Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

PIRGIM Delays

7. March 2005 • Matt Hollerbach
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Today’s Daily features an article on the delays a student PIRG chapter is facing in MSA, and an editorial denouncing those delays.

From the article (‘Public interest groups hopes for student chapter’):

An MSA vote to grant Student PIRGIM the money was scheduled for Feb. 21, but MSA Chief of Staff Elliott Wells-Reid filed an injunction to halt the vote, citing concerns that the group would threaten MSA’s tax-exempt status because part of its parent group is involved in lobbying efforts. Student PIRGIM, though, has said they will not be involved in lobbying and are instead an advocacy group—a difference based on the fact that lobbyists address legislators directly. A trial Wednesday in front of MSA’s Central Student Judiciary will decide whether the vote can go through.

Wells-Reid did not return phone calls.

Unless Wells-Reid drops the injunction, the earliest the vote could occur is March 15.

From the editorial (‘Red Tape’):

Wells-Reid should withdraw the injunction on the PIRGIM vote. PIRGIM is a unique student group tied to a powerful national organization with branches in 35 states that has proven its ability to galvanize student power regarding pressing issues like the high costs of housing and textbooks. Squabbling over groundless legal technicalities will only postpone these efforts and, in the end, prove detrimental to student interests.