Legislation a bad deal for environmentalists

The Center for Biological Diversity supports conservation of Arizona's State Lands, but the proposal Tim Belshe laid a load about in his March 4 column is clearly unacceptable from environmental, economic and public-interest perspectives. He should read this radical State Lands proposal.

This bad State Lands deal was developed in closed-door sessions between sprawl developers, the cattlemens' association and a couple of "environmentalists" who lack broad support.

When word got out about the wheeling and dealing going on, many groups across the state voiced concerns about the deal killing points ÷ land exchanges, grazing lease giveaways and future conservation moratoriums ÷ but were ignored and had no seat at the table in this insider process.

Belshe is wrong with his claim that groups now opposed helped draft the measure. This is not true, and had he called us he would've found that out.

This bad deal seeks to change our state Constitution, to reverse an Arizona Supreme Court decision and eliminate competitive bidding for use of State Lands, cheating Arizona's school children of revenue.

Even Belshe should see that giving a monopoly to one use (livestock production) is unfair and anti-free market.

Citizens' groups and even other ranchers who may want to pay more to schools and better care for the land would be frozen out of bidding on State Lands leases.

That makes no sense. Also, contrary to Belshe's load, the deal has no meaningful requirements for entrenched State Lands ranchers to better protect leased land. This is a major problem, as much of Arizona's State Land is now badly overgrazed and in need of restoration.

Another problem, while conserving at most only 700,000 out of 8,900,000 acres, this proposal would facilitate public land exchanges to further sprawl and place a 25-year block on any future State Lands conservation. It is a bad deal and should be rejected.

The Center for Biological Diversity is sincerely interested in State Lands reforms to better protect our wild landscapes and support education.

We welcome any opportunity to work on a proposal that can win broad public support, but are committed along with our many allies to stopping this bad State Lands proposal.

Daniel Patterson
Center for Biological Diversity

ASUA keeps democracy out of the voting process

In the style of Noam Chomsky, I am a linguist who is very interested in politics. And, like any loyal supporter of a democratic republic, I exercised my right and responsibility to vote in last week's ASUA election.

I was very surprised at what I found. I had only three options for the presidential race: Chapman, Shapiro or no vote at all! What's up with that? What if I don't approve of either candidate? What if I want to be a rogue voter? What if I want to write about my eccentric voting style? I have no options in this system!

ASUA needs to incorporate some form of "write-in" candidate in the online voting process. This way, I am not stifled by the "two party" system.

What do you say ASUA? Bring back some old-school democracy to the process!

Matthew Montgomery
linguistics senior

Basketball games lack other schools' spirit

I would like to bring attention to the lack of excitement I see at men's basketball games. Don't get me wrong; I believe our fans have plenty of excitement in them. But when compared to other schools, I don't think we make the grade.

For a nationally-ranked team, I feel the fans can make a better presence on the court than we do. I happened to catch a couple of college basketball games on TV a few weekends ago, and I noticed a lot of things.

At Duke University, their student section jumps up and down and screams "ohhhhh" every time their opponent has the ball ÷ even if their team is up by 20 points and the game is almost over. In past years, I've seen our student section sit down when the game was just about over. Also, I happened to catch St. Joseph's University play Xavier University.

Xavier is a team with a 9-6 record and all throughout the game, its fans were cheering and on their feet ÷ not to mention that all student sections seem to wear colored wigs and paint their faces. I have not seen a lot of that in recent months.

Did you know that the University of Missouri has a decibel meter on the court? I thought it would be cool if the fans could see how loud they were.

I do appreciate the band, the Zona Zoo Keepers, the cheerleading squad and, of course, Wilbur, for continuing to keep the students motivated and excited to watch the game.

But if all the fans made a group effort, they could create something so intense that words would never describe it. I know I'll have my game face on · will you?

Tom Schultze
chemistry junior