The first of two Feds referenda debates took place on Monday, November 2 in the SLC Great Hall. The debate covered the topics three upcoming referenda to be put to students from November 9 to 11: SoundFM, a new Student Services Complex, and an expansion to Health Services.

The SoundFM referendum asks students whether they support a $2.50 refundable increase to the Federation of Students administered fees to support Radio Waterloo. Brent Golem and Nate Vexler were present at the November 2 debate representing the Yes Committee. The representative of the No Committee was not able to attend the debate.

In their opening remarks, the Yes Committee acknowledged the problems of the old CKMS station, calling it poorly run and not accountable. Both representatives also emphasized the differences between the old station and the new SoundFM. “We took back the station with the student initiative,” said Golem. “We have created many new volunteers and student programs. We are more fiscally responsible and more accountable.”

“SoundFM is definitely a new station with new volunteers and new energy,” said Vexler.

The issue of fiscal responsibility was on the minds of many of the audience and the subject of several questions. Both Golem and Vexler elaborated on SoundFM's new fiscal responsibility, discussing the move to digital communication to reduce paper waste and the investment in technologies like customer relation management software and accounting software. “I think, as a future-forward-looking organization, that inherently means that we're trying to be more fiscally responsible,” said Vexler.

The proposed budget for SoundFM is available on the station's website, and past budgets can be requested. The three biggest expenses on the budget, according to Golem, are insurance, salaries for paid staff (such as for a volunteer co-ordinator, which Vexler said is a key position with the station), and general office expenses. Expenses also include licensing fees and rights for the music played on the station. “We're posting the budget online and it may change but that's just trying to help be a more transparent organization,” said Golem. SoundFM intends the new student fee to be their baseline revenue, but also intends to seek funding from advertising and grants.

SoundFM's agreement with Feds provides another check for the organization. The agreement outlines a series of specific responsibilities that SoundFM must follow and allows Feds to pull the monetary support if those requirements are not being met, though neither Golem nor Vexler see this situation in SoundFM's future. “If both parties are in good faith according to the agreement, we believe that the station should progress forward,” said Vexler.

Golem and Vexler also emphasized the importance of student involvement with SoundFM. Volunteer opportunities and student involvement was one of the ways the new SoundFM will be more relevant to students, Golem and Vexler said. Students can be involved in the production aspects of SoundFM and in political aspects of the station through the board of governors (which will be over 50 per cent students under the new agreement with Feds). Student involvement, Golem said, is also the best way of preventing this debate from coming to a referendum again in the future.

Vexler also discussed the role digital media and technology initiatives like podcasting will have in the future of SoundFM. Legal issues surrounding podcasts, such as copyrights for music included in podcasts, is one of the areas SoundFM plans to investigate with the additional resources provided by a student fee. “We strongly believe in the new media and we believe that SoundFM can work under the banner of new media and become a centre of new media around campus in an independent way,” said Vexler.

The last question the Yes Committee addressed was the relevance of radio. Radio, Vexler said, is alternative source of entertainment for students, a public announcer, a place to learn about the medium of radio, and a forum for conversation. “We believe that radio is a very effective medium for having conversations that are in a public forum that are not being had right now,” said Vexler. He later added that, “There's no better place to have a conversation than on the radio. Radio is perfect for that.”

For more information on the position of the Yes Committee, visit www.yes2soundfm.ca.

There is currently no website address available for the No Committee.

The Student Services Complex referendum asks students whether they support the addition of a $49.50 fee to the Student Co-ordinated Plan per term to contribute to a new Student Services Complex. The fee would be implemented once the building is open to student, estimated to occur in 2012 or 2013, and would continue until the undergraduate portion of the capital costs is paid off. The proposed complex will include study space, meeting and office space, and a lecture hall/theatre.

The building will cost approximately $47 million and students will pay about $30.5 million of that cost. The university will cover about $5 million, plus annual operating costs (about $1 million per year) including costs for any revenue-generating services that operate in the new complex.

Representing the Yes for Student Spaces Committee at the debate were Nick Soave and Muhammad Ali Akbar. Representing the No Committee was Adam Garcia.

The Yes Committee's opening statement illustrated what they believe is the need for student space on campus. “Simply put, we need more student space on this campus,” Soave said. “You look around everywhere and students are trying to find places to study, to just hang out with their friends. It is a necessity.”

The need, Soave said, is documented in surveys about our institutions, and the development of the Student Services Complex is the reaction of Feds in partnership with the university. The proposal will continue to evolve through student contributions and feedback.

In his opening statement immediately following the statement of the Yes Committee, Garcia challenged the validity of the proposal, but not of the new student space. According to Garcia, “The referendum question is not `Do you want more student space on campus?' There's not a lot of people that can really deny that we do need more space on campus, and the Student Services Complex would definitely fill these needs, but it's the proposal at hand that has a lot of concerns to it.” These concerns include cost (both the cost of the new building and the cost of the potential increase in staff), the university's contribution versus the student contribution (65 per cent from undergraduate students and only 11 per cent from the university administration), and the location.

Garcia calls the proposed location of the new Student Services Complex on the current parking lot H “student space in a not-very-student-oriented environment” and points out that most of the current development has been in the northern and eastern parts of campus. The Yes Committee refuted Garcia's statement, and said that the location of the proposed Student Services Complex was carefully chosen to be both close enough to campus to be accessible to students and far enough from the SLC to avoid disrupting the retailers there.

The No Committee's biggest problem with the proposal is that the plans are only a proposal and haven't been finalized. “There's nothing binding when we say yet to this, so we're committing $30 million to a big question mark,” Garcia said. He wants the university to commit the $100,000 to complete the final plans before asking the students to vote on it. The No Committee also wants those who benefit from the building (students and the university) to contribute equally to it — Garcia said that the university should be making a larger contribution to the initial buildings project. “Voting no is not saying no to student space,” Garcia said. “What you're saying is that undergraduate students should not bear the majority of the cost of a non-binding proposal in an inappropriate location.”

The Yes Committee disagreed with Garcia's comments. They said that the combined contribution of the university, including the annual operating costs, will end up being more than the undergraduate student contribution, and that the current division of monetary contributions is fair. They also noted that any additional funding from the university for the initial construction would have to come from students' tuition.

Ownership and control of the proposed space was one of the contentious questions fielded by the committees. The debate arose over whether students or the university would have capital rights to the building and its spaces, based in large part on the monetary contributions by each of the groups. According to the Yes Committee representatives, a management board made up predominantly of students will control the building, though the exact composition of this group hasn't been determined yet.

Other questions included why some student services were moving into the new space (because they currently lack the space they need), the logistics of the fee breakdown, and the potential composition of the student group controlling the building.

In their closing remarks, the No Committee emphasized the number of unanswered questions left in regards to the proposal, while the Yes Committee emphasized the need for student funding to ensure student involvement in the management of the project.

Neither the Yes nor the No committees currently have website addresses available for further information on their positions. For background information on the Student Services Complex, visit www.studentspace.uwaterloo.ca.

Neither the Yes nor the No committees were available for the November 2 debate. Background information on the Health Services Expansion can be found at www.studentspace.uwaterloo.ca.

For those who missed the first debate, the second Feds referenda debate will take place Friday, November 6 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in the SLC Great Hall.