Friday, April 04, 2008
Oy
So, a SUPERB Op-Ed.
It's better than last year's, at least. Eugene Chow and Sean Mazur recognize that they're begging, rather than claiming their due.
It was impossible to distinguish what a "no" vote meant in last year's referendum because it was a large omnibus bill. People might have supported SUPERB but not approved of funding for Cal Band and UC Jazz or vice versa. Yeah. That was the problem. So why no Cal Band or UC Jazz referendum this year? You know... just to clear things up?
SUPERB is not more important to campus than other student groups, nor has is it ever been above participating in the budgeting process that other ASUC funded groups use. I suppose that's technically true. While they would like to be above the budgeting process, their attempt to make it so failed last year, so they still have to participate.
SUPERB is the only group offering its type of services and entertainment and therefore it incurs costs that no other student groups have. Other groups, however, are indistinguishable from each other. Sure, they have different names and different causes and different functions, but...
SUPERB's events are on a much larger scale than any other group funded by the ASUC and is one of the few groups designed to reach out to every single student on campus. Unless you don't like our particular concept of entertainment (concerts, etc.)
Among other UCs (not including the Merced and Santa Cruz campuses, which do not have programming boards of this nature), Berkeley has the lowest budget allotted to off-campus entertainment. Well, yes, if you exclude the ones which spend less, we spend the least. While low spending might be a cause for pride in some circles, here it is to be considered a serious flaw.
This referendum directly benefits all students as it will free up over $100,000 to reallocate to other ASUC groups. Given the ever-growing number of student groups and a stagnant pool of financial resources, this referendum greatly increases the pool of money available to support student groups. This fact alone should encourage all members of any ASUC-funded student group to vote for this referendum. Unless, of course, we go and get more funding, which we can do, because we didn't feel like including a clause preventing it. You see, if you want more funding for student groups, the only way to get it is to give SUPERB money. Giving the ASUC more money to spend on student groups directly is too complicated and doesn't recognize the most important thing: SUPERB wants money.
SUPERB has consistently proven its worth by entertaining roughly 24,000 people every year. This is a lie, and Eugene told me that it was a lie when I called him on it. His completely baseless estimate he gave to make himself look good was 14,000 to 18,000, so it's probably even lower than that.
Vote yes on the SUPERB Entertainment Fee: For the price of one movie ticket, SUPERB will be able to offer even better entertainment at even lower prices, more events, free up over $100,000 for your student group to receive and increase its ability to offer discounted technical services. If we're doing the per person count (one movie ticket) we really should be doing the per person count of these other things (free up over $3 for student groups!). Otherwise, it's really the price of 34,000 movie tickets.
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