DE Since 1916
Daily Egyptian
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2014 VOLUME 98 ISSUE 100
Cameras for St. Louis officers will cost $1.2 million-plus Nicholas J.C. Pistor St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The cost to outfit the city’s police force with body cameras will come with a price tag of $1.2 million -- and that’s just the start. Richard Gray, the city’s public safety director, told an aldermanic committee on Tuesday morning that the department would need an additional $500,000 to cover labor and maintenance costs, plus an increase in the department’s annual budget of about $800,000 to $900,000 for
replacement and maintenance costs. Officials are exploring the purchase in the wake of the crisis in Ferguson, in addition to the fatal shooting of Kajieme Powell last month by city officers, where a cellphone video revealed inconsistencies with the initial police account. Police union officials appear skeptical and could mount a challenge to the deployment of the cameras. Gray said the individual units range from $295 to $695, but they also need
docking stations that charge the devices and download their data. Gray said the city would purchase about 1,000 cameras to outfit most of its force if aldermen approve funding. Jeff Roorda, business manager of the St. Louis Police Officers Association, wouldn’t disclose the union’s position on cameras at Tuesday’s meeting. “That’s a conversation we’ll have with the city’s bargaining team,” Roorda told the aldermen.
Progressive percussion
Buckminster dome home preservation begins phase 2 Muriel Berry Daily Egyptian
After many years of sitting dormant under a tarp, the Buckminster Fuller Dome Home’s exterior has been restored, and owners will continue with the next phase of restoration. Preservation began in April and its second phase commenced Tuesday with a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of its exterior renovations. Jon Davey, a professor in architecture and president of the Buckminster Fuller and Anne Hewrett Dome Home Not-for-Profit Organization, said the dome, which mirrors the composition of a carbon molecule, is one of the only world-renowned monuments in Carbondale. Fuller, a former research professor at the university, and his wife lived in the dome for more than a decade. Mike Mitchell then purchased the property in 1971 and rented it to students. Davey donated the home to the Fuller Dome NFPO in 2002. Blair Wolfram, general contractor and dome specialist said the home will be used as an historical center that promotes Fuller’s ‘principles of success’ and host exhibitions for artists’ work. He said restoration efforts of the dome include the addition of ventilation, and restoration of heat reflectors in the walls, which will help maintain livable temperatures in the home. Wolfrum also said other improvements have been discussed, but they have to be compliant with the regulations of the Fuller Dome NFPO. Bill Perk, an investor in the dome home preservation, said he was excited to move on to the next phase of the project. “Phase 1: the fixing up of the outer shell of the dome is finally complete,” he said. “We have to raise another $125,000 to $150,000 to return the interior to how it’s supposed to be.” The organization members hope to have the home fully restored by 2015, but Perk said funds are the biggest obstacle to completing the project. “It’s not a matter of years or manpower, but money, that is a main concern for interior renovations.” Apart from creating the dome home, Fuller earned 28 honorary doctorate degrees and was the first professor to make on the cover of Time Magazine. Davey said Fuller was a brilliant man and the dome is more than a historical monument. “It is a memorial and it recognizes who Bucky was and the sort of thinking he evolved,” Davey said. Please see DOME · 2
E van F ait D aily E gyptian Christopher Butler, a percussion lecturer from Atlanta, Ga. instructs his students during a sight reading class Tuesday in Altgeld Hall. Butler is a doctoral candidate from the University of Kentucky and was recently hired as a lecturer at SIU. “There are not a lot of places you get to do this,” Butler said. “Teaching percussion to kids is what I love to do.”
Non-profit supports student debt forgiveness Marissa Novel Daily Egyptian
Graduation day marks a new beginning for some students, but it also marks the beginning of payments for others. With student debt at an all-time high, one not-for-profit organization, Rolling Jubilee, is buying debt from banks that give student loans to show debt forgiveness is possible. An assembly discussing debt will be held from noon to 3 p.m., Wednesday outside the north side of the Student Center, near Faner Hall. The assembly is in conjunction with Rolling Jubilee’s fourth “debt buy day.” Rolling Jubilee is a not-for-profit project affiliated with the Strike Debt organization that buys debt from banks for a fraction of its worth, but then asks for nothing in return from the debtors. “Banks sell debt for pennies on the dollar on a shadowy speculative market of debt buyers who then turn around and try to collect the full amount from debtors. Rolling Jubilee intervenes by
buying debt, keeping it out of the hands of collectors and then abolishing it,” its website states. The average student loan debt for graduates in Illinois is around $28,000, with the average monthly payment near $300 for more than seven years, according to Reboot Illinois, a non-partisan civic group. National student debt is at an all time high of $1.2 trillion, making it the only consumer debt category among home equity, credit card and auto loans to continue to increase since 2008, according to the Credit Union Times. Nick Smaligo, a graduate student in philosophy from Carbondale, will moderate conversations among debtors about their experiences and how debt has changed student values, while teaching people about Rolling Jubilee and Strike Debt. “In the past, a number of people that come to the university engage in questions of how the world ought to be, of the ideals of equality, of justice, that a country like
the United States pays lip service to,” he said. “Nowadays, people come here to get a job.” Ann Larson, an organizer of Strike Debt and Rolling Jubilee, said she has been involved with the organization since it was created from the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2012. She said Strike Debt began with the Occupy Student Debt Campaign, which created an Internet pledge asking people to stop paying their student loans. “In the early days, we could have had a debt strike model in mind, or at least the threat of a debt strike,” she said. “And we thought that by threatening to do that we could make a lot of people pay attention to us and change the system for the better.” Kevin Sylwester, associate professor of economics, said organizations like Rolling Jubilee help people individually, but do not have a lasting effect. “The financial institutions who gave these loans are still taking a hit,” he said. Please see DEBT · 2