TCU Senate approves funding for Trips Cabin construction

    The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate approved $230,000 in funding last night to go toward a Trips Cabin to be constructed alongside the Tufts Mountain Club's (TMC) Loj in North Woodstock, N.H.
    The body voted 20-5 in favor of allocating money from the TCU recovered funds to the project, which will involve building a small structure that will sleep around 30 people who desire quieter nighttime accommodations at the Tufts-owned, TMC-operated Loj property.
    The cost for the cabin could hit a maximum of $237,500, and TMC has already raised $11,854 for the project from members and alumni. At minimum, it may cost around $200,000; TMC plans to repay the Senate any unused funds if the project ends up below the current budget.
    "We've been trying so long to get this, and it was amazing to see all our time and effort come to fruition," TMC President Katie Bond, a junior, told the Daily last night.
    The disbursement of the funds includes a stipulation that TMC lower its prices for the weekend retreat center, which is open to all undergraduate Tufts students and groups but which is discounted for TMC members. As a result, certain costs for individuals, groups and TMC members will drop by $5.
    "We want to keep our prices down, we want more people to come up, and Senate wanted that as well," Bond said.
    The debate at yesterday's meeting centered on the merits of funding such a large expenditure — the costliest of this academic year — when the extent to which the student body at large would benefit from an off-campus structure located a two-hour drive from campus remained unclear.
    But TMC plans to launch a publicity campaign centered around the Loj in the fall. Last night, members of the group's executive board also pledged to make rides to the property much more accessible.
    "Right now, it's kind of a free-for-all getting up to the Loj," TMC Vice President Brian Gilling, a sophomore who is also the director of the Trips Cabin project, told the Daily. "[Members of the Senate] want us to make a procedure for everyone to get up and enjoy it."
    The Trips Cabin has been two years in the making as a way to expand the Loj and open it up to more undergraduates.
    Last fall, TMC members launched a campaign supporting spending part of the recovered funds on the project. The project came before the Senate then, but was shelved when the administration indicated that it would loan money to the Senate to fund the expansion on the Loj property.
    But the economic downturn dashed those plans, and the Senate did not take up the issue of the Trips Cabin again before reaching a decision on the disbursement of the recovered funds. In December, the body voted to use $300,000 of the recovered funds to create an endowment that would support student activities, channel $87,780 to student groups through the Allocations Board and put $300,000 into a savings account. It was the latter funds on which last night's allocation focused.
    Senator Dan Pasternack, a sophomore, spearheaded the effort to bring the Trips Cabin project before the Senate again. He said that the issue deserved to be brought before the Senate when the body had a significant amount of money that could be disbursed.
    "I figured it was something that was important to TMC and, more importantly, was important to the Tufts community, and that several people on Senate stated that as one of their objectives for this year," he told the Daily after last night's meeting. "I figured it would only be right for it to at least be heard in Senate."
    Senator Chas Morrison, a sophomore, voted against last night's project. While he supports the Trips Cabin, he said that the Senate should have waited for the administration to help out with the project — something he said administrators had indicated they might do.
    "In my mind, the debate was whether building the Trips Cabin now as opposed to in the near future was worth not [being] able to put this money toward expenditures such as increased wireless or renovations to the campus center," he told the Daily after the vote.
    Gilling said ground can be broken as soon as the earth at the property thaws enough. The cabin could be completed as early as one and a half months from now, and at latest by the start of the fall semester.