I would like to address the fact that in her column, Fern (April 26 column, “These are the people in your neighborhood”) never actually offered any real argument for anything her organization does.

According to her first paragraph, her organization supports zoning, couch ordinances and a ban on drink specials.

In October 2002, the City of Ames started enforcing occupancy limits, which allowed only three unrelated people to live together.

Many students were fined and forced to find other accommodations on very short notice. Many of the places they lived in had four bedrooms and were marketed to four people by the landlords.

What made most students angry was the sudden enforcement of the ordinances without any warning.

This situation is reminiscent of a child who revels in the fact that he or she was able to get a sibling in trouble.

The proper course of action in that situation would have been to publicize the ordinances and allow students until at least the end of the semester to find another place to live. Only after this should fines have been imposed.

The ordinances themselves are also questionable. What exactly is wrong with four people living in a four-bedroom house? Forgive me if I’m skeptical of the claim that four people throw significantly more parties than three. You claim neighborhoods would be ruined and “student ghettos” would be created. How the addition of one more person to a large house is going to precipitate the downfall of the neighborhood is beyond me.

Issuing individual permits allowing an extra tenant in some residences seems to be a good option. These could be revoked if there were problems with that house. Such a system would probably reduce the number of nuisance parties because the residents would have more to lose.

The couch ordinance may be legitimate in its current form. Unfortunately, when it was first proposed it only applied to rental property (aka student housing). Fortunately, Mayor Tedesco realized the discriminatory nature of the proposal and ensured that it applied to everyone.

I am still not a huge fan of the ordinance, but do not think it is a huge deal.

I am surprised you support any kind of drink specials ban. You mentioned that it did no good for greek houses to go dry because people just moved to house parties.

Do you think something different is going to happen if you drive people away from the bars? Why not have students drinking in the Campustown bars where they can make noise without disturbing people, where there are well-enforced measures to prevent underage drinking and where there is a regular police presence?

Students are going to drink no matter what, and forcing us to pay more to do so in the bars is counterproductive.

Your column was little more than a rant that did not offer any real arguments to back your group’s positions.

Kyle Krause

Senior

Psychology