Name: Anthony Caruso
Age: 20
Major: Economics
Hometown: Portland, Ore.
Year: Junior
Robbie McEachern
Age: 20
Major: Finance
Hometown: Milwaukee, Ore.
Year: Junior
Emerald: Platform Summary. Sum up your platform in a few sentences.
Caruso: Pretty much our platform, it’s like, pretty much we believe that the budget has gotten out of control. And I think that that’s a huge issue for students now because people are seeing that 5 million dollars-plus that we gave them has been overspent by 10 percent. So I think that a lot of people have issues with that and, like, we feel that if we step in, because of our experience, that we’ll be able to do it right the first time. And if you do that right the first time, then all these delays and all these extra budget add-ons that have been going in there,

things like that we won’t have to worry about. We’ll be working on other issues. More things that are more involved with the campus, and, pretty much, just doing better things for our community because right now, with all this attention on the budget, a lot of other things are being side-tracked. Like, a lot of other issues that students are worried about. And it’s pretty much just because the (Programs Finance Committee), right now, didn’t do the best job at allocating the budget the first time.
Emerald: How are you hoping to fix the PFC?
Caruso: I feel that if you give them more, like, I guess, more overseeing, like if me and Robbie stand in and we can use our experience and our mathematical know-how to help budget better, that we can probably help out better the first time as opposed to going through this two month delay, and watching the senate reject and watching it go back and forth, because when this stuff’s been happening — that’s what got us started in the first place wanting to do this, because I picked up a Daily Emerald and all of a sudden I’m seeing that my money’s being squandered and people don’t know what they’re doing. They need a voice. They need somebody that can help lead them and step in. Take responsibility for the budget. And that’s going to be us, hopefully.
Emerald: Do you have anything to add Robbie?
McEachern: I don’t
Emerald: What qualifies you for this position?
Caruso: Besides the fact that me and him have been on executive council for our fraternity for three years, I was also the student body president in my high school, and he was senior president of his high school, so we have a lot of leadership experience there. Specifically, this guy right here has been social chairman for our fraternity, which means that he’s in charge of setting up activities and setting up programs and all the little budgeting stuff that our fraternity does. And what you do is you have a social fee, which is a small percentage of the overall budget, which sounds a lot like the incidental fees that the University has, so we have a lot of experience in how to allocate funds and what you need to set aside to help prepare yourself for anything that might come up, like an over-budgeting incident like we had this year.
Emerald: What about you Robbie?
McEachern: Like he said I was president of my senior class in high school. I was involved with setting up things such as a powder puff game in high school. We raised $1,100 for that, for Doernbechers Children’s Hospital in Portland. I recently became the president of my house, Theta Chi.
Caruso: Me and this guy have been working pretty close together for a while now because I’m just getting done with my second year as vice-president and before that I was risk management officer, so I’ve been holding people accountable for a long time, and me and him work pretty close to make sure that everything goes off without a hitch and make sure that the functions are run properly.
McEachern: I was risk manager after he was.
Caruso: So pretty much accountability, and taking care of the budget at Theta Chi house is what we’ve been doing. So we see this as an ideal opportunity for us to step in and do good for the University.
Emerald: Why do you want this job?
Caruso: Like I said earlier, when we read that paper and we saw that there was a problem going on with the budget, like, it really set off some sirens that this could be done a lot better. And, with that comes a huge opportunity to prove yourself. And, like, we can come in here and take over and do a really good job and plan out a better budget and make the things on the campus work better, like all the activities, all the programs, like, people like that. Make everybody happy, then you get this more, like, respect, and you can actually see that you’re doing something for the University. And when that happens, that makes the overall University look a lot better. And when you come out looking for a job, who are they going to pick? The university that has an ASUO exec that’s blowing things, or an ASUO exec. that’s getting things accomplished? It makes the whole school look more credible.
Emerald: Robbie, why do you want the job?
McEachern: We kind of went over this together, a lot of the same reasons, we kind of came up with. We’ve both done these types of things before. So we thing we’re very capable of it. And that’s kind of the underlying thing. We knew we were capable, and then where do we go from there? What do we fix? And we kind of went over the budgeting thing, which we know can be done much better. And then we went on to say ‘we can do that better, so, lets run.’
Emerald: In light of the ASUO retreat to Sunriver, what is the best way to properly ensure accountability from student leaders next year?
Caruso: When I heard about that, I got a little upset about it because it seems like … I guess they were saying that it was on our incidental fees budget that they were doing it. But after talking to Mena, she put our minds at ease that it definitely wasn’t. Although it kind of defaces what ASUO stands for — it kind of makes them look a lot less professional, essentially — I think that they’ve done a fantastic job and we will be stepping into that role and having a lot of contact with Mena, and she had some great ideas on accountability, like, different things that we can do. Some of the things that I feel like is having more close contact with all of the people in your office, because if you have their respect, like, if I can talk to the PFC and we get along and I can talk to the senate and we get along and, like, I’m a pretty personable guy, I feel that the better communication channels you have, the less there will be problems with accountability, because people will take it on themselves to do that action. They’ll take it on themselves to take that extra step.
Emerald: How would you organize your staff to reflect your priorities?
Caruso: When we talked to Mena about it, she said that what happened with them was that they had the old ASUO exec. come in and they’d stand side-by-side and help them through it and pick out what was better qualified for each position. So what we’re thinking is that Mena and Adam will help us pick the exec. if they’re elected and that we’ll go through and figure out what best suits each of the positions, because there’s still a lot that we have to learn. We’ve been, like, teaching ourselves as we’ve been going along the way, since we’ve decided to get involved, but there still is a lot that we have to learn that I feel like we will be able to make a much more productive exec. from their experience with all these problems because they’ve been through the hard times and I fig
ured that with that experience on our side — because Robbie and Mena went to high school together so they’re friends and we’re able to stay in contact with her. I feel with their experience of what not to do, and our experience of how to run things, that we’ll be able to bet
ter work with an executive council that does things more effectively.
Emerald: Do you think the ASUO is proper in finding an alternative punishment for the Sunriver situation besides repaying funds?
Caruso: I feel like the ASUO, on that one, I feel like they really could have done better things to take penance on themselves. Like, something that could stand out better so that students felt more reassured that, you know, they’re not being allowed to run rampant with their funds to go party in Sunriver. But, at the same time, I don’t know enough about all the little punishments that they did to really take a clear stance on what I feel that they should have done.
Emerald: How are you going to approach statewide issues?
Caruso: That’s definitely one of the things that I wanted to focus on is getting out there into the community and doing some lobbying. Because, like, I mean, right now it seems like a lot of the other candidates are kind of, like, promising things, like lowering tuition but we know that the only way to do that is to cut off the budget at the school unless you get a lobbied measure to pass. The thing is just to go out there, be persistent, really show that you’re a personal person and let them know that there’re good things that can come out of the University and a better education for everybody and lower tuition, because that just gives more people the chance to get out there and get a better education and do things for the world.
— Adam Cherry