Ruston Daily Leader (Newspaper) - November 7, 2003, Ruston, Louisiana Engaging news WEEKEND EDITION The Ruston V Daily Leader RHS runners Lady Cats tops in cross See page L 109 267 Developer Referendum keyed decision By Mary Margaret van Diest Staff Writer With the recent confirmation that The Shane Morrison Companies LLC plans to develop a 125acre site just off Interstate 20 comes credit for the Restaurant Refer which makes it pos sible for restau rants to serve a wide range of al coholic bever Developer Shane Morrison said the passage of the restau rant referen dum in Novem ber 2002 opened the The passage of that measure made my situa tion just that much he There is a direct syn ergy between movie theaters and restau rants and my personal opinion is that I never could have gotten commitments from the restaurants I am working with if this area had been Morrison said he has a colleague who is building a theater in Gulf which is in a dry That developer has been unable to attract a single restau rant according to When we first started looking at Ruston with just the theater in mind we felt we had an adequate market to sup port Morrison With the ad dition of the restaurants we now have a very good market instead of just an ad equate mar The local Restaurant Referendum no doubt played a vital role in getting the restau rants and our initial idea to include a lot more busi The restaurants are a very im portant part of the whole de I of the develop ment includes 20 acres for restaurants and the Riley Company of Loui siana has been hired to begin engi neering work and Steve Sullivan of Dal las has been employed as the architect on the Restaurant Referendum Chairman Mickey McHale said he was very excited about decision and looked here is a direct synergy between movie theaters and restaurants and my personal opinion is that I never could have gotten commitments from the restaurants I am working with if this area had been Shane Morrison Morrison Theatres forward to the many benefits the develop ment will bring to the whole The results of the Restaurant Refer indicated that 58 percent of the population wanted to give restaurants what they needed in order to offer more beverage McHale My hope is that when all is said and done that 100 percent of the population will agree that a lot of good has come from the passage of that During the campaign for passage of the Restaurant supporters insisted that the major issue was the fu ture economic development of the entire The movie theater and the restaurants and the rest of this specific development will be very important in our efforts to recruit new industries and businesses as well as keep the ones we already McHale All employers re search what is available for their employ ees in a certain area before they make the decision on where to This means that our residents and visitors will no longer have to go to Monroe or Shreve port to have access to a wide choice of movies and McHale said the Morrison develop ment is just the beginning of what is in store for the This is a great start to what is in the planning McHale The City of Ruston is working on the possibility of having a full time economic development position Louisiana Tech University is providing all kinds of support programs Bridge to close Beginning Monday the Bonner Street Bridge will be closed for 120 days due to Flu shots available at Health Unit The Lincoln Parish Health Unit will offer flu shots from 8 to 3 and Cost is or is covered by Medicare or Absentee voting on going through Saturday Absentee voting for the 15 Gen eral Election will be held in the Lincoln Parish Registrar of Voters through Friday from un til and on from until Since procedures for absentee voting are a little different from election day voters are asked to bring their Voter Identification Card as well as a picture to absentee The election in Lincoln Parish will be a runoff for governor and a runoff for insurance com missioner Veterans Day celebration planned The 16th Annual Veterans Day Pro gram will be held at the Arcadia School 967 Daniel at The program will honor all branches of the military and is sponsored by the Bienville Parish Veterans Day Commit Tech Poinsettia Show to be held 2 The Louisiana Tech Poinsettia Show and Auction will be held at 6 2 in Lomax A show and will begin at 6 and the auction of choice plants will begin at 7 Sale begins For more information call 2573275 or Leader photo by JAMIE LUNT is serve pancakes The Ruston Kiwanis Club had its annual Pancake Day at the Ruston Civic Center Friday The event raises money for local organiza Pictured are from left 3rd District Attorney Bob Lauren Eaton and Emerald Proceeds will benefit such causes as Boys and Girls Dixie League Girls Softball Drug Abuse Resistance Methodist Childrens Med Christian Community Action and Lincoln Council on The event will be held again today Leader photo by RICK HOHLT The entrance of the proposed million movie theater and restaurant development is shown Preliminary work on the project is expected to begin within the next and services to aid area economic devel and Lincoln Parish officials are interested in new ways they can aid eco nomic McHale said a lot of positive things have happened in just the last two years with the passage of the Restaurant Refer being one of the most We will have so much more to offer residents and visitors McHale And this new development coming right after the development of Squire Creek Country Club helps to fill in a lot of pieces in the McHale said he wanted to thank all of the people who worked on the Restau rant Referendum with a special mention of the contribution of Chamber of Commerce President Andy Halbrook said when the idea behind the Restaurant Referendum was devel spearheading this type of develop ment was the Shane Morrison said it best Halbrook When the Restaurant Referendum he made his deci sion to move The whole focus of the referendum was to attract on this type of busts burglary ring By George Graham Staff Writer A pair of alleged burglars responsible for a string of thefts in the have been arrested by Lincoln Parish Sheriffs Between them the pair burglarized two a private residence and a gov Tiffany Renee 681 Braswell has been charged with simple burglary of The Old Feed simple burglary of Pulpwood Producers and burglary of an inhabited dwell ing Doss was arrested at 173 Osborne the residence of her Gregory DeWayne Scott has been charged with burglary of an inhabited simple burglary of The Old Feed simple burglary of Pulpwood Producers simple bur glary of Simsboro Town possession of cocaine with intent to pos session of marijuana with intent to dis tribute and possession of a Bond has not been set on any of the All recovered property is being processed and released to the rightful An unidentified victims gun collec silver and an Eastern Star Ring were Im just so happy to get my property the victim The deputies were absolutely on top of it They Leader photo by GEORGE GRAHAM Deputy Detective Roland Kay helps an unidentified victim identify stolen talked with me every day and kept me informed and they told me they might possibly recover these things and by they You just dont know how proud I am of the sheriffs They are so Student files suit against Tech By Adam Terry News Editor Price 500 Copyright Ruston One year after a fire destroyed worth of possessions in his Cottingham Residence Hall Anthony Stonaker has filed a law suit against Louisiana Tech University for personal property dam The fire was started by a window unit air accord ing to fire marshals The Office of Risk which is also named in the law filed a report which attributed the cause of the fire to power strips and extension Stonaker filed the suit against Tech through Jonesboro attorney James The suit does not list an estimate to the amount of damages Stonaker is but Stonaker said after his insurance Liberty covered a per centage of the Tech owes him around 1 lost everything in the Stonaker I own a computer business and had a lot of equipment in my room that I had to I had to replace some the equipment immediately on credit which cause several thousand dollars of Stonaker said Tech did compensate him for his residential rent for the rest of the academic I did not want to file this Stonaker But this was my last Stonaker said after the he had meetings with both Tech President Dan Reneau and Vice President of Student Affairs Jim King did not comment on the pending law The Leader tried to contact Frank a claims supervisor for the Office of Risk but Foret was un available for WEATHER of lows in the mid Saturday Mostly cloudy with highs in the upper INDEX Page 2 PageS 1115 6 4 7 Page 10 2 QUOTE Private opinion creates public That is why private and private and private conversation are so terrifyingly Jan English poet Call 2553071 TODAY to receive home delivery of The Ruston Daily Leader ONLY for 4 months
