The mystery of The Northern Star dumping continues…

Problems began Oct. 31 when NIU Student Regent Bob Tisch discovered about 15 bundles of The Northern Star in a garbage dumpster at the Suburban Estates apartment complex.

Tisch and Student Association President Huda Scheidelman contacted Star Editor-in-Chief Dave Kirkpatrick after informing NIU President John La Tourette, and Tom Monteigel, Vice President of Development and University Relations.

“I want to assure our readers and advertisers, and anyone in the NIU community, that this is not part of our daily operations,” Kirkpatrick said.

The dumping seemed to be “a one-time isolated incident,” Monteigel said. Kirkpatrick, Star Adviser Jerry Thompson and newspaper employees are in charge of the matter, he said. “I personally am not going to go crawling through the bins” looking for newspapers, Monteigel said.

owever, last week SA Recycling Center employee Tom Kennedy signed a memo requested by Scheidelman which stated between 10 and 20 bundles of issue-date newspapers have been dumped at the center about once a week for the past 18 months.

“I have had no proof, one way or the other, who is doing the dumping,” Kirkpatrick said. The dumping might be caused by several factors, including overproduction of papers by the printers, dumping by persons other than Star employees and failure of employees to recirculate papers, Kirkpatrick said.

Circulation employees are instructed to redistribute bundles to areas of high readership, but “that didn’t happen at Suburban Estates,” Kirkpatrick said. The employees were reprimanded and will be fired if dumping continues, he said.

Kennedy’s memo said the dumping typically takes place between 10:15 a.m. and 11 a.m. However, circulation drivers are usually off work by 9 a.m., Kirkpatrick said. “I don’t feel it could have been our drivers,” he said.

“To be candid, I feel this is a move by certain members of the SA to discredit The Northern Star so the Star fee will be revoked when it next comes up for consideration. However, I don’t think it’s going to work,” Kirkpatrick said.

Scheidelman was unavailable for comment at press time.

The 1989 fall semester is the first time the Star has received any student fees. Students currently pay eight-cents per credit hour.