USAC approves fee referendum for Bruin Bash

Undergraduate students will be asked to vote on an about $4 yearly fee increase to fund the Bruin Bash concert and the Enormous Activities Fair in the upcoming spring elections.

The Undergraduate Students Association Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to add the fee increase referendum to the May ballot.

If approved by student voters, the fee would raise about $80,000 in the next year to create a fund called the “Bruin Bash Concert and Enormous Activities Fair Fund”. The proposed fee increase is $1.33 per quarter – $1 would go toward the new fund and $0.33 would be returned back to undergraduate students through financial aid.

The annual Bruin Bash includes the Enormous Activities Fair, a Welcome Back Concert, a movie and a dance and lounge for students.

At the USAC meeting, councilmembers said extra money from the fee increase would help stabilize funding for Bruin Bash and make planning easier at a minimal additional cost to students.

The fee will pass if the referendum earns a majority vote and if there is a 20 percent voter turnout.

USAC also voted 7-6-0 Tuesday to reject a separate proposed referendum for a $10 quarterly fee increase. The fee would have raised money to fund several on-campus organizations and programs that address issues such as campus retention, campus climate and access to education.

Discussions  between the students who proposed the referendum and some council members who opposed the referendum were heated during the meeting.

The council was evenly split 6-6-0 when the referendum came to a vote.

USAC President David Bocarsly gave the tiebreaking vote to turn down the referendum.

The council’s vote was met with dismay by the referendum’s proponents, who said they will try to garner the signatures they need to put the referendum on the ballot without having to go through USAC.

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23 Comments

  1. I heard something about giving money to Greek programming in the 2nd referendum too. What’s up with that? And doesn’t the CPO already have a stable source of funding? I swear I’ve been paying student fees into that every quarter. Where did it all go and who’s monitoring it?

    1. If you’re interested in the funding of the CPO, maybe you should go there and pose your concerns to the student leadership. They are accessible and will be able to address all of your concerns.

      1. But the proposed referendum DID include funds for the greek system. Although, I am not opposed to this, I certainly understood this as a tired political move by the CPO people to make sure that their referendum passed.

        Funny though, the multicultural CPO people get mad when the Greeks through an ethnic-themed party, yet they’re wiling to do behind the door deals with the Greek system in order to get their support. That’s just low.

  2. So the Bruin Bash referendum is asking for $1.33 per quarter (not including summer) to amount to ~$4 a year (with $3 going to Bruin Bash, and $1 going to financial aid). The other rejected Wellness proposal asked for $10 per quarter (including summer) to amount to an additional $40.00 a year.

  3. This is what happens when students elect a Greek/Know-Nothing slate to run student government. Raising fees for social events which are already plentiful while refusing to fund truly co-curricular programs. Where are you, Students First!?

    1. This is what happens when VSU, AISA, and PISA start drama with the SF! coalition and air the dirty laundry. This is called politics. They started it, now they have to deal with it.

      1. Aren’t you airing out the dirty laundry by bringing up something that happened almost a year ago. I think that laundry has long been washed, dried, folded, and put away in the closet for storage.

  4. As an alum, and previous CPO affiliate student, I am happy that the latter referendum did not get enough votes. One must be critical of the current funding of the CPO before the department can go ahead and ask students for more funds.

    1. It’s disappointing to see how easily you have fallen for the stereotypes about people of color. You’re so caught up in self-hatred that you are willing to justify a conservative student government majority who acted in a bigoted self-righteous way.

      Your condition is called Internalized racism. Read more about it and maybe you’ll be able to recover from it.

    2. Are people of color dealing with so much internalized hatred and colonization that we have decided to attack the CPO, the ONE place that students of color are able to thrive in. did you all not see last nights council attack? that was AN ATTACK ON PEOPLE OF COLOR! and yet you still oppose this referendum? Dear people of color: we need to WAKE UP! all of our bickering is allowing a white conservative majority to come to power and shut down our initiatives that support OUR communities. I left last night feeling completely disheartened by USAC and now I am even more disheartened by members of my own community who use the same rhetoric as USAC to try to make sure this referendum fails. but at the end of the day, say all you want, cause #itscoming !

      1. Don’t try to school me on the politics of colonization and internalized racism, especially if you think CPO is the only place which allows for you to explore what that means. Tony, the Director of CPO, has repeatedly mentioned that he intends to run CPO has a business. You can talk about colonization, but practice capitalism, all you are doing is looking like a hypocritical fool. I love the projects in the CPO, and spent all of my undergrad working/volunteering for them. But, my generation ran PLEDGE so that we wouldn’t be in this financial mess. So we can prioritize our access, retention, and community service projects. NOT, so more interns could be hired, and create a larger bureaucratic fiasco. So please, don’t come at me trying to talk to me about colonization, because the CPO is perpetuating that through its existence.

        Lastly, the whole #itscoming campaign is responding to a feckless USAC vote. If you truly cared about your community and your project, you would be organizing a real campaign, or perhaps you should get mad at the Mother Organizations that wrote the stupid letter on the Daily Bruin last year as to why Students First! was not together anymore.

        It’s not coming, it already came and you missed the memo. So now you’re just riding the wave. That is what I call colonization.

        1. If you are willing to name names, be open with who you are. It’s embarrassing to see alumni who haven’t moved on. If you have time to comment on this article and to attack staff of color you have too much time on your hands and are too involved in the drama. Stay out and move on!

          You are not part of the solution, you’re the problem.

          1. It is evident, per your lack of understanding of community, that you too are not part of the solution, but rather a symptom of the CPO problem. Alumni have always played a critical role in the development of campaigns, elections, and referendums. The antagonistic attitude towards alumni (critical of the CPO) has only been visible very recently.

            But as one of few black alumni, a donor to UCLA, I have every right to keep updated on UCLA news and have the right to comment on these articles. So instead of trying to silence me, let’s have an honest dialogue about what the true problems are.

            This began to erupt when Tony became CPO director, and many of the Mother Organizations did not like the direction in which he was taking the department. The fact that Project 1 (the only LGBTQ project in CPO) pulled out speaks volumes of the institutional challenges the CPO is struggling with. The fact that not all of the Mother Organizations did not support this referendum just shows how divided the CPO is. There are some internal healing that the CPO must process before it should ask the rest of the student body for more funding.

  5. What does Bruins United stand for anymore? Do they just stand for anti-SF!(or whatever they call themselves now) initiatives because that’s what was done in the past? They don’t stand for retention, access, affordability, diversity…. the equal funding thing is dated…. what do they stand for? What do they work for and rally behind? With this vote politics were at play and not true representation.

    1. The CPO doesn’t stand for affordability and retention if they’re trying to charge students about $40 per year to fund projects that will not increase in outreach, but rather maintain them at the current status quo.

  6. The other comments below are making it clear that those who supported these 2 fee proposals split along party lines. The way I see it, both parties suck for trying to raise our fees at all. I am a BROKE COLLEGE STUDENT, I just know that both fee-supporters have their self-righteous reasons for supporting either of their proposals but the bottom line is that you’re both wrong because as a student I don’t want to pony-up more money for either of these fees. You all screech laboriously against UCOP when their office so much as proposes to move fees by a toe-higher, but $4 or $10 seem okay? Sure, continue voting in fees that future Bruins will have to pay because you will have already graduated . . . this is the definition of tying our own noose.

  7. The main issue isn’t about the money here. The issue is that USAC did not vote the referendum down, they voted to keep it off the ballot, effectively taking away the right of students to choose whether or not to support it. Students deserve to make up their own minds, whether in support of the referendum or not. Taking away this right is taking away the effectiveness of the election and essentially claiming that students cannot decide for themselves.

  8. I find that the CPO referendum not only completely encourages reckless spending but does so at a significant cost to the entire student body with little benefit to the same student body, in stark contrast to the Bruin Bash fee which not only benefits a far larger number of the undergraduate student body at a significantly lower cost

    Furthermore, why do THESE organizations deserve more funding than equally hard-working and worthwhile projects? There are so many organizations on campus dedicated to helping others yet they’re not being included?

    Finally, the USAC council has every right to turn down this referendum since they were elected into office, therefore they’re speaking with the student voice. Before the tired “they ran unopposed so they weren’t really elected” argument comes out, remember that they never CHOSE to run unopposed. Any student has the right to run for office and the fact that no one else DID shouldn’t be used as a way to attack students that care enough about the campus to run for USAC office. If it happens that they get enough signatures to get this referendum on the ballot, that’s great and shows that the student body does care enough this referendum to make a difference. In the meantime, let’s not penalize our officers who voted based on their what they felt was right for the ENTIRE UCLA community instead of being bullied into putting another fee increase on the ballot.

    1. Please explain to me how bruin bash affects more students than does this referendum? Especially when this referendum is trying to create funds for multiple student groups not just affiliated with the CPO. And when resources like the cpo computer lab, test bank, writing success program, and the van rides are the some of the most over utilized student services used by more than just cpo students. 1 in 3 undergrads use the computer lab, WSP is overcompensating for UCLA writing services that has been cut.

      Bruin Bash is a big UCLA tradition that the university will find funding for because it goes with it’s namesake, however, I don’t think we can say the same for the ideas proposed on the referendum, which has been historically proven.

      At the end of the day, USAC allowed for a bruin bash referendum to go on the ballot, which i can assure you, not all of UCLA are in agreement with. But a second referendum that again, probably not all students are in agreement with is not allowed to be heard? tell me how that makes sense? USAC should allow for students to make up their own mind, instead of just pushing through their own referendum that they wrote up.

      I’m not saying that people need to agree with either referendum, but it not ok for a large portion of UCLA students to be silenced by students who are supposed to be giving them a voice.no one should be silenced, the student body should have to make the decisions for themselves.

      1. I’m not saying Bruin Bash is more IMPORTANT than any of CPO’s program. They’re great and should definitely stick around. However, we need to consider fiscal sustainability. How is CPO receiving an extra million-plus dollars a year going to solve the problems? In addition, why is it certain programs deserve the money but not others? It’s unfortunate that the state is in the current financial position that it is but everyone is hurting, not just CPO. Students are already facing increasing fees and an extra $30-40 is a significant amount of money The BB referendum is $4 and helps to sustain any event that costs the university a significant amount of money is.

        I honestly don’t see it as USAC “silencing” a student community. The council’s job is to speak for the student body, similar to how our senators and representatives work. That’s their job. If every community got to put a referendum that benefitted their group, then the ballot would be extremely time-consuming, leading to a probable decrease in already low voter turnout.

        1. i asked how does it affect more students, not how it’s more important. secondly, cpo would not be getting a million plus. if we were to look at the language… the total gross would only be around 810,000. to be split between all line items. secondly, if we read the language, you will see that funds for be created that the entire student population can tap into, including groups not affiliated with the cpo. by that vote, they excluded a portion of the student body that they represent. one of their last comments in that meeting was they don’t believe students will be able to read this information and make a decision by voting, which calls into question their own election process. if the council had simply looked at the language and ulimately decided that it wasn’t ready that would be fine. however they called into questions our efforts done not just on this referendum but efforts that historically students have been working on for 2 decades. they called into question why we even took the time to write it. and that especially after passing bruin bash and saying “just let the students decide on bruin bash” but not giving us the same treatment during the meeting is being silenced. We walked in there knowing that we could be rejected, thats an understood part of the game. And we are collecting signatures as i write this. however, we were treated differently and that was made clear at the meeting. our predecessors work and the efforts they’ve made to the initiatives on the referendum were called into question. and that is not ok.

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