I’m writing you to voice my concern over the passage of a certain ballot on the recent student elections. Specifically, the ballot that asked students to pay $9 every quarter to fund student-athlete scholarships. It failed by a margin of .2 percent and strips the program of $500,000 that directly funds athletic scholarships.

[media-credit id=20135 align=”alignleft” width=”200″][/media-credit]There is something going on with regards to this ballot measure. First of all, it was originally announced that the fee had passed, but then the Elections Committee went back on what they said and declared that it actually had failed. Besides this confusing bit of information, there was also incorrect information on the ballot. The ballot read that this funding option was established in 2002. In fact, it began in 1998. This is an important fallacy to point out since it may or may not have affected the outcome of the voting. This inaccuracy is a misconduct on the Elections Committee’s part, and we are asking for them to correct such a wrong by offering a re-vote. Since the margin of victory was less than one percent a re-count is already in order.

I hope that the Nexus can voice my opinion — and the opinion of other student-athletes who think that this voting process is not 100 percent fair. I hope some of my words may reach a greater UCSB audience.

The athletic department has already had to make cuts this year. This additional budget cut will be extremely detrimental to the future of UCSB athletics. If students like watching soccer, basketball and other premiere sports, they should understand that recruiting top athletes costs money. Because this ballot was voted down by 60 percent + one, there will be less athletes carried on the roster, less athletes able to travel and compete, no new coaches brought on and no new equipment, among other things. Future athletes will be less likely to attend UCSB if they are from out-of-state, since it costs more money. Recruitment will be nearly impossible for talented athletes who will be offered more money from other schools — schools that compete against UCSB.

I believe it is extremely sad and shocking that students of Isla Vista would rather spend $9 a week on a Freebirds burrito than support UCSB athletics and spend $9 every quarter to fund scholarships.

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