A contentious local issue slipped under the radar of last week’s City Council elections, mainly because it was already set in stone by a citywide vote one year ago. The local option one percent sales tax increase approved Oct. 8, 2002, was a stroke of genius on behalf of the Ames City Council and Ames School Board. They are able to milk student spending for all it’s worth with what amounts to taxation without representation.

Far from the oppressive British rule over colonial America, however, students are underrepresented in the Ames political process simply because they choose to be. Consider the fact that 294 out of more than 3,500 registered students voted among the three campus precincts last Tuesday and that seven (seven!) students turned out to vote at Friley last Oct. 8.

But maybe I’m not giving the ISU student body enough credit — maybe the position we have collectively assumed (which popular opinion tends to use obscenity to describe) is consciously deliberate. After all, in the progressive spirit of the university campus, shouldn’t we be willing to sacrifice ourselves and our resources to help the less fortunate?

Are we not tremendously privileged as college students — here either because our parents were rich enough to pay the way or our schools were strong enough to allow us to earn scholarships? Furthermore, do we not plan on using our college degrees to get jobs that will render us even more privileged members of society? What kind of caring citizens would we be if we hoarded these luxuries to ourselves?

Children attending the current Ames Middle School face myriad impediments to their education. An AMS teacher was quoted in a Sept. 10, 2002 Daily article describing the deteriorating conditions in the school. “Headaches and allergy problems occur in teachers and students on a daily basis,” she said.

This may seem like a minor handicap, but allergy symptoms can interfere with one’s ability to teach or learn effectively. Are we not willing to sacrifice an extra penny from every dollar we spend in order to simply give an Ames child the same opportunities we’ve been fortunate enough to have?

The middle school is not the only proposed project to be funded by the sales tax, however. At a joint meeting between the Ames City Council and the Ames School Board a year and a half ago, plans were made for a public recreation facility to be built in conjunction with the new school. According to a July 9, 2002 Daily article, the Rec Center would contain, among other things, an expansive beach-style indoor/outdoor aquatic facility as well as aerobic and weight training areas. In addition to the middle school’s three proposed gymnasiums, the Rec Center would contain another three high-school size gyms.

In a Sept. 24, 2002 Daily article, Ames City Manager Steve Schainker “cited inadequate gym space in the community.” Just Monday of this week, a letter to the editor in the Daily from the Executive Director of the Iowa Games echoed these sentiments. Anyone who has ever played a youth sport is well aware of the cutthroat competition for indoor practice and game space. Far from superfluous, youth sports are actually very beneficial to kids, drawing them away from things like drugs and crime.

With a limited amount of gym space and number of hours in a week, only so many sports teams are able to practice in Ames. And if Ames is anything like Omaha, then certain girls’ sports, like volleyball and softball (the teams do practice indoors in the winter), get crowded out by more mainstream sports like basketball. In middle and high school, I played on volleyball teams that were not able to practice even once a week because the gym space was simply not available. In the egalitarian spirit of Title IX, the girls of Ames deserve more gym space.

Indeed, concern for equal opportunity in education and athletics is the hallmark of an enlightened and progressive society, and what segment of the population is more enlightened and progressive than college students?

Of all people, we should be able to appreciate the inherent value in sacrificing our own luxuries for the good of others.

Maybe our social-minded, liberal education has simply imparted upon us that, as the privileged of society, our rightful role is that of slaves to the whim of the Ames community. Of course, the converse possibility remains that we’re just pathetically apathetic.

Intentional or not, the voter turnout at the student precincts both for this year’s election and last year’s sales tax vote indicates that ISU students get exactly what they deserve in this town. As for the opportunistic local governments that exploit us: more power to them.