It made sense to see ASUO Sens. Jeremy Blanchard and Zachary Stark-MacMillan wearing light green PowerShift shirts at Wednesday night’s Senate meeting, especially because they have been organizing the regional environmental conference and there was a funding request for the event before Senate that night.
But I was skeptical when I saw another 14 of those shirts on many people best known for their connection to the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group. They say perception is everything in politics, and the optics of the two respected, idealistic new senators backed by a massive OSPIRG contingent seemed like a net negative for them and their request.
But that wasn’t the case. In fact, if Wednesday night was any indication, Blanchard and Stark’s hard work and happy enviro-goodness may provide some cover to the embattled interest group as it seeks to have its contract with the ASUO reinstated this year.
PowerShift West, which will take place on campus Nov. 6-8, is one of 12 regional conferences taking place nationwide that are organized by a coalition of student-backed environmental groups.
One coalition member is the national Student PIRGs, which has member organizations in Oregon, Washington and California. The conference aims to draw student activists from those states as well as Idaho, Montana and Nevada, which don’t have Student PIRGs. The Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group is down to two chapters — one each at Lane Community College and Southern Oregon University. The organization lost its chapter here in spring after a conservative populist insurrection led by former ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz, but is still paying an organizer to work on campus and procure a new contract at the end of the ASUO’s budget season.
OSPIRG has been recruiting student volunteers and registering voters, and the national PIRGs sent another organizer from Washington, D.C. to help organize PowerShift.
“It’s great that OSPIRG students here at the University of Oregon invited me as a national staff member to come and organize their PowerShift conference as the best in the nation,” said Gabriel Eisner, Student PIRGs’ global warming solutions coordinator.
Eisner is here for three weeks to help make PowerShift happen. He said the coalition organizing the events nationallychose the University for the site of the West Coast conference some time during the summer. He said the University was chosen because students here know how to organize, and it seemed like a middle ground for Washingtonians and Californians.
That OSPIRG could later boast to the ASUO Executive and the Athletics and Contract Finance Committee about how many students were involved, take most of the credit for organizing the conference and gain plenty of volunteers’ was apparently incidental.
Blanchard, Stark and OSPIRG Board Chair Charles Denson also attended last year’s PowerShift in DC and advocated hosting a conference here.
Blanchard admitted preliminary skepticism about OSPIRG’s involvement but said the PIRGs “have a really valuable regional network.” Student PIRGs e-mailed all volunteers in three states, and Eisner has provided much support, Blanchard said.
When the Senate approved the $4,515 request to host the conference — less than it cost to send students to a D.C. PowerShift conference last year — Sen. Demic Tipitino, no friend of OSPIRG, called the request “an amazing use of student fees.” Of the four senators who abstained from the vote, three did so to avoid charges of a conflict of interest. Sen. Carina Miller said in an interview that she supported the conference but abstained because she is a member of the Coalition Against Environmental Racism, which sponsored the request.
The other abstentions came from Blanchard, Stark and Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee Chair Alex McCafferty, who appeared to be the only senator abstaining as a polite way of voting against the funds.
McCafferty led the committee last year when it pulled OSPIRG’s contract. Aside from him, it seems everyone failed to consider OSPIRG’s involvement or was willing to overlook it because of the tangible benefits the student body will receive from PowerShift West. After the meeting, Blanchard was unwilling to say he would support OSPIRG’s reinstatement. But he did not rule it out either.
“I’ve been impressed and surprised at how effective they’ve been,” he said.
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Climate summit could rally OSPIRG
Daily Emerald
October 22, 2009
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