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Emergency
meeting fares badly for 49er
Referendum
• Jamie Rowe and Sonya Smith
of the Online Forty-Niner and Elijah Bates
of the Long Beach Union plead their case
in front of the AS Senate at the emergency
meeting Monday. Nadia Abu-Hijleh / Online
Forty-Niner
By
Daniel Linck Savino
Online Forty-Niner
Assistant Opinion Editor
This
April, students will not be able to vote
on whether or not to support the Daily Forty-Niner.
The Student Right-to-Know referendum, which
needed 14 votes to get on the ballot, found
only eight supporters in Monday night's
emergency Senate meeting.
The
Associated Students Senate hotly debated
the proposed referendum in a marathon three-hour
session. The referendum, which would have
raised the AS fee $7 semester, was presented
by Sonya Smith, editor-in-chief of the Forty-Niner.
Smith had previously painted a grim picture
of the future the Forty-Niner would face
were the referendum to fail, and reiterated
that view after the meeting.
"As
things currently stand," Smith said,""I'm
really scared to think what's going to happen
next year."
"I
know that being published weekly was suggested,
and I would guess that the next editor-in-chief
would have to face that question,"
she said. Additionally, the end of summer
publications, removal of staff and pay cuts
were also mentioned.
In
the course of the emergency session, debate
ran long because of serious confusion about
a variety of issues.
Senator
Shelley Levenson was concerned that the
paper might return to the Senate and ask
for more money. There is the "potential
for endless upwards increases," she
said. "People always want more money."
In
response, Smith said she anticipates the
paper actually needing slightly less money
as it becomes more financially stable.
A
multitude of questions centered on an alternate
version of the referendum. That version
proposed a fee increase of $4 per semester.
Unlike the $7 increase, though, it would
have funded only the Online Forty-Niner
and Dig magazine. The $7 fee was planned
to go to all campus media, including the
AS-funded Long Beach Union, KBeach and the
Gold Mine Yearbook.
Senator
Hironao Okahana, who made an abortive attempt
to remove the AS-funded media from the $7
proposal, did not want the referendum to
contain distracting language.
In
later explanation of his vote against the
referendum, Okahana said "I just didn't
feel comfortable having two totally irrelevant
questions on the ballot."
Okahana's
suggestion to remove AS media was the first
of many efforts to alter the referendum.
The
second topic of debate concerned the AS
media's current funding. That money comes
from a general fund, and amounts to roughly
$3 per student per semester. The presence
of AS media in the referendum amounted to
a hidden fee on students. Through the referendum,
those media would have been exclusively
funded by the fee increase. The money that
currently funds them would simply go back
into the general fund.
That
was of concern to several senators, including
Okahana. In response, he suggested dropping
AS media from the referendum. His proposal,
however, received no support.
An
issue voiced several times was that in voting
against the referendum, the Senate would
keep the students from getting to decide
to support the Forty-Niner.
Senator
Jessica Viera, whose sentiment was echoed
by several senators, wanted to allow the
students to make the final decision. "I
feel that we as a senate, we don't have
the responsibility to decide this for the
student body," she said. "Yes,
only 10 percent of the students do vote...
but 23 of us should not decide this for
the 5,000 who do vote."
The
final source of debate was the fee itself.
Various proposals and counter-proposals,
covering everything from the original $7
down to $3 per semester, flew across the
room.
Senator
Zaira Tinoco suggested a multi-option ballot.
"I'm really in favor of giving students
the right to choose," she said. Her
idea involved having both versions of the
referendum placed on the ballot.Ultimately,
the Senate voted on a version of the referendum
that included AS media and would have raised
fees by $5 per semester.
The
roll-call vote, which required a two-thirds
majority (14 votes) to pass, was eight for
and seven against, with two abstentions
and four absences. Senate Chairman Erik
Joliff's final call that measure had failed
left both Smith and Jamie Rowe, managing
editor, in tears.
Rowe
described herself as feeling dismayed. "I
felt really confused, like"‘it
can't be over,'" she said. "It
was shock. It was like, no, this can't be
right. I was just very shocked and confused."
The
vote leaves the Forty-Niner facing looming
deficits with no potential source of money
to cover those shortfalls. A previous bailout
from the College of Liberal Arts was a one-time
event, Smith said.
Smith
summarized the matter in a statement made
after the vote. "I don't know exactly
where we'll go yet," she said. "A
lot of people had a lot riding on it. I
don't think the Senate understood the gravity
of what they did."
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