H 77°, L 54° | Tomorrow: 
H 82°, L 64°From our days at SOAR spent in Union South to the warm nights spent on the Union Terrace listening to music and drinking beer from the Rathskeller, we have all enjoyed the Wisconsin Union in our time on campus. Today we encourage you to vote to allow the enjoyment of the Unions for years to come.
If you’ve been in the Union recently you have seen its current condition. It is a great building, one of the best in the country, but it is also in need of much repair. There’s been no major renovation of the Memorial Union, our “campus living room, ” since it was built in 1928 and clearly, the needs of students when it was built are very different from the needs of the campus today.
Therefore, the Wisconsin Union is developing plans to renovate and expand the Wisconsin Unions to ensure that they remain the heart and soul of programming and campus life in the future. These plans include necessary improvements to conform to fire code standards and accessibility standards within the Union. For example, it’s nearly impossible for a disabled person to efficiently navigate the building without significant help and, believe it or not, the Memorial Union has no sprinkler system to protect it from fire.
Aside from the needed behind-the-scenes improvements, there are plans to expand the Union’s ability to provide additional student organization, meeting and programming space. Annually, the Union turns away over 1,300 requests for meeting space. We would like to continue to encourage the growth of student organizations here on campus. The Wisconsin Union is committed to working with students to assess the need for additional space and updated facilities and we’ll look to see how to accommodate the needs of the campus community.
Ideas for expansions include an additional small theater, a large ballroom type space at the Memorial Union and moving the Craftshop to Union South to make room for additional student office space. In both new and current rooms, we would like to make them all technologically capable with Internet access and audiovisual equipment, something many Union rooms lack.
At Union South, we’re examining the options of either rebuilding Union South or extensively renovating it. Whatever option chosen would be the most cost effective and provide a more user-friendly building with better programming, relaxation and retail space, as well as other student organization friendly improvements. All building plans would be fully reviewed and discussed by the student body, Associated Students of Madison and the Union’s shared governance committee.
In order to accomplish our goal of renovating and expanding the Wisconsin Union, we ask students to financially support these renovations with a ‘yes’ vote on the Union referendum in the ASM elections. The referendum, if passed, would collect money to support the project from students over the coming years. The fee would be $3 per semester for the first two years and then would increase annually by $10 for the next 12 years. The layout of this fee collection has students paying more as the renovations near completion; to ensure that students in the middle and the end who will enjoy the completed renovations would pay more segregated fees.
We understand that this will be a good amount of money down the road, but we remember that these increases are spread out over 14 years; one dollar 14 years from now is not worth one dollar today. In addition, this plan would call for the Union to commit over $40 million in alumni donations and operating revenue towards the project and students would pay no more than 75 percent of the costs.
This financing system is consistent with many other building projects on campus and is in the spirit of the funding process for the original erection of the Union, where a large majority of the student body gave $50 to build a Union that they wouldn’t be able to enjoy until they were alumni.
We hope that students will be in support of keeping the Wisconsin Unions up-to-date and enjoyable buildings for years to come. We believe it’s crucial to begin this process now, before our Unions fall too far into disrepair and far behind technologically, becoming less enjoyable spaces on campus. Currently, several schools in both the UW-System and the Big Ten are building or renovating their student Unions in order to ensure that they will be functional for future students. We hope that the students of Madison will vote to do the same. To look at some information on the referendum and see some current plans for the Unions, go to www.union.wisc.edu/itsourunion and support the Union in the elections April 5th-7th.
Benjamin Hawke, Vice President, Wisconsin Union
IP hash: 957b38b3
“One dollar 14 years from now is not worth one dollar today”… Yeah, that’s true, but it’s also not worth $123, which is what your plan would cost us.
Don’t try to pull the wool over our eyes. We’re seeing right through it.
Also, I think it’s incredibly inappropriate for you to be using Union resources (and hence, our seg fees) to be promoting this referendum. It is illegal for school boards in the State of Wisconsin to use district resources to promote their referendums. If it’s not illegal to do what you’re doing, it should be for the same reasons.
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Oh, apparently I was wrong. I read this before I read from Nicole and Liz that this would cost $246. It’s even worse than I thought.
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VOTE NO!
The Union not only has bad labor practices, but they’re trying to fleece us with fuzzy math, too.
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I know you guys don’t like spending money, but do you really propose that we don’t invest any money into our university? What makes our university a great one that people dream about is that there are so many wonderful things to do outside of the classroom. You can learn in any building, what gives a university its character is all the other things on campus to do and see. Stop being so selfish and shortsighted and help the university in the long run.
IP hash: 2a9b863d
What they, and (surprisingly) I are arguing is that we don’t appreciate how the Union has gone behind our backs to a large extent on this venture (read Sanger & Markelein), and is springing a bill on us we didn’t get the chance to disapprove, approve, or even ammend before the vote, in addition to all the other repeated gripes with them in the past. (read any labor issue piece on the Union in the past 5 years). Our gripes aren’t the price tag…it’s how we’re being SOLD the price tag.
First, I think this should go down in flames to assert we students actually do have some control over OUR Union. Second, I think we should make the WUD head electable by students, or at the very least somehow accountable to us and not just the SSFC. Third, once we’ve done all that, wait for Wiley to retire and/or croak and break back 64’s.
(I don’t know…maybe it’s being close to graduation, maybe it’s the sun…I’m just sick of being regarded as a mindless student drone by the higher ups.)
-William Northend
IP hash: 3e8f3e80
I would also like to add that the Union held 4 forums, where student organization leaders and the general public were invited(through personal invitations, ads and posters) to show up and ask questions and voice their concerns and make suggestions They were publicized in both the Cardinal and the Herald and several articles were written about these forums. In fact, 2 were held last week at Memorial and Union South and they were also held over the months preceding those. They have been taking place since late January and students (including Nicole and Liz)have not been showing up to them. Their were also three hearings in the span of a month at ASM SSFC and ASM Council where this issue was discussed.The Council of elected members and SSFC members all had the opportunity to amend,vote up or vote down this measure. This did NOT come straight from the Union to the student body, it went to two representative ASM bodies first. So I wouldn’t try to represent the Union as not trying to let people have a voice..not many people showed up at any forums when they had the opportunity to..I know because I was at all 4
Oh..and the WUD head is accountable to the Union Council which is a shared governance committee with appointed students
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$246 ??????? Outrageous - how will ASM fund new laptops for all the half-ass multi-cultural groups?
What a crock to worry about such a small marginal cost! Maybe you could just stick it to the out-of-staters a little harder instead?
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Dear Mr. Hawke: Please post the actual costs per year. The language is confusing. If you are of the opinion that a smart person should be able to infer what you mean, please just call me “stupid” and post the numbers anyway. Thanks!
A head start for you (please fill in the blanks):
IP hash: 70be308a
Considering the Union is decreasingly using less and less of it’s current space for students, I voted NO. When student orgs are being screwed over by Catering and space available to them during ‘wedding season’ is non-existent, there’s no reason why we should pump more money into the Union so they can get more private parties to hold events here. Hike up non-student Union fees and leave us alone.
IP hash: 70be308a
oh and my email is [email protected] your login isn’t working for me.
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“When student orgs are being screwed over by Catering and space available to them during ‘wedding season’ is non-existent,”
The weddings that are being held there are for alumni who have already paid and are paying again to use the space. Suck it up.
IP hash: 10f4585f
Everyone should vote NO to this insanity. We don’t use all the space we could, and ASM didn’t really have a lot to do with amending the whole situation…council just decided whether or not to let it go to the students…many of the hearing sessions were AFTER the referendum was already ON the ballot….. stop undermining students
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The sad thing ASM could have amended it if they wanted but couldn’t keep quorum long enough to do so.
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oh now i see..i just have to leave the university and get married to use the union space..in addition to my four years of seg fees plus additional renting fees. glad to know a chunk of my tuition is a deposit for future space in a facility that uses poor labor practices and shady dealings.