In its final meeting, and after months of consideration, the 2008-09 A.S. Council voted not to cease operations of the ailing Grove Caffe. The decision, which some councilmembers are liberally calling the enterprise’s last chance, marks a renewed attention to enterprises that incoming President Utsav Gupta and incoming Vice President of Finance and Resources Peter Benesch hope to foster next year.
Now the new council finds itself trudging into office with the cafe’s future largely unresolved. But unlike transitions past, councilmembers must make sure that Grove oversight doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. This means prioritizing the enterprise office, and council-cafe relations.
The current Grove Advisory Committee is a joke at best, with the deeply indebted cafe as its punchline. Forming a serious group of councilmembers, Grove employees and financial advisors is a crucial first step that must be handled immediately.
Benesch and Gupta should approach the appointment of associate vice president of enterprise operations with a higher standard for the position, and demand a proactivity and accountability that was absent from Chelsea Maxwell’s two-year tenure.
Once appointments are finalized in two weeks, these committee meetings must start immediately. It almost goes without saying, but obviously the meetings should be mandatory, weekly and provide detailed progress reports to the A.S. Council every Wednesday. And not just during the transition period ‘mdash; this committee and the enterprise office play a vital role in any future Grove success.
Every councilmember should be personally invested in the Grove’s success, rather than passing the buck as we’ve seen council after council do. This means taking initiative to stay on top of the cafe’s business decisions and finances ‘mdash; without depending on vague, slanted information or anecdotal interactions. To pull their enterprise out of debt councilmembers must get down to the nitty-gritty.
Some of the Grove’s most outspoken council supporters were also involved with the 2007 decision, but they find their favored coffee shop in even more dire straits just two years later because they failed to address any of its problems.
Councilmembers should be involved in every aspect of the Grove’s operations. While revamping the business plan to make it profitable is an imperative first step, the council must also support the enterprise’s advertising and programming efforts (because hiring the Deejay and Vinylphiles Club to drown out KSDT radio for a few hours creates a racket more likely to make students flee the area than visit it).
Last night’s discussion was nothing new: Grove employees provided no new insight, councilmembers added no new ideas to this years-long debate and the nearly three-hour conversation yielded no new (or solid) plans. Even this board’s recommendations contain nothing new; for years the Guardian has rallied and pleaded for increased council oversight.
But the incoming council ‘mdash; with a horde of members committed specifically to cleaning up the finance and enterprise offices, led by Grove enthusiasts Gupta and Benesch ‘mdash; is new. And this new group should prepare its momentum for a massive overhaul.