Western Front - 2003 May 13

              Strong medicine
* Jail nurses confront suicide
attempts, addiction and aggression.
See Story, Page 8.
Wrestling revival
Students' club keeps
dying sport alive.
See Story, Page 12.
TUESDAY,May 13,2003 The Western Front Western Washington University Volume 125 Issue 12 Bellingham, Washington
Students upset
. with housing
repair woes
By Jordan Lindstrom
THE WESTERN FRONT
When Western senior Justin
Sylvestal's refrigerator broke,
he put his perishable food in
coolers, called Stebner Real
Estate's rental office and
asked for immediate repair.
When a maintenance person
arrived two weeks later to fix
the refrigerator, he said his
cold-food items had gone bad
and his trust in his rental
company had been damaged.
"I was obviously upset that
we had lost money in food,"
Sylvestal said. "But I was more
surprised that they had taken
so long to fix the problem."
Sylvestal's situation is not
the only instance in which
Western students renting from
Stebner, which rents out many
houses, apartments and
duplexes in the Bellingham
area, have complained about
delayed responses to mainte­nance
requests.
Western sophomore Bryce
Withrow said he knew of
Stebner's reputation before he
moved into his house, but he
moved in anyway because of
the location and limited time
available to find a residence.
"Before I moved in, people
told me (Stebner was) more
down with money than per­sonal
issues," Withrow said.
He said he found the rumors
were true when he called
Stebner and asked them to fix
the broken toilets in his house.
He said the maintenance
personnel agreed to respond
within a few days. Two weeks
later, they arrived to fix the
problem.
"I was really busy with work
and school," Withrow said. "I
didn't have time to either be
constantly calling and asking
for them to come over or file a
formal complaint."
Withrow said a number of
these problems existed,
including a missing screen
door, a broken fireplace and a
decaying paint job. The prob­lems
were not fixed while he
was renting from Stebner.
According to Stebner's resi­dential
rental agreement, the
landlord is obligated to keep
all structural components in
good repair and maintain all
electrical, plumbing and heat­ing
facilities and appliances,
provided the tenant does not
cause thejdamag&.or disrepair
by improper or negligent use.
Ray Stebner, Stebner's
head of maintenance, said no
specific time limits exist for
responding to maintenance
issues except for problems
involving water, heat or safety.
In those cases maintenance is
to be prompt and take priority
over other complaints.
"If we have 15 issues going'
at the same time and someone
calls and says they have a
cracked door, they're going to
be (number) 16 as opposed to
number one," Stebner said.
Western senior Troy
Johnson said a number of
minor maintenance issues
went unresolved while he was
renting from Stebner, includ­ing
two broken closet doors,
holes in the walls and a bro­ken
towel rack.
"(Stebner) couldn't do the
basic fix-it stuff for a house to
be rented out," Johnson said.
Western junior Ben Poort
said when he moved into his
duplex, which he rented from
See HOUSING, Page 3
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Western freshmen Katie O'Keefe, Kelly Spinney, Megan Vogt and junior Kim Larson carry
bandanas, covered her face with a sweatshirt and placed her upside down in the back of
Asian study programs cut in fear of SARS
By Lee Fehrenbacher
THE WESTERN FRONT
Western junior Jeremy Laing
will not be able to study abroad
this summer in China, the coun­try
his family lives in because the
the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention and the World
Health Organization issued a
travel advisory due to SARS out­breaks
in Asia.
"It's the old college story," Laing
said. "The family usually worries
about the kid going off to school,
but I guess for once I'm worrying
about them."
Laing's father, mother and sister
live in Beijing, where his father
works as a cultural affairs officer
in the American Embassy.
"In a sense I'm glad Pm not there,"
Laing said. "But if my family gets
sick, I'd rather be there with them."
According to the CDC cumula­tive
number of probable reported
SARS cases, 7,296 SARS cases
have been reported worldwide,
526 of which resulted in death.
China constitutes the majority of
these cases.
In the wake of the SARS virus,
Western has canceled its
Kunming, China study abroad pro­gram
at the recommendations of
the CDC and WHO, said Liz
Partolan-Fray, director of
International Programs and
Exchanges.
Last week, the University of
California, Berkeley turned away
500 summer students from China,
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore
because of the large number of
SARS cases reported in those
countries. While most colleges
have not taken such drastic mea­sures
as UC, Berkeley, Asian sum­mer
study programs have been
See SARS, Page 3
Dining halls display bags of leftovers to show waste
Melena Eaton/The
Western Front
The Viking
Commons
displayed 291
pounds of wasted
food May 7.
Diners there
wasted more
food than the
other two dining
halls combined.
By Melena Eaton
THE WESTERN FRONT
University Dining Services
and the Circle K club displayed
bags filled with day-old left­over
food in front of each of the
three dining halls Wednesday
as part of the Wasted Food
Awareness program.
Lisa North, director of busi­ness
development for
University Dining Services,
said the Wasted Food
Awareness program started
this year to show how much
food is wasted when people
take more than they can eat.
"It has always been in the
back of our minds how much
people waste because sometimes
people's eyes are bigger than
their stomachs," North said.
Diners at the Viking Commons
wasted 291 pounds of food, which
throughout a quarter would
weigh approximately 4,070
pounds, and throughout a year
the waste would accumulate to
approximately 130,240 pounds.
Diners at the Ridgeway
Commons wasted 158 pounds of
food and diners at the
Fairhaven Commons wasted 75
pounds of food in one day.
The Wasted Food Awareness
program is a new part of Stop
Hunger Week, which
University Dining Services and
Circle K sponsor every year.
Other programs included a
See TRASH, Page 3
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