By wpengine November 19, 2002
Last Tuesday, members of the Slope Day Steering Committee met to discuss last year’s Slope Day and ideas for this year’s event. The Committee is comprised of members of the University administration, staff, faculty and student body. The “President’s Charge to the Slope Day Steering Committee,” presented last November, assigned the Committee to the task of redesigning Slope Day so that the event will correspond to all alcohol regulations, be a safe but fun event and fulfill Cornell’s value of “freedom with responsibility.” In an Oct. 24 letter to Kent Hubble ’67, dean of students and chairman of the Committee, President Hunter R. Rawlings III reiterated these goals. After acknowledging the Committee’s hard work, he said that the level of alcohol consumption and alcohol related injuries at last year’s Slope Day can not continue in the future. “We cannot continue to accept this level of harm, including life-threatening situations, at such an event,” Rawlings stated in the letter. The only decrease in injuries between the last year’s Slope Day and the Slope Day of 2001 were a result of deceased attendance due to inclement weather, according to Hubble. He also expressed concerns about safety at the event. “We’re always reminded that if someone dies, the event will end,” he said. “It’s not a matter of if someone will die, it’s when, judging from the amount of drinking [the health center] sees on campus.” As a solution, in the letter, Rawlings declared that the University must forbid students from bringing their own alcohol to the event. Instead, the University must hire caterers to regulate the distribution of alcohol. The organizers would then use a wristband system to separate underage students from those over 21 years of age. However, student representative Paul El-Meouchy ’03, representing the Interfraternity Council (IFC), expressed some reservations with this system. He worried that underage students will turn to fraternities for access to alcohol. “When underage people can’t get in, will the fraternities start having to turn away underage kids,” he said. In addition to this major change in policy, the Steering Committee discussed several other options for this coming Slope Day. In particular, the Committee is considering reinstating the Great Feast and hiring a live band to provide music on the Slope. In 1979, Cornell Dining originally organized the Great Feast as a free barbecue to celebrate the last day of classes. The tradition continued through the early 1980s but eventually died out. Although, the Committee considered the idea of bringing back the tradition, they did not have time to organize it properly. “We want the Great Feast to finally be a great feast,” Hubble said. “You go back to the original Slope Day, it was just a great party.” In terms of live music, Hubble hopes to have a popular band that will appeal to the student body at large. “We want to create an event where there’s an incentive not to get wasted before they come,” he said. In particular, he would like future Slope Days to resemble a popular year-end music festival at the University of Pennsylvania. As part of the continuing search for new ideas, members of the committee will visit similar festivals at other schools. However, any events planned for Slope Day will depend on the level of student interest. To facilitate communication, the Committee will revive the electronic chat boards from last year, where students could state their opinion on Slope Day options. Furthermore, the student representatives on the Committee are committed to listening to students’ opinions. “We’re looking forward to keeping our ears to the ground,” said student representative Justin McEvily ’03. Furthermore, they said students must remember that the purpose of the Steering Committee is to preserve Slope Day, not destroy it. “They’re not getting rid of Slope Day,” El-Meouchy said. “The whole focus of Slope Day is not on getting trashed … it’s about having fun.”Archived article by Shannon Brescher
By wpengine November 19, 2002
The Budget and Administration Committee of the Ithaca Common Council met Monday for their monthly meeting to hear issues presented by Fire Chief Brian Wilbur, City Controller Steven Thayer and City of Ithaca Mayor Alan Cohen ’81. Wilbur appeared first before the committee to outline the changes being made in the Ithaca Fire Department’s (IFD) procedures for dealing with false alarms. Wilbur outlined the plan by the Fire Department to reword their rules to increase the penalties for false alarms caused by contractors as well intentional false alarms. The issue of false alarms by students has been one that the Fire Department has had large problems with this semester. “Our rate of alarms has increased to the point where even the normal level of false alarms has significantly impaired our ability to provide coverage,” Wilbur said. “We have to cut back on false alarms and increasing the penalties will do that.” Wilbur referred specifically in the meeting to the case of an intoxicated individual who discharged a fire extinguisher as prank, causing the fire department to report to the alarm. “We couldn’t get that individual with false alarm charges, at most he would get tampering with a fire alarm. We would like to change the wording in the rules so that we would also be able to charge such cases with pulling a false alarm,” Wilbur said. While both tampering with a fire alarm and causing a false alarm are punishable with a maximum fine of $250 through the city code, the latter offense is also punishable through the state penal code. “Through the state penal code, the judge can confer more significant penalties, including restitution for such offenses. And that’s what we are looking for, so the judge has more options with what to do with these cases,” Wilbur said. Committee member Dan Cogan expressed concern at the wording of the new rules, which state that “no person shall intentionally cause a false alarm.” “Those are legitimate concerns,” Wilbur said responding to Cogan. “You have to rely on our ability to be discrete and not punish the person who is living their life versus the person who is intoxicated.” James M. Marceda ’05, who discharged the fire extinguisher alluded to by Wilbur, August 16th at his residence at 777 Stewart Ave., described the circumstances leading to the incident. “I was trying to put out a cigarette and things just got out of hand,” Marceda said. Despite what he described as an “early spike in false alarms,” Wilbur added that the current percentage of false alarms, 4.6 percent, is normal. The other issues facing the council stemmed from this year’s budget process. The city faced large budget cuts combined with a property tax hike of 13.6 percent, the largest in recent history. Thayer and Mayor Cohen proposed the city’s unrestricted contingency funds, a sum of approximately $27,000, be allocated to the Community Service Agencies (CSA), which were completely cut out of this year’s budget. Council members Patricia Pryor and Paulette Manos both questioned the idea of using the money to fund outside agencies when the city has eliminated so many positions in its own departments. “I’m not saying the 26,000 would save a position but I want to be able to look various employees in the eye and say we saved as much money as would and we still couldn’t save your position,” Pryor said. Council member David Whitmore ’96 disagreed with Pryor’s sentiments. “I think we should support giving them [CSA] the 25,000. I supported giving them the usual $75,000 during the budget process but it was voted down by the Common Council,” Whitmore said. “I think giving them this, which is only a third of the normal amount, would be a good compromise. They are important resources and need our support.” The Council resolved to discuss the issue again in January when they had a clearer picture of exactly how much money would be available. The last issue on the agenda was presented by Thayer, who expressed his concerns at the inability of the budget process to accommodate the drastic conditions of this year’s budget. All of the committee members echoed his opinions. “The process wasn’t adequate. It was designed for a moderate tax increase like we have had for the last five or six years,” Whitmore said. “What we had this year was a catastrophic budget with massive tax hikes and reduced state support and the one month budget process did not give us time enough to look at cutting jobs and reducing expenses.” The committee resolved to construct a sub-committee of three council members, three city department heads, the mayor and the city controller to re-evaluate the budget process. The Budget and Administration Committee meets monthly, with the next meeting scheduled for December 16th. All Committee members also serve on the Ithaca Common Council. Archived article by Gautham Nagesh