HIGH SCHOOL SPLIT
ALL SMILES
Free State basketball teams win; LHS teams lose
Dental clinic provides free service to uninsured
Sports 1B
Lawrence & State 3A
L A W R E NC E
JOURNAL-WORLD ®
75 CENTS
LJWorld.com
3!452$!9 s &%"25!29 s
Investigation to focus on meetings at Cedar Crest
‘It looks like Vegas’
———
Brownback insists no violations occurred By Scott Rothschild srothschild@ljworld.com
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photos
CROWDS FILL THE FLOOR FRIDAY of the new Hollywood Casino, a Las Vegas-style venue at the Kansas Speedway. The casino is the first one in the Kansas City market in 15 years. BELOW, an entertainer welcomes visitors to the casino opening.
KANSAS CITY
Hollywood Casino opens with a splash By Caroline Boyer cboyer@theworldco.info
KANSAS CITY, KAN. — With the call of “Gentlemen, start your engines,” the ceremonial first craps shoot was thrown Friday, and the doors of the Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway opened to the public. Within 30 minutes, there were few empty seats at the 52 table games and 2,000 electronic machines. Julie Rich, of Ottawa, was among the first through
the door, deciding to head to the bar for some video poker. For Rich, her husband and two friends they brought along, checking out the casino on its opening day was worth taking the day off work. Rich and her husband worked in the gaming industry when they lived in Black Hawk, Colo., and she said they wanted to see what Hollywood Casino had to offer.
Please see MEETINGS, page 2A
Please see CASINO, page 2A
KU-MU rivalry going strong right up to the end By Andy Hyland ahyland@ljworld.com
As Kansas University and the University of Missouri get ready to meet on the basketball court for what could be one of the last times, the usual amount of sniping is going on. The Missouri Alumni Association held a contest where fans could win tickets to tonight’s game against “kU,” as they referred to it, by entering and listing “three reasons why I’m not a Jayhawk.” More than 2,700 people participated in the contest. Jack E. Kinney Jr., a 1969 journalism alumnus of the school, won. His reasons? His late Uncle Bob said the best school for a Missourian is MU, and Tigers are better than “some goofy bird.”
Other submitted reasons will be posted online later. “(Former Missouri basketball coach) Norm Stewart would not let his teams eat or sleep in Kansas. Whatever Stormin’ Norman says is good enough for me,” Kinney wrote. Todd McCubbin, executive director of the MU Alumni Association, said the contest could “definitely ... slip into some not fun areas if we’re not careful.” The association is also using the week to boost membership, pointing out that it has the fourth-highest membership in the conference, trailing KU. “I think it’s fair game and we have some fun with it,” McCubbin said of the rivalry. “It has driven some membership, there’s no doubt, this week.” Kevin Corbett, president of the KU Alumni Association, said this kind of tactic is noth-
High: 44
Low: 27
Today’s forecast, page 8A
ing new. “It’s at least the third campaign they’ve run to try and recruit more members than the KU Alumni Association,” he said. It hasn’t worked so far, he pointed out. But it wasn’t all sniping this week. Xavier Billingsley, president of the Missouri Students Association, distributed a letter to the university community asking fans to avoid committing “some act of ignorance against our opponents.” “Keep your eyes and ears open this week,” he wrote. “And if you see an example of insensitive fan behavior or encounter words or actions unbefitting Mizzou, make sure the students behind that ignorance know you don’t appreciate it.”
See more about tonight’s
game in Sports. Page 1B
Warm winter saving us money By Shaun Hittle sdhittle@ljworld.com
If Lawrence residents are looking for another reason to rejoice about the unseasonably warm weather and lack of snow, add taxpayer savings to the list. At Kansas University, savings have been more than $130,000 on winter-related costs — not including heating — compared with 2011, said Jill Jess, KU spokeswoman. Last year, KU spent $160,000 on snow and ice removal and supplies through Jan. 31, and nearly $200,000 in 2010. This year, it’s less than $30,000. Lawrence Public Schools has also seen financial benefits because of the weather, said spokeswoman Julie Boyle. The district hasn’t yet had to touch the $23,600 set aside every year for cold-weather supplies and services. Craig Weinaug, Douglas County administrator, said the county doesn’t yet have specific numbers for how much has been saved, but they expect heating bills to be much lower when it’s all tallied. Potentially a more significant savings, Weinaug said, is on road infrastructure, which has had to deal with less freezing and thawing, which contributes to potholes and other road damage.
INSIDE
Windy, some rain Business Classified Comics Deaths Events listings
Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, and scores of Republican legislators are the focus of an investigation into alleged violations of the state law that is aimed at ensuring that policy debate occur in the open, it was revealed Friday. Acting on a complaint by the Topeka Capital-Journal, Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor opened a probe into whether dinners that Brownback hosted at his official residence, the Cedar Crest mansion, for GOP legislators were in violation of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. Shawnee County Brownback said there were no District Attorviolations. “We will completely ney Chad Taylor cooperate with any investigation, opened the inand I’m completely confident that vestigation into they will show no wrongdoing,” the meetings. he said. Taylor said his office planned to interview legislators who attended the dinners, and probably Brownback too. “It is going to be a painstaking process,” Taylor said. The dispute is over a series of seven dinner meetings in January attended by only Republicans and closed to the public. Generally, the Kansas Open Meetings Act prohibits a voting majority of a legislative body from discussing government business without providing public notice or access to the meetings. Violators of the law can face up to a $500 fine per incident.
6C 1C-4C 7A 2A 8A, 2B
Horoscope Movies Opinion Poll Puzzles
5C 4A 6A 2A 5C
Society Sports Television
Join us at Facebook.com/LJWorld and Twitter.com/LJWorld
8B 1B-6B 5A, 5C
The city of Lawrence reports a different type of benefit. The lack of snow has meant that city crews can spend time on other maintenance projects, said Megan Gilliland, city spokeswoman. Craig Weinaug, The city has also been Douglas County able to begin their 2012 administrator, in-house street mainteexpects heating nance program ahead of bills to be much time, she said. lower and ex“This is a benefit to pects potentially our community because more significant we are actually able to savings on road make an investment in infrastructure our street system during from the lack the winter months rather of inclement than applying a material weather. that gets washed off or melts when the weather warms up,” Gilliland said. But public officials are cautious about the savings so far. For instance, when Boyle asked around to various departments about the savings, she said the response she got was, “The season’s not over yet.” — Reporter Shaun Hittle can be reached at 832-7173. Follow him at Twitter.com/shaunhittle.
COMING SUNDAY A look at the work of the elementary school consolidation task force so far.
Vol.154/No.35 22 pages
Energy smart: The Journal-World makes the most of renewable resources. www.b-e-f.org