By John C.Thomas
Arizona Daily Wildcat
November 18, 1997

University should pay for safe buildings

Editor:

President Likins can advocate the construction of the IIF, which has virtually no student support, yet decline to advocate a student union project, which has nearly universal student support, on the premise that said support is not in compliance with his narrow definition of the concept. Is this a rhetorical gambit predicated upon the premise that students are inherently naive, or is it rank duplicity, customarily the exclusive purview of professional politicians, certainly not university presidents.

For President Likins to make the incredible leap of logic that failure to pass the Student Union referendum is tantamount to a statement of students' lack of support for the project is ablolutely ludicrous. I seriously doubt that there is a student on this campus who would not agree that the Student Union is no longer an asset to this campus but a detriment, a monument to wasted footage, an antiquated relic at best and, in the event of a catastrophic fire or seismic event, a death trap at worst. The fundamental question is that of upon whom financial responsibility for its renovation or replacement should fall, and that is the ONLY question being addressed in this referendum. When it is defeated, it will be because the student body, which may not be so naive after all, recognizes that this university and this state legislature, not the students, have a fiduciary responsibility to provide and maintain campus structures (including the student union) that are functional and SAFE.

And who is to pay for all this, you ask? How about the same pockets who are paying for the IIF that is wanted by no one but those seeking to embelish their own legacy.

John C.Thomas
Civil Engineering Senior