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THEE DAILY TEXAN Tuesday, September 15, 2009
UT events pay close attention to suicide By Lara Berendt Daily Texan Staff The UT Counseling and Mental Health Center is stepping up efforts to prevent suicide by demystifying mental health issues during UT’s first Suicide Prevention Week. The goal of the program, which continues through Friday, is to provide a safe forum for students to discuss mental health issues and to teach faculty, staff and students how to have a healthy dialogue about suicide, the second leading cause of death among college students, according to center statistics. Tuesday’s “What Happy Faces are Hiding” features nationally recognized mental health speaker Ross Szabo. For students with financial worries, “Bevonomics: The College Student’s Guide to Investments” will take place Wednesday. Signs displayed in Gregory Gym’s main concourse will illustrate the warning signs students should notice if a friend is depressed or suicidal. UT Suicide Prevention Week is scheduled to
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City Council unanimously passes 2010 fiscal policy By Rachel Platis Daily Texan Staff After months of discussion, the city’s $2.8 billion budget for next year was unanimously approved by the Austin City Council in under an hour Monday morning. The council approved the 2010 fiscal budget during the deepest economic recession in 50 years, said City Manager Marc Ott. The fiscal plan will take effect Oct. 1. “The budget has attempted to provide structural solutions to this economic reality,” Ott said. To fund improvements to the infrastructure of the Austin Water Utility, homeowners will see an average increase of $3.78 to $67.35 in their monthly water and wastewater bills. Customers using a 90-gallon garbage container will see an increased charge from $16.50 to $18.20 per month. About $75 million has been cut from the budget since the recession began in the past two years, said Mayor Lee Leffingwell. “We’ve cut the fat, and we’re working on the bone,” Leffingwell said. “The fact that we’re doing all this and balancing the budget in these unprecedented times without letting any employees go is to be commended.” A revenue deficit of about $30 million was partially filled by eliminating 105 vacant city positions and not including pay increases for city employees. The Austin Police Association and paramedics chose to amend their contractually guaranteed pay raises to adjust to the budget, Leffingwell said. “The work force is stepping up and going to have to provide more sources with the same amount of resources,” said Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez. “When you take into account everything that has been proposed, amended and discussed, everyone is sharing in this burden.” The budget maintains court services and makes no cuts to the police force, the fire department or to library and recreation center hours. It also outlines investments in city infrastructure and maintains the scheduled police cadet class. “Having accomplished all of that without reducing employee benefits and without laying off employees is unheard of in this economy,” Ott said. “I’m not aware of any other major city that has been able to do that.” Although the budget proposal increases the city’s tax rate and utility charges, Austinites currently have the lowest tax bill of any major city in Texas, Ott said. Council member Bill Spelman said that though he is happy with many of the budget amendments, he is less happy that the property tax rate
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I’ve done some reasonably exciting things in my life. It is a pleasure to share this with a generation who was not yet even born. It’s sort of giving back.” — Captain Eugene Cernan, former astronaut
Karina Jacques | Daily Texan Staff
Captain Eugene Cernan shows pictures taken from Apollo 17 Monday afternoon at the LBJ Library. The captain was the last man to walk on the moon.
Astronaut offers inspiring advice By Hannah Jones Daily Texan Staff “The thing I remember most is looking back at the Earth, all the beauty,” Captain Eugene Cernan told the attentive audience. “I could literally cover up the entire Earth with my thumb.” Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of former president Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was a heavy supporter of the country’s space program, in-
troduced Cernan, a former astronaut, Monday night to a crowd gathered in the auditorium on campus bearing the former president’s name. Cernan was the last astronaut in his team to board the Apollo Lunar Module before leaving the moon on Apollo 17 in 1972. He has traveled to space three times and logged more than 566 hours in space, including more than 73 on the moon.
“I’ve done some reasonably exciting things in my life,” he said. “It is a pleasure to share this with a generation who was not yet even born. It’s sort of giving back.” As a child, Cernan’s dream was to fly airplanes off aircraft carriers, yet he never thought he would, due to his family’s economic
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Non-toxic algae may change Austin water supply Blue-green bacteria in Lake Austin harmless aside from unpleasant taste, smell By Audrey White Daily Texan Staff A blue-green algae bloom in Lake Austin may cause a fishy or musty taste and odor in the water supply in the coming weeks. Although the algae is not harmful, Austin Water Utility is taking steps to prevent consumers from noticing the changes in their water supply. “The algae is very unpredictable,” said utility representative Kevin Buchman. “We see it as often as once a year to as infrequently as every two to three years.” The taste is not caused by the live algae but by compounds released when it dies, Buchman said. Standard tests conducted by Austin Water show higher levels of algae in the water supply toward the end of the summer. In an effort to stave off the unfamiliar taste, Austin Water has started an active charcoal treatment in addition to its normal treatment processes at city water plants. “We could tell by our sampling
Michael Baldon | Daily Texan Staff
Stephen Peña transfers an algae culture from one beaker to another in the University’s Culture Collection of Algae room. that we were seeing an effect of the bloom, so we decided to take a proactive approach and start the charcoal treatment,” Buchman said. Adding a simple active carbon compound to water as it is being treated helps absorb the parts of the
algae that cause a change in the water’s features. These kinds of blooms are normal and usually die back under natural circumstances, said Bonnie O’Neil, an assistant research scientist at UT’s Culture Collection of Algae.
“They go in cycles, so depending on the light and temperature there may be a bloom,” O’Neil said. “It basically just takes up space that other organisms could be living in. It’s like a fast-forward version of any organism in the ecosystem. It builds that niche and then dominates for a brief time.” O’Neil said something like the growth of other plants or a change in temperature usually causes the algal bloom to die out. Stephen Peña, a member of the culture collection staff, said consumers should not be concerned about drinking tap water, since the charcoal treatment has been proven to effectively deal with the results of algal blooms like this one. “Tap water is treated before it’s used, so there’s not much of a chance of there being a problem,” Peña said. “Few blue-green algae are toxic. They usually just cause a fishy taste.” Austin Water will continue the charcoal treatment until algae levels return to normal. The process is the most common method for dealing with natural situations that impact the flavor and smell of water.
Detective’s movie-star status helps support local charities Local’s alter-ego finds fame after winning reality show, starring in SyFy channel film
Lauren Gerson | Daily Texan Staff
Austin Police Department Detective Jarrett Crippen stars in the SyFy original movie, “Lightning Strikes.”
By Bobby Longoria Daily Texan Staff In every cell of a comic book’s pages, within the text bubbles and beyond a caped hero, there lies the power to invigorate the superhero within children and adults alike. Austin Police Department Detective Jarrett Crippen, also known by his superhero alias The Defuser, raised spirits
and money for local charities by selling his comic book and premiering his SyFy channel movie, “Lightning Strikes,” at La Zona Rosa on Saturday. In addition to his superhero activities, Crippen runs a charity which raises funds for cancer research, in particular, through funds raised from a haunted house that runs each October. The Defuser is a blue-spandex-clad herald of justice equipped with a utility vest and belt sporting non-lethal weaponry. Crippen created the hero in middle
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