ASMSU discusses possible Conan O'Brien appearance at Breslin

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ASMSU officials unveiled plans to bring late-night host Conan O’Brien to Breslin Center and a plan to reduce the proposed student tax during Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting.

ASMSU is MSU’s undergraduate student government.

Organization officials put in a $150,000 bid to entice O’Brien to perform a one night-only concert on campus.

Eric Branoff, Student Assembly vice chairperson for external affairs, said officials made the offer to O’Brien Thursday night after Student Assembly members unanimously voted to allocate money from the organization’s risk management fund.

“We placed a bid trying to persuade him to come MSU,” Branoff said. “Nothing has been set in stone yet.”

Student Assembly allocated $225,000 to pay for O’Brien’s potential appearance and other event costs, but if O’Brien chooses not to come to MSU the money will not be used, said Morgan Green, ASMSU’s director of event planning.

“It’s in the preliminary stages,” Green said. “We just found out last week and we wanted to jump on board as quickly as possible. We wanted to make sure we had the offer in time for when he makes the decision when he wants to tour.”

Potential dates for the concert include May 10-13 and 16-21. All profits from the concert will be donated to Haiti relief efforts.

Student Assembly Chairperson Kyle Dysarz said he wanted to be clear the organization was doing everything it could to persuade O’Brien to come to MSU.

“It is very up in the air right now,” Dysarz said. “The first step is persuading him to come. Once we can get him to agree to that much, then we can move on with the logistical questions.”

Tax referendum
When students head to the polls in March for ASMSU’s spring elections, they will see a Readership Program referendum with a reduced price tag.

Student Assembly members also unanimously voted Thursday to reduce a proposed $1.75 tax increase to $1.25.

The program provides free copies of The New York Times, USA Today and the Detroit Free Press campuswide to students with a valid student ID.

Branoff said although the tax for students will be reduced, the same amount of money still will be used to fund the Readership Program.

“We found when we were looking internal ways to keep that tax increase lower,” Branoff said. “We looked at the Red Cedar Log and realized we could take 50 cents from that and lower the tax increase, but keep funding at $1.75.”

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