I'm writing to express my disappointment and frustration over newly elected SA President George Pape's decision to seek withdrawal of SA funds from the Sub-Board I venture. I had thought SA's crap would have finished with the exit of Chris Oliver, but it seems it has just begun.
What is the purpose of SA's withdrawal from Sub-Board? Well, they contribute more funds than the other governments to the group, and yet have less representation on the executive board. This is a legitimate issue. However, the monetary numbers they claim to give to Sub-Board are exaggerated, as shown in The Spectrum article that ran in Wednesday's issue (April 23).
Sub-Board does not get credit for Spring Fest or Fall Fest - that credit is given to SA. The Student Association runs articles about it in their magazine Visions, and the only connection that Sub-Board has to the concerts is that UUAB helps to market the events. Still, it is mostly an SA-run event - not a Sub-Board event. Thus, those "funds" should not be considered when looking at how much SA contributes to the Sub-Board budget.
So there is an issue - SA is mildly underrepresented on the Sub-Board executive board. So is the intelligent response to pull funds and, in essence, force the closure of Sub-Board? No. There are other alternatives. First off, increase the number of seats on the executive board to 15 and give this extra seat to SA. Since there are currently 14 seats, this is not a big increase. This would give SA a (sizeable) seven-seat minority on the board. Also, SA can decrease the amount of money they give to Sub-Board to match the percentage of representation they receive. There is no reason to pull all the funding out of Sub-Board.
What would pulling the funding mean? Well, on paper, it would mean that Sub-Board would essentially cease to exist, and the services would merely be transferred to SA, and, as Pape says, they will not diminish. But what this means in actuality is that for those services not to suffer, the other groups who have a vested interest would have to funnel those funds to SA and let SA run the show the way they want to. What it boils down to is that SA wants to control everything that it puts money into, which would make sense if SA were up to the challenge, which I strongly do not believe they are.
I put more trust into a group of professional, full-time staff handling such sensitive and confidential matters like HEHS' pregnancy and HIV-testing than I do to a bunch of students who likely will not hold the same post for anymore than two years. Also, there is a concept called "over-extending," which involves a person or group spreading their time, energy and money so thin between all of his various ventures that all of them start to suffer. This could create a serious problem when legal issues arise, like confidentiality issues or slip-ups from the HIV or pregnancy testing, or with the recent Internet broadcast issues that have been troublesome for WRUB. The professional, full-time Sub-Board staff are far more qualified to handle such issues, rather than Pape and his SA cronies.
Finally, SA is acting inappropriately and in a childish manner. Instead of going through the proper channels like they should be, Pape merely comes out and states that SA is very seriously considering pulling funding. I'm quite sure that if this were taken through the proper route, some type of arrangement or agreement could be reached where that would not be necessary.
Pape is right about something: "The status quo is no longer acceptable in my mind." I couldn't agree more. I tire of picking up The Spectrum every other day to see what kind of tyranny SA is exercising in a particular week. I tire of SA trying to be the only organization that controls how student money is spent. That's not the way it should be. The student body needs to be clear: We give SA the money from our Mandatory Student Activity Fees to do a lot of things for us, but there is no problem with allowing others to handle the burden of running some of the most sensitive and important services for the student body.
SA needs to learn to back off, and we need to tell them that enough is enough. Don't let SA pull the plug on Sub-Board I, because after it's gone, we won't be able to get it back. And if these services do start to suffer (or disappear completely), there won't be much we can do about it.
What can you do? Write a brief note explaining the reasons why SA should not pull out of Sub-Board and drop it off at the SA offices.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
