Opinion

After four years, it's finally time to grow up a little bit and move on with my life -- and time to say goodbye to Phoenix for good. Despite my misgivings when I moved here, this place grew on me. So thanks, Phoenix, for helping those of us who graduated this year explore and discover who we are and who we want to become.

What happens when a neighborhood institution disappears? Following last week's announcement that the Urban Grocery and Wine Bar in the Phoenix Public Market will be closing its doors, the community is left searching for answers to important questions of why, how, and what now?

Saying goodbye to someone you care about is never easy. Moving on without that person is even harder. This semester, many of us at the Downtown...

This semester, the Downtown Devil will undergo its first wholesale change in editorial leadership. Former managing editors LeeAnn DiSanti, Dan Neligh, Salvador Rodriguez, Stephanie Snyder and Dustin Volz will be replaced by Evie Carpenter, Jack Fitzpatrick, Jessica Goldberg, Julia Tylor and Mauro Whiteman.

The Downtown campus is headed in the right direction, and ASU administration, local businesses and downtown advocates are all continuing to work to make it better.

For now, as a Downtown student government representative fighting to keep my constituents’ experiences and opportunities on campus the best possible, I urge members of our student body to take a minute out of their busy day to vote “no” on the universal constitution referendum.

The implementation of a new elections code would establish a Supreme Court where all campaign disputes will be heard. Elections on our campus in the past have been plagued with controversy and bias – none of which is conductive to furthering the campus as whole. In voting “yes,” several great victories for us as students on the Downtown campus will be achieved.

When ASU students return to their downtown apartments this August, they’ll be greeted with a lot of construction blocking First Street. About a month after classes start, the street will open back up, though the landscaping will take a touch longer. And once all of it’s finally done around Thanksgiving break, First Street will be a pedestrian Mecca. Except for that pesky shade thing.

Phoenix is days away from opening the controversial parking lot at the site of the old Ramada Inn on Taylor Street between First and Second streets. And it could not finish it without one last controversial splash – literally.

The city of Phoenix is currently undergoing a renaissance and Downtown student government must take an active role in our city’s rebirth and bridging the gap between ASU Downtown and our city’s businesses and citizens.