Last Friday’s editorial (“VFSA’s budget is unfair to other groups,” ODE, Feb. 15) about the Veterans and Family Student Association’s budget was more of something you would read from The Commentator. The editorial assumes that a 5.5 percent benchmark is “unusually high,” without taking into consideration the historical and political context of the past, the unpredicted high current service level increase and the six weeks spent this year deciding how much money programs, contracts and departments would get. A 5.5 percent benchmark is moderate considering what happened last year with a low benchmark.
To say that political and emotional pressures swayed Programs Finance Committee’s decision is like saying that we have a perfectly structured finance committee and that us being viewpoint-neutral really enhances the cultural and physical development of campus. We might as well have robots or computers calculating budgets for each group. I recall PFC increasing OSPIRG’s budget because of political and emotional pressure; we had no way to quantify their services and they weren’t transparent in the least bit. Sen. Nick Meyers did violate standards, but if you were at most PFC hearings you would know that he never really had a set opinion or understood viewpoint-neutrality; this guy is the epitome of flip-flopping.
Most of the people who are saying that VFSA’s increase is unfair to other groups don’t really take into consideration the cultural and physical development that this group would and has provided to campus. VFSA has 90 members and has been on campus for three years, yet some people call them a new group. VFSA provides support to student veterans and family members; they have phenomenal fundraising and spending, and they have presented programs like Iraq’s body count and just recently the Telling performances. The whole unfair argument is driven by people’s selfishness. There are senators with set decisions without even having attended the hearings or having heard or seen information from all sides.
Former Sen. Steven Wilsey’s remarks on last Wednesday’s (Feb. 13) senate meeting were more political then anything. A decision was made by the majority of the committee and he obviously didn’t get what he wanted so he resigned to object the decision. The committee lost its autonomy thanks to Wilsey and PFC Chairman Jacob Brennan; we might as well have Senate do the budget hearings. Brennan and Meyers decided to recall VFSA for Friday without consulting Brandon Culbertson, Tri Vo, myself and potentially Mei Li Yu. I am appalled by this. Speaking of being appalled, Brennan said that he was appalled by Senate’s behavior on Wednesday; this is coming from a guy who during the budget hearings said racist, sexist and homophobic remarks during the budget process.
The memo from Athan Papailiou and Patrick Boye is a joke, if they really cared that much they would have attended all the budget hearings and looked at all the circumstances behind the PFC decisions. I agree that the Career Center money should go back to students, and giving a tiny piece of that money to VFSA is going back and serving students. My goal in Senate is not to increase the incidental fee or decrease it or to just think about money, it is to serve the students, especially marginalized and oppressed students and to see how we can truly enhance the cultural and physical development and diversity of campus.
Diego Hernandez, ASUO Senate Seat 2