The Ballot Initiatives

The wording of these questions is opaque, so make sure you know what you’re voting for going in.

A New Student Body Constitution
Every 10 years, SG’s governing document comes before a committee that cleans up errors and changes other rules governing the rights of students and our elected representatives. Most of the changes are symbolic or semantic, and the wording is practically incomprehensible, but one change stands out: if this passes, ballot initiatives to amend the Student Body Constitution will require the signatures of 5 percent of the student body, instead of the current 10 percent.

Gathering some 5,000 signatures, plus enough to compensate for errors, duplicates and illegibility, is a nearly Herculean task. Just ask Students for Online Voting. Cutting that number in half will strengthen what democracy exists on our campus. Vote YES.

The Reitz Union Two-Parter
See our complete coverage of this issue, and this lucid but dated Gainesville Sun article, for more information.

Part One: Fee increase
SG President Jordan Johnson did the right thing and exempted graduate students from the fee. But what about the rest of us? The SG budget tells us little about how the Reitz Union spends its money, and the estimated $42.5 million in repairs comes from a single engineering firm. If the repairs are so urgent that students need to cough up money immediately, Union staff should have sought more independent evaluations and opened their books to public inspection to allow us to make an informed decision.

The new fees will not be covered by Bright Futures or Florida Prepaid. There are other ways to pay for these repairs, but students are being treated as a source of easy money. Vote NO.

Part Two: Expansion
Should the building be expanded? Perhaps. But before students vote on the matter, shouldn’t we know what the expansion includes and how much it will cost? Complete expansion plans have not been released yet (preliminary sketches aside), so the “entire floor of meeting space” and other goodies touted by the dubious Renew Your Reitz campaign are mostly speculative, and depend on funding constraints and other factors.

Again, students have not been given enough information to make an informed decision. Again, vote NO.

Sweatshop Referendum
This non-binding question will simply take the pulse of the student body to determine whether we support using UF’s enormous power in the athletic-apparel market to help shut down sweatshops that serve companies like Nike. The initiative has support from all quarters of the student body, and the administration is currently looking into whether joining the Worker Rights Consortium is in their best interests. Help make their decision easier. Vote YES.

Candidates

President and Vice President are a package deal. Someone should inform the Alligator.

The Unite Party’s Ashton Charles boasts a sterling resume with impressive titles that currently include President of the Student Senate. What she has actually accomplished in those plum positions is another question. Her recent actions include supporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in new “administrative fees” paid to the UF administration out of student coffers, and a bill supporting the proposed Reitz fee without the approval of the student body. She has said she intends to “drive a hard bargain on behalf of the students,” but her record suggests otherwise.

The Student Alliance’s Ben Cavataro, by contrast, began his SG career in the Fall of 2007 as the only member member of Student Senate from an opposition party. Ever since, he has been working against long odds on behalf of the student body. Where other members of his party have sometimes lost their nerve, at times resorting to acrimonious outbursts and extreme rhetoric, Cavataro has kept an even temper and been something of a voice of reason. He is currently head of the student arm of the state Democratic Party, which could strengthen his hand lobbying for students’ interests in Tallahassee.

Vice President has fewer constitutionally-mandated duties than Student Body President. That means the office is usually charged with special projects – and with managing to fifty-something members of SG’s cabinet. Unite candidate Marcus Dixon has alread served as cabinet director, and collected awards including Cabinet Member of the Year. The Student Alliance’s Sagar Sane, on the other hand, has a record of innovation that includes soliciting private donations to create a multi-million-dollar endowment to help fund the campus speaker’s bureau at the UNC Chapel Hill – something he hopes to repeat here, which will allow Accent to bring in better speakers at a lower cost. Compared to Sane, Dixon seems short on new ideas. Vote Student Alliance – Cavataro and Sane.

Treasurer

Unite’s Virlany Taboada landed a zinger during a debate sponsored by the Freshmen Leadership Council. When her opponents promised, if elected, to donate their salaries to the Florida Opportunity Scholarship Fund, she countered that she’s a beneficiary of the fund, which helps working-class students from the first generation in their family to attend college. She went on to argue that having grown up on a limited budget (something that’s rare for SG candidates in either party, who overwhelmingly come from privileged backgrounds) has prepared her for managing the students’ finances responsibly.

Before running for treasurer, the Student Alliance’s Rafael Yaniz may have been best known for backing a controversial Senate resolution as a leader of Gators for Israel. In recent months, though, he has emerged as a forceful critic of the Blackberries, Park Anywhere decals, unrestricted free printing and other perks SG officials lavish on themselves, and vowed to end the practice. He also plans to reduce waste and fight money-grabs by the administration, leaving more student money for things we want, like free printing all over campus. He also intends to help scrutinize the Reitz Union’s finances and make SG budgets more transparent, so we can see where our money goes.

If national politics and foreign affairs drove our decisions in SG elections, we’d have to go with Taboada. But in this year of tightening budgets, with the potentially millions of new, unaccountable dollars extracted from students as fees, we need a treasurer willing to fight the administration and dismantle SG’s sense of entitlement. Vote YANIZ.

The Fine Print has learned that Reitz Union officials are actively involved in funding and supporting the Renew Your Reitz campaign – the one with all those green banners and T-Shirts seen all over campus. They want us to “Vote Yes and Yes” for a Reitz Union expansion and new student fees that won’t be covered by Bright Futures or the Florida Prepaid Scholarship Fund.

It makes sense they would support a ballot initiative that benefits their organization. The problem is that they are a public agency, and Florida election law states:

106.113 Expenditures by local governments.–

(1) As used in this section, the term:

(a) “Local government” means:

1. A county, municipality, school district, or other political subdivision in this state; and

2. Any department, agency, board, bureau, district, commission, authority, or similar body of a county, municipality, school district, or other political subdivision of this state.

The Reitz Union and its board of managers appear to meet this definition.

(b) “Public funds” means all moneys under the jurisdiction or control of the local government.

(2) A local government or a person acting on behalf of local government may not expend or authorize the expenditure of, and a person or group may not accept, public funds for a political advertisement or electioneering communication concerning an issue, referendum, or amendment, including any state question, that is subject to a vote of the electors. This subsection does not apply to an electioneering communication from a local government or a person acting on behalf of a local government which is limited to factual information.

Members of the Student Alliance have filed an injunction claiming the campaign violates the law. They have asked the 8th Circuit Court to compell the UF administration and the Reitz Union Board of Managers to stop distributing campaign materials and to disclose how much public money they’ve spent to persuade students to vote for higher fees. “We’re not out to punish UF,” said Jonathan Ossip, a Student Alliance leader who helped submit the injunction.

Update: The 8th Circuit Court denied the Student Alliance’s motion to halt the Renew Your Reitz campaign. The case will continue after the election.

A recent e-mail from Jaleesa Joseph, the Student Chair of the Reitz Union Board of Managers to leaders of student groups in support of the same campaign raises questions about another Florida election law:

104.31 Political activities of state, county, and municipal officers and employees.–

(1) No officer or employee of the state, or of any county or municipality thereof, except as hereinafter exempted from provisions hereof, shall:

(a) Use his or her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election or a nomination of office or coercing or influencing another person’s vote or affecting the result thereof.

Here is Joseph’s e-mail in its entirety:

From: “Center for Student Activities & Involvement”
Date: February 19, 2010 8:53:13 AM EST
Subject: IMPORTANT MESSAGE from the Chair of the Board of Managers

As the Chair of the J. Wayne Reitz Union Board of Managers, I am reaching out to you – students that are familiar with the concept of service – for your help and support for the upcoming Reitz Union referendum. The Reitz Union was built in 1967, and since that time, it has become outdated and deficient to the current students needs. Consequently, the Reitz Union now requires $42.5 million dollars in structural and mechanical repairs. Without this capital investment, it’s very realistic that the Reitz Union will not be able to keep the doors open. Thus, we need your help and support to repair and rebuild the home of the students – J. Wayne Reitz Union. In the next week, we have organized a marketing campaign focused on educating the student body on not only the deficiencies of the current Union, but also the future benefits of tomorrow’s Union. Tomorrow’s Union will truly be the tangible result of today’s students’ dreams. Some of the future benefits that student organizations specifically can expect in tomorrow’s Union include:

• An Entire Floor Dedicated to Individual Organizational Suites
including lounge space and conference Rooms
• Individual Storage Space for all Student Organizations
• New Multipurpose Meeting Rooms
including Performance and Dance Spaces
• 24-Hour Access to your Organizational Suite
• An Expanded Free Printing Lab
Including oversized banners and glossy flyers
• A 1,500 Seat Auditorium
• More Restaurant Selections
including More Ethnic Options and a Sports Bar & Grill
• A New Parking Garage (750 Spaces)
including 75 free 30 min. Parking Spaces

However, none of this is possible without your help. As leaders of your respective organizations, we need your support and feedback. We have an opportunity to come together as a student body, build our dream Student Union, and leave a lasting legacy.

I would like to encourage you and the members of your organization to visit our website at www.RenewYourReitz.com, where you can get more information on the Union and also sign up to volunteer. Most importantly, I would like to encourage you and your members to go out and vote “Yes and Yes” for the Reitz Union referendum questions on Tuesday, February 23rd and Wednesday, February 24th.

Leave a legacy and Vote “Yes and Yes” for a better student experience.

Go Gators!

Jaleesa Joseph

Never mind that neither Joseph nor anyone else is in a position to promise the “ethnic” restaurants or 1,500-seat auditoriums, since specific plans for the expansion have not been released yet. The real problem is that Joseph is acting in her official capacity to influence the outcome of a referendum.

The Fine Print is awaiting replies from Reitz officials (Executive Director Eddie Daniels was not in the office today). The Office of Student Affairs, whose name is attached to the following video promoting the fee, did not respond to two phone calls seeking comment and said a reply would come on Monday.

Update: As you can see, the video has been taken down.

Imagine Your Union Main from UF Student Affairs on Vimeo.

Here’s copy of the injunction filed by members of the Student Alliance:

SAinjuction

Check back for updates, and follow the Fine Print’s complete coverage of the Reitz Union expansion.

Non-functioning duct smoke detectors in the Reitz, which the SG executive branch estimates will cost approximately $150,000.

During the Fall of 2007, the business-friendly environmentalist Hunter Lovins cut herself off in the middle of a presentation she was giving in the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom and asked the audience to be quiet for a minute.

The room fell silent, save for the moan of a straining air conditioner.

“Hear that?” she asked. “That’s the sound of wasted energy.”

At the time, the building was almost exactly 40 years old. Eddie Daniels, the Union’s executive director, says that as additions were made to the building, its infrastructure was not upgraded accordingly, in part because of the way projects get funded. Funding for something like a new ballroom usually does not include money to expand electrical, air conditioning or other systems to accommodate the increased use, he said.

As a result, Daniels explained during a presentation before the Student Senate in November, the power and air-handling systems are over capacity. Between asbestos, dead smoke detectors and other problems, the building requires some $42.5 million in repairs and upgrades, according to an estimate by an engineering firm. A pipe burst in the basement last semester, ruining computers and carpets in the basement and reminding Union officials that not making improvements can also come at a price.

There are several ways to pay for these repairs. One option is money from the Capital Improvements Trust Fund, which is drawn from student activity fees and is already earmarked for non-academic construction projects. It only disburses every three years, so we couldn’t get money for the repairs until the 2011-12 school year.

Some of the repairs are allegedly too urgent for that, so the Union and Student Government have proposed a fee increase for students. President Bernie Machen did not want to raise fees without the approval of the student body, so the proposal will come before us as a referendum during Student Government elections on Feb. 23 and 24.

Asbestos in the Reitz Union piping.

Perhaps the most vocal opponents to the plan had been Graduate Assistants United, who argued they could not afford what amounted to a tax on their already low wages to pay for a building they seldom use. As The Fine Print headed to press, Student Body President Jordan Johnson published an editorial in The Alligator in which he wrote, much to his credit, that he would work to exempt graduate assistants from any fee increase. That will likely put a damper on much of the dissent against the proposal, but whether the rest of the student body supports the plan is hard to judge.

It’s hard to argue the outdated structure is not in need of repair. The question of whether it needs a “cultural village” or a new parking garage as part of a proposal that could cost as much as $60 million in addition to the repairs will have its day, as a second part of the referendum.

The specifics of the fee are still up in the air. Under most proposals currently up for consideration, the amount of

Asbestos in the Reitz Union piping.

money students pay for the Reitz each year will more than double next year’s total of nearly $5 million and will cost students more than $100 per semester.

The fees will not be covered by Bright Futures unless the Florida Legislature approves a funding increase for the scholarship – an unlikely prospect in what will probably be another year of budget cuts.

Rafael Yaniz, the Student Alliance’s treasury candidate, points out that students know almost nothing about how that money gets spent. The publicly available breakdown of the Union’s $5 million budget for next year consists of four line-items: Salaries, Programs, Facilities and Services.

Union Director Daniels says that for years, the Union’s annual budget has covered only operating expenses, leaving nothing to pay for long-term maintenance. Making matters worse, he says, when he first took his job more than four years ago, there weren’t comprehensive records of the building’s equipment or condition.

Daniels says he found out the age of most of the equipment after he commissioned the engineers’ report last Spring. Yaniz says that raises doubts about the Union’s past managers and underscores the importance of holding current managers accountable.

Yaniz resigned as Johnson’s chief of staff in late January, he says, in part because nobody in his office was interested in overseeing the Union’s use of students’ money, scrutinizing officials’ estimates or considering other funding sources.

“There’s serious questions that need to be asked here,” he says. “The only party that’s doing that is the Student Alliance.”

The expansion proposal has not been unveiled yet, but it’s due some time in February. There is no guarantee we will have time to evaluate it before we vote, so the referendum will only gauge whether the student body supports the general idea of expanding the Reitz. Which ideas are in, which are out, and how much it all will cost will all be hashed out later. That is why this year’s student government elections are the most important in a long time. Failing to elect leaders who hold the people who control our money accountable has cost us millions of dollars and could cost us millions more.

Current SG leaders have referred to a new Union as the legacy of this generation of students. Without proper oversight, Yaniz says, “the only legacy that the Reitz Union fee will create is a legacy of debt.”

Travis’ response: “He’s referring, of course, to a system of succession that predates the Unite Party, in which students from Greek houses and various campus groups are rewarded based on loyalty, receiving everything from student money for their groups to leadership positions in SG.”

We see this every year – the ‘indie party’ tries to differentiate itself from the ‘established party’ merely for the sake of differentiating itself.

The two parties tend to have similar platforms. That’s not to say there aren’t differences; the establishment party is always “safer.” But the average student, who rarely finds a reason to pay attention, will have a hard time telling them apart. Everyone wants a more sustainable campus. Everyone wants to limit the economic burden on students. Everyone makes vague promises about making UF a better place.

Naturally that state of affairs makes things hard on the opposition. But they tend to get caught up in the politics of it all, and next thing you know, they’re spouting off at the mouth just for the sake of differentiating themselves. Inane arguments and childish stunts, like Niederreiter’s letter, inevitable ensue.

Take the Reitz Union Expansion Fee. It’s a hot issue right and something that very well could bring a record number of students out to the polls. And the truth is, that building is in dire need of repairs. But is charging the students a fee the best way to go about making those repairs?

All you see in The Alligator about the issue is pitting Graduate Assistants United and the Student Alliance against the Unite Party. GAU says underpaid grad assistants can’t afford a fee (they’re most certainly right about that), and the Student Alliance has unquestioningly embraced their position.

Now the two sides are talking past each other. There’s no doubt that the Reitz needs some serious work and that it’s been expanding beyond its capacity for years. There’s also no doubt that graduate assistants need to be paid better. Rather than trying to find an alternative way to secure the repairs, Student Alliance automatically rejects the student fee because it’s something that Unite supports. In the Town Hall Meeting sponsored by the Alligator and SG, Ben Cavataro applauded any criticism of President Jordan Johnson and his plans. Is this really getting us anywhere?

There’s a real possibility here for SG to work together and make the repairs happen in a way that exploits students the least and also makes the Reitz Union a place we can all enjoy. Denying that we need to fix the problem isn’t going to help us. Which party will step up to the plate? I’m of the opinion that if they don’t get over their petty opposition politics, then neither will. But I hope I’m proved wrong.

Alligator, I’ve got a wager for you. I find it hilarious the Unite Party says it will be “conducting interviews” to determine its executive candidates. It’s common knowledge they have already chosen Marcus Dixon to run for vice president and Virlany Taboada to run for treasurer. Because I feel bad for the students who will come out to interview when Unite has made up its mind, I’m willing to put my reputation on the line. If I’m wrong then feel free to Dart me, Joshua Niederriter, when they announce their candidates. But if I’m right send a Dart at the party for misleading the Student Body. I hope you take me up on this offer because either way you win.

He’s referring, of course, to a system of succession that predates the Unite Party, in which students from Greek houses and various campus groups are rewarded based on loyalty, receiving everything from student money for their groups to leadership positions in SG.

This has been going on for decades, and for a while we at the Fine Print were content to throw up our hands and focus on things we could actually change. But as it turns out, the system of patronage and corruption Niederriter artfully alludes to has meant that over the years, nobody in Student Government was paying attention while the Reitz Union “managers” let the student-funded building fall into disrepair, which is supposedly going to cost us upwards of $40 million to fix.

It’s no exaggeration to say that by failing to give a shit about SG, by failing to pay attention to what our representatives are doing (or not doing), and by turning out in dismally low numbers (never more than 20 percent) to vote in student elections, we have cost ourselves and our successors tens of million of dollars, which could be paid for with increased activity fees. It’s high time we demolished the political machine that currently calls itself the Unite Party, and which has repeatedly failed to look out for our interests.

As for Niederreiter’s letter, it puts the machine in an interesting position: will they reshuffle their slate of candidates just to discredit his assertion?

Related: The Fine Print is seeking a talented, gutsy individual interested in becoming our SG reporter. E-mail web@thefineprintuf.org for more information.