This November the ASUO will put into place another EMU referendum to get the building renovated. While students have voted this down twice, the ASUO executive team continues to look for ways to lower the cost.
“The referendum will read (that) it will be a maximum of a $69 fee,” ASUO president Laura Hinman@@http://uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/laura*hinman@@ said.
The lower cost comes from an increase in fundraising. The EMU Task Force has asked the administration to put the project on high priority and hopes to raise $10 million from donors.
“Students are between a rock and a hard place; we want autonomy over our fees and we want to control what goes into the building but we also want the project that students worked so hard on to go through,” Hinman said.
If the $10 million is not raised either the quality of the building or the amount of space will have to be cut. Given these two options it seems likely that space would be cut before lowering the quality.
“We would have to cut space. That is the only way to do it, but it won’t impact the student wing,” Hinman said. “There will be a couple of big donors and they will have something named after them.”