When the football team is practicing on the SprinTurf on the east end of the Kibbie Dome, other athletic and intramural teams have to find elsewhere to practice.
This can be difficult for many teams as the days get shorter, Sen. Grady Hepworth said, at the Oct. 23 senate meeting when his resolution for ASUI to support an increase in lighted outdoor recreation space went to a vote.
“This is a project that I had taken on myself, because I felt passionate about the project and I think I’m backed by a lot of students (who) also agree that we do need expanded lighted outdoor recreation space,” Hepworth said.
After a lengthy debate regarding the resolution, two undecided senators did not vote while four voted in favor of the resolution and four against — resulting in a tie.
In the event of a tie, the vice president is granted a vote.
ASUI Vice President Taylor Williams voted in favor of the resolution to break the tie, because she said there are a lot of students who would benefit from the expansion of lighted recreation space.
“It did kind of catch me off guard,” Williams said. “It’s challenging being vice president sometimes, because you don’t always get the chance to state your opinion and going into the meeting I don’t know who knew my opinion on the issue, so it was nice to have a say.”
Director of Intramural Sports Butch Fealy initiated the idea and said the proposal is important because students are currently limited in their outdoor recreation activities because of shortened daylight hours.
“I just want to make sure we can address all of the student needs and expand on the students needs for recreation space,” Fealy said. “Currently — depending on the time of the year — recreation activities and sports can only go on until about 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m., but with an expansion of outdoor lighting, we could have a lot more activities going on.”
Fealy also said there is only one lighted outdoor recreation space as of now and it’s prioritized to varsity athletics.
“We just have one at the SprinTurf east of the Kibbie Dome,” Fealy said. “That is the only lighted area meant to serve athletics and other recreation activities.”
While some senators showed support of the resolution, others did not. Sen. Andrew Baldridge said he voted against the resolution because it was out of the senate’s control.
“Being as one of Senator Hepworth’s arguments for the increased lighting was that as winter closes in there will be less light in the day, I figured that winter might be more of the problem,” Baldridge said. “I questioned, with inevitable snow on the SprinTurf in the winter, how many people would actually take advantage of the increased lighting? In the end, I was unmoved to the resolution passing.”
Another opponent of the resolution — ASUI President Max Cowan — said he was against the resolution because there are more important issues ASUI should prioritize.
“I think it’s important that we, as student representatives, take time to carefully evaluate what we place our priorities on and what we’re going to spend our time and energy advocating for,” Cowan said. “We need to ensure senators are having a meaningful conversation about the multitude of other projects that the university could undertake that would be an effective use of ASUI’s time and energy to advocate for.”
Hepworth said the passed resolution will hopefully spur more support of the project. But for now, he is just happy ASUI is on board with an idea that will benefit future UI students.
“The next step is to see what the timetable is to implement this,” Hepworth said. “Is this going to be a three-year plan that we start this year? Is this going to be something on a smaller basis and maybe make it a five, six, seven-year plan? Maybe this won’t be something that won’t get any funding or allocations for 10 years. But we do know, this is something the students care about and with a passed resolution, we can begin the process to make it happen.”
Amber Emery can be reached at [email protected]