Letters to the Editor

9/9/10 7:00pm

To the Editor:The administration's comments on KTRU's failure to pass a blanket tax increase are misleadingly bleak and lacking in context ("President David Leebron responds to Thresher staff editorial, student and alumni concerns over KTRU sale," Aug. 27). First of all, it's important to remember that blanket tax increases are notoriously difficult to pass, since they require a supermajority. For example, the Green Blanket Tax for RESET required two years of hard lobbying to pass; it failed in 2009 and passed in 2010. Secondly, a blanket tax increase vote is not the same as a popularity contest. Students may vote "no" not because they dislike or disapprove of an organization but because they think it is doing a good job with the money it already has.

In 2009 a proposed KTRU blanket tax received only 45 percent of the necessary two-thirds vote, but this was with near-zero campaign effort on a ballot chock-full of blanket tax increase proposals. In 2010, we campaigned much harder, and our efforts paid off with a jump in the favorable votes to 55 percent. I had a feeling while campaigning that it was the younger classes that felt more sympathetic to the cause. This in turn was a reflection of KTRU's gradually improving campus image and reputation. Over the last few years (and especially last year) we have been steadily increasing our profile on campus in a positive way, by partnering with campus organizations such as the Matchbox Gallery, by bringing popular acts like Voxtrot and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists to campus for our annual free KTRU Outdoor Show, and by broadcasting Shepherd School concerts. KTRU has been on an upswing in campus relations, and if my conversations with students while campaigning for the blanket tax increase last year were any indicator, the younger classes are getting it. Perhaps, like RESET, we would have won a supermajority with a second year of hard campaigning.

It rankles, therefore, to read that Leebron thought that the 55 percent vote last year somehow justified selling our transmitter. (Perhaps every campus organization that loses these campaigns should now fear that their assets are up for sale?) In fact, that vote was an indicator of an improvement in our formerly abysmal campus image. A few years ago we, too, recognized that students did not hold KTRU in very high esteem, so we have been working very hard (with success, I might add) on turning that around, but changing students' minds is a slow process.

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It's only too bad that we weren't quite fast enough to pass the tax last year - but then again, it seems very unlikely that winning two-thirds of the vote would have changed anything about the sale, considering the administrators' blatant disregard of student opinion when they can get away with it. They are, after all, "all the time acting like an enterprise," as Leebron said, and student input apparently weighs very little in the scales of business. Please prevent the administration from getting away with this sale, for even if KTRU means nothing to you, the next atrocity might hit closer to your heart - visit www.savektru.org to see what you can do to help.

Carina Baskett

Martel '10

former KTRU DJ director

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