DAILY LOBO new mexico
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The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
monday October 28, 2013
Recycling material at plant catches fire Gunman wounds 4 cops, is killed by Ardee Napolitano news@dailylobo.com @ArdeeTheJourno
A blaze damaged a recycling facility south of Albuquerque International Sunport on Sunday. Larry Gallegos, public information officer for Bernalillo County, said piles of recycled material stacked in front of the Town Recycling warehouse caught fire at about noon. Town Recycling is located near the intersection of Broadway
and Rio Bravo Boulevards. No one was injured in the incident, Gallegos said, and the cause of the fire is under investigation. “We have no idea how the fire started,” Gallegos said. “It was kept to the outside of the building in the parking lot … A little bit of the structure’s outside has burnt.” Gallegos said recycled materials included paper and plastics, which resulted in a huge cloud of black smoke billowing into the air during the fire.
Gallegos said that because the materials burned in front of the warehouse, the building suffered damage on its porch area but did not completely burn down. Although the fire department stabilized the fire, the blaze will require additional work to completely eradicate it, Gallegos said. “When you get these bales of stuff that might burn for a couple days,” he said. “We’re going to get tractors in here and try to get that stuff pulled away. As we bring the trucks in and
start to pull these bales apart, we’ll probably still have some more fire. So we’ll be putting water on this for a while.” Gallegos said that although there had been similar fires in the facility’s area before, this was the first time that Town Recycling went ablaze. Police had immediately alerted the owners of the facility, Gallegos said. Although the owners were present at the scene of the blaze, they declined to be interviewed until police finish their investigation into the incident.
Motive unclear for the attack and car chase
The Associated Press
Firefighters extinguish a fire that erupted at Town Recycling, a recycling facility, on Sunday. Larry Gallegos, Bernalillo County public information officer, said the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Aaron Sweet / Daily Lobo
GPSA seeks input on wellness center by Chloe Henson
assistant-news@dailylobo.com @ChloeHenson5
The Graduate and Professional Student Association will begin gathering feedback from students regarding the construction of a new wellness center at UNM. James Foty, executive assistant for the president at GPSA, updated the council on its plans to build the center at a meeting Saturday. Foty said plans to construct a new center had been in the works for several years. “They were ready to build the building. They had it planned and all that,” he said. “But the regents killed it because of the economic downturn in 2009.” According to an article by the Daily Lobo, ASUNM and GPSA proposed renovations to the recreation center in 2008, and presented the idea to the Board of Regents in 2009. But because the board deemed the facility to have not served an academic purpose, the board planned
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to allot student fees instead of taxpayer dollars to the project. However, the board decided not to proceed because student interest and support in planning for use and paying for the project was not strong enough. Foty said the regents are now reviving efforts to construct the wellness center. The center would function as more than a recreational center for students, he said. “The new (recreation) center would also include Student Health and Counseling, so it would be a true wellness center,” he said. “The idea is to create an iconic building on campus that would be attractive and would act as an aide for recruiting new students.” Chief of Staff Matthew Rush said GPSA was approached by the administration to design the wellness center during the summer. Rush said construction for the project probably will not start for another few years. “I believe the aim this year is to really get the student feedback on
it by next semester,” he said. “Then over the summer we’ll start really developing the plan. And I believe next year is when they’ll make a decision and try to figure out when to fund it.” Foty said GPSA developed a plan for the new structure that includes four phases. He said the first phase will be to construct a new recreational center in A Lot. The second and third phases involve expanding and renovating Johnson Center, while the fourth entails expansion of the Center’s pool, he said. “The details are not worked out yet, they’re not in the actual design phases,” he said. “They’re just moving along. They’re going.” Although the total cost of the project is unknown, the budget for the first phase could be as much as $75 million, Foty said. He said GPSA will hold forums sometime during the next three weeks to discuss the project, but he said there is still not a particular date set for the forums. United Way Campaign GPSA will also work with United
Cyber bullies
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Way, a nonprofit philanthropic national organization, to raise funds for the University. Rush said training for volunteers to raise funds will begin next week, and campaigning will start at the beginning of next month. “The United Way campaign starts Nov. 4 and will run through January,” he said. One of the campaigns GPSA is pushing this year is for people to sign up to donate small sums through their paychecks, Rush said. “One of the great things that they do is, people within UNM, staff faculty students, can have (donations) taken out of their salary,” he said. Rush said GPSA hopes to raise money to support scholarships and grants for UNM graduate students. “We’d like to see as much funds as we can raise for graduate students,” he said. “One of the major things we were concentrating on was using funding from the United Way to increase scholarships and grants for students.”
ALBUQUERQUE — A man who wounded four Albuquerque law enforcement officers during a high-speed chase through the city had a tattoo labeled “cop killer,” authorities said Sunday. Albuquerque Police Chief Allen Banks identified the gunman as 35-year-old Christopher Chase, who died after crashing a stolen police car Saturday at a gasoline station. Albuquerque television station KOAT reported that Chase was armed with an assault rifle. Three Albuquerque police officers and a Bernalillo County sheriff ’s deputy were wounded during the shooting spree. Police declined to identify the three officers or to provide many details of their injuries, but one remains hospitalized. Bernalillo County Sheriff ’s Deputy Robin Hopkins is in the intensive care unit of an Albuquerque hospital, according to Sheriff Dan Houston. She had worked for the law enforcement agency since 1998. Banks said Chase stole a police car after an officer took cover after coming under fire. Witnesses said Chase told them to call police and “he would be waiting for them,” Banks said at a news conference, according to video posted on the website of KOB-TV. Chase was dressed in body armor, camouflage clothing and wore a black mask. “The subject called and waited for police. I call it a senseless act, a coward’s act,” Banks said when asked if the shooting was an ambush. He said the motive for the shooting remains under investigation. Authorities declined to say whether Chase died from shots fired by police and said that the cause of death would be determined by the Office of the Medical Examiner. Banks said Chase had a criminal record but police continue to investigate his background. Officials said it’s uncertain how many shots were fired. Investigators searched Chase’s house and initially thought it had bobby traps, but those turned out to be fake.
TODAY
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