950 rally at Regents meeting

by David Safier

Two hundred students and a few others showed up at the UA Mall on Tuesday to protest the budget cuts to Arizona universities. Yesterday 950 "students, faculty members, staffers, business leaders and parents" showed up at the Arizona Board of Regents meeting at UA to speak their mind.

One of the people who spoke against the cuts was . . . ready? . . . developer Don Diamond.

That's a surprise, but this surprised me even more. A Regent and the ASU President were angry enough, they made statements I would expect to come from student leaders:

Regent Fred DuVal said during the meeting that conservative lawmakers are relishing the opportunity to cut higher education, as it would undo the work of recently departed Gov. Janet Napolitano.

"This debate could not honestly be about our productivity," he said. "It is about our fundamental mission. This is, in short, budget retaliation."

Arizona State University President Michael Crow said the proposed cuts represent not just an economic hit, but also a political move by lawmakers to change how the three institutions offer higher education.

Here's a multiple choice test. When the Republicans created their budget proposal, they (a)over-reached and alienated everyone but their crazy base. (b)purposely set the budget bar ridiculously low so they can pass a "compromise budget" that still guts K-12 and university education.

And no, it can't be both of the above. Either they screwed up, or they're being cagey.

Either way, John Kavanagh, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, is already walking back the proposal he and Russell Pearce floated.

"What we released were just possible options," he said. "They made a lot of people and students unnecessarily upset."

[snip]

Kavanagh said he's already met for several hours with the presidents of the three universities to work out "reasonable, acceptable cuts." But he warned those will "still be painful."