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Thursday, January 31, 2008
Global warming the ‘focus’ of campus, nation for a day By Whitney Newman THE DAILY CARDINAL
AMANDA SALM/THE DAILY CARDINAL
As the UW Athletic Department finalizes its budget, officials said ticket prices next season should remain the same as this year.
BTN revenue to save sports fans money on tickets
UW-Madison planned to join over 1,400 colleges and institutions across the nation Wednesday to broadcast a live webcast to teach global warming solutions, but experienced technical difficulties during the presentation. Ryan Hanke, a UW-Madison student organizer, said none of the campus viewing locations at the Humanities, Psychology and Social Science buildings were able to show “The 2 Percent Solution” webcast. “I think because it was a live thing, there were just too many people trying to get on,” Hanke said of the nationwide broadcast. “If anything, it looks like a good sign that this many people were watching it.” Garrett Reiss Brennan, director of media and public relations for Focus the Nation, said
the purpose for the webcast was for students to “simultaneously participate with a million other students at the exact same time in learning more about global warming and what they can do about it.” According to Hanke, the webcast featured actor Edward Norton, among other environmental activists. He said UW-Madison would not re-broadcast the one-hour video, but that it would be available online. Organizers called Wednesday’s webcast the largest teach-in event in U.S. history. “We’re hoping that we can create enough of a buzz and enough of a stir so that the candidates running for president realize that they have to have a plan on climate change solutions,” Brennan said. All developed countries would have to cut
Focus the Nation The Global Warming Solutions Initiative plans to create a student-led platform addressing the top five solutions to global warming. The organization’s website has a link for people to vote on 10 possible solutions. The top five will be announced Feb. 13. Log on to focusthenation.org to vote and see the archived video of “The 2 Percent Solution.”
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By Amanda Hoffstrom THE DAILY CARDINAL
UW Athletic Department officials said Wednesday ticket prices for football, men’s basketball and men’s hockey would likely remain the same in the 2008-’09 seasons. John Jentz, associate athletic director for finance for UW Athletics, said the department is in the process of finalizing its 2008-’09 budget to determine all sports ticket prices. “The cost of business goes up every year and one of our major sources of revenue is ticket prices, so to keep our revenues balancing our expenses we usually rely on ticket price increases,” Jentz said. “This year, we have the unique situation where we had the influx of the Big Ten Network funds and so we’re going to utilize that.” UW-Madison announced in November 2007 BTN generated more than $6 million in revenue for the university, $4 million of which went to UW Athletics. “One of the goals for the budget, which will be finalized at the end of February, is to have no ticket price increases anywhere,” Jentz said. Vince Sweeney, senior associate athletic director for external relations, said annual ticket increases at UW have been frequent in the past. “Raising ticket prices just to keep up is a pretty common strategy not only here, but around the Big Ten and around the country,” he said. “The emergence of the guaranteed money from the Big Ten Network has allowed us … to put together a budget that is fiscally responsible without having to raise ticket prices this year.” Although many Wisconsin fans with Charter or Time-Warner Cable still cannot view Badgers games on BTN, Sweeney stressed the department’s knowledge that “it remains a concern.” “We are not actively involved with negotiations, so we can’t really say how those are moving along, but we know that some of our fans continue to be frustrated,” he said. “We always remain hopeful that a deal will be struck it’s just a matter of when.” Jentz also outlined the department’s plans at a UW Athletic Board finance committee meeting Tuesday.
LORENZO ZEMELLA/THE DAILY CARDINAL
WISPIRG members who organized the live showing of Focus the Nation’s “The 2 Percent Solution” webcast remain in 2650 Humanities after technical difficulties prevented students at three campus locations from viewing the video.
Senate Democrats push new economic proposal By Charles Brace THE DAILY CARDINAL
On Wednesday, Democrats in control of the state Senate unveiled their proposal to stimulate the economy, with the plan already facing opposition from the Republican-controlled Assembly. The plan, Wisconsin Invests Now, includes $50 million in funding for road construction and $5 million in technical college grants. Democratic leaders said the construction funding would create around 2,500 jobs. “We’ve seen how investing in our infrastructure strengthens the economy of our state so let’s stick with what works,” Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Weston said. Financial aid to UW and technical college students is increased by $1.3 million annually
under the plan. According to the plan, closing a tax loophole that lets businesses in Wisconsin not pay some taxes if their corporate headquarters are in Las Vegas would create $90 million to finance the proposal. Assembly Republicans and Gov. Jim Doyle each have their own separate economic proposals. Assembly Republican leaders reacted strongly in opposition to the Senate proposal. “Senate Democrats are pushing a ‘tax and spend’ agenda at the worst possible time,” Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, said in a release. “You don’t create jobs by taxing businesses.” Huebsch has previously stated that some of the initiatives in Doyle’s plan might be able to pass in the Assembly.
Areas of agreement include reducing taxes on certain investments and giving tax breaks for research and development. Doyle and Senate Democrats stated they agree on raising the minimum wage to $7.25, although Republican leaders oppose it. The Senate proposal is also similar to Doyle’s plan in that it seeks to increase funding for renewable energy, with the Senate proposal to increase renewable energy grants by $8 million annually. Jeff Buhrandt, spokesman for Democratic plan sponsor state Sen. Pat Kreitlow, D-Chippewa Falls, said Kreitlow is “hopeful [Senate Democrats] can reach some common ground” with Doyle and Republicans on the three different proposals.
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”