Western Front - 1998 February 20

              WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY VOLUME 103 ISSUE 11
FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 20, 1998
BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON
Vendors' Row to
stay on campus
By Ken Brierly
The Western Front
The area outside the Viking
Commons known as Vendors'
Row will be relocated but spared
during the Viking Union renova­tion
that will begin later this year.
Jack Smith, director of student
activities, said the vendors may
relocate under the overhang in
front of the Viking Commons on
High Street. The move may hap­pen
as early as November, he told
vendors yesterday at a discussion
forum hosted by a panel that
included Smith, Associated
Students President Shane O'Day
and A.S. Vice President for
Business and Operations Hyun
Berglund.
An outpouring oi support for
vendors who stand to lose the
open-air atmosphere of Vendors'
Row has Smith and Eileen
Coughlin, vice president for stu­dent
affairs, considering inside
and outside locations for the ven­dors.
"Public opinion now seems to
be in favor of an outside location,
so that's a big consideration
now," said Coughlin in a pre­pared
statement.
The existing site of Vendor's
Row will be forever changed
when the area occupied by the
Student Co-op Bookstore, VU
Commons and VU Addition will
be joined under one roof — with a
price tag of $21 million in student
building fees.
Smith said the dialogue now
has the renovation plans calling
for five store-front businesses in
an inside, mall-like area with
three large vending kiosks, and
outside, an open-air vendors' area
under the overhang on High
Street.
Some concerned students
voiced skepticism to the panel
about the future of the vendors
aftef^the renovation is complete
— specifically, what prices ven­dors
will be charged for leasing
the spaces per quarter.
"Prices (for rent) will increase,"
O'Day said. "But that may be due
to something like an increase in
electricity use."
"(The rent) is not going to go
through the ceiling," Berglund
added. "It will be a small
increase, but we don't know what
the increase will be."
Smith said before rents are set,
"first we need information: What
are the vendors making? What is
the space worth?"
Students were also concerned
that the same vendors may not be
able to compete for space inside
the renovated building in the
event of a bidding process with a
corporation like Marriott
"I can't make the promises you
want to hear," Berglund said.
"That is that the same vendors
will be there and be charged the
same prices ..."
"Each vendor is currently dealt
with on a quarterly basis," Smith
said. "You don't want seven ven­dors
selling the same things."
"I don't think Marriott wants to
get into the sweater business or
silver-jewelry business," Berg­lund
added.
See Vendors, page 6
Students move back into Mathes
..^.™!,..„,„.w...,,,.^,.,,„. ....„„.„„.„..„.,, ,..,,,„ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^^BB^S
vms one of the students relocated to Fairhaven after their rooms were damaged by the Nov.
17,1997 fire. All the student displaced by the fire were allowed to move back into their rooms
Student lobby will meet to discuss agenda, policy changes
By Al Bentley
The Western Front
Members of the Washington
Student Lobby and the Associated
Students' government will con­vene
this Saturday in Olympia to
discuss the status of their agenda
as well as the voting system used
to decide which issues the WSL
should fight for in legislation.
The monthly WSL state board
meeting will take place on Feb. 21
at the state capitol.
The 21 members of the board,
comprised of student representa­tives
from Western, University of
Washington, Eastern Washington
University, Central Washington
University and Washington State
University, will discuss issues on
their agenda, such as increases in
financial aid, matching funds
from the state for child care, and
faculty and staff diversity.
For any issue, 21 votes decide
whether or not it will be fought
for in legislation. Western has
only three — AS President Shane
O'Day, WSL Chapter Chair
Genevieve Panush and Vice
Chapter Chair and WSL President
Ian Stewart.
UW brings five votes to the
table, WSU and Central get 4
votes each, and Eastern has three
votes.
WSL Secretary Treasurer Arleen
Nand, from the UW, also votes on
the proceedings.
Stewart may also get a second
vote as the WSL president, but
only in the case of a tie vote.
"Some people say it's a conflict
of interest for somebody from one
of the universities to vote as
Secretary Treasurer of the WSL —
that there's some inherent bias,"
said AS Vice President of
Legislative and Community
Affairs Jesse Salomon.
If the Secretary Treasurer did
vote for the UW agenda, Salomon
said, it could be conceived that
she was in cahoots with the uni­versity's
wishes, giving the UW
six votes — double the number of
Western votes.
Theoretically, Salomon said, the
big universities, UW and WSU,
could use their voting power to
gang up on the other three schools
and push their agendas through.
"They'd still need one or two
people to help them out in order
to get a majority," Salomon said.
"But it wouldn't be that hard to
get one or two people to do that."
"Depending on who is in what
office," Salomon said, "the
amount of votes each college gets
switches each year. But this year,
this is the way it is."
At its Jan. 24 meeting, the WSL
voted to support a political plank
it has desired for the past 30 years:
to place a student on the Board of
Trustees, which directly and indi­rectly
decides university policy,
raising the number of members
on the board to 10.
"It's just one student — it's still
nine to one — but we have more
of a say in university decisions
now," Salomon said.
Also at the last meeting, WSU
and UW flexed their voting mus­cles
by collectively supporting
domestic (homosexual) partner­ships
in student housing at the
UW. Supporting the domestic
partnership could have meant
serious trouble for the student
regents bill, Solomon said.
"Some of the state legislators
implied that if the WSL supported
domestic partnerships in student
housing, then we might not see
our regents bill pass," Salomon
said.
"It was a gamble," Salomon
said. "We morally wanted to take
a stand — yay on domestic part­nership
and nay on Initiative 200,
the initiative that would end affir­mative
action — but we were
afraid of the political ramifica­tions."
"The gamble paid off,"
Salomon said, "so all's well that
ends well."
This kind of political hardball is
to be expected, Salomon said,
especially on controversial issues
such as these.