One day after his proposal to appoint a student as a non-voting member of the State College Borough Council was dismissed, student body president Christian Ragland vowed to return the idea to the council in the fall.
But as the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) tries to get a student on the borough council, it will face opposition from several of the group’s members.
State College Borough Council member Tom Daubert is among several council members who do not support the proposal to make a student a non-voting member of the borough council.
“You can’t have someone — who is sitting on council — who is negative about everything that is non-student,” Daubert said. “That would be like if we were negative to everything that was student, and that would be stupid.”
Ragland (senior-political science) said the proposal to the council was to lay the groundwork for the UPUA’s initiative in the fall.
“All 44,000 [students] will be back soon, so we can probably garner some support,” Ragland said. “When students can be a stakeholder and have the opportunity to represent students, that is a definite plus.”
Daubert — who opposed the proposal for a student member — said under the Home Rule Charter, the borough can not legally appoint members. But the charter does not address the issue of non-voting members, Daubert said.
“Members can only be elected,” Daubert said. “We cannot appoint members. We have to do this according to the law.”
Daubert said he would be willing to have a student liaison to the council but does not like the term “non-voting member.”
“I don’t like that nomenclature,” Daubert said. “I have never heard of a non-voting member. I think what that person is called is not important.”
Daubert said students “don’t give a darn about” more than 80 percent of issues addressed by the borough council — because the issues do not affect students.
Ragland said the council’s response provided him with the feedback he wanted to make the proposal better.
“Those were the comments and criticism I was looking for so I can go back to UPUA and say, ‘OK, we know what we need, now let’s get working on it’,” Ragland said. “I am excited to see the next step.”
Ragland said his goal at Monday’s meeting was to meet with council and introduce the idea of a non-voting student member on the council. The next step, he said, is to talk with student leaders at other Big Ten universities — like Iowa, Michigan State and Indiana — that have non-voting members in the local government to show the borough council that the proposal has worked for other schools.
Council member Peter Morris supported the idea of a student holding a non-voting position on council.
“This is just a way to have representation,” Morris said. “I really have trouble understanding where the opposition comes from.”
Morris said the council may talk to the town officials near the other universities to discuss how the addition of a student has helped the council.
Morris said if the council sees how a non-voting student has worked in other places it may soften the council’s position to the proposal.
“My suspicion is that it has worked out fine in those towns,” Morris said. “And therefore could work here.”