Yesterday our campus received Tony Frank’s ultimate decision regarding the construction of an on-campus stadium. After nine months of careful planning and consideration, the president announced his support for the new stadium, a stadium that the Editorial Board has endorsed.
For a process that has been claimed to be transparent throughout the decision, there has been little to no access to public officials making the decisions since the stadium was first proposed.
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Tony Frank issued his proclamation in the standard way that students have become accustomed to interacting with their president; through an email so long that many college students have neither the time nor determination to scroll to the bottom.
At the end of Frank’s wordy email, though, many questions remained completely unanswered. First of all, the stadium is conditional because we still have no idea if we’re even going to be able to get enough funding for the project.
Tony Frank, if you’re not confident that you’ll receive enough private funding for the stadium itself, how do you expect to come up with an extra $30 million for a parking facility or $16 million for an alumni welcome center?
Frank claims that no student tuition or fees or proceeds from any tax will be used to finance the stadium, but doesn’t go into any detail as to alternative sources of revenue other than philanthropic gifts.
After nine months, why don’t we have a plan for what we’re going to do with Hughes stadium? Frank’s email only says that’s a “discussion for another day.”
Yesterday was the day for discussion, the day to reveal all the plans. Yesterday didn’t look like the result of nine months of careful decision making.
