McCartney blossoms
Page 8
Swimmers unsinl<able
Radience Beauty shines through
Page 1 1
Page 6 & 7
Concerns brought before Board By Mark Hopkins Editor-in-Chief
A routine inspection of college facilities by Palomar's Governing Board turned out to be anything but routine Tuesday evening when chemistry instructor David Boyajian presented departmental concerns over the quality of work done by the general contractor in a remodeling of one of the chemistry buildings. "There has been total resistance for the total time," said Boyajian to Board members
about the relationship between his department and Crest Construction, which was awarded the remodeling contract by the Governing Board. Boyajian said specifications called for the use of either aluminium or polypropylene instead of sheet steel in the construction of "snorkel hoods" located in student laboratories. Snorkel hoods suck away vapors being given off from student experiments. The professor said the hoods are too cumbersome to manipulate for all but the brawniest male students and that steel, when com-
pared to aluminium or polypropylene, is more likely to rust out from the caustic chemicals used in experiments. Board Vice President, Ben Echeverria commented that "if it does not meet the specifications, then it should be rejected." During Boyajian's presentation, President of the Board Harvey Williamson, asked if Crest has been paid. Director ofB uildings and Grounds, Mike Ellis, responded that the firm has not been paid. In an interview afterwards, Bryant Guy, director of contracts, later clarified Ellis'
statement. "All but a fi ve percent retainage fee has been paid by the Governing Board," said Guy. He said that the contract is worth $650,000. Guy also said that the engineers of the hoods were either not given the specifications or misinterpreted them. He said that a red flag popped up when the hoods were being installed and that "we went back with Boyajian to fix the problem." Diane Michael, dean of science, techno!-
¡(see BOARD- page 4)
408 CALLS PER DAY ADDED
New phone lines relieve overloads By Traci Rossman Assistant News Editor
"Merry" Mary J~eb (front left) receives a kis~ on the band from DanidLeal in.a rehearsal for Palomar's pn)(luedon of 'â&#x20AC;˘Tbe Merry Widow}' The musical begins tonight in the Palomar College Community Theatre and runs through Mar~h 25. The production is a cooperative venture of the music. dance and theater departments. Also pidured are Daniel Hendrick and Jennifer Seay. For more information see the entertainment calendar on page 9.
Prompted by phone system overload during the fall and spring registration periods, Palomar has added four new incoming phone lines to its 19-line computerized system, increasing the system's capacity by 408 calls per day. At a press conference earlier this semester, Superintendent/President Dr. George Boggs told The Telescope there were problems with the phone system during Spring registration. ''I'm not completely happy with the system," he said. 'The phones were always busy; people couldn't reach us." It cost Palomar approximately $1300 to install the new trunk lines. According to Maryann Amaya, the main phone operator at Palomar, "We added new lines because people complained that they were getting busy signals." A lot has changed since dial mailboxes were added to campus extensions in 1987. Back then, two operators were taking an average of 2,700 calls per day. Amaya remembers, "We had to answer every call, we had to place all local and long distance calls, and we had to take all messages." Now the dial mailboxes record callers' messages, as well as give out information like instructors' office hours and deadline dates. Rather than having each call go through the operator, an automated system distributes the incoming phone traffic to the individual departments. This leaves the operators free to spend time with people who need information. "The disbursement of calls is a lot better than it used to be," says
'The phones were always busy; people couldn't reach us.' Dr. George Boggs Superintendent/ President Amaya. "There's no waiting as far as putting them (callers) on hold, because you put them on the voice mailbox and it'll say to them 'I'm sorry, that extension is busy,' or 'will you please leave a message.' That eliminates all waiting." According to Amaya, all incoming lines are checked every day to be sure they are functioning properly. Any problems with the system are immediately reported to Quintron, the company that services Palomar's phone system. Amaya explains that, like every computerized system, if there is a power failure or if someone disturbs the equipment in any way, it will dump all the information needed to run the phone system. Joe Klier of Quintron explains that when mechanical failures in the switchroom do occur, the system is switched onto a 48-hour battery back-up. However, it has been necessary to use the back-up only twice in the past year. For Amaya, there is only one drawback with the system. "With the many different types of phones
(see PHONES- page 4)