KUTE station manager Alfred Quinn’s stance on a bill to cut funding for the student radio has raised a few eyebrows.

While other members of KUTE management have criticized the student government’s proposal, Quinn has advocated the cut.

The measure-which the U Board of Trustees will vote on the next week-calls for an amendment to Redbook, the student constitution, to allow the Associated Students of the University of Utah to suspend KUTE funding on a yearly basis.

Representatives in the ASUU Senate and General Assembly passed the measure last week by a substantial majority vote.

Though Quinn doesn’t want the station to go without, he said he thinks KUTE would be better off with a new boss.

“ASUU does not know how to run a radio station (and) they shouldn’t run a radio station,” Quinn said.

ASUU leaders drafted the bill because they said the station did not have enough listeners to justify funding.

Quinn said the station should be put under the control of a separate body so it can have guaranteed financial support. He also suggested the station be merged with The Daily Utah Chronicle.

“I’m more for a change at KUTE,” Quinn said. “I don’t see that change coming with the current status.”

A presidential task force is currently evaluating the station along with other student media on campus. The body was created last spring after the trustees tabled a separate ASUU bill that would have created a committee to control the station.

Quinn says he will present his plan for combining The Chronicle and KUTE to the task force sometime in January.

His stance on the funding cut has put him in step with ASUU leaders who have pushed the bill despite opposition from Robert Avery, KUTE’s faculty adviser and general manager.

Though Avery maintains that ASUU’s move is premature and should be withheld pending a recommendation from the task force, he said he doesn’t mind Quinn advocating a separate position.

“Anybody at the station has a right to their own opinion,” Avery said.

Ryan Perkins

Lennie Mahler

“Five years down the road, if the U doesn’t have a radio station, it’ll be like not having a basketball team or a football team.” Student manager of KUTE Alfred Quinn expresses hopes of a future merging of KUTE and The Chronicle and his opinions on the current state of the radio station inside the KUTE office at the Campus Organization Resource Center.