L A W R E N C E
JOURNAL-WORLD
®
75 CENTS
LJWorld.com
FRIDAY • MAY 13 • 2011
Bill may give $65M boost to KU engineering school By Scott Rothschild srothschild@ljworld.com
TOPEKA — A last-minute scramble by the Legislature on Thursday to push through a bill designed to increase the number of engineering graduates includes a big favor to Kansas University. The measure would give KU the authority to issue $65 million in bonds to build a 100,000-squarefoot classroom building for the engineering school. This would be
Cooler with storms
High: 60
STATE BUDGET The Kansas Legislature worked late Thursday and into this morning on a budget. The Senate approved cuts and sent it to the House for debate. Page 9A built adjacent to a 34,600-squarefoot engineering lab currently under construction. The bonding authority was crafted Thursday in conjunction with
another bill that would allocate $10.5 million per year, starting in 2013, to be shared equally by KU, Kansas State and Wichita State to increase the number of engineering graduates. Those $10 million annual allocations would come from gambling revenue from state-operated casinos. It would require matching dollars from the schools. The goal of the initiative is to increase the number of engineering graduates from 875 per year to 1,365
graduates per year by 2021. The repayment of the $65 million in bonds would come from special revenue funds at KU, legislators said. The engineering initiative was pushed by higher education and industry officials, who said they needed a steady stream of engineering g raduates to stay in Kansas. The original bill included $195 million in bonds for the three schools. While that was approved in
KDOT visit results in no firm action
Low: 47
Today’s forecast, page 12A
INSIDE
the Senate, it stalled in the House where members said it was too expensive. KU Chancellor Bernadette GrayLittle met with legislative leaders early Thursday to discuss the engineering initiative. The House and Senate were working on the proposal among other issues late into Thursday night and early this morning. — Statehouse reporter Scott Rothschild can be reached at 785-423-0668.
Conspirator in KU ticket scam gets 57 months in prison ———
Kirtland also responsible for $1.3M in restitution
Firebirds top Lions in city baseball
By Mark Fagan
Free State High School took home bragging rights Thursday with a 7-5 victory over city rival Lawrence High School at Kansas University’s Hoglund Ballpark. The victory, which came on LHS’ senior night, ensures that Free State (155) will host a regional next week. Page 1B
“
mfagan@ljworld.com
WICHITA — The man who led fundraising for Kansas Athletics Inc. for more than five years is headed to prison for his role in a ticket-stealing scheme that drained at least $2 million from the department and cost some donors opportunities for the seats they otherwise deserved at Allen Fieldhouse. Ben Kirtland, who served as associate athletic director for development from 2004 to April 2010, was sentenced Thursday morning to spend Kirtland 57 months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, tax obstruction and transportation of stolen property across state lines. He is the last of five conspirators convicted of the charges to be sentenced in federal court,
QUOTABLE
It’s just kind of a ticking time bomb. We don’t know what the next MRI is going to show. That’s why we want to get him on the study.” — Emily Reimer, who recently found out her 7-year-old son, Matt, has a rare genetic disorder. Page 3A
Please see TICKETS, page 8A
SURVEY
COMING SATURDAY We’ll tell you about a large gift that Kansas University is receiving. Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
FOLLOW US Facebook.com/LJWorld Twitter.com/LJWorld
INDEX Business Classified Comics Deaths Events listings Horoscope Movies Opinion Poll Puzzles Sports Television Vol.153/No.133
9A 5B-12B 11A 2A 12A, 2B 11B 5A 10A 2A 11B 1B-4B 5A, 2B, 11B 44 pages
Energy smart: The Journal-World makes the most of renewable resources. www.b-e-f.org
COURTLYNN “COCO” SHUTT, 2, SWINGS next to her mother, Ali Shutt, of Eudora, Thursday outside the Eudora Community Center where area officials were meeting with Kansas Department of Transportation officials to discuss Kansas Highway 10 safety issues between Kansas City and Lawrence. Courtlynn suffered a broken vertebra in a crossover crash on K-10 near Eudora on April 16 that killed her brother, Cainan Shutt, 5. Family and friends held a candlelight memorial for Cainan during the KDOT meeting. See a video of the memorial service at LJWorld.com.
tion’s secretary Thursday promised to work with area leaders to get input in the study of the safety of Kansas Highway 10 in the wake of last month’s double fatality near Eudora’s Church Street interchange. “I think working with a group of local officials, advised by law enforcement, adding in some citizens, it’s just a helpful way, I think, to make a decision,” KDOT Secretary Deb Miller said after a Thursday meeting with officials from Eudora, Lawrence, Douglas County and other cities. After a 90-minute meeting, Eudora Mayor Scott Hopson
Please see K-10, page 2A
Please see SURVEY, page 9A
— Ali Shutt, mother of Cainan, who was killed in an April 16 collision on Kansas Highway 10, and Courtlynn, who was injured. said he would invite city officials along K-10, including from Lawrence and De Soto, to have one person participate in an advisory group to KDOT as it studies whether to install cable median barriers from Lawrence east to Interstate 435 in Johnson County. Gov. Sam Brownback — after receiving a letter from Hopson last month — directed Miller to reopen a 2008 study in which KDOT concluded cable medi-
clawhorn@ljworld.com
an barriers weren’t yet warranted on K-10. “I would like to see the cable barrier installed or some type of barrier,” Hopson said. “I also asked that the information from a previous study be updated. We want to mainly get all of the information we can.” KDOT leaders did say during the meeting they expected to finish by the end of the year
“
What’s the number? If we’re waiting for a number of people to die before we make the highways safe, what E U D O R A — The Kansas else do we need to do? This to me was what we’ve Department of Transporta- already heard, and it was not enough.” gdiepenbrock@ljworld.com
By Chad Lawhorn
Lawrence residents generally are pretty pleased these days — unless they happen to be on a city street. Results from a new scientific survey conducted by City Hall found that residents — even as the economic downturn produced public belt-tightening — ranked the city and its government higher in many key categories this year than they did four years ago when the survey was last conducted. “We went up in many areas where other communities, on average, went down,” City Manager David Corliss said. “I think that says the City Commission has been putting the resources where they need to be, and city employees have worked very hard to accomplish our goals. But we clearly still have work to do.” Streets are where a lot of that work ought to take place, the residents suggested. The survey — which was mailed to 2,500 households this spring — found that only 28 percent of Lawrence residents were satisfied with the condition of city streets. That’s well below national and regional averages. In the Kansas City area, 51 percent of residents are satisfied with streets conditions, and nationally the average is 46 percent, according to Olathebased ETC Institute, which conducted the survey. Corliss said the results did not surprise him. “We just historically have not put enough money into streets,” Corliss said. “We’re trying to change that, but I’m not about to unfurl
Area officials support K-10 cable barriers at meeting By George Diepenbrock
Residents mostly happy with Lawrence