In the wake of the new Chinook Student Center’s opening last year, the Washington State University Recreation Board is considering creating a new board for the Chinook. With their separate financial demands and different services offered, it is crucial that these financial decisions be made by a board built of individuals educated in Chinook affairs.

The Chinook opened its doors to the public less than 12 months ago. Every financial decision thus far has been made by a board comprised of UREC and CUB members.

Denzel McCray, a WSU student and UREC board member, has been involved in some of the latest discussions on creating a Chinook board. He believes that in the long run, the Chinook will need to make their own decisions.

While the funding for UREC and the Chinook are comprised of both government and student resources, their budgeting focus is vastly different. UREC’s focus seems to be on their extracurricular resources as of late. This spending approach — that is extremely effective for UREC — is not appropriate for the Chinook at this time.

Right now, UREC has a focus on its Green Bikes and other initiatives. Despite the Green Bikes being a potentially great investment with UREC’s funds, it is not the same focus that the Chinook has.

“I think as far as budgeting concerns go, the Chinook has to kind of decide where the money goes in a more careful way,” McCray said. “UREC is already settled in. We just have to focus on moving forward where the Chinook has to focus on making sure it’s stable right now.”

Moving forward with things like Green Bikes and better parking are in UREC’s current spotlight. The key differences in how a new Chinook board would behave resides in its economic mentality.

“Financially speaking, [a Chinook-specific board] would be a little bit different than the UREC because of some of the financial issues that have been happening with the Chinook,” McCray said. “Student membership has been good, but Freshens isn’t quite what we expected it to be.”

Ongoing issues like food sales and construction fees have led the Chinook to a fork in the road of their budgetary decisions. Its funds must be spent much less experimentally as compared to UREC’s spending plan.

“The contractors that we hired to build the Chinook are still accruing penalties with us because they haven’t finished their warranty,” McCray said. “They still have issues in all the rooms with temperatures.”

These issues need to be addressed by students who are involved in Chinook affairs. McCray shared a solution that he believes will be beneficial to both the Chinook and UREC.

“I think it would still be good to keep the UREC board merged with it, at least for now,” McCray said. “Then slowly start adding specific members for the Chinook until they are ready to branch out on their own.”

The Chinook needs a board specific to its financial needs. The sturdy foundation of UREC has vastly different financial challenges compared to the wobbly legs of its counterpart. Especially in a time of financial uncertainty, our student body deserves specialized individuals to take hold of the Chinook’s fiscal proceedings.