Third time’s a charm?
The EMU Expansion and Renovation project will be put to an online student vote through DuckWeb this week. In summer 2011, the University of Oregon administration tried to get around having a student vote, but the state board of higher education refused to approve the project without student consent. The first referendum in November 2011 failed.
In the second referendum, held in spring term of 2012, a fee to fund the Student Recreation Center was approved, but the EMU renovation again failed to win majority support. After the RBI debacle last summer, the school and ASUO aren’t taking any official position on this third vote.
Getting above the politics for a minute, here’s what you need to know about the online vote this week.

• The ASUO says it will cost students $69 every term. The fee will pay off the bonds bought by the UO to pay for the renovation, and the fee will continue until the approximately $100 million in bonds are paid off.
•  At the earliest, the renovation will start in fall of 2014 and the new EMU would open in 2016. What will construction look like? No one’s sure, according to the official website: “The exact plan for services during the renovation and expansion has yet to be determined, and won’t be until the construction path is outlined. The goal and priority is to provide all current services at current or alternative locations as much as possible during construction.”
• If the referendum fails this week, the project is likely on ice for the foreseeable future. Given the condition of the EMU — it’s decrepit — it’s possible the UO could decide to just put in the funds necessary to repair the building — repairs and maintenance that haven’t been done in more than a decade.
•  The UO administration has aggressively pushed the project in the past — even hiring a political campaign firm last summer — and has been criticized by the state board, student unions, faculty and local and state media for seeming to try to avoid or manipulate a student vote on the project. This time the official stance is total neutrality.
• The plans to renovate have been developing for 10 years. According to the EMU Task Force, students have been heavily involved throughout the process so there’s a lot of student input on these plans, but many of those students involved in planning are no longer at the UO.
• Even if the vote is approved this week, the expansion and renovation must still be approved by the state board, the Oregon legislature and by Gov. John Kitzhaber. The state board thinks the UO administration has made poor decisions concerning the project. They’ll need some convincing.
• Seniors planning to graduate won’t have to pay the fee and will be gone before construction starts.