By Anna Sellas
Arizona Daily Wildcat
October 24, 1997

UA should cut loose Mount Graham's public relations shield

Editor:

It was with some amusement that I read the Oct. 14 article, "SEAC petitions Likins about telescope controversy."

The statement of UA's public relations hired gun, David Steele, though laughable, raises an interesting point. He suggests that the opposition has run out of options and the telescope project is a done deal. If Steele is indeed correct, the University of Arizona no longer needs his services and could spend the thousands per month that they are wasting on Strategic Issues Management Group (SIMG) on more important endeavors here on campus.

It also raises the even more relevant question of why the university needed an outside PR firm in the first place? If Mount Graham is the benign, ethically correct project that the UA claims, why do they need SIMG to give it a spin that sanitizes this cultural and environmental travesty?

It's time to divest from SIMG and let this project stand on its own dubious merits. After all, SIMG's own director confesses that they are no longer needed. Oops! Even David Steele tells the truth occasionally, though unintentionally.

Anna Sellas
Ecology and evolutionary biology senior