President Bruce Harreld,
I visited your office Monday morning to request a meeting. I’m just a grad student, but you say you’re interested in talking individually with stakeholders across our university.And I carry an urgent concern around which all our stakeholders share a common interest. Thus, I hoped to meet with you in order to articulate this challenge and possible opportunity.
Some background. I returned from Thanksgiving to find a flier in the door of my campus-owned, contractor-run apartment. Aspire at West Campus’ two-bed, two-bath monthly rent increases from $1,149 this year to $1,239 next year. Renew within five days and pay a “discounted’’ rate of $1,199. My neighbors and I did not anticipate this increase. But in the last week I have learned that it is a predictable consequence of a lopsided contract.
The state Board of Regents signed this deal with the private contractor Balfour Beatty Campus Solutions in 2013. Balfour pays $1 per year to use a tract of university land, which the university services with its free bus system and its brand. In return, Balfour has constructed and now manages apartments on the property, charging the highest rent it can clear.
Balfour is publicly traded; the law requires it to maximize profit. A reasonable contract would have balanced the university’s subsidy of the land lease with protection of rental rates and prohibition against certain abusive pricing schemes. Instead, the contract is a giveaway, subsidized by Iowa taxpayers.
I hope that you, President Harreld, will reach out to the regents and Balfour to urge them to renegotiate this rotten deal. At least reassure us all that you, too, see that this is a bad deal. Renounce giveaways like this. Partnerships should benefit both parties.
At your office, I was careful to emphasize that my chief concern was general (stewardship of public resources) rather than particular (housing). Your staff was very helpful. In an email to your two senior advisers, they summarized my position accurately: “… in regards to student housing, and the long term contract the BOR signed, [he] would like the deal to be renegotiated.”
“He is concerned as the price of his housing is going up $90/month, and he wants the university to benefit from its resources.”
Your senior adviser and VP for External Relations (same person) then referred me to the VP for Student Life, who directed me to his assistant VP, who is also the senior director for Dining and Housing. We have an appointment on Thursday afternoon.
Yet, my chief concern is not about housing; it is about “stewardship of the university’s financial, physical, and human resources” by “offering high quality, cost-effective, and efficient services” and “creating an attractive, accessible, functional, and safe campus.” These are the mission of the university’s Office of Finance and Operations, and so I requested for your office to refer me to an appropriate official. Oddly, they declined.
Unsuccessful in my effort to meet with you (I appreciate that you’re busy), I have drafted this letter. I still believe there’s an opportunity for you to seize. Surprise people. Challenge the regents on this bad deal they signed, and unite our campus in urging Balfour to renegotiate. It might resist. Its position is strong (contractually, if not ethically). But if nothing else, you can prove to the university community that you intend to uphold basic standards for ethical stewardship of public resources.
Take a stand against this 41-year, $41 giveaway. Take a stand for our university, for its people, and for Iowan taxpayers.
Urgently and sincerely,
Thomas Kindred
Ph.D. candidate, mathematics
