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LIFE&ARTS PAGE 12
The meat of the matter: Austin’s best barbecue
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5 Issue Vol. 4, 9 9, 200 Oct.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900
www.dailytexanonline.com
Austin copes with growing pains
Jordy Wagoner | Daily Texan Staff
Kenneth Koym, president of the Imperial Valley Neighborhood Association and opponent of the proposed zoning restrictions, stands in front of the SH 131 Toll Road in far East Austin. City Council is considering a proposition to annex a portion of land between the SH 131 Corridor and FM 1973.
Nearby subdivisions fight what they say are unfair zoning restrictions By Rachel Platis Daily Texan Staff As Austin continues to grow, some homeowners are examining the implications of expansion. In early 2010, City Council will vote on whether or not to impose zoning restrictions on 2,300 acres of land in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction off of the State Highway 130 Corridor. The limited annexation would control land use for the proposed developments in the Whisper Valley and Indian Hills subdivisions. Kenneth Koym, president of the Imperial Valley Neighborhood Association, is working to fight what he believes are unfair zoning practices.
The proposed development site of SH 130 is within five miles of the city’s limits surrounding Walter E. Long Lake near Manor, Texas. The Imperial Valley neighborhood lies between the affected area and the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, but there are no current plans for zoning or annexation. “As a general contractor, the company just wants to make a big chunk of money,” Koym said. “What makes this issue important to me is that it is opening up the door for more and bigger development.” Taurus of Texas Holdings, LP, a Boston-based development firm, is proposing that 169 acres be desig-
nated for residential use, 23 acres for multi-family use, 232 for commercial use and 940 for mixed use. Indian Hills and Whisper Valley will include 2,848 single-family homes, 2,700 multi-family homes, 2300 town homes, about 1 million square feet of retail, about 1 million square feet of office space and spaces for schools. The schools would be part of Manor Independent School District. Altogether, the projects are about the size of Circle C Ranch, a suburb located in southwest Austin. “Why are people that interested in properties up and down the toll road? It’s because they’ve been told there’s a steal to be had,”
Koym said. In May of 2008, City Council authorized the negotiation of the development agreement for Whisper Valley and Indian Hills. “The owners of the project have worked with the city to develop an agreement that was approved by the City Council,” said Virginia Collier, principal planner for the Planning and Development Review Board. “Part of this agreement addressed how the area will be brought into the city in the future.” Full-purpose annexation is when an area comes into the city limits of
GROWTH continues on page 9
Fusion of UT offices conserves resources By Hudson Lockett Daily Texan Staff The UT Office of Technology Commercialization — responsible for developing and commercializing intellectual property on campus — will be combined with corporate relations and restructured to handle contractual relations with industries and develop broader relations through corporate development, said Vice President for Research Juan Sanchez Thursday. A task force, charged with finding a new director for the technology, made its recommendations to UT President William Powers earlier this month. The moves come after years of declining federal research dollars for universities, making it imperative that UT find commercial sources of revenue for its research and technology. Robert Williams, a pharmacy professor with extensive experience working with the technology commercialization, served on the task force that recommended candidates for the new director. Williams said he expected the president’s office to take action soon. According to a September report by the National Science Foundation, over the last four years federal funding has dropped 4 percent, now accounting for 60 percent of academic research and development funding at $31.2 billion. Non-federal sources increased their share of total funding last year by nearly nine percent. They total $20.7 billion. The goal of the technology is to find and shepherd intellectual property through the legal proceedings that patent and license the technology, making it safe to pitch to industry sources. Some researchers and deans familiar with the office said that a substantial amount of potentially valuable intellectual property on campus remains untapped. Gregory Fenves, dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering, said that some technology developed at the engineering school has “tremendous commercial potential,” but UT does not do as good a job as peer universities at marketing that research.
TECH continues on page 2
Student group first to come out against Prop. 4 Young Conservatives of Texas oppose creation of research university fund By Lena Price Daily Texan Staff The Young Conservatives of Texas, a statewide student organization, became the first group to declare opposition to Proposition 4 this week. If passed, the proposition will create a new national research university fund for Texas schools. Seven emerging research universities, including four schools within the UT system, would eventually have ac-
cess to the fund if they meet five of seven criteria. The universities would have to award a minimum of 200 doctoral degrees a year and have an endowment of at least $400 million to access the money and fund research projects. In its statement, the group said such a strong emphasis on funding research would shift the priority away from educating students at those schools. “The premise of our entire argument is that we do not support university-based research,” said Tony McDonald, the YCT vice
Laboratory safety comes up short in inspections By Viviana Aldous Daily Texan Staff Each inspection of UT labs in the last two years has, on average, turned up at least one deficiency in safety procedures. Five staffers from the University’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety have performed more than 1,200 inspections this year with a checklist containing more than 30 points. Any point not met results in a deficiency, said Dennis Nolan, the office’s associate director. Nearly 4,000 inspections conducted from 2007 through last month resulted in an average of 1.2 deficiencies per inspection, according to statistics from Environmental Health and Safety. The office is responsible for conducting lab safety inspections at least once a year in each UT lab, though some labs with “high activity or special hazards” are inJordy Wagoner | Daily Texan Staff
YCT continues on page 2
SAFETY continues on page 2
Kim Kuykendall, a nutrition junior, works in the chemistry lab in Welch for Chemistry 204.
Coalition campaigns against abusive tomato farmers UT graduate student asks Union food supplier to work with labor group
Maddie Crum | Daily Texan Staff
Kandace Vallejo of Fair Food Austin requests to meet with Henry Jackson concerning labor abuses in the tomato supply chain.
By Hannah Jones Daily Texan Staff Throughout the state of Florida, and across the United States, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is campaigning to end conditions for farm laborers that it says meet legal standards for modernday slavery. Based in Immokalee, Fla., the coalition is working to encourage major food service providers to not purchase tomatoes from
growers who have been convicted of labor abuse. On Thursday, education graduate student Kandace Vallejo and other members of Fair Food Austin delivered a letter to Henry Jackson, Aramark’s business representative at the Texas Union, outlining their expectations for the company. Aramark is the food service provider of the Texas Union. The letter asked Aramark to follow the recent example set by the Compass Group North America in working with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to eliminate human rights violations in its tomato supply chain.
Partners of the coalition, including the Student/Farmworker Alliance and Fair Food Austin, are calling on major buyers of tomatoes to establish a code of conduct in their supply chains, pay a premium of one penny more per pound for their tomatoes and ensure that this penny is passed down directly to farm workers. The coalition is urging students across the country to get involved by letting their campus food service providers know about a similar agreement made with Compass Group and demanding that Sodexo and Aramark require the same standards of their Florida to-
mato suppliers, according to material on its Web site. Vallejo, a member of the Steering Committee in the Student/ Farmworker Alliance, wrote a guest column Tuesday for The Daily Texan. Vallejo said in the column that Aramark should establish an agreement with the coalition to demand higher standards of its tomato suppliers and end their role in Florida’s “harvest of shame.” During the meeting in the Union, Vallejo asked Jackson to pass the letter to his supervisor
TOMATO continues on page 2