Desperate measures

What began as a student-led effort to represent student interests in the renovation project has evolved into a propaganda campaign, led by a student body president who has forgotten that his role is to represent students - not the administration.

Whether or not a $40 student fee is the best way to fund the project, ASUA President Gilbert Davidson has abandoned fair play in his attempts to convince the student body that $40 is the best, and only option.

All along, Davidson has supported a student fee as a way of ensuring that students have some control over the renovation project. At the same time, though, he said he would remain open to alternative plans that could save students money.

"If any student has a better approach, please let me know and we will address it and try to implement it," Davidson wrote in a Nov. 5 guest column for the Wildcat.

Ironically, that alternative came from Davidson's own Cabinet and he was less than willing to listen.

Cabinet members Ryan Anderson and Brook Rosenbaum last week suggested a plan to cut the proposed $40 fee in half by using $25 million in academic bonding already authorized by the Arizona State Legislature.

Davidson moved quickly to put a negative spin on the $20 fee proposal.

He brought in the University's Chief Budget Officer Dick Roberts to tell the student advisory committee that the plan would mean a loss of student control over the project.

It seems that Davidson and the administration have negotiated an exact price for representation: $40. But, he has never been able to expalain exactly what kind of control $40 buys.

The democratic process cannot succeed unless voters are informed and provided with more than one viewpoint to an issue. Although students are supposed to decide the fate of the referendum, Davidson is doing his best to block the free flow of information a nd to confuse voters.

When Anderson and Rosenbaum introduced the bonding alternative, Davidson asked the Wildcat to downplay the proposal. It's good that the student body president believes in the democratic process.

Davidson last week posted a message on the Wildcat's online chat board telling students that they aren't actually voting for a student fee.

"I want students to know that they are not voting, as of right now, to charge themselves a fee. They are voting to make the administration accountable and to generate money to decrease our proposed fee through fund raising."

Not so.

ASUA passed an amendment to the referendum, allowing a student committee to reduce the fee a year from now if the administration's fund-raising efforts are insufficient. But, the part about a $40 student fee remains intact.

Despite Davidson's efforts to mislead voters, students go to the polls on Nov. 18 and 19. His desperate actions have halted open discussion, ruining any possibility that a viable alternative may surface.