TOWN/GOWN COOPERATION MIGHT FLOW ONLY UPHILL

Southeast Missouri State University officials might excuse local business people for not cheering some of the school's lesser renovation plans. While no one benefits if students suffer an uncomfortable university environment, it also makes little sense to use tax revenues to pave the way for campus businesses that compete with taxpaying community enterprises. We can't expect students to live in spartan circumstances but we can't predict much local enthusiasm for these plans.

On the surface, this seems like an innocuous enough proposition. University officials said last week that plans are in development for remodeling an area of the Towers dormitory complex. Funding is not available now for the project, but the area might ultimately be converted into a mini-mall for students, featuring commercial restaurants, a style shop, barber shop and convenience store.

Again, this plan has yet to be fully developed. Still, we take issue with the thinking behind it.

The university has an educational mission. If it has a radio station that competes for listeners with local commercial radio stations, if it has a student newspaper that competes for advertising dollars with our publication, those might ostensibly be forgiven as fulfilling some educational goals. However, the university has a campus dining facility that has competed directly with local restaurants, without paying the property taxes and collecting the sales taxes that the private-sector operations do. The taxpayer-maintained Student Recreation Center on campus advertises itself as an alternative to a walking program at the local mall, and possibly drains some business from commercial health clubs here. What are the educational goals of those establishments?

If the university's plans bear fruit and the Towers mini-mall becomes reality, what would be the reaction of owners of hair-styling shops and barber shops within walking distance of campus? What of the reaction of a person owning a tax-paying convenience store near a dormitory complex? They won't be thrilled that tax dollars provided them competition.

Southeast is not the only university to face this dilemma. Visit other campuses across the nation and you might appreciate the campus book store or a small shop conveniently located in a student union. Other campuses also are not exempt from community criticism when these boundaries are stretched. At Carbondale, a McDonald's restaurant in a downtown business district moved last fall to the Southern Illinois University Student Center. The city will lose about $20,000 in sales taxes because of the move, plus lost property taxes and the negative impact the move had on that commercial area.

We don't recommend that the campus strip itself of every enterprise that might infringe on local private businesses. However, it is reasonable to expect university officials not to venture so far into the public sector that local businesses are injured.

There is a lot of talk about town-and-gown cooperation, and there is no denying that the marriage between Cape Girardeau and Southeast Missouri State has been a good one. At times, however, it seems that this cooperation flows only uphill.