Gabay's Decision Was Justified

I am no great fan of the Undergraduate Council, and I personally oppose the term bill increase. Nevertheless, I found Daniel Altman's editorial, "Put a Leash on the Council" (April 13, 1994) to be unnecessarily harsh and unforgiving towards the much-maligned council. I believe Altman has the letter of the law correct when he says that the petition has enough signatures and should be put to referendum as it is written.

Still, drawing from my own experience. I feel that Gabay is correct in his sense that the petition was primarily signed by people who were concerned about the term bill increase, and were not very aware of the other issues raised by the petition.

In my own case, my desire to beat the Union crown at lunch made me sign the petition rather hurriedly, and I did not find out about the other issues until I read about them in The Crimson. Though I consider myself able to read and understand an entire petition, I read only one fifth of it, due to time constraints. Indeed, the concern that Justin Label seemed to have when I talked to him was not about the petition going to referendum, but that the five separate issues would be voted on as a single bill, and thus by voting to oppose the term bill increase students would necessarily cast a vote on a number of other measures that they might not agree with, such as semiannual elections. This, I believe is the "packing" with Gabay was concerned.

Thus, I feel that Gabay's argument for only putting the question of the term bill to a popular vote has some justification, though I might also like to see the other issues raised go to vote, they should do so on a separate vote. I do agree with Altman's condemnation of the idea that the council could overturn a petition for a referendum, but I also feel that the proposals of the petition should be dealt with separately. Justin Burk '97