By Jessica Chung
Daily Bruin Contributor
jchung@media.ucla.edu
Chancellor Albert Carnesale was present at the Graduate Students Association meeting on Wednesday to speak on the problem of where to get the money for the continuance of BruinGo!.
The free busing system used by staff, faculty, and many students to travel from their homes to campus, BruinGo! was preserved for another year, largely due to the exhortations of student organizations and individual students.
Carnesale received 200 e-mails from students expressing their desire to keep BruinGo!. According to Carnesale, only 20 percent of these students said they need the buses because they do not have a car, whereas the other 80 percent seem to use the buses simply because they are free.
The original purpose of BruinGo! was to save money and lower the demand for parking, which it did only to a small degree, according to Carnesale.
“I think it’s a good program and I think we should continue to use the funds we originally allocated for it,” said first-year political science student Tamika Hunter.
Carnesale acknowledged that BruinGo! was a good thing overall. However, the only problem with the busing system was who would pay for it.
“I don’t pay for it. The state doesn’t pay for it. The people who pay for campus parking pay for it,” Carnesale said.
“The only thing I am not eager about is taking money from people who pay for campus parking to also pay for people who want to take the bus just because it’s free. It doesn’t seem fair,” Carnesale said.
Although GSA Internal Vice President Dorothy Kim said she agrees that the problem with BruinGo! is how to get the money to pay for it, she believes that they should concentrate more upon how much they will have to pay.
“Since it is decided that we are going to keep BruinGo! next year, the issue is no longer why we should keep it or not, but how we are going to pay for it. Before we decide how we are going to pay for it, we first need to see what the approximate cost will be,” Kim said.
According to Carnesale, there is no financial reason to choose student parking over taking the bus. Even with a bus fare, the overall cost of taking the bus for one year is much lower than the cost of student parking for one year.
Also addressed at the GSA meeting was the decision of what to do with the excess money that the GSA will have next year. By raising its fees from $7 to $10, GSA expects a 30 percent increase in its budget from last year. Added to this is the $10,000 that GSA regained in Associated Students of UCLA subsidies.
“We recently discussed giving the subsidies back to the government because we’re doing really well without it,” said GSA President Charles Harless. “Chances are that they’ll tell us to keep it, but it’s a gesture to show that we support ASUCLA.”
In addition, the new GSA officers were sworn in at the meeting. Harless and Kim have retained their positions for another year. Last year’s external vice president Alain Dang, who is graduating this year, is being replaced by Hanish Rathod. One board position out of 28 total positions will remain unfilled this year.