Miami Hurricane, January 26, 2001

              SPEC FORM
Baseball team
looks ahead
to Omaha
page 6
The Mimi Him.
Coral Gables, Florida
Since 1927
Volume 78, Number 28
WWW.HURRICANE.MIAMI.EDU
Friday, January 26,2001
NO PARKING...FOR NOW
By Fawad Siddiqui
News Editor
Angry students, reassuring
administrators and a hunch of jolly
tow-truck company employees.
Welcome to the wild world of UM
parking.
The University's two-phase plan
to restructure inadequate on-campus parking facilities hit unexpected snags this semester as "nght of
way" permitting issues hetween
Miami-Dade County and the City
Coral Gables are holding up work on
two planned Ponce de Leon Blvd.
parking lots, said Sandra Redway,
director of the Department of
Parking and Transportation.
"It all boils down to permitting,"
said Redway, Wednesday. "We
have done what we had to do. It's out
of my jurisdiction now."
Redway added that the delays in
construction—of a lot between
Stanford Dr. and Granada Blvd., and
another across from the Plumer
building on Ponce, both of which
should would have started over the
Christmas break ,trv not holding
up the other parts of the plan
"Phase I shuttle enhancement has
occurred, and we've gotten one or
Iwo 'wows," she said of the increase
from IO to 12 HurryCane shuttles
this semester.
Eight of those shuttles are new
and equipped with TVs and VCRs
for in-transit messages.
Another part of Phase I that has
gone into effect is an annual 16 5
percent increase in parking permit
fees for students, to pay for the $20
million plan until it reaches completion in 2005, said Redway.
The University has also leased
additional spaces in Metro Lot #42
on Ponce, to make up for the lack of
expected spaces from the two new
garages there.
Phase II of the plan is still on
schedule and has been unaffected
by the Phase I delays, Redway said.
"Phase II is not pushed back and
should entail construction of a
number of new garages: the Pavia
Garage, the Mahoney/Pearson
Garage and two additional floors lo
the Ponce Garage," said Redway.
The plan will mean 445 new
spaces in the Ponce Garage, 554 new
spaces in the Pavia Garage—across
from the Daystar health center—
and 625 spaces in the
Mahoney/Pearson Garage, said
Redway.
Mahoney/Pearson, Redway adds.
was not originally part of the parking management plan when it was
unveiled last semester, which sht
sights as example of the department's progressive stance on the
parking problem.
"Once the garages are built, this
whole crisis  will  be over," said
Redway,"It should be one very com
fortable situation. 1 see it being a
FAWAD SIDDIQUI/1 lumcane Staff
HURRICANES IN TOW: Part of the Parking and Transportation Dept. plan to improve campus parking has been to extend the
grace period for campus towings to two weeks. Here, one of campus contracted towing company, Southland Tcwing's
trucks displays an angry Sebastian on its side. "I'm a big Hurricanes fan," explained Sc«jthland VP Peter Hernandez.
model Universitv."
But while the work is under way
toward turning UM into the model
University Redway envisions, many
car-driving students say they are
bearing the brunt of the parking
problem, and are voicing angry
opinions on how the school is going
about solving it.
|I) Barbosa, junior and president
of the Association of Commuter
Student, is one of the many upset
over the issue
"The general feeling of the ACS
See PARKING • Page 2
Forum draws new
i i.i i
Foote heads task force
on Florida voter reform
JORGE GALVEZ / Rx*o Edtor
SIGNING UP: Joel Zandivar signs up for currently ongoing Spring Recruitment at
the Fraternity Forum, Wednesday at the University Center's Flamingo BaUrcom
D. At the forum Fraternities displayed various symbols of pride and tradition,
including trophies and fraternity momentoes, to intice potential new members.
New ballots,
machines,
voting system
considered
By Gariot Louisna
Sema SteflVVnter
Convicted felons and people who
voted more than once apparently did
their part in electing George W Bush as
the 43rd president on Nov. 7, 2000,
according to recent news reports
About 2,000 illegal ballots were cast,
and who could forget the Palm Beach
County butterfly ballot controvt
which may have had many voters accidentally cast votes for Pat Buchanan
instead of Al Gore.
University of Miami President
Edward T. Foote II is the co-chair of
Gov. Jeb Bush's Task Force on election
procedures.commissioned on Dec. 14.
The group has been meeting since
earlier this month to figure out just
what can be done to revamp the current election system in Florida.
"We have to identify the problems
and present appropriate solutions," said
Foote, who also said he was flattered
when Gov. Bush called to asked him to
sit on the task force.
"We have a short time to deal with a
complicated topic," said Foote. The
group has till March 1 to present its
report and findings to Bush and Florida
legislative leaders in lallahasee.
After the group's first meetings on
-i-
Jan. 8-9 in Tallahassee, the group found
that Florida needs to eliminate its century old punch-card system.
They also found that the state needs
to invest more in educating voters, and
has to setup hotline communications
between polling places and electrons
offices.
Eariy studies show that it would take
$45 million for the state to discard the
old Votomatics for machines that use
optica] scanners, already used in 26
counties around the state louch-screen
computers would cost $200 million.
The task force reconvened again in
Orlando on luesday.
Entering his final semester as president of the University, Foote said he had
to completely rearrange his schedule
and put certain responsibilities on hold
so that he would he able to devote
enough time to the task force.
As for his work with the task force,
Foote said he is a "student of elections"
and sits on the task force as a "laymen"
with no political agenda.
The group includes both Democrat
and Republican officials, along with
other prominent public figures, including University of Florida Provost David
Coburn.
Newspapers, including 77ie Miami
Herald and The Sun-Sentinel, praised
the governor for commissioning the
task force.
Fabian Rodriguez, a graduate student in the School of Engineering, said
the governor was wise to take the crucial steps to revamp a system that was
ripped apart at the seams last
November.
"I think he's sincere," Rodriguez said
of Bush. "He realizes that something
 «.	
went wrong with the system. Because
he is governor, he knows it's up to him
to begin to look at the system."
Foote said his team is examining
how to handle the system already in
place, whether or not the system needs
to change, how to handle absentee ballots and whether or not to invest in new
voting machines.
The presence of nonpolitical figures,
such as Foote, bring a nonpartisan perspective to an issue that has virtually
divided the nation along political lines,
say observers.
Among them, Juliet Gainsborough, a
professor of political science at the UM,
who said she had not known Foote was
among the 21 members of the task
force, let alone leading it.
"Bush probably chose Foote because
he is a community leader, not someone
seen as a political figure,"
Gainsborough said.
Members of the task force aren't paid
to render their expertise, Foote said.
The state does, however, pay for travel
and other expenses related to the task
force.
The day after Vice President Al Gore
conceded defeat, ending the battle for
Florida's 25 hotly contested Electoral
Votes, Gov. Bush commissioned the
"Task Force on Election Procedures,
Standards and Technology."
The task force's March 1 deadline is
before the start of the state legislative
session.
It will then present its report to
Governor Bush, the president of the
Florida Senate, speaker of the Florida
House of Representatives and the secretary of state. The task force will then
be disbanded.