ISU President Gregory Geoffroy’s decision to suspend Veishea could be very constructive. However, I think the charges given to the task forces might lead Iowa State down a circular path.

Veishea creates a tension between the city services and ISU activities.

The city must provide police resources to deal with revelers after the official Veishea events on campus have ended. Ames is a relatively small town, and a celebration of this size can tax the police resources in many ways, such as by the need to contain large, unruly crowds or even a more simple problem of an insane number of nuisance calls. This isn’t fair to the rest of the city, which must make do with a depleted city resource.

City officials must be very aware that an emergency away from the Veishea zone might not be handled with the normal level of high priority.

Not to mention that at times, businesses and private homeowners have received costly damages to their property.

The task force solution proposed by Geoffroy and supported by Mayor Tedesco seeks a frank examination of causes of this year’s riots and an open discussion to identify mitigation strategies for future events, including but not limited to Veishea.

This approach might be useful in an academic community where critique is the normal form of dialogue.

However, it could place city and ISU officials in a defensive position. One in which they may feel the need to justify their procedures, whether the procedures are appropriate or not, in order to maintain public confidence and seek to lay blame elsewhere.

Furthermore, if it is found that policies of Iowa State or the city might have been a contributing factor, it is difficult to fix them. Any failure that occurs when new procedures have been implemented experiment will give the appearance that the new procedures are worthless.

This leads Veishea back to where it now stands — only worse — because a new approach would have been taken without a unsuccessful outcome.

Generally, people grow tired of fixing and refixing things. The only action left would be to cancel Veishea.

The tension described above stems from the feeling that the city is bending over backwards to help Iowa State control an Iowa State event, to the detriment of Ames citizens. In other words, Veishea puts the city in a tough spot and is generally a nuisance to the Ames population. The best way to alleviate this tension is to make Veishea an Ames event by combining Veishea with a city-wide celebration of spring.

Yes, this places an even heavier burden on city resources. There are three reasons why it is worthwhile to do so.

First, Veishea provides businesses on Welch Avenue with a high-profit weekend. Despite the damage done in this year’s riots, businesses on Welch Avenue are upset that next year’s event is cancelled, because doing so will hurt their bottom line.

The profit margin makes Veishea worth the risk of infrequent damages by rioters. It seems to me that all businesses want to make money, and if businesses on Welch Avenue can make money off cash-strapped students, I bet other businesses in Ames could figure out ways to make money if a larger festival were held.

Second, the community can take pride in an event that celebrates Iowa State and the city in which Iowa State has thrived.

A feeling of pride and accomplishment could ease the tension between Iowa State and Ames. Third, who doesn’t want to celebrate the end of a long, cold winter?

I have seen very few events survive when organizers get together and plan to not screw things up. The charge to the task force has this feel about it. Instead, I think we should give the task force a grand task that will excite them.

Chris Anderson

Graduate Student

Agricultural Meteorology