Once again student government is being used as a way to divide this campus. Their are Members of our Senate who aren't looking out for the interest of the college community nor that of their constituency .

Instead of a solution that would benefit everyone, the student senate will vote on disfranchising the staff and sending them off campus.

Now my friends I will present you with the weak and shallow justification that has been given, "WSU wouldn't exist without students." This is, to a narrow point, true. However Weber State wouldn't exist without the staff either. The staff helps students, not to mention that many of the staff are Students. And their is nothing the average student in a bind cherishes more than a friendly, caring staff member who can bend a rule or two. A staff member who cares about the students.

Students Struggle with the hardships of scholastic life for a few years at most, but many staff members stay for a lifetime. If students start defining staff as non-persons and using legislative hubris to kick them to the bottom of the heap, how will this affect the attitude of staff toward students? Will they see students as people who need their help? Or will they see students and a enemy in a class war?

Choosing to kick staff off of the campus and forcing them to park at the Dee events center rather than near the one building they each spend their day (in order to speed and improve our lives) might win the students a few parking spaces. But at what expense? The senators proposing the bill flash the number "1400 staff members" this is true and I do not question the validity of his statistic. But 97.6 % of statistics are made up and numbers can lie. The WSU Chief of Police stated that less than 400 stalls would be freed by the bill. Not all of the staff members are given parking nor do the majority hold individual stalls.

Kicking the staff off of campus might give a few hundred students, at most, a few seconds faster walk. Meanwhile, we'll all be living in a less human environment, with a new found tension between students and helpers that never existed before. In the interim we'll find that, woops, it's impossible to deny permits to many of the staffers who are older or differently abled, and to fix this we'll have to start writing elaborate rules that burden the administration and turn a problem into a nightmare. Job satisfaction will drop and the friendly faces behind the counters and desks might start resembling the impatient bureaucrats at the DMV! And while one late student only inconveniences her or himself, a late staff member can inconvenience many students and faculty.

Just to turn the screw, and let everyone know a bit more of what's going on. This years student government through its influence in the Student Fee's Recommendation Committee, refused to give ANY money to the campus shuttle system, which could have helped speed up transit between the Dee Events Center and the campus; at the same time they gave to the sports program close to $ 950,000. The largest (by almost double) allocation to any part of our campus community. Plus the parking committee has space for two representatives to be appointed by the ASWSU, however ASWSU must have chosen inappropriate members because they haven't bothered attending their meetings.

I find it odd that our student government opposed using fees to benefit the whole student body, but certain senators want to start a class war on campus. But seeing the multiplication of special-interest senators and the decision to take half of the seats off the general ballot, this is consistent with the direction student government has been taking.

But that is a whole new article in itself, isn't it.

Paul W. Draper

3/27/99