THE MEETING
What started as a typical Student Senate meeting with Senate surplus requests, committee updates and executive appointees ended in flared tempers and excited senators. The ASUO Senate had its first, and possibly only, chance to discuss ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz’s choice to alter the Clark Document, which would all but eliminate the over-realized fund this year.
THE TENSION
While a discussion about the ASUO’s contract with Lane Transit District got its fair share of the show, Dotters-Katz’s proposed changes to the Clark Document became the focal point of the evening.
Earlier this week, Dotters-Katz submitted alterations to the Clark Document, which governs the incidental fee, to the administration for review and approval. If approved, the changes will reduce the over-realized fund from a projected $2.4 million to as low as $25,000. Subsequently, spring term’s incidental fee will be lowered by as much as $100.
While alterations to the Clark Document are within the authority of the ASUO president, it’s up to the Senate to oversee the distribution of the fund every spring term. The proposed reduction caused big waves at the meeting.
Opinions of the changes were across the board, but the general attitude at the table was far from happy. Many senators expressed the concern that the Senate is essentially losing more than $2 million of funds that it expected to be able to distribute near the end of the year.
Multiple senators commented that their decision-making process would have been very different had they known the over-realized fund would be so small. Those decisions assumed the fund would have more than $2 million in it – as opposed to less than $100,000.
Sen. Derek Nix defended the changes, reminding the Senate that nearly half of them ran on a slate of reducing the incidental fee as much as possible.
Sen. Nick Gower seemed especially upset by the changes, saying to Dotters-Katz: “I’m just kinda ticked off here. You barely talked about it in the executive update, and that’s telling.”
The Clark Document discussion wasn’t the only hot point at the meeting, however, as Dotters-Katz’s stance on LTD saw its share of opinions. In his update he expressed his desire that the ASUO not accept financial help from the administration. He is wary of a possible compromise of the integrity of the incidental fee if the ASUO begins accepting money from the administration.
While some agreed with the stance, the opinion generally wasn’t received well.
“This is a situation the administration created. Given that it’s a problem they created by their own means, they should be able to pay for it,” Sen. Sanford Weintraub said, referring to the freshmen being housed in Stadium Park apartments, and the administration’s failure to inform LTD of them.
Sen. Nathan Perley went so far as to draw an economic graph on the chalk board as he sought to explain to Dotters-Katz why, from a business standpoint, the ASUO should accept funding from the administration to help with the LTD contract.
THE DECISIONS
The Senate passed surplus requests from Assault Prevention Shuttle, ASUO Women’s Center, and MEChA. It also confirmed three ASUO Executive appointees to the Elections Board Committee and passed a resolution in support of making the campus an unofficial no-idle zone to help reduce carcinogenic emissions from vehicles on campus.
THE OPINIONS
“If the administration is able to help, they should,” Sen. Noor Rajabzadeh said about the LTD contract.
“Funding we allocate can be reduced out from under (the Senate). I want to be clear. I don’t disagree with the decision, I disagree with the rules,” Sen. Nick Schultz said of Dotters-Katz’ decision to reduce the over-realized fund.
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