November 11, 1993
—LION’'SEYE —*
Page 5
Opinion & Review
Deja Vu: Taxation Without Representation
By John Bishop
Fellow students, have you heard
about the Student Activity Fee which
may be added to your tuition next fall?
An overwhelming majority of Penn
State Delaware County students are
not aware of this proposed fee and I
believe that they should be. As the
former Secretary of S.G.A., I feel
strongly that every student on this
campus should be given the
opportunity to voice their opinions and
ideas regarding the possibility of an
additional fee being added to their
tuition.
Before anything is done to make
students tuition cost more, I believe
the complete facts regarding this fee
should be printed in the Lion's Eye,
posted on campus bulletin boards, and
mailed to students’ homes. Every Penn
State Delco. student with whom I have
spoken with, about student affairs,
feels that the views and opinions of
students often go unheard. Invaluable
administrators, such as Dr. Ed
Tomesko and Mr. “Pete” Coleman,
have made every effort to listen to
what we as students have to say. We
must take advantage of this
opportunity and bring our views on
the Student Activities Fee to their
attention.
No Student Input
Penn State Delaware County
Students should not be forced to pay
for something which they may not be
able to afford, or do not believe in,
without having been given the
opportunity to voice their opinions on
such an increase. I don't like the idea
of being forced to hand over more of
my paycheck for something which I
cannot even vote for or against.
I have asked many people about
this subject and I have been told by
S.G.A. President Amy McCarthy,
Director of Student Affairs “Pete”
Coleman, ‘and Freshman
Trash Talk:
Representative Melissa Gerace, that
the Activities Fee is not yet “official”
because the Board of Trustees and
other factions of Penn State have not
voted on it yet. The question is: When
do the students of Penn State Delco get
to vote on it?
"Out of Our Hands"
“It may not be official because
the ‘higher-ups’ at University Park still
have to vote on it, but it’s out of our
hands and all we can do is wait.” stated
Melissa Gerace, a first semester student,
Multi-Culture Group Secretary and
Penn State Delco Freshman
Representative. If this is true (and I
hope that it is not) the students of
Penn State Delco are in for a big
surprise.
The Student Activities Fee was
first presented to Penn State Delco at
the October 6 Student Government
Association meeting. Those students
and club officers in attendance were
provided with a copy of a document
entitled “Student Activity Fee Proposed
Changes to Pilot Proposal.” They were
not, however, presented with a copy of
the draft with the proposed Student
Activity Fee.
Meaningless Chances
An example of the “information”
provided by this document was: “1.)
No changes”. You are probably asking
yourself what does this mean? It
means, in other words, that there are
no proposed changes to Point One of
the draft of the Student Activities Fee.
However, since the students at the
meeting were told that there were
“three or four different drafts,” and
were not presented with a copy of the
draft for which the proposed changes
had been designed, they didn’t know
what Point One of the Student
Activities Fee was. The proposed
changes were, therefore, totally
meaningless.
Clean Up Your Act, Delco
By James Foltz
According to Jim Duffy, a
maintenance worker, even though
there are 50 or more trash cans located
throughout the grounds of the Penn
State Delaware County Campus, there
is still a litter problem.
“An awful lot of litter is being
thrown around the parking lot and
the campus,” Duffy stated. He then
described just one example of the
typical littering which goes on
throughout the campus.
Duffy had been in the main
parking lot working on the lights when
he witnessed a male student talking to
a female student. The male student
then nonchalantly placed an empty
soda can on the ground and left.
“These students are 18 years and
older. They can take a test; they can
vote; they have responsibilities, yet
they can’t show common courtesy by
walking to the trash can,” Duffy
complained.
“I had to submit a resume for my
job. I had to sit and be interviewed for
two hours and describe my training
and experience. My job is to do
maintenance, but instead there is a lot
of policing the campus, picking up
trash.”
Looking at the campus, one may
think that it is very clean. Itis, but for
one reason.
“You don’t notice (the trash)
because we are picking things up. The
trash gets picked up, but not by the
people who litter,” Duffy pointed out.
“It takes time to pick up trash;
that’s money. Things that need to be
repaired are being neglected because
of the time waste,” Duffy added.
“For instance, there are cigarette
butts all over the place. Killing yourself
is just fine and dandy, but throw away
the butts. The black spots on the
sidewalk, that's gum. We have to take
a steamer to get that off,” Duffy said.
When Duffy was asked about
how to solve the problem, his answer,
of course, was simple.
“When students leave their
vehicles or the buildings, in the parking
lots, in the paths, there is always a
trash can. They always walk past
them, and if one is full, there is always
another 50-100 feet away that isn’t. Use
them.”
The students and Club Officers
who attended this meeting were not
given an opportunity to vote on this
proposed fee. Those students who
attended the S.G.A. meetings which
have since followed have also not been
given an opportunity to vote on it. The
majority of Penn State Delco students
have not even heard about this fee.
To my knowledge, no draft for
this fee has ever been presented at an
S.G.A. meeting. No draft has ever been
posted for students to read. I have
been told that a draft of the Student
Activities Fee was “passed” at the last
Council of Commonwealth Student
Governments meeting. If this is true,
how could it be passed when the
oppinions of the majority of Penn State
Delco students were not considered ?
Opposing Views
S.G.A President Amy McCarthy
and Freshman Represenative Melissa
Gerace were both present at the
C.C.S.G meeting when the Student
Activities Fee was passed. Both have
completely different veiws of what
occurred at the meeting and what the
present status of the Student Activities
Fee is. I believe the students of Penn
State Delco should be provided
immediately with accurate information
regarding this fee.
As students we have earned the
right to read the draft of the Student
Activities Fee and its proposed
changes. These should be posted on
campus. Copies of each of these
documents should be given to each
student so that we can make our own
educated decisions for or against it.
Proposed Student Ballot
A ballot should be given to each
student. It could be printed in the next
issue of the Lion's Eye along with
complete details about the proposed
fee. Once the votes have been tallied,
our student leaders and representatives
will know how we stand on this issue
and this will better enable them to
represent our best interests.
Please request a copy of the draft
and its proposed changes from our
Student Government Association
Officers. Let your voice be heard and
make your opinions known. We must
let concerned staff members, such as
Dr. Ed Tomesko and Mr. “Pete”
Coleman, know how we feel. Most
importantly we must demand our right
to have our views and opinions fairly
represented.
Urban Myth Causes Chaos
By Emmanuel Seabrooks
A bulletin was released on
October 19 to the Delaware State Police
Department ordering businesses to
warn their employees about a new
form of gang initiation. According to
the bulletin, gang members drive at
night with their lights off and wait
until you flash your lights upon them
to remind them to turn their lights on.
They take the flash as a symbol for
“lights out” and they often follow the
car and rob or murder.
The Mid Atlantic Health and
Safety Department in Newark,
Delaware, stated that already two
families had fallen victim to these
crimes and that everyone was at risk.
Two weeks later, the Delaware
County Daily Times published an
article denouncing the bulletin and
calling the entire case an Urban Myth.
The entire tale surfaced two to
three months ago. The bulletin that.
had been issued out to counties named
the Illinois State Police as the informers
of the crimes. Where did the Mid
Atlantic Health and Safety Department
get this information? It is reportedly
said that the Illinois State Police alerted
local law enforcers about the supposed
ritual cases.
According to Officer John
Pastuovic (quoted from the Daily
Times ) “There is absolutely nothing
to it. The only bulletin released by the
Illinois State Police was a warning of
the hoax!”
This is something that cannot be
taken lightly in the eyes of the public,
departments like Mid Atlantic Health
and Safety should be better informed
about situations before a warning like
the above scares the communities. In
the future, we should remember that
urban myths can originate from the
most unexpected sources.
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