Every year, the Associated Students of Madison, a sprawling bureaucracy of people looking for resume padding and winners of online popularity contests, present a hook"" issue intended to draw widespread student backing. This year is no different, with a poorly conceived grocery store plan emerging as the centerpiece of ASM's 2008 agenda, further proving the organization's inability to focus itself on realistic improvements to the UW-Madison.
Not surprisingly, ASM has announced its intentions to build a grocery store in a redeveloped Union South with what is at best a foggy understanding of the challenges facing such a project.
Representatives have openly admitted that, despite rumblings of a grocery store campaign for months, ASM still has no business plan in place for how such a store would operate, where it would find customers and how it would remain price-competitive, among other things.
Citing only anecdotal student support for the project, ASM apparently intends to nurse the idea along until it magically crystallizes in the form of a small to mid-sized grocery store. Perhaps by that point, more capable leaders will be in place to guide the venture.
That, of course, is unlikely. In any case, the chances of actually seeing such a store in Union South in the near future are slim at best. Aside from existing competition in the form of Trader Joe's, Capitol Centre Foods and a potential grocery store in the new University Square, the ASM plan is probably doomed because of administrative limitations as well.
Both Chancellor John Wiley and the Board of Regents have already said they will oppose a university-funded grocery store, which ASM says it plans to finance using student-paid segregated fees.
None of ASM's foolhardy ambitions regarding the grocery store are even unusual for the group, though.
For several years, its hook issues have grown more and more grandiose, with matching ignorance of the details necessary to institute them. Then again, expecting a group of students who decide to embark on a multi-million dollar business venture with almost no statistical basis to scale things down is probably foolish. Still, when ASM recognizes its role and its limitations, it can be effective - securing bus passes and extended library hours, for example. But when it attempts to wade in over its head, seemingly waiting for a responsible adult to come and take care of the paperwork, it appears stupid and, worse, irrelevant.
