2006 ACL FEST
NOT ENOUGH!
Highlights of the Austin City Limits Music Festival through the eyes of two Star reporters
Bobcat football drops a nail-biter to Northern Colorado and sinks below .500
SEE TRENDS PAGE 4
SEE SPORTS PAGE 10
DEFENDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT SINCE 1911
WWW.UNIVERSITYSTAR.COM
SEPTEMBER 19, 2006
TUESDAY
VOLUME 96, ISSUE 11
Students arrested in connection with residence hall burglary By David Saleh Rauf The University Star University Police arrested two Texas State students Friday in connection with the Sept. 8 burglary of a residence hall room in San Jacinto Hall. Rene Esquibel and Stephen
Darnell were served arrest warrants at 8:45 a.m. in Blanco Hall. University Police Department Capt. Rickey Lattie said Esquibel and Darnell, both former members of the Texas State track and field team, stole two laptops, $250 cash, iPods, a backpack and a digital camera.
UPD obtained evidence for three search warrants from a surveillance camera on campus and combined it with existing information, Lattie said. “They were in public areas. We actually have camera footage of them carrying out the items they stole,” he said. “The individuals
we arrested were suspects prior to looking at the video, but the video is really what gave us what we needed to get a search warrant. Without it, we wouldn’t have had enough evidence to get a search warrant.” The search warrants were simultaneously executed on
Wednesday at three campus locations, Lattie said. “We suspect these individuals could be involved in some other burglaries but we don’t have proof of that yet,” he said. “We still have additional items we’re trying to cross back and find out where they were burglar-
‘ greatest woman I’ve ever known ’ The
IN MEMORIAM: A large photo of Governor Ann Richards with her granddaughter Lily Adams hangs in the Frank Erwin Center as Adams, now grown, addresses the large crowd about her memories of her late grandmother.
By David Saleh Rauf The University Star
Monday was somber yet spiritually uplifting as thousands gathered at the Frank Erwin Center at the University of Texas to memorialize the life of the 45th governor of Texas, Ann Willis Richards. Richards died of esophageal cancer Wednesday night at her home in Austin. Jane McFarland of Austin was at the election night celebration in November 1990 for Texas governor-elect Ann Willis Richards. She brought her teenage daughter to the event so she could witness a crucial moment in Texas history. “The world changed so much that night with how much more empowered women, minorities and the powerless became,” McFarland said. Michele Shackleford, also of Austin, first met Richards in Amarillo in 1980 at a women’s leadership conference. “She lived in the moment, loved where she was and enjoyed the people she was with,” Shackleford said. “She made you feel very welcome and warm and we all wanted to help her politically.” Dignitaries and political leaders were on hand to speak, including master of ceremonies, Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, syndicated columnist Liz Smith, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and San Antonio business leader Henry Cisneros. “She was the smartest, funniest and strongest woman whom many of us ever knew,” Kirk said during the opening, followed by a flood of applause. Richards is credited with helping change the political face of Texas by encouraging empowerment of women and minorities in government leadership roles. Kirk compared Richards’ advocacy to the plight of late Hall of Fame baseball player Jackie Robinson, saying “This could not be the Texas we dreamed of until all God’s children got to play.” The former governor affected a greater portion of the Texas public than just women and minorities. “You look around this room and you see every type of Texan represented,” Shackleford said. Women, men and children of all ages and races were present to thank Richards for her strength and determination. “She had a big heart, no matter who you were. She was boundless,” said Wilma Evans, an Austin resident who worked with Richards while at the state comptroller’s office. Smith, friend of the former Texas governor, lightened the emotions of those in attendance by offering several humorous anecdotes during an onstage reflection. “Eleanor Roosevelt. Katherine Hepburn. Mother Theresa. Forget them. Ann Richards was the greatest woman I’ve ever known,” Smith said.
In response to low springflow levels at the San Marcos springs, city officials declared Stage 2 drought restrictions effective Monday. The decision comes one week after the Edwards Aquifer Authority implemented Stage 2 of its Demand Management/Critical Period Management Plan and just three days after the city initiated new year-round water conservation rules. Under the new rules, city officials can implement Stage 2 when the five-day average flow rate at the San Marcos springs falls below 96 cubic feet per second. “It rained (last) Monday and Tuesday, so we were waiting to see what effect that rain would have on the springflows,” said Jan Klein, San Marcos water conservation coordinator. “We thought maybe it would increase them up above the trigger points, but it hasn’t. They have not increased at all as a result of that rain and so, based on that, we decided to go ahead and go into Stage 2.” The historic springflow average in September is 162 cfs. At this time last year, the springs were running at 185 cfs. On Saturday, they were flowing at 94 cfs. “It’s rainfall-dependant,” Klein said. “We haven’t had any rain and that, of course, makes the consumption go up, so it’s just really based on weather.” Under EAA rules, all industrial and municipal permit holders are required to cut back pumping from the aquifer by 10 percent, said Roland Ruiz, spokesperson for the EAA. “We’re telling them the cut-back level has ratcheted up from 5 to 10 percent. How a permit holder gets there is really not the issue for us, it’s just that they get to that level,” Ruiz said. The San Marcos springs, Ruiz said, have not responded to recent rainfall the same way the J-17 index well in Bexar County has. “What we’re doing is we’re going to watch San Marcos springs very closely, monitor them to see how they respond to any potential rainfall in the area and to the 10 percent cutbacks,” he said. “Hopefully, they will make an impact and those springs will bounce back here in the short term.” Ruiz said there is something in the geological structure of the aquifer that could separate the San Marcos springs from the “San Antonio pool.” “There’s something in the structure of the aquifer that has set apart the spring as far as recharge goes,” he said. “While we’ve seen recharge into the aquifer really respond well at the Bexar County well and at Comal springs, we’ve not seen that same affect in San Marcos, so that’s telling us that we think San Marcos is probably deserving of being it’s own pool.” Klein said city officials will maintain a “conservative approach” for issuing fines to offenders of the water restrictions. “I think we’re certainly going to give ample opportunity to educate people and make them aware of the rules. But we do have those fines and if we see repeated violations after educating and reminding, we are prepared to use those fines,” she said. The potential for the city to move into Stage 3 is hard to predict and will depend on the weather, Klein said. “We’re going to need pretty substantial rainfall in order to get out of drought restrictions. However, it looks like the springflows are staying pretty steady and the drop was pretty slow and gradual, so I would say the chances of going into Stage 3 are pretty slim,” she said.
See RICHARDS, page 3
Centennial celebration marks first Latino student at Texas State By Maira Garcia The University Star Texas State started a month-long celebration of Latino Presence at Texas State University-San Marcos: Celebrating100 Years Friday at the Wittliff Gallery with the opening of a new exhibit and a speech by Texas Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes. The event highlighted the centennial of the first Hispanic student to attend Texas State, Elena Zamora. As part of the celebration, an exhibit featuring traditional Mexican art, outfits and portraits of Hispanic faculty, staff, students and prominent alumni was opened. Paredes was featured as the keynote speaker of the night. In his speech, Paredes emphasized the importance of enrolling Hispanics into higher
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Sunny 90˚/60˚
Precipitation: 20% Humidity: 36% UV: 9 Very High Wind: NNE 9 mph
education institutions. Through the Closing the Gaps program, the state hopes to enroll 630,000 students into Texas higher education by 2015. “Now that number wasn’t determined arbitrarily,” Paredes said. “That number is simply intended to get Texas to parody the colleges across the nation.” Paredes said that while the number of Hispanics achieving a higher education is growing, it isn’t consistent with the growing population of Hispanics in Texas. “There is a problem reconciling the numerator with the denominator. I keep telling people, if you look at Texas, the number of Hispanics going to college and graduating is going up steadily but not in relation to the growth … of the population,” Paredes said. Paredes said that while Hispanics are the fastest
Two-day Forecast Wednesday Mostly Sunny Temp: 90°/ 68° Precip: 0%
Thursday Isolated T-Storms Temp: 94°/ 74° Precip: 30%
See BURGLARY, page 3
San Marcos enacts Stage 2 water restrictions
By Chris Parrish Special to Star
AP Photo/Eric Gay
ized from. Some of the property that was stolen is still missing and we’re still trying to recover that.” Esquibel, pre-mass communication freshman, said he was wrongfully accused and that the
growing sect of the population, they are the least educated. Paredes said in comparison, whites receive 12.8 years of education, blacks 12.2 years and Hispanics the least, at 9.6 years. “… Latinos in Texas over 25 on average haven’t even completed their sophomore year of high school,” Paredes said. “That’s the population that’s growing most quickly … that would suggest, unless we do something dramatically different, there will be a very bleak and cultural future for Texas.” Part of the problem is that Hispanics fall further behind because they lack the resources to get ahead, Paredes said. “We have a situation in Texas where children who start school behind and go to school — guess what happens — they fall further behind,” Paredes
For more information on water conservation, including Stage 2 restrictions visit: www.ci.san-marcos.tx.us or call 393-8010
See LATINO, page 3
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