Lawrence Journal-World 03-02-13

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JOURNAL-WORLD ®

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Court orders mediation in school finance case By John Hanna Associated Press

TOPEKA — Kansas’ highest court ordered mediation Friday in an education funding lawsuit and stayed a lower court’s ruling directing legislators to increase spending on public schools.

Gov. Sam Brownback and Attorney General Derek Schmidt asked the state Supreme Court last month to order mediation and to put on hold a ruling by a threejudge panel in Shawnee County District Court that required the state to boost annual spending on school

arguments even as they participate in mediation. John Robb, a Newton attorney representing the school districts and public school students who sued the state, said that lessens concerns about Brownback and Schmidt seeking mediation to delay a final decision

in the case. He also said he was optimistic about the chances that mediation will resolve the lawsuit. Brownback and Schmidt, both Republicans, and some GOP leaders in the Republican-dominated Legislature Please see MEDIATION, page 2A Brownback

‘Refrigerators’ for computers

Cold

High: 36

by at least $440 million. The high court issued two one-page orders, each signed by Chief Justice Lawton Nuss. The Kansas Supreme Court’s stay will remain in effect until it rules in the lawsuit, but it also said the parties will follow a normal schedule for submitting written legal

Low: 20

Today’s forecast, page 8B

INSIDE

ROCK CHALK PARK

City set to OK new rec center By Chad Lawhorn

clawhorn@ljworld.com

Center, which conducts research on information technology and helps researchers across the university who need access to highpowered computers. Researchers began making use of the new room last month. Perry Alexander, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science who serves as director of the ITTC, said the most difficult task the room has to perform is not providing space for all of the processors that will go there, but keeping them from overheating.

The idea of a $25 million recreation center in northwest Lawrence is about to begin to meet up with the city’s checkbook — even as new questions are arising about how the adjacent Kansas University athletics complex will be managed. At their weekly meeting Tuesday night, city commissioners are set to give final approval to a development agreeCITY ment that COMMISSION will commit the city to going out to bid for the 181,000-squarefoot recreation center near the northeast corner of Sixth Street and the South Lawrence Trafficway. The agreement also will commit Lawrence to pay at least $2.3 million in fees and incentives even if the city ultimately decides not to build the center. But the key vote comes at a time when recently-released agreements between Kansas Athletics and Thomas Fritzel’s Bliss Sports shed new light on how much the Rock Chalk Park sports village will be used by KU versus by Fritzel’s for-profit

Please see COMPUTING, page 2A

Please see CITY, page 2A

BASKETBALL

Free State boys heading to state After an over-long power nap nearly caused him to miss the bus to the game, Khadre Lane came through in the fourth quarter against Olathe East, helping the Firebirds secure a 45-44 victory. Page 1B

Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo

RESEARCH ENGINEER DAN DEPARDO listens to professor Perry Alexander, director of Kansas University’s Information and Telecommunication Technology Center, explain the 50-foot-long cabinets that will be filled with computer processors, inside the new Advanced Computing Facility at KU’s Nichols Hall.

QUOTABLE

I think it’s time we got involved in celebrating patriotism.”

Great things expected from KU’s new $4.7M computing facility

— State Rep. John Bradford, R-Lansing, on a bill approved Friday by the Kansas House requiring schools to participate in “Celebrate Freedom Week” once a year. Page 3A

By Matt Erickson merickson@ljworld.com

The final thumbprint left by the 2009 federal stimulus on the Kansas University campus is now complete, and researchers say it will open a world of possibilities. It’s the result of a $4.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, and it centers on just one remodeled room in Nichols Hall on KU’s West Campus. But the lasting impact will be in what can now go in that room: two 50-foot-long cabinets full of computer processors,

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INDEX Business Classified Comics Deaths Events listings Horoscope Movies Opinion Puzzles Society Sports Television Vol.155/No.61

4A 1C-5C 6C 2A 2B, 10B 7C 4A 7A 7C By Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com 8A 1B-6B Despite the two snowstorms 2B, 10B, 7C that have hit northeast Kansas 24 pages recently, farmers and livestock producers in northeast Kansas say it will take a lot more precipitation for them to recover from a drought that is now stretching into its third year. In fact, Phil Holman-Hebert,

The new facility will make high-powered computing available remotely to any department on the Lawrence campus or even the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan. which could ultimately add up to somewhere around 10,000 times the power of your PC at home. It’s called the Advanced Computing Facility, and it’s overseen by KU’s Information and Telecommunication Technology

Despite recent snow, drought recovery will take years who owns Sweetlove Farm in Jefferson County, is already calling this a “sabbatical year” for his sheep and poultry operation. That may be bad news for people who frequent the Lawrencearea farmers markets, where Sweetlove Farm has sold its locally raised mutton and poultry for years. But Holman-Hebert said he had no choice. “We made the decision back

Great s t n e m o m in modern e! convenienc :FCA

in late June or early July that we could see the amount of forage that was going to be available was not going to sustain our animals,” he said. “You can either buy your way out of a drought (by purchasing hay and feed) or sell your way out of a drought. We couldn’t afford to buy our way out, so we sold our way out. We sold our

Symposium Experts at a symposium called “Beyond the Long Hot Summer: The Future of Water in Kansas” spoke Friday at Kansas University about what changes Kansans can expect in its climate in coming years. Page 5A

Please see DROUGHT, page 2A

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