ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: What's On Your Mind?
SOURCE: RAY REED
Q: What was built in Atlanta especially for the Olympics besides the stadium, such as dormitories, and what use will be made of them once the Olympics are over?
L.W., Roanoke
A: The other major additions are Centennial Park, where the bomb exploded, and the Aquatics Center on Georgia Tech's campus. Centennial Park's 21 acres will become a state park, free and open to the public.
Other permanent additions include the beach volleyball venue in Jonesboro, which becomes the only permanent site for the sport in the United States. Beach volleyball usually is played with mobile bleachers and trucked-in sand.
A football stadium has been erected at Morris Brown College in Atlanta. It's the field hockey venue now, but later it will serve four small schools.
Morehouse College gets a new 5,000-seat basketball arena where early-round games have been played during the Olympics.
At Stone Mountain, a new tennis center will allow the Atlanta area to host major professional tournaments. It has 13 other tennis courts that will be open to the public. Stone Mountain also gets to keep the Olympics' new archery range.
The Wolf Creek Shooting Complex, site of pistol, trap and skeet events, has been improved with more ranges.
Altogether, Atlanta built 12 venues, some of them temporary, and expanded several sites. Total construction cost: $514 million.
Georgia Tech comes out with $47 million of new stuff. The Aquatics Center will lose some of the 14,000 Olympic seats but will retain its two pools and enough seating for national swimming events.
The university, which is serving as the Olympic Village, got 17 new residential buildings and renovation of existing dorms and fraternity and sorority houses.
It's not true that the new housing facilities all sank into the ground. Only one did - and it dropped only 9 inches.
Phone slammers
Q: I was solicited recently by one of the major phone companies to join their long-distance service. I asked that they absolutely not switch me, but I said they could mail me some information. Shortly after that I was notified that I had been switched to their service. Do I have any recourse?
K.R., Roanoke
A: Switching long-distance service without the customer's permission is called "slamming," and it happens all the time, said Caroline Eames at the consumer advocacy group Call for Action Inc. in Bethesda, Md.
Your recourse: Contact your local telephone carrier, which is Bell Atlantic in the Roanoke area. The local carrier can switch you back to the long-distance company you choose.
Here's a tip: Never use the word "yes" or any other affirmative response in replying to a telephone sales call, unless you want what's being offered.
Have a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Call us at 981-3118. Or, e-mail RayR@Roanoke.Infi.Net. Maybe we can find the answer.
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