Sen. Patrick Boye will run unopposed for Student Senate Vice President next week, filling the position recently vacated by Donnie Kim. Sens. Kate Jones and Sarah Oaks were also nominated Wednesday to fill Boye’s former role as Senate ombudsman.
Boye was the only senator who expressed interest in the vice presidency prior to Wednesday’s meeting and no other nominations were made.
Boye hesitated to vacate his post as ombudsman before accepting the nomination because he didn’t want to lose both that leadership position and a contest for vice president, he said. But with no other nominations, Boye said he wanted to allow a new ombudsman to be voted on as quickly as possible.
He nominated Jones for the job; Senate Presdent Athan Papailiou nominated Oaks.

Special Requests

The Senate also approved four surplus spending requests, two of which will allow senators to attend events in other states. Sen. Kevin Parks will attend an environmental law conference in Washington, D.C., for which Senate allocated $2,151 to the group Land, Air, Water. Parks abstained from the vote, but the other voting senators supported the request.
Sen. Lauren Zavrel, who is coordinator for the University’s production of the Vagina Monologues, will attend a 10th-anniversary performance of the Vagina Monologues in New Orleans featuring Oprah Winfrey, Jane Fonda and other celebrities. Senate allocated $496 to the Women’s Center for the trip, with Sens. Lee Warnecke, Noor Rajabzadeh, and Zavrel abstaining.
University Theatre was allocated $1,000 for a theater conference in Laramie, Wyo. The Senate also allocated $2,500 for students to attend the American College Dance Festival in Salt Lake City.

Elections Board

In other business, the Senate confirmed the appointments of the ASUO Elections Board. The three members had been performing their jobs since fall term but had not been confirmed. Papailiou said they were supposed to be confirmed by Nov. 1 and asked what the Executive would do if the Senate didn’t confirm any of the board members.
“They wouldn’t work,” ASUO President Emily McLain told Papailiou. “It requires your confirmation. It requires your approval. We would say, ‘Thank you so much, you’ve got to go.’”
The Senate confirmed the three board members: Office Manager Edrice Wahed, Voter Education Coordinator Sam Johnson, and Digital Arts Publicity Coordinator Ivan Mirolyubenko. The three will continue to work with Elections Coordinator Kendell Tylee to plan spring elections and a special election on budget reform set to occur sometime this term.
Papailiou later said there should be five members besides the coordinator according to the ASUO Constitution. Tylee, McLain and her Chief of Staff Jennifer Lleras said there have been three members for several years whose job descriptions have been revised to perform the same duties.

EMU

The recent announcement that Holy Cow restaurant will be replaced in the EMU by Laughing Planet Café, about which Warnecke said he had received several e-mails, was a subject of conversation at the meeting.
While senators who sit on the EMU Board of Directors said the decision was justified by more than profits, Sen. Nate Gulley questioned how much say students had in making the decision.
“I just feel like this was a decision that was made by professional staff, and I just want to know why there weren’t more students and if there should have been,” Gulley said.
Jones, who sits on the board, said there was student involvement in the decision, which was made by a special committee.
Gulley asked why the decision didn’t come back to the full board for approval, but Jones didn’t have an answer.
EMU board members also said the board will later seek Senate’s approval for a possible student referendum on a fee to renovate the EMU. The referendum would likely happen near the end of spring term.
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