Several ASUO executive candidates campaigning on a promise of keeping Knight Library open all night on school nights next year will have an opportunity to vote on a proposal to do that before the end of the general election.
ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz said Tuesday that he will ask senators to use $27,000 of surplus funds to keep the library open 24 hours, five days per week beginning the third week of each term next fall, winter and spring.
Dotters-Katz was the originator of the 24-hour library plan a year ago. He requested $56,000 from the ASUO’s over-realized fund to keep the library open around the clock through the entire school year.
He said he was able to lessen the cost of the service by cutting the first two weeks of each term and dropping the number of contracted security guards to two, down from three this year.
“They’ve been testing it and it actually works very well,” Dotters-Katz said of having one fewer security guard. “Two works as well as three.”
The library administration prepared a report on the usage of the all-night service, Dotters-Katz said, and he will present the report to Senate on Wednesday night. “The numbers show that (late-night library use) really picks up after week three. There’s a marked difference.”
Dotters-Katz said he will deliver his plan to Senate on Wednesday and submit a request for the funding that will be voted on a week later, the night before the last day of voting in the general election.
“People are trying to make this a partisan issue,” Students First vice presidential candidate and senator Nick Gower said. “It’s not. We’re dealing with it in Senate the next two weeks.”
Gower said he supports the plan as a worthwhile compromise to provide a necessary service. Students don’t stay all night reading syllabi during the first two weeks of a term, Gower said.
Oregon Action Team presidential candidate Michelle Haley, who is not a senator, said she also supports Dotters-Katz’s plan. “I’m not fond of using student dollars to fund the 24-hour library, but cutting costs makes that more affordable,” Haley said. She said she would like to read all of the details of the plan, but “students need a quiet place to study on campus any hour of the day. It sounds like it’s right on.”
True Blue presidential candidate Nick Schultz, a current finance senator, also said he would likely vote for the plan, though he would like to read the fine print.
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as kind of surprised I’m hearing it first from an Emerald reporter and not the ASUO president,” Schultz said. “We need to make sure that library is open 24-hours. I’m going to need to see the attendance numbers to see how much use we’ve had in the first two weeks of each term. But taking care of the library next year is a necessity.”
Independent presidential candidate Emma Kallaway said she would vote for the $27,000. “What I’m concerned about is, this is another Band-Aid,” Kallaway said. “Any executive addressing this cannot end there.” She suggested seeking a grant to fund the service in the future, or working to make the library more sustainable so tax credits could possibly be used.
Dotters-Katz also said Tuesday he had secured another year of late night-bus service, giving the next Senate and executive another year to figure out how to make the funding permanent. On Tuesday, a $117,000 bid was made to Lane Transit District to continue the same number of late-night busses to the Kinsrow neighborhood as have operated this year. The money came from an energy tax credit and was approved by Senate at the end of winter term.
“I want to make sure that anyone who is elected takes care of (funding late-night busses) for the future because the tax credit is only for two years,” Haley said, and the ASUO must find a way to include it in the budgeting process permanently.
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