COLLEGIATETIMES
july 31, 2008
what’s inside News.............2 Features ........6 0pinions........5 Sports ...........9 Classifieds ...11 Sudoku........11 105th year issue 68 blacksburg, va.
BURG fights for smart growth GABRIEL MCVEY
ct news reporter In a short while, attorneys for the town of Blacksburg and BURG — Blacksburg United for Responsible Growth — will petition the Virginia Supreme Court to hear their case: the idea that the town has the right to regulate its own growth and development, and to block developments that it deems harmful. “The town is going to grow, we know that, but we want to regulate that development. We want to preserve the quality of life in the town,” BURG steering committee chair Daniel Breslau said, “It takes a lot of energy to keep raising funds, to keep the legal case going.” BURG is a local grassroots organization promoting what it calls “smart growth.” “There’s a broad range of policy ideas that fall under the umbrella heading of ‘smart growth,’” Breslau said. Smart growth entails closely regulated development. “That means you don’t grow too fast, you preserve downtown, you concentrate development in areas that are already developed, you have development that is infill rather than sprawl, you try to make it to the extent possible walkable, mixed
use and you try to make it environmentally friendly to the extent that’s practical,” Breslau said. “Instead of being just ‘against that, against the Wal-Mart’ we want to be a more comprehensive organization to promote smart growth,” Breslau said. Breslau said that the ongoing First and Main development project on South Main Street fails to rise to that level. “I don’t think that there’s anyone on the town council at the time that would say that if they’d known what they had in mind, that they would’ve approved it,” Breslau said. Breslau said the First and Main project is exactly the wrong kind of development for Blacksburg. “Look at the area where it’s located, there’s a quiet residential community,” Breslau said. BURG wants to see development that would enhance neighborhoods and the community. “Something that is on a scale and a quality that fits that (neighborhood), so that it’s not a huge scale development with huge-scale structures with large amounts of traffic coming in and out,” Breslau said, “It should fit the area, it should be integrated with other uses so that it’s mixed with residential and has a certain
MATT BOONE/SPPS
BURG steering committe chair Daniel Breslau speaks with a reporter about “smart growth” in Blacksburg see BURG, page two on July 28. BURG is petitioning the Virginia Supreme Court to hear its case.
Concealed carry group to meet in Washington GABRIEL MCVEY
ct news reporter Students for Concealed Carry on Campus will hold its first national meeting at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 1. The student gun rights organization will host a debate, a speaking panel, a legislators’ panel and several notable speakers. SCCC anticipates an attendance of between 100 to 150 members, said SCCC Public Relations Director Katie Kasprzac. “This meeting is to show that we’re an established organization, not just a Facebook group,” Kasprzac said. Ken Stanton, Virginia Tech’s SCCC campus leader, will receive an award and join a panel on
campus efforts to remove gun restrictions. SCCC claims a 32,000-person membership on over 500 campuses. The membership is 90 percent students, 10 percent faculty, parents and other concerned citizens, according to the SCCC Web site. The Virginia Tech branch has 225 members, Stanton said. “It’s a coming out,” Kasprzac said. Formed the day following the April 16 shootings at Tech, SCCC lobbies to remove restrictions placed on students’ right to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. SCCC also seeks to educate the public about the facts of concealed carry and dispel what it calls the many myths surrounding concealed carry.
“We want to dispel the stereotypes of gun ownership,” Stanton said. “When people think of gun ownership they think NRA, they think burly white Republican men who say ‘there’s no way you’re gonna take away my guns.”’ Stanton said that SCCC views concealed carry as a personal right, and respects the right to make the decision on an individual basis. SCCC contends that gun-free zones serve no purpose other than the unilateral disarmament of the law-abiding. SCCC works toward removal of college and university campuses from the off-limits list by concealed carry laws in most states. It also wants to see states prohibit publicly funded universities from
see SCCC, page three
LGBTA resource center to open BERNADETTE WHITE
ct news editor This August, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center will be opening, providing Virginia Tech,and the surrounding area with the means to gain more information about the LGBT community. The grand opening for the resource center will take place on Aug. 29, the first Friday of the fall semester. The opening will include university administrators, faculty, staff and students. “The resource center itself as a space is not a new conception,” said Mary Grace Campos, assistant director of multicultural programs and services. “The notion of the center has always been on the radar screen.” Paul Deyerle, a senior psychology major from Roanoke and director of the LGBT resource center, said the
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idea for the creation of the resource center came up at a Board of Visitors’ gathering two years ago. A task force was created, in a yearlong process to review the need for a LGBT resource center, and, said Deyerle, “it concluded that there needed to be a resource center.” Because of budget cutbacks, however, it took a long time for the center to come to fruition. Currently the funding for the center comes from surplus funds from last year’s LGBTA budget. Currently, LGBTA is in charge of administering the center. “The vision of what it should be has been a student initiative, entirely,” Campos said. The new resource center will be located on the third floor of Squires Student Center. The space has been a constant project over the summer for
see LGBTA, page three