Candidates from the seven campaigns running for ASUO Executive in this week’s primary election emphasized student government accountability and the budget during a debate Wednesday night.
About 70 students attended the debate, many of them wearing colored T-shirts promoting one of the platforms. The candidates responded to four predetermined questions before answering questions from the audience.
Several questions focused on how candidates will improve accountability of student government in light of the Oct. 8-10 finance retreat to Sunriver, at which student leaders drank alcohol and smoked marijuana.
Vice presidential candidate Jael Anker-Lagos, the only candidate who attended the retreat, said alcohol on retreats is a “huge problem,” adding that the retreat was “a great learning experience.”
“I want to make clear right now that the alcohol was not purchased with incidental fees,” she said. “I must say that I do support finance retreats. … I learned the ins and outs of the incidental fee and the financial structure of the ASUO because I attended this retreat.”
Presidential candidate Jacob Daniels said he will hold a retreat at which “there’s not going to be any alcohol whatsoever.”
“They need to get to know each other; they need to form lasting relationships, loyalty to one another, and the thing is, alcohol might create a false impression of friendship, and it’s not going to do anything as a learning experience,” he said.
Presidential candidate Nick Hudson said he attended a finance retreat two years ago when he was on the Athletic Department Finance Committee, adding that retreats will be “very beneficial.”
“We will have a retreat with the ASUO Executive where president takes a hands-on role,” he said.
Presidential candidate Anthony Caruso said the retreat will
offer opportunities and a bonding experience.
“Once you have a well-bonded group of people, they feel more motivated to work together for a better cause,” he said. “I feel like the retreat will be more well monitored this year, especially under the scope of the media eye; with transparency involving everyone and the media looking at us, it’s not like it would happen again.”
Vice presidential candidate Christopher Haak said student
money should be spent on retreats, but they don’t need to be held
in Sunriver.
“It can be done there; it can be done here,” he said. “Leadership can be done anywhere.”
Vice presidential candidate David Goward said retreats are “extremely important” but proposed the retreat be held at a camp near Junction City, which would cost about one-third of the roughly $3,200 of student money spent on this year’s retreat.
Presidential candidate Adam Walsh said, “Instead of a retreat to Sunriver, our administration would have a bonding experience in the skylight of the EMU.”
ASUO Student Senator Rona Yang asked the candidates why they hadn’t attended controversial Programs Finance Committee meetings this year and what they would do to address the controversial pay model
formulated by the committee.
Daniels said the PFC “isn’t
working.”
“The reason I haven’t been at these meetings is that I don’t feel welcomed, and that’s why I’m running for this office,” he said. “I tried to find information on the budget; I got the 2000-2001 budget. I have no idea what’s going on because they won’t let me, and the meetings are held up on the third floor in a dark room, and there’s room for 17 senators and the vice president.”
Hudson said he sat on the Senate during a special meeting Monday to approve the PFC budget.
“The stipend model has to be fixed,” he said. “There are some budgets that 60 percent of their budgeting goes to the stipend, so it does need to be fixed.”
Walsh said he attended the
emergency PFC meeting last week, adding that the stipend model needs to be reevaluated.
Goward said he has been an administrative assistant for the PFC and his running-mate, Evan Geier, has attended multiple PFC meetings this year. Goward said pay for student leaders should be paid directly to those leaders.
“It’s important to have the money going directly to the students because when you enter the real world, your employer will not pay your bills for you, so we won’t be paying students’ bills,” he said.
Haak said it is important to pay student government leaders because they work long hours. He added that he did not attend the meetings.
“I can’t say I’ve been to a meeting. I don’t know where they’re held; I don’t know much about them,” he said. “But I’d encourage that anyone who gets elected, we should sit in on all their meetings.”
Caruso said he didn’t learn about problems with the PFC budget until he was busy with finals, gone for spring break and involved with
political campaigns.
PFC member Anker-Lagos said she as “learned so much” from her time on the committee.
“I find it very difficult to hear a bunch of students talk about PFC when they did not go through the process,” she said. “It’s very long process with many variables.”
Online voting through DuckWeb runs through Friday at 5 p.m.

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