Last week’s campus-wide Associated Students Spring Elections yielded two new undergraduate student fees as well as cuts to long-standing programs.

Students approved a $4.24 per quarter increase to the existing Arts & Lectures fee as well as $3.00 per quarter for the newly-formed UCSB Community Financial Fund. In addition, 36 fees were reaffirmed. La Cumbre yearbook was the only reaffirmation to be turned down, while new fee proposals from the Athletics Department, University Center, Transportation and Parking Services and yearbook failed to pass.

Following the failure of last year’s Intercollegiate Athletic Scholarships Fee, the La Cumbre reaffirmation is only the second to be turned down in university history. Storke Student Publications Director Linda Meyer said the lock-in’s failure will mean the end of La Cumbre’s 90 years at UCSB and also jeopardize the weekly senior portrait service.

“There is absolutely no funding and the yearbook will no longer be able to print,” Meyer said. “This means that there will be no chronicle of history from a student’s perspective for this year and years forward.”

Students also voted against the D.A.R.E. referendum, which sought to finance updates on various campus athletics structures. The fee proposed renovations to the aquatic center pool — deemed environmentally substandard — and Pauley Track, which has been condemned due to unsafe surface conditions. According to UCSB Intercollegiate Athletics Director Mark Massari, its failure leaves no alternative for addressing these renovations.

“The referendum was really a desire from our coaches and the students to find a solution for the facilities, which are in desperate need of repairs and some not suitable for competition,” Massari said in an e-mail. “The referendum was a solution. There has been no other solution that we know of to address these vital needs.”

Undergraduates also voted against the Recreation Facility Enhancements Fee to support maintenance on university playing fields. Water polo player Milos Golic, a fourth-year economics major, said denying funding for athletic facility restoration creates a lasting liability for the campus.

“This is something [students] could have contributed to in the long-term,” Golic said. “It was a unique opportunity to do something. I’m just disappointed, I guess, and it’s a disappointment for the whole athletic department that this didn’t pass.”

The Community Financial Fund — the only entirely new service created by the elections — will expand the current A.S. Emergency Student Loan Program.

According to Off-Campus Representative Stanley Tzankov, one of the program’s founders, the specifics of the trust’s implementation will be finalized within the next few weeks.

Both the Night and Weekend Parking Fee increase to continue subsidizing Night and Weekend Parking Passes and the proposal for a UCen study loft were also shut down.

 

 

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