On Campus Co-ops/Discussion

On Oct. 25, 2009, the WEF listserv sent out an e-mail stating that Student Housing plans to shut down one of the [On Campus Co-ops] for budgetary reasons. The letter is as follows:

Dear Friends and Family,

First off, an apology for our delay in contacting you all: our immediate tri-cooperative community wished to have a time to discuss this issue and organize our thoughts before we then sent them to you. As you may have heard, Student Housing plans to shut down one of our houses, DSC, effective August 1, 2010. In their official message to us, they cited difficult economic times, unforeseen budget cuts, a decline in signed leases, and a roughly$7,000 budget deficit in the 2008-09 year. Naturally, we do not plan to accept this without a fight, one that will continue as long as is necessary. We plan to use whatever methods are available to us, and as much support as we can gather. I am sure you all will agree with me that a threat to one of our houses is a threat to all of our communities, and in these times we must band together to become something stronger than any of our individual communities. It is in this token that I offered an apology earlier, because you all should be just as informed and involved this fight as we are. We fight Student Housing's decision today not as three houses, but as a collective effort of every cooperative not just in Davis, but in all of California and even beyond. You may now find yourself asking "what can I do?" We ask at this time that you do not contact the press, as this action is irreversible and our community feels that this action should be timed and executed with everyone's knowledge. However, the fight does start now, and we have already started to organize people by what action they want to take. The point people we currently have to organize this issue are Spencer Sevilla for budget and financial information, Derek Downey for communications and outreach, and Sarah Gaita for history and research. To help get involved, please contact these point people or any of our current liaisons, who are also listed below. In addition, we have set up a Google Group you can join here:

http://groups.google.com/group/davis-student-coop-discuss

Lastly, we are planning a big meeting regarding this issue on Sunday, November 22nd, the day after Co-Op Thanksgiving.

Please forward this email as widely as you desire, to everyone you feel might be able to help our effort. If you have any questions, concerns, ideas, or anything at all, please contact any of us listed below.

Thank you,

Spencer Sevilla [email protected]

Derek Downey [email protected]

Sarah Gaita [email protected]

Janaki Jagannath [email protected]

Liz Fitzgerald [email protected]