On March 30, 1998, the city of Ames voted 83 percent to 17 percent to support a bond for a new Ames/ISU ice arena.

The bond passed largely due to the overwhelming support of Iowa State students. Hockey players and users of the ice arena campaigned door-to-door for the arena, and students, who would not have to pay for the new arena, were shuttled from residence halls to polling places so they could take part in the vote.

This Tuesday, the Iowa State administration and the City of Ames are hoping for the same results in an election for a 2 percent increase in the hotel/motel tax, which would go to improvements on Hilton Coliseum.

If Iowa State students know what’s good for them, they’ll get to the polls again this year.

But this year, they should vote no.

At first glance, the Hilton improvements sound fine. According to minutes from the January 26 Ames City Council meeting, the tax increase would pay for compliance with requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, correction of fire code deficiencies, addition of restrooms throughout Hilton and the addition of about 1,400 seats.

The university is contributing $3.1 million to the project, with an additional $350,000 from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants.

The rest of the money will be provided by the extra 2 percent of the hotel/motel tax. Administrators are approximating the total amount from the tax at $2.5 million.

That sounds fine, right? Wrong.

Iowa State will upgrade the facilities to add restrooms and meet fire codes and ADA requirements regardless of Tuesday’s vote. Even without the hotel/motel tax money, ISU can afford to pay for those necessary improvements.

So the money involved in the tax is directly responsible for the additional seats in Hilton.

Supporters of the tax increase maintain that more seating in Hilton is necessary to attract business for the Iowa State Center. Dan Krieger, president of First National Bank, said 16,000 seats is the “magic number” for attracting big concerts to Ames.

That might be true. But there’s a fatal flaw in Krieger’s thinking.

Hilton can’t sell out the concerts it already attracts. Only 15 of the last 56 concerts have sold out.

The most recent sold-out concert was given by the Dave Matthews Band, which played Hilton on December 1998. The Dave Matthews Band concert could have easily sold more tickets if there had been more seats to sell but chose to come to Ames anyway, instead of markets with more seating.

Why would Matthews still come to Ames? The answer is simple: College students come to those kinds of concerts, and college students buy those kinds of records.

Bands like the Dave Matthews Band will always play smaller venues such as Ames because they will always make money here.

Sure, there are bands that won’t come to Ames. But those bands don’t stay away because Hilton isn’t big enough. They stay away because this is Ames! We’re in the middle of Iowa, folks. Some people just don’t want to play here.

Supporters of the tax point to Elton John, who played a sold-out Hilton in late 1997. He chose to play in Iowa City this year instead of Ames, which some say is because Carver-Hawkeye area can seat 16,000.

But John’s concert manager told the Ames Tribune that John didn’t play in Ames because he had just been here and didn’t want to play the same audience twice in such a short time period. Doesn’t that make more sense than the tax supporters’ theory?

But despite all these reasons to vote no tomorrow, the biggest reason is the impact the extra seat will have on ISU athletic events.

Administrators say that students will be guaranteed 184 lower level seats at all men’s basketball games, so the expansion really helps students.

But students should already be sitting close to the game. There is no reason that alumni and donors should get priority seating, regardless of how many seats there are in the arena level. Students should be already be sitting close to the game all the time.

That is one simple truth that no one in the Iowa State administration will ever figure out.

The fact is, extra seating for students only came up after student leaders made a fuss about it. At the Ames City Council meeting on January 26, Gene Smith made no mention of student interests, but instead he told council members that the expansion would primarily help to seat donors to the university.

“There are a number of donors in our scholarship program through our priority seating plan who are inappropriately seated,” Athletic Director Gene Smith said, as quoted in the Ames Tribune.

Hey Gene, there are a number of STUDENTS who are inappropriately seated. This school belongs to us, not the donors or the rich alumni.

Students, you may think Ames really does need a 16,000-seat auditorium. You may think Ames simply can’t attract big concerts until we get such an auditorium. You may even think students won’t be affected by the tax increase, so it doesn’t really matter whether the increase passes.

But know this for sure: Iowa State administrators are not pushing this tax through to benefit students.

Vote no tomorrow, if only to call them on their arrogance.

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Sara Ziegler is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Sioux Falls, S.D.