want to return.
"It would help us put together
accurate lists and begin to evaluate them in an accurate way,"
said Robert Giles, editor and
publisher of The Detroit News.
Union spokeswoman Nancy
Dunn said her hunch is that
between 1,400 and 1,600 of the
roughly  2,000  striking workers
want to return. But she said the
unions are making no formal
effort to determine that number,
and said such a figure is meaningless as to -whether the strikers should receive job offers.
"I don't see how it should slow
down his process," Dunn said.
Officials with the News, the
Detroit Free Press and Detroit
Newspapers Inc. on Wednesday
accepted the strikers' unconditional offer to return to work
after a 19-month walkout. But
the unions contend the newspa
pers in effect rejected the offer
because of their vow to retain
1,200 replacement workers, thus
making few jobs available for
returning strikers.
Dunn said the unions will ask
the National Labor Relations
Board to seek a court injunction
to immediately reinstate all non-
fired strikers who want to return
to work — even if it means displacing replacement workers.
She said the unions are assembling their own seniority lists in
anticipation  of their  injunction
request.
"We need to know exactly how
our people line up so when the
court sends everybody back to
work we are ready," Dunn said.
Meanwhile, union leaders are
advising strikers who receive
back-to-work offers while the
injunction attempt is pending to
accept them.
Free Press Managing Editor
Carole Leigh Hutton said she
hoped to make the first job offers
by seniority as soon as Friday. "I
would like very much to get this
going," she said.