By Kelly LeFevre
Arizona Daily Wildcat
November 21, 1997

Referendum failed because it lacked details

Editor:

To ASUA and the Administration:

I would like to make a few comments on the Student Union referendum issue. I spoke with several people about the failed referendum, and the common sentiment I heard was this: "We haven't even gotten any information on what the Union will look like or what will be in it!" Gilbert Davidson was quoted in the article entitled "Unionreferendum fails" (Nov. 20) as saying "...The Student Union is important to all of us, but we want to find a better way to finance it." Financing is not the most important issue here! At least, not yet.

As an example of a better-presented building proposal, let's take the IIF. A picture of the building was published in the Wildcat earlier this semester. By now, many students have at least a sense of what the building will consist of. There has been no such attention given to a remodeled Union - no pictures, no names, and most importantly, no ideas about what the new Union will *BE* were given to the students.

If student input on new Union facilities is the reason we haven't heard anything about the proposed changes, then this input should have been gathered long before the referendum was even born. After all, how will we know how much the renovations will cost if we don't know what the students want in it?

This is why the referendum failed. I, and persons I've talked to, have no problem paying the $40 per semester for renovation of the Student Union. We just want to know what's in it for us. The students of this university will not write the administration a $31.5 million check without knowing SPECIFICALLY what it will go for.

Kelly LeFevre
Chemistry and Biochemistry senior