University Union representatives sparked a debate regarding its funding Monday night at a Student Association meeting.

UU Concerts co-chair Adam Gorode addressed the assembly regarding a failed bill to grant UU annual funding.

‘The student activity fee is being squandered and the students are being disenfranchised,’ Gorode said. ‘Students are going to other institutions for programming.’

The bill was failed at an Administrative Operations committee meeting Sunday night in a 3 to 1 vote. The ad-op committee consists of Parliamentarian Joan Gabel, Danerys Gutierrez, Patrick Tomeny, Selina Wangila and Monica Leap, although Leap was not in attendance for the meeting.

Gabel said ad-op voted through secret ballot and would not disclose if she voted for the bill.

At SA’s meeting on April 4, Gabel said UU would propose the bill, although the ad-op vote prevented that from occurring. In an interview following the assembly meeting, Gabel also said she would also consult with the Judicial Review Board to see if SA’s constitution would allow Gorode to propose his bill directly to the assembly, bypassing ad-op and the Finance Board, both of which must approve the bill.

‘We do secret ballots for members to vote what’s on their mind,’ Gabel said. ‘It can be very intimidating to vote against a person’s bill.’

SA President Travis Mason and many SA members argued that the bill was ‘a bit rushed.’

‘It will be a lot better than it is right now … but there’s a process,’ Mason said.

Savannah Marion, vice president of Student Services said voting now would be overtaxing on the Finance Board.

‘I don’t think it’s fair to put this on Finance Board this late in the game,’ Marion said. ‘If you guys had come to me earlier I would have helped.’

Jessica Cordova, chair of the board of elections and membership, agreed with Marion.

‘If this has been an issue for the past three years why didn’t it come up three years ago?’ Cordova said.

Assembly member Steven Newler said the bill was urgently needed.

‘It needs to be changed now … I only have two more years left,’ Newler said.

Dean of Student Services Roy Baker said that, as SA’s advisor, he found the issue of UU’s funding ‘shocking.’

‘We are the only university with a 50,000-seat stadium that we’re not using,’ Baker said. ‘They’re fighting a battle that they just shouldn’t have to fight.’

Both Baker and Gorode said the current student activity fee wasn’t large enough.

‘A $140 activity fee doesn’t buy much,’ Baker said.

‘It’s not our job to plan our budget around what every other student organization is doing,’ Gorode said.

In response, former SA President Drew Lederman said it would be improper for the Finance Board to allocate funds to UU in advance of other student organizations without knowledge of what other student organizations want funding.

Gorode replied, ‘So you’re saying to hurt programming anyway.’

Gorode said he will submit a revised bill to the ad-op committee for consideration, although he would not disclose how it will be different from the failed annual funding bill.

‘It would be nice if in the fall budgets were reviewed sooner rather than later … to allow us to compete with high quality programming universities,’ Gorode said in an interview following the meeting. ‘The bill that (we) resubmit will look entirely differently.’

In other SA news, the assembly elected three new members to the Finance Board through a secret ballot. The newly elected Finance Board members are Rudy Hernandez, a junior in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management; Waskar Espinosa, a junior in the School of Information Studies and Lesley Stefan, a junior in The College of Arts and Sciences.

Finance Board members are elected by secret ballot to ‘eliminate conflict, if any,’ Cordova said.

The new Finance Board members will have full voting privileges, including the ability to vote on budget recommendations in the current budgeting process, Cordova said. Finance Board hearings have already begun.

‘I have reservations about members that miss 75 percent of the meetings,’ said Comptroller Andrew Urankar.

Mason presented SA’s budget for the fall 2005 semester to the assembly. The $69,600 budget request is less that of previous SA budget requests.

The SA budget will go towards hiring an SA Webmaster, who will expand SA’s Web site and will be paid $6.50 an hour, Mason said.

The SA budget will also go towards installing a wireless Internet access point on the student organization area on the second floor of the Schine student center.

The SA budget will also go towards numerous advertising campaigns for SA, Mason said.

‘We’re going to do a lot of advertising, especially on opening weekend,’ Mason said.

The assembly also voted to approve three bills sponsored by Cordova to amend elections codes.

One of the bills prevents SA candidates from participating in debates sponsored by student organizations or groups other than SA. SA candidates that participate in debates sponsored by student organizations or groups would not be allowed to continue to campaign, according to the bill.

Cordova said the bill’s purpose was to ensure that debates would be conducted objectively and fairly.

‘The neutrality is guaranteed,’ Cordova said.

Assembly member and former Daily Orange staff writer Michael Lopardi argued against the bill because he said it was up to the voters to determine a person’s candidacy.

‘A candidate needs to be able to answer a question no matter where it comes from, whether it’s fair or not,’ Lopardi said. ‘BEM shouldn’t be able to strike down a person’s candidacy.’

Another election code bill now defines campaign e-mails and instant messages sent after the start of the elections to be campaign violations.

‘The reason this has come up is because of (Mason’s) campaign,’ Cordova said.

Published on April 11, 2005 at 12:00 pm