General Assembly

Minutes from October 26th, 2005

Download Word File: Minutes 10/26/05

Download Senate Budget Presentation (PowerPoint):  2005 - 2006 Budget Presentation

Occidental College

ASOC General Assembly

Forum Minutes

October 26, 2005
Notes by Grace Canby

 

Matt Kuzio, General Assembly Co-Chair, welcomed everyone to the official student forum. The General Assembly is a place for students to bring up issues and policy change. The General Assembly recognizes that the student body is one of many forums that form the community. This is a forum for students to work with other students and administrators.

New Resolutions Proposed to the GA

Senator Ken Smutny proposed a new resolution to the General Assembly.  It was stated as: All meetings of senate, its committees and the General Assembly shall be open and publicized to the entire student body.  With a vote of 5 students the resolution was officially proposed and therefore open to discussion.

Jake Stevens asked what the notification time for these meetings would be, so that students can be aware of them and possibly attend. He suggested the Brown Act standard of a 72-hour notification period.

Ken Smutny said that the problem with senate meetings is that they do not have student input. While he understands the need for efficiency, students are never allowed to speak until the visitor forum at the end of each session, and sometimes that is cut due to time constraints.

David Marsh asked if off campus training sessions for the senate would then be open to all students and would Senate be responsible for providing services for all students to attend those meetings?

Benna Gottfried proposed that only on campus trainings and meetings be open to all students.

David Marsh then brought up the issue that this proposal creates a gray area. If off campus trainings and meetings were not open, then senate could hold all of its meetings off campus.

Kenna Cottrill stated that training sessions for senate does not fit into the category of meetings that are open to all students.

Mike Gawley proposed an amendment to exclude training sessions from the open meeting resolution.

Caroline Kim was worried that advisor meetings (meetings between senators and the senate advisor) would also be an issue. She proposed an amendment that advisor meetings are not to be included in the open meeting resolution.

Stephan van der Mersch wanted to know what were considered official meetings/executive sessions.

Matt Kuzio stated that this was clarified during the last senate meeting.

Patrice Hall wanted to have meetings of senate open to all students until a decision or a vote had to be made. At this point, she suggested, students that were not a part of the Senate would be asked to leave the meeting.

Ken Smutny felt that this was unfair considering he wished to know what was occurring during senate meetings. Before he was elected as a campus wide senator, he was asked to leave a finance meeting and was upset by this.

Stephan van der Mersch said that senate listens to everyone and then asks them to leave to make the final decision. He said that he would not have been comfortable if people had stayed around and influenced voting with their presence. Students can be present at the senate meetings about funding, for example, but they can not be present for the actual voting process.

Ken Smutny felt that the decision making process was/is important enough to have elected officials be somewhat uncomfortable. There needs to be a safe space to perform their jobs, but with senate, he felt, that those boundaries should be lowered a bit.

Caroline Kim reinforced the fact that no actual decisions are made at those meetings that are closed to students. They are merely discussions about the topic at hand. Second, it’s interesting that just senate meetings are being proposed to be open to the student body. She felt that it would make sense to have all student groups be open to the public. That means PB, newspaper, KOXY etc.

Stephan van der Mersch enforced the idea that there needs to be a certain amount of privacy to make fair decisions. He did not want friends present to influence the decisions.

Amy Laslett wanted to know what more would students learn by being present at the private meetings that they couldn’t be informed about at senate. After all, the private meetings are discussed in-depth during the public meetings of senate. At those public meetings students can hear what was discussed at the closed meetings.

Anders Engdahl said that if meetings were open to all students it might get rid of some of the myths/rumors surrounding the meetings.

Benna Gottfried asked if minutes could be taken without names at the finance meetings.

Caroline Kim proposed an amendment to the resolution. “All committee meetings would have to report who was present and what was discussed. Students would have access to these documents.” A weekly report of sorts.

Jake Steves believe that the discussion was getting caught up in the actual voting process when he felt that the decision making process what the most important part of all the senate meetings.

Stephan van der Mersch thought that during the senate meetings rationale could be questioned. If a student had a question about what went on in the finance meeting, he/she could ask the question during the open senate meetings. Making all senate meetings open to the student body would cause problems.

Amy Laslett believed that typing up reports of what went on in private meetings was a waste of time. She believe that time was better used to make important changes on campus.

Voting on each amendment occurred as follows:

Vote on the entire resolution with amendments that were passed: not passed 0-14-12

Spencer Jemelka brought up that voting on this resolution was not constitutional. He stated that there had to be a week between proposing new amendments and a final vote.

Matt Kuzio said that because the resolution had been proposed the week before there would be a vote now. The vote held during this meeting would count.

Senate Proposal of the ASOC Budget

(During this presentation the senators had a PowerPoint presentation to show the breakdown of numbers)

Anders Engdahl opened the presentation of funding and allocation by stating that these ideas are guidelines and are subject to change.

Kenna Cottrill asked who students should contact if there were questions about the budget.

Amy Laslett said that she and Finn Keough would be overseeing the funding committee for the entire year. If a student has questions contact either of them at alaslett@oxy.edu or fkeough@oxy.edu.

Stephan van der Mersch asked if the proposed budget was borrowed for years past, re-reviewed or entirely new.

Anders Engdahl said that the budget was borrowed from past years.

Kara Cottrill wanted to emphasize the point that the GA can not change funding.

A student wanted to know who made funding requests. Is it done by club heads or can it be done by any member?

Anders Engdahl said that it was really up to the clubs to decide who was in charge of asking for money.

Liz Tom asked what the difference between the discretionary fund and the club fund.

Anders Engdahl clarified that the discretionary fund was open to all students while the club fund was just for approved Occidental clubs.

Amy Laslett also wanted to emphasize that a maximum of 50% of total budgets proposed by clubs were given.

ASOC Budget – Funding

Patrice Hall and Caroline Kim stated that all extra money that was not used in the budget was put back into the ASOC savings account. The goal of the budget was to break even.

(ASOC expenses - $18 425)

Jake Stevens wanted to know which senator gets paid.

Caroline Kim stated that David Marsh (ASOC president) did get paid for his job. All other senators were not paid for the time.

Open Forum

Benna Gottfried asked that if the senate were to take the 2 months of PB funding that had not been used and put it into the student service fund, would it get the budget up to the 30% that was presented in the constitution?

Caroline Kim said that the senate had decided not to cut PB funding in last weeks senate meeting.

Stephan van der Mersch believed that the budget processes should be more open and publicized.

Matt Kuzio reinforced the fact that this is not a final budget, and that there was time to change it.

Patrice Hall said that the senate only proposes budgets, it is the student service heads that actually sit down and make the final decision.

John Wilson asked where the extra money would go that would make the 26% (at present) get to 30% (as stated in the constitution).

Caroline Kim said it would go back into the pool for everyone.

A student asked when the budget would be finalized.

Caroline Kim said that the PB budget was not final because it wasn’t inexistence for the first two months of school. That’s why it is still in question when compared to other budgets.

Matt Kuzio asked if the budgets were “final” three weeks ago and “final” now why the senate was spending so much time discussing them.

Caroline Kim said that some of the budgets are final and some are not. Some the senate is allowed to change and come are not allowed to be altered because they have already been processed.

Benna Gottfried asked if PB would just take the extra money from the first two months of school and pay their workers more per hour.

Kenna Cottrill assured everyone that she was working with PB on this issue and that students would be paid what they deserved.

This is the end of the open forum and the meeting as a whole.