With over $10,000 in the special requests for Wednesday’s meeting, the new 2013-2014 ASUO Senate didn’t start their first meeting with slight and ease. Before they were able to get to the special requests, the Senate heard former ASUO Senator Lamar Wise regarding his concerns over the recommendations that were sent out to the UO administration from former ASUO President Laura Hinman, former Vice President Nick McCain, and former Sen. Lindy Mabuya.
One of Wise’s biggest concerns from the memos were the incidental fee cap being lowered from seven percent, which he believes would do more harm than good.
“We only have so much to grow programs with as of right now. I just think that shrinking the room of growth deplete how we will be able to provide growth for other services,” Wise said.
Wise was also concerned about giving the ASUO less control over negotiations and contracts with outside organizations.
“If you look at it in plain writing, it implies that there is a process going on without student’s being apart of a section of the process,” he said.
Hinman and Mabuya weren’t in attendance for the meeting, but McCain was, and he allowed himself to answer any questions that the Senate, or the audience had in terms of the recommendations.
He responded to Wise’s thoughts of ASUO having less control over contracts by saying that the reason for the contract recommendation is because he doesn’t want ASUO members who have little experience in negotiations to be taken advantage of by outside organizations who aren’t looking for the best interest of the students.
“The emphasis based on the whole of the recommendation is on better preparing students so that they’re not being taken advantage of during the contracting process,” McCain said. “The ASUO still has the contracts, but we’re wanting for the ASUO to pick somebody who is more skilled and qualified for the process.”
McCain says that the contract recommendation comes after seeing too many times students not being aptly prepared to deal with the negotiation of contracts, due to senators being busy with other ASUO duties, schoolwork, and so on.
In regards to the incidental fee, Wise and McCain agree that they both have fundamental differences with how they perceive the fee. In response to Wise’s thoughts of the fee depleting all-around growth, McCain says that the fee is something that definitely needs to be talked about more thoroughly and that the incidental fee is just one small idea in the memos of recommendation for how to spend less time worrying about budgets, and more time focusing on other ASUO matters.
The other prominent topic for Wednesday’s meeting was funding the Student Activities and Resource Center $9,148 for office supplies and furniture for its new space in the EMU.
“I think starting tonight we need to be very careful with how we spend the money,” Sen. Amy Jones said, in regards to spending surplus money. It was a sentiment that many senator’s agreed with, as they suggested to the SARC to go about finding furniture through UO’s surplus furniture exchange, and to possibly consider buying some Windows computers instead of all Apple computers.
Eventually the motion was passed for SARC to receive $6,102, however, it was a close vote. Sen. Taylor Allison voted against the lower motion because she believes that the $9,148 was already the bare minimum SARC could ask for.
“They’re not asking for curtains — they’re asking for desks and filing cabinets — things that are crucial for all offices,” Allison said. “I see this resource center as something that all programs can be apart of, and it’s vital that they get the proper supplies that they need to better serve all students.”