Student Government Association senators used Wednesday's meeting to press forward with new legislation and following up on old issues.
With student safety at the forefront of discussion, SGA passed legislation to increase the quality of lighting and the number of call boxes in the Cow Path area.
"Basically, we wrote legislation because of what we found from the student safety survey," said the legislation's author, Sen. Nick Loving. "We walked the Cow Path at 11:30 at night and looked for what could be fixed."
The legislation calls for lights facing the Cow Path, like those outside the Art and Journalism Building, to be changed from orange to white lights. Loving said white lights would be brighter.
The argument, however, met some opposition.
Sen. Anita Brown said switching from orange lights to white lights may disturb people whose houses back up to the Cow Path.
Loving said because the lights pointed down, no one would be disturbed. Though Loving did not check with city ordinances, he is confident the lights will not be a problem because of the trees and fences blocking off the residential areas.
He said the most expensive part of the legislation may be the installation of emergency call boxes between the Ball Communications Building and the Robert Bell Building, and along the Cow Path outside the Applied Technology Building.
"The cost of paint, signs and a few lights outweigh the price of student safety," Loving said.
After the legislation passed, an issue from a piece of legislation passed last week surfaced.
Sen. Katie Wiese announced to the Senate that installing pedestrian warning signs and a possible crosswalk between the overflow parking lot and the stadium lot could not occur due to Muncie law.
"Because the site is not an established intersection, it is against the law to install a crosswalk," Wiese told senators.
Wiese said Kevin Kenyon, vice president of facilities planning and management, told her in a phone call during Senate that flashing lights and pedestrian warnings would not be installed because the stop lights at nearby intersections were synchronized.
Parliamentarian Ben Tietz expressed his shock on the issue.
"It's disappointing that the university is more concerned about logistics of doing this than the safety of its students," Tietz said. "I encourage Senate to keep working on this. It doesn't mean we have to give up."NN>#+â-¦-¦G SGA 11/20DNEditorial#+â-ì*F SGA 11/20DNEditorialNN>#@eZ+â-ä>AUDT
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