Today is the final day for students to cast their votes in the Student Association General Election. At 6 p.m., the polls will close, and a new president, vice president and treasurer, as well as SUNY SA delegates, will have been elected. The fate of The Spectrum will have been determined, as a referendum to raise The Spectrum Student Subscription Fee is also on the ballot.
The Spectrum, in its current form, will cease to exist should the referendum fail, either by being voted down by a majority of voters or by not garnering the 10 percent of the undergraduate population turnout required for making the vote official. Whether it means cutting the number of issues or completely reconfiguring the layout, next year's Spectrum would be a shell of its current self.
Questions regarding the need for asking more of students financially have been answered in these pages on several occasions in recent weeks; if you have not seen the coverage, visit http://spectrum.buffalo.edu/fee. There is little reason for an informed student to remain ignorant of our plight, but in short, we are facing a debt of $25,000 for the spring 2003 semester, stemming primarily from printing costs.
Various solutions proposed by members of the university community do not adequately address the problem at hand and are often shortsighted. If The Spectrum were to cut circulation, only pennies on the dollar would be saved. Cutting the cost of our wire service would reduce costs but would also reduce our ability to print coverage of regional and national events, an integral part of any newspaper.
The only way to measurably increase revenue and climb from mounting debt is to nominally charge each student a fee that is still markedly below any prescribed rate for a similar service. To stay afloat in today's current economic climate, we have been forced to ask each student for what amounts to 7.5 cents per issue.
This is the last chance the students have to protect a valuable resource. The time for action is now, and the students must speak up and save their independent voice. The Spectrum has always tried, insofar as we are able, to operate with the best intentions of the students in the forefront, and now it is time to reciprocate.
The Spectrum cannot operate in full capacity without assistance from students. This page has given more than enough information for students to make an educated decision; the only thing left is for them to actually make it to the booth. Go today to the Student Union Lobby, the Capen Hall Lobby or Diefendorf Hall and participate in one of the most truly American privileges available to us: voting.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
