Andrew Jones Demand an end to
Entrapment! E-mail Jones at ajones@media.ucla.edu.
Click Here for more articles by Andrew Jones
Student Empowerment! had a prime chance to live up to their
comical name at last week’s council meeting ““ and
failed as usual. This time, the council could have presented an
issue of student government funding to undergraduates during the
spring quarter elections when Commissioners Rahul Marwah, Sunny
Sanchez, Peter Trinh and Ryan Wilson were proposing a $5 fee
increase to be decided by student referendum.
Because of admitted miscommunication by the commissioners, an
agenda item to discuss and vote on adding the referendum to the
ballot was not submitted by the Thursday deadline. So with Student
Empowerment! on their minds, officers Bryant Tan, Evan Okamura,
Kennisha Austin, Cindy Mosqueda, Theo Apostol and Elizabeth Trang
voted against the motion (made at the start of the Tuesday meeting)
to add the referendum item to the agenda.
Let’s break that down: Student Entrapment! actually voted
down the mere request to add an agenda item for council discussion
and vote. Adding the item to the agenda would only have meant that
the referendum would have been discussed in council session, with a
vote then held on whether to place it on the ballot. The referendum
would only have been added to the ballot with council approval. And
even then, all students would have the final say on whether to add
the $5 fee.
But Student Entrapment! wouldn’t even vote to hear council
discussion on the item. The general excuse was that by adding the
item to the agenda at the start of the meeting, council members and
their constituency were not given enough time to consider the
language of the referendum, thereby preventing students from giving
input. Student Empowerment? Their actions on Tuesday are much
closer to Student Disenfranchisement!
What was so dangerous that seven members of the council were
afraid to even allow discussion of the issue? The proposal itself
isn’t deceptive: with the $51 Student Union Fee set to drop
to $7.50 after this year, students will in essence receive a $43.50
savings. The simple idea by the four commissioners ““ why not
let students vote on increasing that newly lowered fee from $7.50
to $12.50? Out of every $5, there would be:
“¢bull; $1 for the USA Fee for USAC-wide programming
“¢bull; $1 for the USA Programming Fund for registered student
organizations, USAC offices and commissions
“¢bull; $1 for Campus Events Commission
“¢bull; $1 for Cultural Affairs Commission
“¢bull; $.50 for Student Welfare Commission
“¢bull; $.50 for Community Service Commission.
The new fee is no magic bullet for what ails this campus, but
the commissioners I spoke to have a first-hand understanding of how
funding affects them.
When I spoke with him after the meeting, cultural affairs
commissioner Rahul Marwah gave the example of noon-time bands
““ when was the last time you’d heard of any of them?
Indie bands are great, but “name” bands are better.
Ryan Wilson’s Campus Events Commission could potentially do
great things with that extra $1, as could Marwah’s Cultural
Affairs Commission. For any student who enjoys the yearly
Jazz/Reggae Festival, or just appreciates that UCLA students put on
a event of its magnitude, the vote by Student Entrapment! was a
major dis-Empowerment.
Marwah has ensured that this year’s Jazz/Reggae will be
free for students, but predicts that this is the last year that
this will be possible. Perhaps worse is that every year,
top-caliber acts for the festival cost more. With fixed yearly
funding, the CAC is forced to dip further down into the talent
barrel, producing an event a shadow of its former self.
Of course, the basic problem for all the USAC commissions is
simple economics ““ every year, their funding dollar buys less
and less product, be it Daily Bruin ads or musical acts.
Conversely, every year, the student fees are less and less of a
real financial burden for the students who pay them.
The votes by officers Tan, Okamura, Austin, Mosqueda, Apostol
and Trang ignore the reality of inflation. But given the Student
Entrapment! love for all things socialist, their dim understanding
of economic reality isn’t surprising.
The stated reasons by Entrapment! members for their refusal to
discuss the referendum are as valueless as their yearly retreats
that our mandatory student fees finance. The concern for student
input is ironic ““ there isn’t a more complete way of
soliciting student input on an issue than putting it before the
voters’ approval. Student Entrapment’s vote to refuse
consideration of the item again proves their self-serving
hypocrisy.
There would be little to say against Student Entrapment! had
they at least added referendum discussion to the agenda, regardless
of the subsequent vote. Their vote against even adding a discussion
to the agenda was disrespectful to the commissioners and all
students. As Rahul Marwah said, all they wanted was a chance to let
students decide the issue.