With 37 cents left in its surplus account, the 2007-08 Student Senate finished its last meeting Wednesday without passing an amendment outlining electronic ticket distribution to University football and basketball games.
Senators raised a myriad of questions and concerns about the ticketing plan, which has been in the works for several years. The ASUO’s contract with the athletic department has already been completed. The contract needs to be amended before the end of the academic year for the system to be in place for the first football game of the 2008-09 season.
It will be left to the incoming Senate, which will meet for the first time next week, to try to agree on a plan in their first two meetings.
The amendment senators rejected did not define the special exceptions under which students could receive tickets despite missing the time block when tickets will be available on the Internet. The plan reserves 50 tickets for exceptions, but does not list criteria for the exceptions or who will decide if a student has met them.
Sen. Billy Hatch and ASUO President Emily McLain said there should be a move toward sharing advertising revenue with the athletic department because of the increased Web traffic to GoDucks.com, where students will have to log on to reserve game tickets.
The amendment also made no mention of tickets for spouses and partners of students. ASUO Finance Coordinator Matt Rose said 1 percent of all tickets would still be reserved for partners and spouses. There was also a question of whether incentives for students with 100 percent attendance referred to attendance at all home games or all games for which a student requested a ticket.
The Senate transferred $100 it had reserved for outreach to its dwindling surplus account, along with $109 from unused stipends. Senate President Athan Papailiou said there was approximately $650 in unused Senate stipends. He recommended some of the money to Summer Senate so each member could receive a stipend for sitting on the committee, but other senators disagreed so that decision will be left to the next Senate. Last year’s Summer Senate voted not to take stipends.
Asklepiads Pre-Med Society received $300 from surplus for a tent at Relay for Life. The money will be used to purchase first aid supplies and water for about 350 participants.
Hatch told Papailiou it would be a conflict of interest for Papailiou to serve as Senate President during the next two meetings while Papailiou will concurrently be chief-of-staff to ASUO President-elect Sam Dotters-Katz. Papailiou said that would be an issue for the ASUO Constitution Court to decide, but Hatch said the court had already ruled on such subjects.
Sen. Sean Jin said a student can hold only one elected position but can hold as many appointed positions as the Executive allows. Chatter broke out around the board room table until Sen. Nate Gulley banged his own gavel, resulting in a shouting match between Gulley and Papailiou.
Gulley started the meeting in a T-shirt for the Jared Axelrod and Juliana Guzman campaign on which he was elected, before removing it for an Emily McLain and Chii-San SunOwen campaign T-shirt, followed by a Rock the Yellow campaign T-shirt at the end of the meeting.
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