RESET, RPC earn blanket tax increase, while KTRU fails

By Seth Brown     2/25/10 6:00pm

While the Rice Endowment for Sustainable Energy Technology and the Rice Program Council will both get the funding they hoped for via blanket tax, KTRU will have to try again next year. Six of the eight proposed amendments to the Student Association Constitution, which required a two-thirds majority to pass, succeeded in the SA General Election, which began at 11:59 p.m. last Thursday and ended at 2 p.m. Wednesday.Of the three blanket tax proposals, only RESET's was meant to create a new subsidiary organization of the SA. RESET received a 71 percent vote in favor, and will now receive $9 annually from every undergraduate.

"I'm very pleased - this is something I've been working on for several years now," SA President Patrick McAnaney said. "I hope this will be a paradigm shift for the Rice student body - RESET will help a lot in changing attitude, and it will cut down [waste] a lot by convincing students that energy and the environment are public goods."

RPC's proposed amendment, which received a 70 percent vote in favor, will raise its blanket tax from $13 to $18, to be used only for non-Beer Bike event operations costs.

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"RPC needs [the increased funding] to sustain the programs that the student body has come to know and love," RPC President-Elect Radhika Chhabra said.

RPC President Michelle Kerkstra said that the cash will help RPC get a larger venue for Esperanza and host more concerts.

"The monies will be used to offset the money lost after the past two years," Kerkstra, a Will Rice College senior, said.

KTRU had hoped to increase its blanket tax from $5.50 to $7.50, and the proposal received a 55 percent vote in favor of the increase, up from 45 percent in last year's election, when KTRU also attempted to increase its blanket tax.

"I'm pretty disappointed because we did a lot of campaigning - if we keep trying, maybe next year it will pass," KTRU DJ Director and News Director Carina Baskett said.

KTRU Station Manager-Elect Kelsey Yule said that she thought the percentage increase was a sign that KTRU has been improving its services.

"It's definitely a setback, but if we continue what we're doing, we'll be able to get a blanket tax passed," Yule, a Hanszen College sophomore, said.

The other failed proposal would have made the approval of a student vote requisite for any major change in the Beer Bike format.

"It's too bad that it failed, but the fact that it was on the ballot raised the issue of what I wanted to address anyways," Baker College junior Diana Cahill said. "It should still be codified, and I hope action will be taken in the future."

McAnaney, a Brown College senior, disagreed, and said he didn't think the initiative would come up again.

"I think people were definitely concerned this year that there wasn't a clear mechanism [for changes to the Beer Bike format], but I think the Beer Bike coordinators did a good job getting student opinion," McAnaney said.

Alongside the blanket tax proposals, an amendment tasking the SA to establish oversight mechanisms for blanket tax monies also succeeded, with 78 percent.

"I think it's a good sign that students would like to increase transparency and accountability for current subsidiaries - it's something we should specify the process for to evaluate current blanket tax funding," SA Treasurer Tiffany Wu said.

In total, 972 students voted in the presidential election.

"I'm really excited about the way the elections turned out - it was a very good turnout, and I feel like we picked some really good people," Hanszen College Senator Travis Smith said.

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