For those Tufts students old enough to remember the 2004-05 school year (sorry, freshmen), the first thing that comes to mind is probably not a contentious referendum on bringing wind power to Tufts.
Tufts Environmental Consciousness Organization (ECO) had arranged to have a student referendum on Apr. 27, 2005 with the purpose of ascertaining the level of support for the use of wind power at Tufts. The referendum asked students whether they would be willing to pay an extra $20 annually in order for Tufts to adopt the use of wind power.
While the referendum passed with overwhelming support for the $20 increase - 88 percent approved, with a 40 percent student turnout - Tufts' Primary Source took offense: Tufts Elections Board (ELBO) had posted a link on the referendum to ECO's page touting the wind power initiative, but did not include opposing views.
The Primary Source, justifiably concerned about the fairness of the referendum, filed a formal complaint with the TCU Judiciary (TCUJ) and asked for the results to be invalidated.
While the TCUJ agreed that ELBO had conducted the election improperly and recommended that future referenda include both supporting and opposing views, they would not overturn the results.
But the story does not end there. Standing by his word, Primary Source editor emeritus Nick Boyd, now a senior, appealed the TCUJ's ruling to the Committee on Student Life (CSL) this past fall.
The answer from the CSL finally came on Mar. 28, 2006: The TCUJ was wrong, the referendum needed to be overturned, and a new referendum would be held on Apr. 20.
On top of that, it now seems that all of the aforementioned goings-on were for naught, as Tufts' trustees - the people who actually have power - are very reluctant to raise the student activities fee for the sake of wind power.
So it is now a full year later, and the bottom line is that Tufts probably will not be switching to wind power. What, then, was the point of wasting hours and hours deliberating over minutia?
The referendum was non-binding, meaning that even if it had passed without a hitch, Tufts was not required to adopt wind power.
This whole bureaucratic mess was just one big waste of time. Obviously it was unfair that only pros were given on ELBO's page. But the major con of wind power, increased student payments, was implicit. In fact, what other cons would have any effect on Tufts students? The windmills would not be an eyesore to us, and it is not as if there is a high rate of turbine-related deaths.
The point of the referendum was to gauge the level of student support for wind power. Boyd claimed that the results needed to be invalidated because, by only presenting pro-wind information, students were swayed in that direction. Therefore, for the purposes of getting an accurate assessment of student's feelings about wind power, it was necessary to have another referendum.
But will a new referendum make any difference? No. In all likelihood, the numbers will be within five percent of last year's tally.
Clearly, there is something wrong with the Tufts student bureaucracy when such a small issue takes more than a year to resolve.
Tufts' trustees should not be worried about raising student activities fees for wind power; they should be worried about the fact that our student government is squandering its own time and money.
