With relatively little fanfare, the ASUNM Senate has passed an amendment that, if approved, would reduce funding to Student Publications and increase student fees.
The amendment would raise the ASUNM fee paid by undergraduate students from $14 to $20 and would increase funding available for student groups by $200,000. It also would reduce the amount allocated to the Student Publications Board from 12 percent to 6 percent. The board funds the Daily Lobo, Conceptions Southwest and Best Student Essays.
As editor in chief of the Daily Lobo, it is hard to say which is more disturbing - ASUNM consistently seeking to cut the newspaper's funding or the absence of debate on the subject.
No one seems to want to know how the student government spends the money it does have before charging students more for the privilege of being represented by a tiny group that doesn't necessarily reflect the campus' needs.
The Daily Lobo does not want to compete with ASUNM or any of the student groups it funds.
When this amendment was first presented, the Daily Lobo was told that its percentage of student fees would not be cut. Then the proposal went before the full Senate and was amended to cut the newspaper's funding. Suddenly, the senators conveniently painted this as an all-or-nothing amendment with students being forced to choose between funding the newspaper or student groups.
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This decision forces one to ask how the student government is spending the money it has acquired, why more than one-third of its funding goes to executive agencies that are not always responsive to students and why students are being asked to foot the bill to back groups that should already have been taken care of by ASUNM.
Of course, the next obvious question is how many people actually know what ASUNM is or care about what it does? More importantly, why don't they?
The Daily Lobo will continue to share its opinion on this issue leading up to the election and invites others in the community to do the same because that is the purpose of an independent student newspaper.
Iliana Lim¢n
Editor in chief
