Getting rid of the competition

Daniel Abbey

During the month of September, employees at the Student Book Exchange
noticed one particular student seemed to have a lot of books to resell.

He had so many books to resell, that he frequented the Bellows
Street bookstore 13 times, often selling back the same books.

Then John Belco, owner of the SBX, picked up the phone and called
the CMU Bookstore.

Turns out the student had been buying books at the CMU Bookstore on
his student account and selling them at the SBX.

Belco, whose company will buy back books from anybody, blames the
problem on the unlimited spending power students now have with their
campus accounts.

“The university is basically acting as a lending institution,” said
Belco, who was manager of the CMU Bookstore before buying the SBX three
years ago.

Granted, somebody had to pay the student’s bill — be it Mom or Dad,
federal financial aid or scholarships.

But this is a serious flaw in the university’s quest to let students
charge anything at the CMU Bookstore to student accounts.

It’s dangerous to students because it’s like having a credit card
with no credit limit. That is, until Mom and Dad see the bill or, even
worse, the student’s classes are dropped.

It also brings to light the heavy-handed business practices of the
university over its private sector counterparts.

Students can charge books and sweatshirts at the CMU Bookstore. The
SBX doesn’t have that convenience, or monopoly.

Belco said he’d ideally like to get an agreement with the university
to let students swipe their CHIP ID cards over at his store.

“I don’t mind competing, but a level playing field is all I ask
for,” Belco said.

Allowing the SBX to tie into CMU’s student account charging system
is the only solution to giving students a choice in how and where they
spend their money.

But CMU is not about choices.

University officials, who have opened the floodgates by allowing
anything to be charged on student accounts, will moan all day about how
they need the revenues.

There are other things in the works. Top officials have expressed
interest in taking control of all ATM machines on campus so CMU can
reap the benefits of every $1.50 surcharge. If they gain control of the
ATM machines, what’s to stop them from raising the surcharge fees?

The university already has an unfair business advantage over the
Broomfield Road 7-Eleven with its fancy C3 Store in the new Towers
residence hall complex.

CMU also recently mandated that all printing jobs under $20,000 be
conducted in-house by CMU Printing Services.

There are able businesses in this town that could take care of those
services, many of which do it for much cheaper. Why wouldn’t CMU want
to use our money more wisely by having competitive bids for work?

These mounting examples of impropriety on the university’s part is a
factor in the increasing division between CMU and the Mount Pleasant
community.

Last spring I wrote a column about how the city of Mount Pleasant
gave me an obnoxious $7.50 ticket for having my car’s tires on the
sidewalk of my driveway at my house on the corner of Locust and Pine
streets.

Board of Trustees Chairman John Kulhavi complained to me during a
meeting last spring that my column (“Time for students to fight back
against city,” April 15) was hurting in his efforts to strengthen
communities ties.

What Kulhavi and Warriner Hall don’t get is the gigantic wedge
they’re driving between themselves and the community with their unfair
business practices.

Talk about division.

Chad Livengood can be reached at editor@cm-life.com.