Hill residents once again voted against adopting the Collegiate Readership Program, which provides free copies of USA Today and the Los Angeles Times to on-campus residents.
The referendum, which marked the third attempt in five years to adopt the program, proposed a $3 fee increase each quarter for on-campus residents, said Caitlin Harvey, chair of the On-Campus Housing Council.
Voting ended Thursday night, and the referendum fell short of the two-thirds necessary to pass.
She said the program would have been separate from OCHC’s regular programming funding, so the fee referendum would have been necessary to cover the cost of the program.
USA Today calculated the cost of the program by analyzing the daily take rate of papers during the four-week trial, said Karen Hedges, OCHC adviser.
Harvey said at a projected annual cost of $9 a resident, the annual cost of the program would be approximately $90,000, which is more than OCHC’s annual budget of $60,000, reserved for programs such as Casino Night, All Hill Halloween and other events.
The council hoped for high turnout because residents voted on the referendum as well as the Student Leader elections for their respective buildings, simultaneously online for the first time, Harvey said.
Hedges said 18 percent of Hill residents voted, with 53 percent voting for the referendum, short of the required two-thirds.
Harvey said there was a trial period for the program during 10th and finals week of winter quarter and the first two weeks of spring quarter.
She added that the council, which is comprised of appointed commissioners and external vice presidents from each building, received feedback from residents before endorsing the program.
Stephanie Dong, Rieber Hall external vice president and an OCHC member, said she supported the program.
“A lot of people see the referendum as (only) an increase in fees, but dismiss the rest of it,” she said. “They don’t understand what it’s going to do for the campus.”
But Adam McCrory, a second-year music history and political science student who served on OCHC last year, said while he likes the program, he believes an additional increase in housing fees is unnecessary.
“(OCHC is) being a little irresponsible with finance and budgeting if the first alternative is asking for more money. … The problem here is that we pay a lot. Housing fees are high enough already.”
Though UCLA Student Media, which oversees publication of the Daily Bruin, had previously opposed the program because of the possible threat to student readership, Student Media Director Arvli Ward said members of the Communication Board endorsed the latest proposal. Individual entities within Student Media, including the Daily Bruin, did not take any stance on the issue.
Ward said if the referendum had passed, Student Media would have been able to establish a business relationship with a major newspaper and USA Today would have provided resources and educational benefits. No direct funds from the fees would have gone toward any Student Media productions.
Hedges added that the program has previously gone unendorsed by OCHC because of a lack of support from Student Media and the Los Angeles Times.
Over 200 colleges and universities participate in the Collegiate Readership Program, which was founded by USA Today in 1997 at Pennsylvania State University, according to Daily Bruin archives.