Raynor with Moeser

The referendum on whether UNC should raise the student fee for student’s childcare by about $10 has been interesting to say the least. I worked on the “vote no” side of the campaign and let me tell you I feel Tim Nichol’s suit against JJ Raynor is justified.

I was involved with the painting of A-frames for our campaign. The painting of these frames took hours and I used my own paint that I spent my own money to buy. You can imagine my indignation when I discovered that the signs were stolen the next day.

I was also involved with the hanging of “vote no” signs around campus in perfectly legal locales. The next day they were torn down.

The other night I came from the library and one of the A-Frames that were stolen was back with wanted posters that had one of the student‘s face on it who was against the increase. Needless to say, I was not amused.

While all this was going on, JJ Raynor proceeded to run a “vote yes” campaign out of her executive office. And, um, yes she did.  Raynor now denies any wrong doing.  What she did wrong was use her privileges as president to promote her point of view.  Just FYI.

In other words, the DTH’s covering of this fiasco was a ridiculous waste of paper.

However, we are not here to debate the merits of direct democracy. What we are here to oppose is the fee increase itself.

We already pay $1,691.74 in student fees on top of tuition. What is $10 more, you may ask? The cost of student fees increases every year, and $10 here and $10 there starts to add up. In the past five years, student fees have increased by $446.22. We have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

It’s been noted by a number of commentators that student fees to pay for free services are a prime force behind the increasing costs of higher education in the United States. The best move to help lower income individuals get a college education is to reduce its cost while maintaining quality in the classroom. This is best done by keeping down the costs of student fees, which do not affect the classroom.

The vast majority of UNC students do not have children. Therefore, the proposed student child care fee is designed to fund a program which will be utilized only by a very small portion of UNC students.

Because of the limited market for this program, common sense and principles of sound government and personal responsibility support the view that this program should be funded only by those who will utilize it.

That is, child care services should be funded from charges billed to those who use the services rather than charging the entire student body for a service very few of them will use.

Therefore, we ask you all to take a stand for sound, common sense management at our university, and vote against the Child Care Services Fee in 2009! You can join our group on Facebook for more updates: Stop Student Fee increases in 2009!

Apparently she cares a lot because she is working to get folks to sign a petition that will force the issue. If she is successful at getting 10 percent of the student body to sign a petition, the question will be put to a referendum.

When a girl stood up in class today and asked me to sign the petition, my initial response was to say, “Well, this is an attempt to get around a common-sense congress.” But, I do agree that it is good to have free referendums. However, this particular issue seems to be tricky.

You see, most students here do not pay their tuition out of their own pockets. So, when a decision comes before us regarding the raising of fees, many times it is of no great consequence for us to simply say yes. This is what congress-woman Taylor Holgate meant when she said, “I believe that if this goes to referendum, students will pass it.” We will pass it even if the raise is a ridiculous waste of an increase during hard economic times.

Also, the fee increase is to help out a small percentage of students who have made a conscious decision to get impregnated. It is, first and foremost, their responsibility to take care of their children. It is not my job, nor is it yours, to pay for day care or any other care when it comes to other people’s children. To bring in around $300,000 of revenue in to pay for this is simply unacceptable to me as a fiscal conservative.

So, in closing, the fee increase is a bad idea. Should we have the right to decide as a student body? You decide whether you want to decide by deciding whether to decide to sign the petition.  I say give the referedum to our parents.