With a whopping 63.53 percent vote against the University Student Union referendum last week, hopes for renovating the USU appear lost. Though the fee increase dissuaded students from supporting renovations, many still have thoughts on ways to improve the USU.
“Go back to the drawing board, give us more detailed information and try to lower your fee hikes because nobody was going to approve a $165 increase anyway,” fourth year political science major Andrew Quesada said.
In this case, the question remains: if the fees shouldn’t be increased, how do we come up with the money for renovation? There are ultimately three options: find a way to get the money without drastic fee increases, change the renovation plans or do nothing.
“If ASI really wants to renovate it, I would suggest that they look at their budget and what they’re spending a lot of money on—probably needlessly,” third year political science major Alexandria Contreras said. “ASI should try to buy products and materials at cheaper costs and try to attract investors.”
By turning to different funds, there is a possibility that smaller renovation needs can be met. Some of these include electrical, mechanical and plumbing issues. Altogether, according to the USU Board of Trustees, this would cost slightly above $13.5 million. The bulk cost of $99 million proposed by the referendum would require the student-rejected fee increase.
Although an expanded USU is a nice thought, its most pressing concerns can be dealt with separately from the bigger plans of renovation. As mentioned before, these small-scale changes would not require a vast fee increase.
“For me personally, I’d rather have something that works – and works well – even if it’s not able to handle the whole mass of 35,000 students trying to use it,” fifth year communications major Nathan Dickie said. “At least it’s working at its maximum efficiency and is reliable.”
The enormous opposition from California State University, Long Beach students seems to have silenced the issue for now.
But silence has its own repercussions.
“Though the referendum failed, it’s our job to keep the USU running and to keep providing services for students,” chair of the USU Board of Trustees Vanessa Mendoza said. “Any facility issues that may come up—we want to try to resolve those by minimizing the impact to the students.”
If these facility issues should be met, then the bare minimum effort should be made in order to take care of them. Though the referendum has failed, the basic facility and maintenance problems remain.
“Doing nothing is not going to fix the existing problems,” Dickie said. “It’s just delaying the inevitable until [either] the building gets too outdated and renovation has to be done – with or without our vote – or a new structure has to be built in its place.”
