Multimedia Reporting (Adler-Utsler)

Scott Zaremba stands over his work site at Ninth and Iowa streets. Zaremba owns all of the area Zarco 66 gas stations, and purchased this site to build his ninth gas station. But something will be different about this station. Unlike the eight other stations Zaremba owns in Lawrence, Olathe, Paola and Ottawa, this one will sell only fuels featuring ethanol and biodiesel. It will be the first station in the world in which any consumer can fill their car with alternative fuels regardless of engine, and the first station in Lawrence offering high blends of ethanol and biodiesel.

“I have been in the fuel business for 40 years, and I really feel like this is the time for this,” Zaremba said. “The desire for people to use alternative fuels is there.”

Zaremba’s alternative fuel station is another example in the continuing trend of consumers choosing to purchase eco-friendly fuels such as cleaner burning ethanol and biodeisel. These fuels lower the effect on the environment and help reduce the United States’ dependency on foreign oil. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 5,634 alternative fuel stations currently operate in the United States.

Ethanol is a type of fuel that can be mixed with unleaded gasoline and put in vehicles that burn unleaded fuel. It is made from corn and other agricultural products. Any vehicle that operates on unleaded fuel can use at least e10, which is 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent unleaded fuel. However, many new vehicles being produced can run on higher percentages of ethanol. Biodiesel is a mixture of common kitchen waste and chemicals such as methanol and potassium hydroxide. Biodiesel fuel can be used in any diesel engine, and is often mixed with regular diesel fuel in blends like b2 and b20 similar to ethanol.

Zaremba’s station will offer ethanol blends from e10 to e85 and biodiesel blends from b5 to b99. According to Zaremba, the prices of the ethanol and biodiesel blended fuels will reflect the current marketplace value of regular unleaded and diesel fuels, with the exception of the e85 ethanol blend. E85 will be considerably cheaper than standard unleaded fuel. As of July 2007, the last time data was collected, the U.S. Department of Energy reported that on average e85 cost $2.63 per gallon, while standard unleaded fuel cost $3.03 per gallon.

“We wanted to give everyone an opportunity to fill up at the station, so we decided to offer blends that could be put in any vehicle,” Zaremba said. “That way, if you have an older car you can still use the station.”

But the shift is not only present at the pump. At Crown Chevrolet, located at 34th and Iowa Streets, people are rushing in to get their vehicles that can run on e85 ethanol fuel.

“More and more people are asking specifically to purchase a vehicle that can run e85,” Thomas Jacobson, sales and leasing consultant for Crown Chevrolet said. “When they ask for that, they are pretty much dead set on that. There is no getting it out of their mind.”

General Motors, Chevrolet’s parent company, calls their vehicles that are able to operate on e85 “FlexFuel Vehicles.” GM offers 15 different FlexFuel vehicles, and it plans to manufacture more than 400,000 FlexFuel vehicles in 2007. General Motors offers their FlexFuel vehicles at no additional cost over the ones that cannot run on e85 fuel. Ford, who calls their vehicles “Ethanol Vehicles,” offers five different models.
Jacobson said he expected the desire for FlexFuel vehicles to grow as more stations that sold e85 were built.

“When you’ve got one station, there is going to be some interest in buying vehicles that can run e85,” Jacobson said. “But when there start to be more, the price of e85 will start to drop due to competition. Then even more people will come and buy e85 vehicles because of the price of that fuel. We’ve already seen this in Kansas City, where there are multiple e85 stations.”

The alternative fuel wave isn’t just catching on with private consumers, either. Researchers at the University of Kansas are trying to manufacture their own biodiesel to run the campus bus system. Ilya Tabakh, researcher for the KU Transportation Research Institute, says the KUTRI is taking grease from Ekdahl Dining Commons, located on Daisy Hill, and trying to transfer it into Biodiesel fuel that can be blended with the current supply. The campus buses currently operate on b5, but according to Tabakh the KUTRI could blend the biodiesel they made with the current b5 to create b20.

“It would be both an environmental and economical gain,” Tabakh said. “We would be spending less money on a higher quality fuel. As a kicker, you also get higher emissions quality.”

Tabakh said it was not clear how much of a financial gain the program would be until the buses had successfully run an entire cycle with the manufactured biodiesel.

But despite burning cleaner and being priced similar, alternative fuels are not without their downsides. According to Jacobson, ethanol burns hotter and faster than regular gasoline, meaning a vehicle that would get 30 miles per gallon with standard gasoline will only get about 25 miles per gallon if using e85.

“You’ll have a lower price at the pump and you will not suffer on power,” Jacobson said. “But you will suffer in miles per gallon.”

This means that using e85 will cost around the same amount of money as standard fuel because e85 is on average 16 percent cheaper and 13 percent less efficient than unleaded gasoline.

Regardless of the downsides, Zaremba thinks the station has an opportunity to thrive in Lawrence because of its type of people.

“In a community like Lawrence, you’ve got a lot of open minds, which is why I decided to do this here,” Zaremba said. “We have a lot people who will be interested in using the station because of its help to the environment.”

According to Zaremba, the station will open in four weeks, meaning Lawrence residents will have to wait about a month before they can get their fix of alternative fuels in town.

Terry Johnston works at Schwegler Elementary School, located at 2201 Ousdahl Rd. But Terry isn’t a standard teacher or school administrator. Johnston works with the WRAP program, designed to help keep students from acting out. Unfortunately for Terry, the children she helps aren’t the only thing she has to worry about. Financial cuts from the City of Lawrence have caused the WRAP program’s budget to shrink drastically.

“If we don’t have any money, there won’t be any WRAP program,” Johnston said. “Every child in the world is at risk, and we need to be able to help them.”

The Working to Recognize Alternative Possibilities, or WRAP program, aimed at the mental well-being of at-risk students in the Lawrence public schools, has long been funded by the Lawrence School District, City of Lawrence and grants and private donations. But effective January 1, the city will no longer fund the program.

The WRAP program began in 1997 as a way to help kids in the Lawrence Public Schools. Instead of targeting kids who needed help in the classroom, the program set out to help kids that acted out or were thought of as “at-risk” in terms of mental health. The program focuses on prevention of mental health issues as well as intervention for kids who are already troubled.

According to the City of Lawrence budget, the city funding for the WRAP program has come from two sources: general funds and the special alcohol fund. In 2007, the WRAP program received $250,000 from the city’s general funds, and $100,000 from the special alcohol fund. The special alcohol fund is money collected from taxes on alcohol sales in the state of Kansas that can only be used for drug and alcohol prevention. The WRAP program will receive no money from either the city’s general fund or the special alcohol fund in the year 2008.

The cut in funding will mean a cut in staff. The program will have less people to go into the schools and meet with children. Currently, each high school and junior high in the district has a WRAP coordinator at each school, while most elementary schools have a WRAP coordinator or share one with another elementary school. According to WRAP Program Director Charlie Kuszmaul, this will probably mean less time will be spent on preventing mental health issues and more time will actually have to be spent fixing mental health problems that have already developed. Kuszmaul says that while the cut in funding won’t endanger the existence of the program, it will certainly hamper its success. The program has already lost 25% of its staff, and Kuszmaul says losing up to 25% more is a possibility.

“There are fewer workers. Because there are fewer workers, there are less kids we can work with,” Kuszmaul said. “As you lose funding, you decrease prevention, and you have to put your resources toward intervention.”

Kuszmaul said the success of the program lies in its ability to take some of the negative stigma away from the idea of needing mental health counseling.

“We can see kids for five minutes because their dog died all the way to kids that have been brutally raped,” Kuszmaul said. “By seeing a kid in a natural school setting, we’re able to keep away that stigma, and the kids will be more comfortable asking for help if they need it in the future.”

Kuszmaul said the program planned to apply for city funds again in the future, but it was unable to tell if they would ever receive money from the city again.

“Once our portion is out of the budget, it’s much less likely for it to be put in,” Kuszmaul said. “We’re currently preparing as if we won’t have that money back.”

City of Lawrence Budget Manager Casey Liebst said some of the reason for the city’s cut in funding was due to the Lawrence School District’s questions about whether or not they would continue funding the program. According to Liebst, the school district first considered cutting the program from its funding, which led the city to consider the same.

“There were preliminary conversations indicating that the school district was going to put their priorities elsewhere,” Liebst said. “If the school district was changing their priorities on the WRAP program, we felt that we needed to examine that as well.”

The school district eventually decided to continue funding the WRAP program, while the city did not. Lawrence School Board President Linda Robinson said the decision was made to continue funding the program because of its importance in the district.

"It's one of those programs that the school system really needs to have," Robinson said. "It came down to more than money. We wanted to work things out with the WRAP program because we felt it was an asset to kids in our schools."

In the absence of the WRAP program, the city decided use the money from the special alcohol fund to increase the funding for school resource officers in the public schools.

Liebst agreed that the WRAP program could possibly return to the city budget in the future. She said that the program was welcome to apply for city funding for the year 2009, and it would be considered for funding like every other program that applied.

“When resources are limited, decisions have to be made,” Liebst said. “There just isn’t enough money to go around for everybody that wants it right now.”

But Kuszmaul believes that despite the decreased amount of money spent on the program, the city actually will not see any money saved in the long run.

“I see the money spent on the WRAP program not as an expense, but as a cost-saving measure,” Kuszmaul said. “These kids that have problems don’t go away. They have less education, so they’ll have worse jobs. This means they’ll have less money. They end up getting pregnant faster, abusing substances more and using the emergency room more. If we do interventions earlier, you save yourself money in all these places later on.”

The duplex where Martin Jones lives now is much nicer than where he was for a while. It’s clean, calm and straightforward, much like the man that lives there. Located near the back of Lawrence Presbyterian Manor, the duplex is a place where Jones can spend the days of his retirement as he pleases. The thin man with a stern booming voice can be found sitting in his red chair, or eating with his wife Phyllis, who lives on the assisted living floor in the Presbyterian Manor’s main building. But life wasn’t always so wonderful for Martin Jones.

Martin Jones’ story really begins with a story of the United States. Jones enrolled at the University of Kansas in 1940, a year after fighting began in Europe. President Roosevelt had said the United States would not become involved in the war, but Jones had a feeling the United States would be involved in the war very soon. Rather than make excuses or run, Jones joined the University of Kansas branch of the Reserve Officer Training Corps. While this decision was noble, Jones said there were other reasons as to why he joined the ROTC.

“I joined the ROTC so I could avoid the infantry,” Jones said, with a grin.

Jones enrolled in Coast Artillery/Anti Aircraft and was told that he would be allowed to finish school at KU before being deployed. Once again this wasn’t the case. Jones and the 143 other students in the KU ROTC were given an ultimatum by the United States Government: enlist in the army immediately, or be drafted immediately. Naturally, all of them enlisted. After finishing basic training in Camp Wallace, Tex. in September of 1943, Jones was sent to officer candidate school. Following officer candidate school, he was assigned as a Second Lieutenant in the 106th Infantry Division. Second Lieutenant was the lowest commissioned officer position, and being in the infantry was what Jones was trying to avoid by joining the ROTC at KU.

Jones was sent overseas, and in December of 2004 found himself along with his division guarding the edge of Germany, a place the allies had captured. Jones and the three regiments of the 106th Infantry Division were in charge of holding the area for the allies. Looking back, Jones can see many flaws in the 106 Infantry’s orders.

“We were given very little combat training, and our forces were spread out very thinly across the area,” Jones said. “It was meant to be army of occupation. We weren’t supposed to have to fight.”

The forces were spread out so far because according to U.S. intelligence reports, the Germans had no tanks or heavy artillery in the area, so any offensives by the Germans would be small and wouldn’t last long. General Dwight Eisenhower also thought that the Germans would never attack through Belgium or Luxembourg, countries that bordered the area of the Germany the allied forces were occupying.

Both of these beliefs proved to be huge blunders. On Dec. 16, 1944 the Germans attacked heavily with full artillery along the Luxembourg and Belgium borders. The ensuing battle would be called the Battle of Ardennes by the U.S. Army, but would come to be known by most as the Battle of the Bulge. With Jones’ division spread out so far and with little combat training, it was sure to be an uphill battle. The men were instructed to hold their positions at all costs, and food and supplies would be dropped them through the air. Three days later, Jones’ brigade had run out of ammunition, but no more had come via plane because Germany mounted the attack during a stormy season, effectively negating the Allies’ air superiority.

Cold, hungry and dispirited, Jones received orders to surrender to the German forces. In total more than 7,000 allied forces were captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge. Jones and his men were taken by German soldiers, and walked to a train station. At the station, dozens of trainloads of prisoners of war were loaded up. Each dark car was filled to the brim with prisoners. Jones was loaded into a car with hundreds of other men, and spent hours doing nothing but sitting in the car among the other dejected prisoners. That night, the British Air Force bombed the railroad yards, in an attempt to weaken German forces. In total, 25 two and a half ton bombs exploded on the railroad yards that night. The car Jones was in rattled off the track. Other cards tipped up on their sides, sending prisoners flying throughout the car. 85 American prisoners in the station’s main building were killed when a bomb directly hit the building. Jones says the incident was the worst as a prisoner of war.

“It was the most helpless I’ve ever felt in all my life,” Jones said. “Locked in a boxcar while the yard was bombed; nothing but the sound of explosions and the screams of other men.”

Christmas morning, the prisoners were lead farther into Germany. By this time, the Germans were losing lots of territory, so the prisoners were moved farther into Germany so as to be harder to find by the allied forces. They arrived on foot at a prisoner of war camp in Frankfurt. Jones was placed in a room with sixty other men. The room had a non-working toilet in the corner with a puddle of water around it. By this time, Jones was starting to get in pretty bad health condition. His feet were badly frostbitten from walking through a stream in the cold weather, and eating nothing but small bowls of soup infested with dead worms had caused Jones’ weight to dip from 155 pounds to around 120.

On Jan.10, Jones was once again moved by the German forces. This time he and the other officers were packed back into boxcars and sent to another camp in Hamelberg. This camp had much better conditions, but the food was the same. Jones and the officers slept on wooden bunks and used straw as mattresses. Soon after the move, the allied forces hatched a plan to get the prisoners back. Called the “Baum Raid” allied tankers swarmed the camp at Hamelberg in an attempt to take the prisoners to safety. But there was one major problem. The general in charge of the mission thought there were about 350 prisoners at the camp. In actuality there were around 1,350. The tankers did their best to take the men, but because there were so many the Germans quickly recaptured the men. Jones had been free for about eight hours. The prisoners were taken to Nuremburg. Soon after, allied troops bombed Nuremburg and Jones found himself caught in the middle of the bombing. Jones and the other prisoners hit the ground. As the men lay in the dirt, they could hear bombs explode around them. In total, more than 1,000 planes bombed that day. Jones popped up after the bombing and discovered that he had no major injuries. However, one of the men around him was not so lucky. The man had lost both of his legs and was bleeding profusely.

“I’ll never forget that,” Jones said. “He seemed to be so calm, sitting there smoking that cigarette. He didn’t live a minute after the bombing stopped.”

After the bombing, the prisoners were taken to a prisoner of war camp in Mossburg. Two days later, the allies liberated the camp. The troops then took Jones and the prisoners to an airfield, where they began to feed the now liberated prisoners six small meals per day. Because of the way they had been fed, none of the men could keep any of the food down. The men were quickly declared fit to go home, and sailed to New York Harbor on June 9, 1945. Jones received his discharge orders from the military on Jan. 9, 1946, and returned to his hometown of Osage City.
What Martin Jones went through in Germany needs little context, but to find more about how difficult being a prisoner of war is, one needs to look no further than the respect shown to Jones by Al Sellen. Sellen was a member of the 26th Infantry and was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge when hit by shrapnel. He also happens to live on the other side of Jones' duplex.

“I was able to spend the rest of the European war in a hospital,” Sellen said. “He had to be a prisoner, without adequate food. I was out of that while he was still over there.”

Sellen says the main joy of meeting Jones has been the ability for the two to share stories and help relive their days in the military.

“We both have a common interest in knowing about the battle,” Sellen said. “We can always talk about that. It’s very helpful.”

Remembering the battle, and not just forgetting has always been important to Martin. In September, Martin returned with a group of veterans to Germany for the first time, and visited the places where he was captured during the war, along with concentration camps where Jewish people were kept by the Nazis.

“Remembering is very important for me,” Jones said. “When we visited the Holocaust museum, the man who gave us a tour was Jewish. I asked him, ‘how can you do this job?’ and he told me he had to remember. Jewish people, German people, everyone thanked us. That’s what makes it important.”

November 4, 2007: A man is shot in the leg outside of a nightclub in north Lawrence. The man was shot following an altercation outside of the club “AllStars,” and was later treated for gunshot wounds. The situation may sound like a one-time occurrence, but there have been multiple instances in recent years involving individuals carrying weapons near nightclubs.

According to data provided by the City of Lawrence Police Department, the number of weapon law violations in Lawrence has grown every year from 2002 to 2006. In 2002 there were 11 weapon law violations reported in Lawrence. This number rose to 28 by 2005, and there were a grand total of 36 violations reported in 2006. Through June of 2007 there were 18 weapon law violations. Data is only collected bi-annually, so information for the second half of 2007 is not yet available.

The rise in incidents involving guns in public places like bars and nightclubs have caused City of Lawrence officials as well as police to enact many new policies as to how to handle situations involving citizens with guns.

Lawrence Police Sgt. Paul Fellers says the rise in guns around clubs has been something that’s been building for many years.

“In the late ‘90s we say a steady rise in the amount of young people carrying guns willing to act out,” Fellers said. “We knew something needed to be done to help this problem.”

Fellers said the police department attempts to limit gun problems using a program called Gun Stoppers. The program is designed to get illegal guns off the street, by offering rewards for tips from citizens that may know of people carrying illegal weapons. Illegal weapons are not only limited to concealed weapons in illegal areas, but also guns such as sawed-off shotguns and fully automatic rifles. Citizens whose tips lead to the seizure of a weapon receive a $100 reward.

Jerry Little, Lawrence City Prosectuer, says that the gun problem at clubs in Lawrence can mostly be traced to a single club. The club is Last Call, located at 729 N.H. In 2006 shots were fired outside of Last Call, and according to Little, guns had frequently found outside of the club.

“For whatever reason, the clientele that Last Call brings in is primarily from Topeka and Kansas City," Little said. "And for whatever reason those people have had a tendency to bring guns.”

Last Call owner Dennis Steffes didn’t return my calls.

The primary step Lawrence officials have taken to curb weapon problems at clubs to date has been a city ordinance. In 2006, the Lawrence city commission passed ordinance 14-408, which made carrying a concealed weapon in or within 200 feet of any bar or nightclub illegal. The ordinance covers weapons on people as well as in vehicles. According to data from the Lawrence Municipal Court, there have been 22 instances in which people have been charged with carrying weapons in or near a bar since the ordinance was passed, with five leading to convictions. 11 of the cases are still pending, and the other six cases have either been dismissed or diverted. Lawrence Police have said the ordinance has helped keep Lawrence safe.

“In any situation where you’ve got that many people in a small area, having guns around is going to be dangerous,” Fellers said. “The city’s ordinance on carrying guns in or around bars has been of great help in keeping people safe. It has helped up a great deal.”

The next step the city took was to lobbying the state Alcoholic Beverage Control to have Last Call’s liquor license revoked. Each year, the city of Lawrence examines each establishment and makes a recommendation to the state ABC on whether or not to renew a club or bar’s liquor license for the next year. For the most part, licenses are always renewed. However the city decided Last Call hadn't done enough to keep the club safe.

“99 percent of the time the place is renewed,” Vice-mayor Michael Dever said. “But we felt like Last Call wasn’t doing all it could to be a safe place, so we made the recommendation that they have their license revoked.”

The decision to recommend Last Call's license not be renewed wasn't finished though. The ABC conducted its own investigation to decide whether of not Last Call would remain open. The ABC agreed, and after the investigation announced that the state would not renew Last Call’s liquor license on November 31. The ABC cited drug use inside the club as the reason for its license revocation, not weapons problems, claiming that the club couldn’t be held responsible for weapons found outside of a club.

While the ordinance regarding weapons near clubs is the only piece of legislation currently passed by the city, the city commission has considered a second step in attempt to keep weapons out of bars and clubs. In August, City Manager Dave Corliss suggested that the city adopt a system in which bars and clubs apply for a special use permit. In the case of Corliss’ idea, all bars and nightclubs in Lawrence would be required to apply for a special use permit in order to serve alcohol, operate late and have a certain amount of people in the establishment. The city would grant the special use permit if it saw fit, but would be able to revoke the permit if the city thought the club wasn’t doing all that was necessary to promote safety. If an establishment lost their special use permit, it would be forced to close immediately. Despite some support of the plan to license clubs with special use permits, the city commission decided unanimously to table the idea.

“I’m not a big fan of more government rules when we have a system now that should take care of it,” Dever said. “The concern is that the extra layer of rules won’t actually lead to any more compliance. It may just lead to more red tape.”

Dever did say that the idea of using special use permits would be revisited if problems persisted. Under the special use permit system a club’s license could be revoked for as little as one violation. Dever also said that the existing laws allowing the carry of guns would also hinder any more legislation the Lawrence could pass regarding the carrying of weapons.

“Carrying a concealed weapon with a permit is legal, so there’s very little we can do about that,” Dever said. “This limits us in other legislation we can pass.”