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Building a spirit empire
Funding questions plague Prop 200 By Brian Mori Special to ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Photo illustration by Arizona Daily Wildcat staff
Zona Zoo budgets show the student section has grown from a grassroots operation to a complex brand-name, with record-high spending on new departments and programs By Bryan Roy ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT Michael Huston founded the modernday Zona Zoo Crew with an $8,000 budget, which forced him to pick only the necessities when spending student money. His mission was simple: Students wanted a section at football and basketball games, so the former Zona Zoo director orchestrated an attractive product at the lowest price possible. Now, three years later, the studentfunded official spirit section spends almost $9,000 on crew stipends alone — part of a budget that exceeds $50,000 for the 2009-10 year.
Not so simple anymore. Rapid growth, popularity and revenue have inflated Zona Zoo from a small grassroots service into something more like a corporation. The $85 or $125 students pay — depending on whether they choose to include men’s basketball — for prime seating at sports events also funds new departments like community development, campus outreach and even Zona Zoo’s own television production. The final tab on those three alone: $16,610 this year. Zona Zoo budgets acquired by the Arizona Daily Wildcat through a public records request show large increases in internal and non-sports-related spending
after the 2006-07 school year. This year, out of the $52,370 grand budget, $33,860 will be spent on resources without in-game connections. The increase in spending comes after Zona Zoo raised the price of its passes by $20 from last year — not because it’s selling significantly more passes. Executive Director Raul Ponce estimates Zona Zoo sold 11,500 passes so far this year, up from 11,400 last year. A total of 12,162 passes were sold in 2007-08. “I took very seriously that that money belonged to students,” Huston said. “It didn’t magically fall into our lap. It was money that my classmates spent out of
their pockets. It was my job to make sure I delivered them a good product.” After a four-week delay in obtaining more detailed spending reports, ex-Zona Zoo director David Roost released the 2007-08 to 2008-09 budgets that documented the newly created branches and their costs. “Our internal records are for our internal use. I really don’t know why the students would care how we spend our money,” Roost said in a text message. Huston disagrees. Zona Zoo money is, in fact, the students’.
What would become the largest and most costly expansion of municipal government in Tucson’s history could become law Nov. 3 if passed by voters. During the city’s, state’s and country’s worst economic period since the Great Depression, Tucson’s public safety Proposition 200 will require the city to increase and maintain police and firefighter staff levels at numbers the city says will bankrupt other city services. At a projected cost of over $270 million in the first five years, to be shared by the city and county, Proposition 200 has been the most publicized issue in this year’s election and has the support of all three Republican Tucson City Council hopefuls. “You will probably not see another campaign any time soon where you’ve got organizations from the far left, far right and everyone in between all saying that (one proposition) is bad for Tucson,” said Brandon Patrick, campaign manager for No on 200: Don’t Handcuff Tucson. Organizations like the Goldwater Institute and the Pima County Democratic Party, typically on the far opposite sides of political issues, have both chosen not to support Proposition 200. Patrick said students should care because the reason tuition at the UA has increased is a budget crisis from a history of similar unfunded mandates at the state level. Tucson City Manager Mike Letcher reported on Sept. 28 that residents will be asked to help with tax increases if Proposition 200 passes. Since then, Letcher and the council have been careful to not directly propose tax and fee increases, but stress the city already has a budget deficit of over $40 million. Public safety has been a major platform for all three Republican City Council candidates and a critique of the current council by each. Proposition 200 proponents and council would-bes like Republican Shaun McClusky, who is running against Democrat Richard Fimbres for the south-side Ward 5 seat, have said the city’s current plan is not enough to ensure perspective residents and businesses that Tucson is a safe community. McClusky promised at the Tucson
ZONA ZOO, page 3
Green tea could treat HPV By Carly Kennedy ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT University Medical Center researchers are trying to see if a green tea extract could help clear the human papillomavirus. The team is still enrolling test subjects to participate in a four-month study of the effects of a chemical known as Polyphenon E , which is present in green tea, on patients with HPV or an abnormal pap smear. The team is calling for about 156 test subjects, and once quota is met the team will split the pool into two
groups. One group will receive the Polyphenon E in the form of a pill, and the other team will be given a placebo, explained Bonnie Weible, the study’s coordinator at the Arizona Cancer Center. The study is known as a doubleblinded placebo controlled experiment because the two groups have no idea if they are receiving the Polyphenon E, nor does the study coordinator. That information will be revealed at the end of the study. Test subjects will complete six study visits spread out across the four-month period, and will be
Samantha Castro, a senior public health education major, works as a student research assistant pre-screening women with Bonnie Weible, the coordinator for the green tea study on HPV. The two took a sample of a patient’s urine who consumed the green tea extract capsule to prepare it for tea-catechin testing. Weible said that the extract may help clear mild dysplasia and precancerous changes in the cervix.
compensated $250, explained experiment leaders. Past experiments have shown that the green tea extract helps the body’s immune system clear up cervical lesions, thus it could potentially help those with the HPV virus. These results landed the UMC’s research team on their theory. “We are trying to prove that the group of women that are put on the Polyphenon E, more of them will clear the HPV than the women on the placebo,” Weible said, “because a person’s immune system can clear up on it’s own.”
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PROP 200, page 5
Emily Jones/ Arizona Daily Wildcat
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