ASUO Vice President Katie Taylor’s now-publicized marriage to former OSPIRG board chair Charles Denson elicited mixed reactions within the ASUO on Tuesday.
Some senators expressed frustration about the previously undisclosed relationship, claiming that the information reflected greatly on the trust within student government.
“It is really disappointing that the elected vice president would choose to do something behind the student body’s backs,” Sen. Kaitlyn Lange said@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Kaitlyn+Lange@@. “It should have been disclosed. There was a lot of trust that was broken.”
Lange — who did not know about the marriage — explained that at the beginning of every term, ASUO Senate records anything that could be a potential conflict of interest, and Taylor didn’t announce the marriage.
“If this had happened at any other company, she would be fired,” Lange said.
For others, the marriage did not have any implications for student government, with some calling the relationship an entirely private matter.
“This information is totally irrelevant to her performance as vice president,” ASUO President Ben Eckstein said. “Her ability to work for students has not been affected in the least.”
Regardless of the marriage, many ASUO representatives feel that the main topic of discussion should remain whether OSPIRG is beneficial to the campus community as a contracted organization. Sen. Ben Rudin@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Rudin@@, who did not know about the relationship prior to the article, emphasized that there is a bigger issue at hand.
“We need to remember that regardless of any conflict of interest, or lack thereof, OSPIRG is still the one ASUO expenditure that is fundamentally wrong,” Rudin said in a phone interview. @@Leave this description in so we aren’t accused of quoting comments on articles@@“This relationship might add another element to it, but the funding of OSPIRG did not turn from a good idea to a bad idea just from the news today.”