The ASUO Constitution Court on Friday dismissed a grievance to determine the validity of a meeting where no minutes were taken because it was filed against the wrong party.
Student Sen. Neil Brown filed the grievance against former Sen. Jonathan Rosenberg because Rosenberg was Senate vice president at the time and was responsible for ensuring minutes were taken.
“Before this Court can contemplate the merits of any grievance it must first establish whether said grievance meets the fundamental requirements to be heard by this Court,” the ruling said.
“In this case the Court has determined that the grievance has not been filed against the proper party based on the relief sought.”
Brown said he will re-file the grievance against the proper party Monday morning.
The June 13 meeting was an emergency meeting called at the end of spring term to allocate funds to the marching band and approve four new senators. Sen. Rosenberg’s term ended the next day, and he could not correct the mistake nor void the meeting, he said.
“I take full responsibility for the lack of minutes,” Rosenberg said. After the Emerald reported that no minutes had been taken, which is a violation of Oregon Public Meetings Law, Sen. Kate Jones called Rosenberg and asked him to help her reconstruct minutes by phone from Washington.
The grievance includes a barebones copy of minutes that had been made in haste by Jones and Rosenberg. Rosenberg has said he never intended for those minutes, which do not include how senators voted or how much money had been allocated, to be part of any official record.
Vote tallies from each senator were in a drawer in the Senate desk and were going to be added before the minutes were voted on at following meeting, according to Jones.
But at last week’s meeting Jones tabled discussion of the minutes until the court ruled on the grievance. With another grievance likely to be filed it is unclear whether the minutes will be voted on at the next meeting.
“The discussion has been tabled until there is a ruling. I’m going to try to get people together to put minutes together,” Jones said. Those would be the minutes with vote tallies and other information added. Jones said she would extend the offer to finalize the minutes to “whoever’s interested.” The Senate might not vote on the minutes, but Jones said she wants to “have it together so that if people are inclined to vote on it they will have the option.”
Brown said he thinks his case still has merit. It is important to get a ruling on the meeting’s validity for the sake of transparent government, he said.
“I think we’re all patient enough to wait for the ruling” on his re-filed grievance, Brown said.
Rosenberg said that voiding the meeting back in June would have been the “prudent decision.” However, he doesn’t think the meeting should be retroactively voided.
“I think it would be extraordinarily unfortunate,” he said, because summer Senate did “a tremendous amount of work.”
Brown disagreed. “In summer Senate, we had four meetings and I think the longest one was 10 minutes,” he said.
Brown has said if the meeting is voided he thinks all of the money would be re-allocated. Sens. Patrick Boye, Diego Hernandez, Steven Wilsey and Billy Hatch may all have to be reconfirmed.
“The longer we go on and do this, the more entanglements we find ourselves in,” Brown said.
Jones also said she wants to move forward.
“I want us so desperately to not end up as a cold bureaucracy and I’m not sure where this takes us,” she said, expressing frustration at the pace of approving minutes for a four-month-old meeting.
“I want us to move past June 13,” she said.