TUESDAY
NOVEMBER 18, 2014 VOLUME 104 ISSUE 41 www.UniversityStar.com
Defending the First Amendment since 1911
BOBCAT BLEND
CITY
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA
F
Renovations to begin at local municipal airport
facebook.com/universitystar
t @UniversityStar E youtube.com/user/theuniversitystar
By Jon Wilcox NEWS REPORTER
their compost site off Centerpoint Road. The final product is sold to faculty and community gardens and used at the university golf course, said Jonathan Alba, Bobcat Blend education manager. The program began in 2009. Grants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Environmental Service Committee at Texas State (ESC) have largely funded the program’s operations. However, Bobcat Blend lacks a definite source of funding and relies on its faculty leader, Tina Cade, agriculture professor, who continually applies for grants to keep to pro-
Construction for an extensive rehabilitation project will soon begin at the San Marcos Municipal Airport. San Marcos City Council unanimously approved the use of $697,050 of the city’s budget as part of a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airport improvement plan at its Nov. 5 meeting. The project will receive additional state and federal funds to bring the project’s total budget to $5.7 million and includes improvements to runway 13/31 and avionics equipment, said Daniel Benson, airport planner for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Aviation Division. The start-of-construction date is to be determined. “Runway 13/31 is being overlaid and will be completely redone,” said Cassidy Berenato, director of marketing for Texas Aviation Partners, the company charged with managing the airport. “They’ll dig it up and replace it. Runway 13/31 is in pretty bad condition now.” Benson said additional renovations will be made with the runway repaving. “We are replacing what is called a medium-intensity runway light (MIRL),” Benson said. “We are taking out some FAA-loaned equipment and installing new city-owned Precision Approach Path Indicators (PAPI). We’re getting two new Precision Approach Path Indicators, a navigational aid for pilots to use when they’re landing.” The indicators have “special lights” that alert the pilots if they’re too high or low when coming in to land, he said. Runway 13/31 serves a unique purpose at the airport, Berenato said. The runway attracts much of the airport’s traffic, business and revenue. “Runaway 13/31 is one of our most used runways,” Berenato said. “It has an Instrument Landing System (ILS), which means that aircraft can pretty much land in any kind of weather. All runways have GPS, but the ILS is a very sophisticated piece of equipment that pilots can use.” The ILS serves an important role in attracting pilot training companies, she said. “Since we do have the ILS, which is a really great feature to have since we’re a smaller airport, we have a lot of flight schools in the area that actually bring their students to utilize our airport for training operations as well,” Berenato said. “We have a lot of those pilot features that other airports don’t have without the congestion of Bergstrom and other large airports.” Pilot training represents only a fraction of the commercial activity at the airport, she
See BOBCAT BLEND, Page 2
See AIRPORT, Page 2
Go to university star.com
FOOTBALL
Students encouraged to continue football game attendance By Anna Herod NEWS REPORTER At the Monday student government meeting, Donald Coryell, associate athletics director, said student attendance during the Thursday night football game against Arkansas State is essential. “This game we expect the attendance to be student-driven,” Coryell said. “If we beat Arkansas, then we will get a tie-breaker and have an opportunity to place second in the Sun Belt league. We still have a lot to play for and a chance to compete in a bowl game.” Coryell said Texas State students filled the stadium at the game against the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns on Oct. 14 and helped establish it as the matchup with the secondhighest student attendance rate of all time with 7,000 attendees. Athletic department officials will give each student a free guest ticket as an incentive to pack the stadium in support of the Bobcats, he said. “We’re putting up yard signs all over campus, we’re bringing football players out into the quad and we’re doing free guest tickets for this game,” Coryell said. “If you go to the ticket office before 5:20 p.m. on Thursday, you can get a free ticket for a friend or someone you know.” Overall, student attendance rate this season has “drastically” increased, he said. “I want to say a tremendous thank you to the student crowds,” Coryell said. “Last season we had an average of 3,200 students per game, and this season we’ve had an average of 5,500 students per game. I think it says a lot about our students, and we are grateful because a lot of other schools around the country are experiencing a trend in the opposite direction.”
FROM TRASH TO TREASURE HARON SAENZ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Michael Clark, agriculture systems senior; Blake Huval, agriculture business and management junior and Chris Colon, special education senior, shovel food waste out of a truck Nov. 14 at the Texas State compost site.
Bobcat Blend students, faculty seek funding, awareness for environmental efforts By Alexa Tavarez NEWS REPORTER
M
embers of Bobcat Blend, a student-led program through which food waste from the university’s dining halls is composted, have become campus advocates for agricultural sustainability despite their small and indefinite budget. A group of seven students and volunteers comprise the modest task force of Bobcat Blend, collecting the day’s food waste from dining halls and designated bins labeled “compost” every night. The waste is later sent to
CONSTRUCTION
Loop 82 overpass construction project delayed By Mariah Simank SENIOR NEWS REPORTER Construction of the Loop 82 overpass on Aquarena Springs Drive has been pushed back to early next summer due to complications in the legal acquisition process of land. A contractor was awarded the project in May 2014, and construction was scheduled to begin early in 2015. City authorities have been working since May to finalize preparations, said Kelli Reyna, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) public information officer. The total cost of the project is $20.7 million. The construction will be funded by the City of San Marcos, TxDOT and the Federal Highway Administration. The only thing delaying the project is the acquisition of land, Reyna said. “Once the job went to bid, there was a delayed construction start contention in the contract so that
TxDOT and the City of San Marcos would have time to complete utility relocation and right-of-way acquisition,” Reyna said. “The time also allows the contractor to purchase materials and prep for the project.” The project site is at the intersection of Interstate Highway 35 and Aquarena Springs Drive, Reyna said. The goal of the project is to build a bridge over the railroad tracks to improve the flow of traffic. Bill Nance, vice president of Finance and Support Services, said officials aim to increase mobility and safety by providing a means of travel along Loop 82 without daily interruptions from train crossings. “Prior to the construction of the overpass on Wonder World Drive that goes over the train tracks a few years ago, there was no way to get across town without potentially being blocked by a train,” Nance said. “This is why San Marcos set about
See LOOP 82, Page 2
Loop 82 overpass construction start date has been pushed back to May.
HARON SAENZ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
TRANSPORTATION
Bus-related traffic violations drop following camera installation By Exsar Arguello NEWS REPORTER
ALEXANDRA WHITE STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Surveillance cameras on school buses are used to catch drivers who fail to stop when the bus does.
Cameras installed on San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District buses under a city ordinance passed Jan. 7 have helped lower the amount of reported violations. Before February, the city had reported over 2,000 individuals running red lights or not pausing for stopped buses during the year, said Carter Hutson, associate director of transportation for SMCISD. Since the program started, a little over 400 violations have been reporter, he said. Seven cameras installed by BusGuard are used to monitor different angles on the bus and help to catch and fine violators, he said. “The program started in February
of this year and started with about five buses,” Hutson said. “Since then we have 82 buses completely installed with these cameras.” The seven cameras, six on the outside and one on the inside of the bus, are designed to take pictures of license plates, Hutson said. A camera placed inside the bus captures footage of kids who break rules on the bus. Installing cameras costs $8,000 per bus, Hutson said. People who pass school buses when children are entering or exiting receive $300 fines, Hutson said. The profit from the program is used to expand children’s safety. “We aren’t doing this for the money whatsoever,” said David Underwood, assistant principle at Bowie
Elementary School. “The program is strictly aimed to expand the safety of our children and make sure we can make a safe environment with our public transportation from elementary to high school.” Of the money earned from the program, 75 percent will be used to cover BusGuard costs, Hutson said. The other 25 percent will be split between the school district and SMPD. “The money we will make is certainly a plus for our program, but in no way does that justify why this program has been in place,” Hutson said. “We are the only school district in central Texas to have this program, and we plan to continue educating the public about bus safety.”
See BUSES, Page 2