By Derick Lennox:
Don’t be duped into raising your own student fees.
The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) is a campus ballot measure that attempts to mislead students into funding a $269,000 special interest slush fund. A history of unfulfilled promises at other UC campuses has proven that for TGIF, “greed” has become the new “green.” UC Davis would not be the first campus to be let down by TGIF’s big promises. The same program has been implemented at other UC schools, such as Berkeley, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz. In each case, voters were lured by the chance to “develop, propose, and enact sustainable projects” using the collected student fees. In the past two years, TGIF has racked up over a half-million dollars in unused grant money at these three UC campuses. In hindsight, that money should have stayed in students’ pockets to pay for the increasing price of education.
We should learn from others’ mistakes.
Less than half of the proposed Davis fees will go to student grants. The rest will be spent on a $40,000 staff position, while an estimated $30,000 would be needed for office and accounting services, according estimates from a Student Services and Fees Administrative Advisory Committee meeting. Thankfully, the most useful misdirection of “green” funds would be the 25 percent spent on university-required return-to-aid, assisting PELL-grant eligible students. And with the average public university student graduating with over $10,000 in debt, why not spend all the money on financial assistance instead?
In tough economic times, only greedy special interests would want to tax us doubly. Thank goodness, this is one fee hike to which we can say “no.” After all, James Quinn, professor and co-director of the information center for the environment, reminds us that UC Davis receives more environmental research funding than almost any other school in the country.
Since 2002, statewide UC fees have more than doubled. And already, UC Davis has the highest campus-based fees in the system—three-times greater than at campuses like UCLA. Budget shortfalls almost forced us to say farewell to many needed services last spring at the Learning Skills Center, financial aid office, and campus recreation (just to name a few). Despite expecting another fee hike next year, TGIF makes no effort to respect our financial burden.
The possibility of financial abuse is ripe as this seven-member committee decides how to spend your money. The current language of the initiative should offend any person in favor of responsible governance. Appointments from the university administration—not students—will fill three positions on this student fees committee. Meanwhile, half the student members will have a mandated connection with the same environmental advocacy communities that will be receiving the grants.
If your intuition shouts “conflict of interest!” then you’re not alone. Opponents to this boongoggle include the president of Davis College Democrats, the chair of Davis College Republicans, and the ASUCD president, controller, and University Affairs director.
Numbers aside, you may think that this is just a quarterly $4 fee—the price of a fancy latte or trip to the Coffee House. But remember, this fee will not help the environment or create sustainability. If history rings true, TGIF will misuse hundreds of thousands of dollars at the cost of many UC Davis generations to come.
With these facts in mind, students should take pride in not being cajoled into fronting the cash for a special interest slush fund. Let’s vote together to defeat this ill-conceived initiative on February 18 and 19 at elections.ucdavis.edu.
Derick Lennox is a fourth-year undergraduate and member of the “No on TGIF” campaign.
The …green movement… sounds great in principle, but has become a huge moneymaker for its proponents, such as the infamous failed presidential candidate searching for a cause – Al Gore – who wastes more energy than most, w his private jet trips and big limos. What a collosal turkey, and hypocrite! Gobble, gobble! Both parties are jumping on the …green… bandwagon, as is local gov't, and now UCD. The city of Davis wasted all sorts of time implementing a directive to ban the sale of bottled water at city events, then had water served in Styrofoam cups! How did that achieve anything? Then added insult to injury by spending a lot of money handing out hard plastic water bottles to City Staff lifeguards for permanent use that may release poisons if left in the sun too long. Good one guys! Let's poison our youth in the name of …going green…. Wise use of resources is one thing, going green just for the sake of political correctness is gov't run amok. Raising student fees at this time is absolutely outrageous – and as the commentator points out, doesn't do anything substantive other than create a whole new bureaucracy for administrators while doing nothing for students. I don't even understand the purpose of this slush fund other than to …look like… the University is doing something about being …green…. How about UCD start being …green… by putting a little more …green… in student pockets, by not wasting the …green… on projects like this?
…This green initiative can be good if the money is used exactly for what it is intended for. The problem that you're talking about is lack of accountability….But that's just it – there is no accountability. So if there is going to be no accountability, then let's stop trying to be PC, and only …go green… where it actually does good from a dollar and cents point of view – and I mean saves money, not resulting in more costs rather than less. …Going green… has become a multi-million dollar business, that is often not measuring up to the benefits it purports will be attained. The City's ordinance to stop selling bottled water is a prime example. What is the benefit to putting water in styrofoam cups versus having it in disposable plastic bottles? Not only that, usually the plastic bottles hold more water than does the plastic cup. And the plastic cup is much less convenient bc of spillage. A styrofoam cup is also less sanitary, bc there has been more handling. But the most egregious part is to hand out potentially lethal red plastic water bottles to city lifeguards, that may leach poison in the water if left in the sun too long. This is typical of the …going green… movement. Let's …go green… without thinking through what we are doing, bc it looks as if we are actually doing something, whether we are or not. No thought to safety, cost effectiveness, practicality.To make matters worse, the …going green… movement spawns another layer of bureaucracry that adds extra costs, at a time when we just don't have the funding to spend. …Going green… is not a sacred movement, but you would think it was a cult religion sometimes, the way people follow its edicts blindly without thought.I would add further that the politicians use it as cover, so they don't have to deal with the real issues – such as the rising cost of health care, unemployment, huge deficit spending, etc. ad nauseum. Davis is a perfect example of that. We have a CAT committee, worrying about going green, but no committee to figure out how we are going to take care of all those …unmet needs…, like road repair, paying employment benefits, and the like.
This is one of the rare cases when students get to vote on their own fees, and I wish it came up more often. I support TGIF and think it is very necessary that student fund their own sustainability projects so that they pull themselves into the future rather than be dragged there by some other entity.
It's clear from this sloppily written piece that a number of the commenters are equally sloppy in their responses.Most importantly, UC Davis has NOTHING to do with this initiative. NOTHING. It's a STUDENT initiative. If they want it they can vote …yes,… and if they don't want it they can vote …no…. It's that simple. But don't load it on the university.Secondly, you may bemoan the student fee hikes but a number of great and beneficial projects have been built with them. Moreover there has been NO evidence of fiscal mis-management.Finally, Al Gore actually won the election. He has since gone on to world-wide fame and acclaim and is hardly …failed…. What a stupid thing to say.
I read about TGIF and agree 100% with this guest commentary. I hope students do the right thing and vote against raising their student fees for …sustainability…. There is no guarantee this money will be spent wisely. Never mind that this is not the economy to decide to tack on extra student fees, what if you are a student who is not totally sold on the whole …green… movement? By taking it out of the student fees, there goes your choice. If this is such a worthy cause, the …green… lobby should have no problem raising their own funds.
About the plastic bottle vs. the plastic cup. Plastic bottles leach chemicals just as do the plastic cups. It’s a step in the right direction and at least it keeps plastic bottles out of the landfill. This green initiative can be good if the money is used exactly for what it is intended for. The problem that you’re talking about is lack of accountability. If we can fix this, then the green fund should happen. If you’re against it, then why don’t you vote for an initiative to increase financial aid?