Dear Editor:
Josh Healy's diatribe against the Wisconsin Union Facilities Improvement Plan in Tuesday's Badger Herald is heavy on the rhetoric and light on the facts. He claims that "The real agenda, however, is to take more student money and put in the hands of the UW administration and their corporate partners to build parking lots and private research centers. Very little will actually benefit students."
We don't know where Josh Healy has been for the past two semesters, but if he had taken the time to attend any of the numerous open forums, discussions, talk to members from the Union or even simply visit the WUFIP website (www.union.wisc.edu/wufip) he would see just what the plan is and where the funds would be going. He would also understand WUFIP is necessary to renovate and preserve the 78-year-old Memorial Union by adding much needed life-safety equipment and improving ADA accessibility and to build a new south campus union that will actually meet student's space needs and draw them to the building rather than drive them away. How exactly does this not benefit students? All the information stated above is open and available; and perhaps he should actually take time to read it before he makes such ludicrously inaccurate accusations about parking lots and private research centers, neither of which have anything to do with the Wisconsin Union and the funding for WUFIP. The funds would go to support Memorial Union and Union South and nothing more.
Students have been and will continue to be integrally involved in every major step of the WUFIP planning process. How? Well, the entire process thus far has been initiated and led by students from the Wisconsin Union Directorate, NOT the campus administration. In addition, Union Council, the governing body that makes all the decisions regarding the Unions, has a student majority. Plus, these are student seg-fees earmarked for use in this project alone: to claim that they somehow can be funneled off for some other projects is intentionally misleading.
He slams WUFIP in the guise of promoting SLAC's living wage referendum, which is worse than comparing apples and oranges; it's claiming one is preferable to the other when such comparison is irrelevant, and counter-intuitive. Case in point, WUFIP will help create more full-time jobs as well as improve working conditions for staff and services for students. By being against WUFIP, Healy is against enhancing vital services to students and conditions for workers.
Josh Healy's claims against WUFIP are based on inaccuracies, half-truths and outright fabrications, instead of the merits of the process and the plan. Don't be fooled by slight of hand, but instead base your decisions on truthful, accurate information about what WUFIP is and what it intends to do. Decide for yourself. Visit the WUFIP web site or come to one of the many open forums listed there to be held in the next week. Or, feel free to contact us or any of the Wisconsin Union Directorate members who have been involved in this process since the beginning. Get the facts and not the hype. Vote WUFIP.
All currently enrolled UW-Madison students can vote online at www.vote.asm.wisc.edu between March 28-30.
Christena Gunther is the WUD Art Committee Director and a senior majoring in Art History and French, [email protected].
Jenna Riedi is the WUD VP-Internal Relations and a senior majoring in History and Religious Studies, [email protected].
