It seems that the University of California is not the only institution that apparently cannot make ends meet with students’ money; the University of California Student Association, the little-heard-of umbrella organization representing the whole of the UC system’s students’ interests, is not even halfway through the year and has a budget deficit of $17,000. While a recent meeting managed to trim ends and recover owed funds to bring the deficit to a much more palatable $600 (out of a total budget of nearly $300,000), some have found a certain move of the UCSA this year rather questionable: the allocation of funds to compensate the chair and vice chair for the first time.
UCSA Chair (and incidentally, UCSD’s own A.S. Vice President External) Stephen Klass reports the new stipends were decided by the board of the UCSA without his participation in the debate as a matter of principle. After all, most officers at student body organizations at universities receive monthly stipends compensating them for their time — given that the UCSA is an advocacy group analogous to local student organizations and funded by student fees, this does not seem to be an unreasonable move.
Nonetheless, while the $600 total extra spent per month on the officers of UCSA may seem like a fitting and small expense in comparison, its timing appears to be a bit unfortunate.
Despite the minor budget scramble, the UCSA will still pay Mr. Klass and the vice chair for their work. Presumably the UCSA is against the new student fee increase, since it voiced its displeasure with a series of protests at several UC campuses. It seems to be in bad form, however, to refuse to drop the new raises in light of UCSA’s deficit when the University of California faces an analogous situation. However fitting and normal the new stipends may be, UCSA’s decision not to make a meaningful gesture with its own situation is not exactly (pardon the expression) a classy move.
It was difficult, however, to ascertain quickly what exactly the stances of UCSA and Associated Student Council were on the fee increase; the UCSA Web page has not been updated in a year, and ASUCSD’s Web page has been offline. One would hope that the spokespeople for the masses would deign to update their constituents on what exactly goes on. But then if they published their own material online and actually made a concerted effort to inform UCSD students, there would not be quite a bit less need for a certain student publication, would there not?
A malaise, little known as ‘B-spot creep,’ struck UCSD over winter break after lying largely dormant through fall quarter. Muir residents came back to find two full rows of “”S”” space parking adjacent to Tenaya Hall corrupted and rendered useless between the hours of 7:45 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Given that the average waking hour of the Muir resident is about ten minutes before class starts, the newly converted rows, like those adjacent to Warren housing converted over the summer, are now largely useless on weekend nights. While Warren residents have long dealt with the impossibility of finding parking close to home, up till now Muirions led a cushy existence with the guarantee of close parking. That situation, however, seems to be becoming more imperiled; a late night survey of the Muir lot found about 40 open spaces, minus the 18 cars parked in B spaces for the night.
The net result is that there is virtually no space for commuter students in the Muir lot during the day (though hardly anyone bothered there anyway unless he/she felt like sitting around for half an hour waiting aimlessly for a spot).
Even more worrisome for Muir residents, perhaps, is the coming prospect of the meager existence of a Warren denizen; with barely 10 percent more cars, Muir permit holders could find themselves scrambling for spaces in the evening, unable to park if they arrive late at night. At this rate, it might not be even worth it for the freshmen to fill the lots with their largely unused vehicles, if when returning from their social outings at SDSU late at night they will be hard pressed to find any spots.
This writer has maintained that with the exception of extreme circumstances, freshmen should be barred from keeping cars on west campus (or even east campus). Not only are on-campus job opportunities plentiful and accessible, but the on-campus social atmosphere of UCSD (which rivals a mortuary in terms of excitement) would inevitably improve if freshmen were forced to learn to tolerate each other. The point of going to college and living on campus is most definitely not to return home every weekend.
Or for that matter, freshmen year at college is most definitely not leaving one’s car in a perfectly good west campus “”S”” spot whilst the green squares plan their next assault over the pavement.
Overheard in parking lot 412, next to the collection of shacks collectively referred to as University Center: “”Well, it’s after hours anyways, I don’t think they’re going to ticket the reserved spots. $60!? That’s not worth $60!”” Harsh, but effective, it seems.
