ustxtxb_obs_1973_01_19_50_00009-00000_000.pdf

the report projects a declining industrial demand for the water as the result of environmentalist pressure to conserve and recycle water. Bailey drew connections between the Lake Livingston project and Welch’s 1967 refusal to annex the Houston Ship Channel industrial area. If the strip were annexed, he wrote, the city would have additional leverage in contract negotiations. \(He also noted in passing the pollution-enforcement and tax breaks the strip receives as a result of article to the land-subsidence problem in the Houston area, which is due mostly to the pumping of ground water. \(The channel area, where pumping is heavy and the soil mostly clay, has sunk 4.5 feet since amounted to. 516 million gallons. That amount could easily be provided by Lake Livingston: the Texas Water Rights Commission plan allows 840 million gallons a day. But the higher cost of the surface water discourages conversion, especially in the absence of pressure from Welch or anti-pumping legislation. The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s vending machine legislation means what the Legislature intended it to mean and not what the late Atty. Gen. Crawford Martin interpreted it to mean. The problem was that vending machine operators were acquiring control of taverns right and left by leasing property for taverns and lending tavern owners money and then foreclosing on the loans. Former Rep. Dick Cory, who headed a committee to investigate the vending business, charged that many vending operations are run by organized crime. \(Reporting extra-large takes from machines is a handy way to It didn’t seem like ‘a good idea having unsavory types owning bars, so in 1969 the Legislature passed a bill making’ it illegal for vending machine operators to be in the tavern business. But the attorney general interpreted the legislation to mean that tavern operators could not own vending machines, unless they paid a $300 vending machine licensing fee a fee that was a big step for the owner of a couple of pinball machines. The ruling strengthened the vending machine business. The situation got so sticky that the Vending Commission, which Preston Smith stuffed with vending machine magnates, insisted . that a person has to be licensed even to repair a vending machine. Volumes of litigation later, the Supreme Court has upheld the original intent of the bill. The Court ruled that persons “whose distinctive business is that of selling and serving alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption, and whose ownership and use of coin-operated machines are purely incidental to that business, are not required to obtain a license.” Patience, patience U.S. Sen. John Tower predicts that no stop-the-war fund cut-off bill could make it in Congress at this time, but he adds that there is a “pregnant possibility” that it will pass if peace is not forthcoming within a “reasonable time.” Tower also rebuked his nervous-Nellie colleagues: “If we lose patience in the eleventh hour, we will make a serious mistake.” The HEW’s Office for Civil Rights gave the UT administration a failing grade on its plan to supplement the faculty with more women and minority members. The university has until Jan. 19 to come up with a better plan or face the possible loss of millions of dollars in federal grants and contracts. The plan the feds rejected would have created a “non-discriminatory pool of applicants for all UT positions.” Miles Schulze, a regional HEW officer, pointed out that the controversy over UT’s hiring practices began more than 18 months ago. “In view of the length of time that the university has had to prepare this, we really expected a better plan than we got,” he said. HEW apparently wants UT to set numerical goals \(could this be the infamous to balance underrepresentation of the two groups. The most recent complaint of sex discrimination on the faculty was filed by Jennie S. Liston, a former employee of the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Ms. Liston filed her original complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission in August. School administrators subsequently changed her title from research associate to editor and gave her a $1,400 a year raise. Then the school phased out her job and fired her Dec. 4, a week before LBJ’s civil rights papers were opened to much fanfare and backpatting. Ms. Liston has now filed a class action suit under LBJ’s Civil Rights Act of 1964. Unspecified “Dallas city officials,” apparently headed by City Atty. Alex Bickley, have provided their legislators \(and solons from neighboring bills. The suggestions are unofficial as yet: they will be presented to the delegation in Austin around the opening of the session. Most are concerned with municipal courts, traffic and parking problems. But also included is a bill providing for denial of bail to a person charged with a felony offense if he has a prior felon conviction or if the second arrest was made while the person was charged with another felony. The one that really rankled Dallas delegation members, though, was a proposal that policemen be given legal authority to “force entry into a house without announcing [their] purpose where [they] reasonably believe” that an announcement would give a suspect time to arm himself or escape. Reps. Fred Agnich and Eddie Bernice Johnson showed less than wild enthusiasm about carrying such legislation; Ms. Johnson said that, even leaving aside constitutional quibbles, it would be “too hot to handle.” Bickley replied, “These are genuine concerns, and they make good sense.” Agnich opined that someone breaking down his door without announcing his purpose is “going to have to fight his way in.” Showing how Touching the words I want To give you, I order them: Say what I want to say. They tumble. I fumble them into blocks, Child again, shy of chaos. Letter by letter, slowly, You show me how To spell your name. Show me how To touch you. SI DUNN Denton January 19, 1973