Members of a committee overseeing campus development are circulating a petition for a student-paid bond of up to $25 million to expand the Wood Center and Constitution Hall.

If they collect 300 signatures in time, students would vote in April on whether to pay as much as $160 per semester for 25 years for the expansion and renovation.

Student fees would be capped at paying 50 percent of the project's debt, with the rest coming from state and private contributions. Construction could begin as early as May 2009.

The student fee would help finance a massive redesign of the Wood Center and Constitution Hall that would bridge the two buildings together. Wood Center planners want to add a coffee house, consolidate food services, and move the bookstore to the student union.

Gregg Krier, executive officer for administrative services, said although the vote would allow students to repay debt for up to half the project, that could be less if the legislature decided to pay for more.

"I'd be tickled pink if the legislature wanted to pay for more than half," Krier said.

A student-backed bond would give supporters serious clout to push for legislative financing for construction, Krier said.

The university included $5 million in its fiscal year 2007 capital budget request for expansion and renovation designs for various campus buildings, including the Wood Center. The governor's request does not include that amount.

Terin Walton-Rantz, co-chair of the Campus Life Master Plan Student Committee, said the $160 fee was a worst-case scenario if donations and state funding didn't show up.

"If we receive donations, that will definitely reflect in the student fees," Walton-Rantz said.

Any new fee would be instituted gradually following three stages after different phases of construction were complete, said Lydia Anderson, director of the Wood Center and a committee member.

Building the expanded Wood Center would be stage one, followed by renovations to the Wood Center and Constitution Hall.

Petition gatherers need 300 signatures, or 5 percent of the voting student body, to get their question on the ballot for the ASUAF election, held April 18 to 19. Signatures are due April 4.

The committee originally planned to have the signatures gathered by March 5, but that date was pushed to the end of March, Anderson said.

"A lot of the committee is so busy that I don't think they've had time to go out and solicit responses," Anderson said.

Although the committee could have gone to ASUAF to get the bond put directly on the April ballot, Anderson said her group decided to use the initiative process instead as a way to inform students about the fee.

To ensure students know about the issue when they hit the polls, supporters are planning a full-out marketing campaign targeting students.

The chancellor's cabinet contributed $5,000 to purchase t-shirts, Frisbees, stadium cups, highlighters and pens to get the word out about the campus life master plan.

"It shows that some of the powers-that-be saw this project as important to get going and were willing to put $5,000 behind it," Walton-Rantz said.

Over the next two months, the committee plans to have information booths around campus to answer student questions about the project.

Whether or not students will approve the project remains in question. Students refused twice to approve a bond to build the Student Recreation Center before finally approving it in October 1990.

Fee payments going toward the SRC bond repayment remain $75 per semester.

An ASUAF senator, Peter Prokein, submitted a resolution opposing the Wood Center fee. The resolution calls on the UAF administration to "grow some backbone" by funding the Wood Center without any new fees.

Officials at ASUAF knew of at least three other referendum items that could make it to the ballot with enough signatures or senate votes.

Those ballot issues include an ASUAF-backed proposal to move Starvation Gulch from Taku parking lot to the Nenana lot; a student-driven initiative to reduce Sun Star fees; and an initiative to reform the referendum process.

Only 337 students voted in the spring 2005 ASUAF elections, nearly half the number of students required to put a bond issue before students. Joe Blanchard, president of ASUAF, said he expects turnout will increase this year.

"I honestly think with the number of initiatives and with some good candidates, it will be a good year," he said.

For more information, see http://www.uaf.edu/oc3/