ASUP President Brandon Rivera and Vice President Tsikata Apeno ran for office last spring on the promises of improving parking, bringing food carts to campus and negotiating a deal with Lyft rideshare company.
A month into the school year, the pair says they are making headway on the goals they set last semester.
So far, ASUP has made progress toward making good on their promises, but there are still some kinks to work out.
Food Carts
Last Monday, Rivera announced at the weekly ASUP meeting that the food carts would be coming to campus soon.
Carioca Bowls, a café that serves acai smoothie bowls, is the first food cart to sign ASUP’s contract and to be approved by administration and Public Safety.
Rivera said Carioca Bowls is ready to come to campus next week, but he wants at least another week to see if he can get another food truck to sell at the same time. The food carts will be on campus from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on days worked out by ASUP and the vendor.
Rivera hopes to have two to three food truck vendors at a time on the days ASUP brings them to campus.
Rivera plans to have Carioca Bowls and at least one additional food truck to campus in about two weeks.
Meal points cannot be used to buy food from the carts.
As part of the contract, written by Rivera with help from ASUP advisor Jeromy Koffler, the vendor is required to give eight percent of their on-campus sales to ASUP.
Rivera says the money made from the food carts will help fund clubs and immersions.
Other possible food carts Rivera is communicating with are Big Fat Weiners, Koi Fusion, Smaaken Waffles, Tastebud and Cream Northwest. These vendors have yet to sign the contract, but Rivera says he has heard promising things from them during his communication with them over the summer.
Lyft
While a back-to-school promotional code was worked out with Lyft at the beginning of the school year, Rivera’s original intent was to bring a permanent discount code to students, which has yet to happen.
The new user promo code LYFT2UP was marketed on Lyft posters around campus about one month ago. The code, however, was only available to new users and expired 14 days from redemption.
While Rivera said he and Lauren Switzer, the marketing lead at Lyft for Portland, have been in conversation about other ways to bring discounts to students who use the app in the future, it was not clear whether a full-time discount code could be possible to negotiate with the Lyft company.
While ASUP and Lyft have yet to work out a permanent code for students, one possibility they have discussed is to provide students discount codes for special events. A possibility Rivera mentioned was a discount code for the fall dance happening on Oct. 7 for students who would rather take a Lyft than ride the provided buses.
Parking
Part of Rivera and Apenyo’s platform was to “look for areas on campus where we can add parking and possibly use shuttles to transport students to and from parking facilities.”
Rivera said he last spoke with Vice President for University Operations Jim Ravelli in mid-August about establishing a shuttle bus to operate between the parking lot on River Campus to the main campus.
Rivera said his original intent was for the shuttle to start operating from mid- to late-September, but movement on this front has yet to be seen.
