Western Front - 1997 January 31

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FRONT
Western Washington University Volume 99 Issue 6 Bellingham, Washington
Militia targets
Western professor
By Carey Ross
The Western Front
The Washington State Militia's
intentions to threaten two mem­bers
of the Bellingham communi­ty
surfaced on Jan. 22 at their
ongoing Seattle trial.
According to the Bellingham
Herald, a secret tape recording of
a meeting last March between
militia members Marlin Mack
and Fred Fisher outlined plans to
harass and scare Western political
science professor Vernon
Johnson and Bellingham Herald
reporter Cathy Logg. Bill
W a s s m u t h , .
Seattle executive
director of the
N o r t h w e s t
C o. a 1 i t io. n
A g a i n s t
M a l i c i o u s
Harassment, was
also threatened.
Members of
the militia
planned to go to
each of their
homes dressed
as federal agents
hoping to intimi­date
them.
Johnson, co-chairman of the
Whatcom County Human Rights
Task Force, had - publicly
expressed concerns about the
militia, in particular about a
recruitment meeting held in
Mount Vernon about a year ago.
Although Johnson was not sur­prised
by the group's threats, he
found their plans disturbing.
"I am frightened when I think
about it, but I tryjiot to think
Vernon Johnson
about it," Johnson said. "I've
been pretty successful with that."
He said that his role as an out­spoken
activist with the task
force makes him a target for these
kinds of threats.
"It comes with the territory,"
Johnson said. "There's nothing
you can do about it short of going
public and saying, 'Look, I'm
scared shitless, I quit.' That is
what they want me to do. Then if
I quit, I wouldn't have to worry,
but I don't want to do that."
Johnson said if militia mem­bers
were intent on hurting him,
he would not be able to stop
them.
"If they want to
hit me, they can
do it," he said. "I
can't run around
being paranoid
24 hours a day
about that possi­bility."
A l t h o u g h
Johnson knows
that being an
activist can put
him in a danger­ous
position, he
said the odds are
. against his being
hurt or killed.
"They don't tend to hurt
activists," he said. "In fact, they
tend to roll over and maybe move
on to different kinds of issues.
Besides, their target is less the
activists, and more the govern­ment."
Eight people are being tried in
the case on charges ranging from
conspiracy to obstruction of jus­tice.
Looks like protest weather
Front/ Tim Klein
Elan Dickerson and Samantha Tretheway demonstrate with a poster in Red Square Thursday.
Front under fire for ad
By Erica Christensen
The Western Front
A handful of students gathered
in Red Square Thursday to
protest an advertising insert in
Tuesday's issue of The Western
Front.
The insert, titled Beyond the
Wall, sold "ads as art," including
posters of J. Crew, BMW
Motorcycles, UNIONBAY and
Calvin Klein ads.
The group said the ads were
offensive toward both men and
women and that The Front did
not travel the proper channels in
reviewing the ads.
Samantha Tretheway, 23, was
one of the women who organized
the protest. She compared the
incident to one in 1994 when The
Front pulled an ad for Club
Borneo in Surrey, British
Columbia after complaints from
the Ethnic Student Center.
The ad showed a primitive man
named Borneo Bob in a grass
skirt with a bone through his nose
and'fDsjjtear in his hand.
"We have two issues going on.
The first and most important
issue that we can address here on
our college campus is the follow­ing
through of guidelines. These
guidelines that I'm speaking of
were tightened up after the
Borneo incident and, unfortu­nately,
The Western Front didn't
follow their own guidelines in
working with this advertise­ment,"
Tretheway said. "The sec­ond
issue is ... the objectification
of this advertisement and the
body awareness that needs to be
done on this campus."
Journalism Department Chair,
Floyd McKay, said this is not a
Borneo Bob situation.
See Protest, page 4
Western plans for cuts, hopes for best
By Craig Scott
The Western Front
Western faxed a proposal to
Olympia on Tuesday to trim its
operating budget for the 1997-
1999 biennium by more than $2
million.
On Jan. 21, Washington's
Office of Financial Management
(OFM) gave most state agencies
and programs one week to submit
proposals.to reduce their budgets
by 5 percent, in an attempt to
decrease the General Fund for the
state (GF-S) by approximately
$400 million.
Western proposed to lop
$2,056,000 off its current budget
of more than $60 million, said Al
Froderberg, Western's vice-presi­dent
for External Affairs.
"We've got kind of a generic
plan (turned in)," Froderberg
said.
Froderberg was unable, to give
many specifics on how Western
plans to decrease its budget; cuts
cannot be planned until Gov.
Gary Locke sets his GF-S. Locke
hopes to submit his budget pro­posal
to the state legislature by
Saturday, Froderberg said.
"There's every reason to
believe there will be no cuts at
all," Froderberg said. He said
Locke's priorities, which include
higher education, will likely
receive money cut from other
agencies.
Froderberg said the OFM wants
to work with Locke to create a
"war chest" of extra funds to
deliver to education and juvenile
justice systems. Without such a
pool, only $59.2 million would be
available for such programs,
according to a fax from the
Council of the Presidents' Office
in Olympia.
Froderberg said Western pro­poses
to eliminate 16 non^instruc-tional
positions. These positions
won't be chosen until Locke's
budget is announced, likely in
early May.
Western's proposal also
includes lessening its operating
support budget by $350,000 for
each fiscal year in the 1997-1999
biennium. These cuts won't affect
student instruction but will cut
supplies and equipment.
Froderberg said Western plans
to cut funding in non-instruction­al
areas like the library, computer
centers, police department and
grounds maintenance.
Financial aid wouldn't be
affected, he said.
Froderberg said further cuts
could come from position freez­ing
— replacing employees who
retire or quit with persons already
employed by Western, instead of
hiring new persons.
"If there is a budget reduction,
regardless of if in instructional of
non-instructional (budgets), it
will impact students," said Jack
Cooley, Western's budget direc­tor.
Cooley said he was concerned
about further reductions in
Western's budget, which has
decreased 10 percent in the last
six years.
Locke hopes to free up some $4
See Budget, page 3