Undergound may see renovations with help from GSB

Allison Suesse —

Final plans to upgrade the bowling system in the Memorial Union Underground will be approved at Wednesday’s Government of the Student Body meeting.

Proposals for three separate projects to make renovations to the current bowling system were offered to the senate at last Wednesday’s meeting.

The total cost of the proposal is $86,200, however the senate has the choice to either fund one or two of the renovations or all three if they so choose.

The proposal includes a replacement bowling ball return system, an upgrade to the scoring system, new LCD monitors and a software upgrade for the scoring hardware.

Tom Danielson, GSB finance director and senior in civil engineering, said the finance committee made a recommendation to amend the bill to include the complete renovations needed in the Underground rather than allowing the senate to choose which upgrades they would like to fund.

Plans to make changes to the Underground have been in action within GSB for about a year now. Danielson said last year GSB allocated $7,000 fund a ball return system. However, a miscommunication occurred and only a portion of the ball return system could be funded with the amount GSB invested.

Therefore, Danielson said “we should invest the money to make it more modern now rather than just upgrade a portion of the Underground.”

Although the finance committee recommended funding the entirety of the project, which is funded with the capital projects account, the senate ultimately has the final consideration in how the money on the project is spent.

At Wednesday’s meeting GSB will also vote on funds granted to clubs during the special allocations process. This process is reserved for student organizations that missed the regular allocations deadline.

A total of five organizations requested funds through the special allocations process. The finance committee has met with each group and found out how much each organization is requesting to fund various expenses.

Danielson said the total cost of funding the organizations is included on one line of the bill, however, if senate does not approve one amount requested by an organization, the pulled portion of the bill will need to go back to finance committee to be amended.

Danielson said the senate and the finance committee should be able to compromise fairly and there shouldn’t be much conflict.