Update: The ASUO Elections board has decided to deem Turner’s petition valid.

Of the 20 signatures that were on Henry Turner’s petition allowing him to run for the Student Planning and Construction Committee in the ASUO elections, 12 of the signatures were put on the document before Turner’s, or anyone else’s, name was on the petition.

Turner, who was running on ASUO presidential candidate Ben Bowman’s Mighty Oregon slate, will not be allowed to run for the position because the deadline to collect signatures has now passed.

The 12 people who signed the petition before there was a name attached were Alex Titus, Joe Schmitt, Dan Nettler, Marshall Kosloff, Linnea Havener, Taylor Allison, Evan Roth, Nicholas Sanchez, Megean Gleason, Chase Benton, Eliza Hallett and Kyle Crair.

The 12 invalidated signatures are a violation of section 3.4 of the ASUO Election Rules which states that: “All signatures for a candidacy petition must be gathered on the candidacy petition form, in person, by the candidate, as provided by the ASUO Office Assistants or the ASUO Elections Board.”

“The position doesn’t require signatures, but if they are submitted as part of his petition, then he is liable for their validity,” ASUO Elections Board Coordinator MacGregor Ehlen said. “(Turner) signed a form saying that this was all valid. He’s responsible for the actions of his affiliates and his employees.”

“I’d been loosely involved with the campaign up to this point. I really wasn’t super involved with it before the position,” Turner said. “I got a call from Marshall Kosloff and he asked me to come the EMU. When I got there he said that the [Student Planning and Construction Committee] was open and asked if I wanted to run for it and I said sure. I was just presented with the document and they submitted it. I wasn’t familiar with the rules at all, and I didn’t know that it was a violation.”

Kosloff, Titus and Roth were among the invalid signatures and were recently mentioned in a grievance that was filed by ASUO presidential candidate Thomas Tullis against ASUO presidential candidate Ben Bowman and his executive team. Allison, who is one of Bowman’s vice presidential running mates, also signed the petition before a name was attached.

Allison said that she wasn’t sure if she was signing an unnamed candidate petition.

“Throughout the last couple of days I’ve been signing a ton of petitions for candidates on my slate,” Allison said.

Ehlen believes that Kosloff intentionally misled the board, and that since he recruited the candidate, Kosloff carries most of the blame. Kosloff doesn’t agree.

Kosloff resigned from Bowman’s campaign on March 17, but before he resigned he was in charge of finding a candidate for the SPCC position. At the time he was collecting the signatures, Kosloff said that he was unaware that this was a violation.

“Up until Friday we didn’t have anyone for the SPCC seat and we didn’t even know the seat was something we needed to fill until two days beforehand,” Kosloff said. “There’s no conspiracy. I just simply didn’t know the election rules.”

Crair is vice president of finance for the Delta Upsilon fraternity and during a meeting with Kosloff, Roth and DU President Grayson McCormick, Kosloff brought out the petition and asked Crair if he wanted to sign it.

“This is the first exposure I’ve had with the ASUO or anything like this, so I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time,” Crair said. “It was obviously not an intelligent move on my part to sign without reading it beforehand, but it was presented as if it was just one of those petitions that needs to get a thousand signatures on it.”

Late Wednesday night, the ASUO Elections board decided to not rule Turner’s petition invalid.

“We decided that we won’t rule Turner’s petition invalid because signatures were not required and he was completely unaware of the rules at the point in which he signed the sheet,” Ehlen said.

Alexandra Wallachy contributed to this post.

Follow Craig Garcia and Alexandra Wallachy @CraiGarcia and @wall2wallachy

A few old, small houses being torn down for the sake of another building’s expansion is nothing too uncommon. But when it comes to the 12 cottages at University of Oregon’s Columbia Terrace, the history of the small houses might be their saving grace.

UO Housing is looking to build a central kitchen that’s dedicated to being the prep stations for catering and housing food. The property where the kitchen is planning to be built is university-owned, and according to UO campus planning, that land is the only property available for that project. The only problem? It’s currently the site of cottages on the waiting list for being deemed historically significant by the City of Eugene.

If the houses are considered historically significant, then Lane County law states that the houses on 17th and 19th avenues on Moss and Columbia streets cannot be torn down.

Generally, the UO would be in the right to tear down the houses situated on its property. There are students that live in the cottages, but the university is setting up to financially ease their transition to new housing. But after Eugene City Manager Jon Ruiz was informed that the 12 cottages might have played a role in World War II, the $8.5 million central kitchen project was put on hold, pending consideration by the Eugene Historic Review Board.

“The Eugene Historic Review Board is reviewing the houses right now to see if they’re historically significant or not,” former UO student and Eugene activist Zachary Vishanoff said. For over 10 years, Vishanoff has been researching how the UO buys and sells properties near campus. “They’ve been looking to tear down these houses for the kitchen for quite some time now. It was supposed to happen during the summer but the bidding war for the constructing the kitchen went south so they had to put the demolishing back.”

UO Campus Planning says that there are no records of where the houses came from, but according George Kramer, the author of “Camp White,” a book about Oregon’s role in WWII,  these 12 cottages might have been a part of either Camp White in Jackson County or Camp Adair in north Corvallis — two military boot camps that were used to train soldiers before they went to fight in WWII.

After the war, Kramer suspects the houses were transported to Eugene and were settled on Columbia Street. Records dictate that the houses came to Eugene in the 1940s, but the houses weren’t bought until the early ’60s when the university was able to cut a deal with the government to purchase the cottages that would have otherwise been torn down.

UO’s Director of Housing Michael Griffel says that the university is looking into keeping the cottages and moving them, but due to the frailty, age and foundation structure of the houses, the job is easier said than done.

“The properties are in very poor condition and are in need of substantial investment,” Griffel said to Eugene Weekly in regard to the houses.

The fate of the houses still currently rests with Eugene’s Historic Review Board. When the board plans on announcing its decision is still undetermined.

“The university just needs to know that they can’t tear down whatever they want just to build a kitchen,” Vishanoff said. “These houses have a cultural and historical meaning behind them, and now with the city manager, who’s also a veteran, behind this cause, the university’s chances of building that kitchen are starting to slim down.”

Editor’s Note: Ben Bowman was the Emerald’s Opinion Editor earlier this year. He no longer works for the Emerald.

Just hours after Marshall Kosloff attended a hearing with the ASUO Elections Board in regards to the grievance that was filed against Ben Bowman and his executive ticket, Kosloff resigned from his position as the Greek coordinator for Bowman’s slate, Mighty Oregon.

“This whole issue really comes back to me in many ways,” Kosloff said. “That phone call was with me. I didn’t speak with Bowman, Titus or any of the VP’s about how to approach the phone call. I really meant zero harm on this, and I wanted to help [Thomas Tullis] and I wanted to help the slate.”

Bowman said that the decision to resign was his, and that Kosloff did it because he thought that would be the best thing for the campaign.

“In light of everything that’s happened, he thought that this was the best way to move forward,” Bowman said.

According to Bowman, Kosloff resigned at approximately 7-8 p.m.

Thomas Tullis, the fellow presidential candidate who filed the grievance against Bowman and the executive, saw the resignation as an admission of guilt.

“[Kosloff’s] resignation can only be seen as an attempt to separate himself from Bowman’s campaign,” Tullis said. “It’s important to note that my phone call with Marshall only validates the hostile in-person conversation that Bowman, Titus and Kosloff all took part in. I think it’s naive to pretend that Marshall won’t have an influence on Bowman’s decisions and actions as president.”

Kosloff said that he’s taking his responsibility for what happened in regards to the phone call, and that the actions he made were with only the best intentions.

“I definitely cross the line, but I don’t want this to affect Mighty Oregon,” Kosloff said.

Follow Craig Garcia on Twitter @CraiGarcia

Editor’s Note: Ben Bowman was the Emerald’s Opinion Editor earlier this year. He no longer works for the Emerald.

Following the grievance that was filed by ASUO presidential candidate Thomas Tullis against fellow candidate Ben Bowman earlier today, the ASUO Elections Board held its first set of hearings to discuss the grievance with all of the parties involved.

The entire elections board was present at the meeting, including MacGregor Ehlen, Drew Spainhower, Alex Davis, Rujun Cao and Madison Berger. The board spent approximately an hour each with Bowman, and Marshall Kosloff and Alex Titus, Bowman’s two Greek coordinators.

All parties were asked a standard set of questions pertaining to the allegations of bribery and intimidation that allegedly occurred during a phone conversation and a face-to-face meeting between Kosloff and Tullis.

According to Tullis’ grievance, the discussion quickly became heated.

“I told him outright that he was a joke candidate because his number one platform was defunding OSPRIG,” Kosloff said in reference to the dorm room conversation. “He didn’t have a slate, he misunderstood the funding on the only issue he’s passionate about and he has zero tangible experience in the ASUO.”

In regards to the phone call referenced by Tullis as evidence for the grievance, Kosloff said in the hearing that he approached the phone call as Tullis’ friend. In his role as a peer, Kosloff felt that he was in the right to be blunt with the ASUO electoral hopeful.

“When I found out he was trying to entrap me on the phone I knew I couldn’t work with him,” Kosloff said in the hearing. “No one wants to work with someone who records their friends and entraps them.”

During the hearing, Ben Bowman was asked to recall what happened during the dorm room conversation. Bowman said that Tullis wasn’t focused on listening to what he, Kosloff or Titus had to say.

“The whole conversation was him asking questions,” Bowman said. “I didn’t feel like he was listening during the conversation.”

The elections board will decide whether or not to acknowledge the grievance by Monday. Until then, the board plans on having additional hearings with people such as Tullis and ASUO Freshman Representative Emily Wu.

Editor’s Note: Ben Bowman was the Emerald’s Opinion Editor earlier this year. He no longer works for the Emerald.

ASUO presidential candidate Thomas Tullis filed a grievance against fellow candidate Ben Bowman to the Elections Board on Monday afternoon. In the grievance, Tullis requests that Ben Bowman and his executive ticket become disqualified from the 2014 ASUO elections.

Tullis said in his grievance that Bowman and fellow members on his executive staff have been intimidating and attempting to bribe Tullis so that he can withdraw from the elections.

“I filed a grievance based on the intimidation that was coming from Bowman and some of his supporters,” Tullis said over a phone interview. “Me, my girlfriend, my fraternity and friends in my hall were being intimidated by them.”

ASUO Elections Board Coordinator MacGregor Ehlen said that the board is currently looking into the allegations and that it will have a meeting with Bowman and Tullis on Monday at 4 p.m.

“If true, these allegations are severe campaign violations and we’ll investigate this to the best of our abilities in order to make a fair decision,” Ehlen said.

Outside of Bowman being mentioned in the grievance as one of the people intimidating Tullis, Marshall Kosloff and Alex Titus, who are Bowman’s Greek co-coordinators for his campaign, were also cited.

In a recorded phone call between Kosloff and Tullis that was sent to the Emerald, Kosloff said that Tullis will be blacklisted from student organizations if he were to continue his campaign.

“You’re blacklisted. From Greek life, ASUO. People won’t want to work with you. It’ll just be bad — it’s not the way you want it to be,” Kosloff said in the recorded phone call. “Take the year. We will literally give you everything you want.”

In response to the phone call, Kosloff said that it wasn’t that Bowman and company would try and blacklist Tullis. It’s that Tullis would end up doing it to himself.

“The reality is that if no one likes you, then nobody will hire you,” Kosloff told the Emerald. “That’s what I mean in reference to him being blacklisted. During the phone call he was asking for advice, and I told him that it’s not that we would make him no longer relevant  — he would do that himself by running a campaign with no slate.”

According to the grievance, Tullis also stated that Kosloff attempted to bribe him out of the election. Tullis said that the bribe from Kosloff and Bowman was that he would be offered an appointment on a finance committee if he were to withdraw.

“We will put you on the finance committee you want to be on,” Kosloff said in the phone call. “You’ll get the experience you need to get, you’ll learn everything you need to learn about the ASUO. Then you could run next year as the libertarian who actually knows what the fuck he’s talking about.”

When Tullis asked Kosloff if this was a bribe Kosloff stated that this was not, but that this is an offer that has always been on the table.

“This isn’t just some freshman that we picked up randomly on the street. We’ve been in contact with him since November and we’ve been offering him a position with us ever since then,” Kosloff told the Emerald. “There was never no bribing. The offer that we gave him has been the offer that we’ve been giving him since the very beginning in November.”

According to the filed grievance, Tullis said that Grayson McCormick, Tullis’ fraternity president for Delta Upsilon, asked Tullis to separate himself from the fraternity if he continued to run. That’s what the grievance reports, however Tullis later said that he didn’t feel pressured to leave.

“Grayson did make it clear that he did not want me to leave Delta Upsilon and that the fraternity would figure out a way to support me as a brother first and for most,” Tullis said. “I decided to leave on my own accord to protect my brothers.”

Tullis resigned from his fraternity on March 15, but in both his grievance and the recorded phone call, Tullis mentioned that he was concerned that his girlfriend — Emily Doyen — would not be able to rush at Gamma Phi Beta in the spring if he ran for president. According to Tullis, his girlfriend was told that she would not be allowed to rush if Tullis would still run.

“As far as my girlfriend rushing, as far as that goes can they block that on these grounds?” Tullis said in the phone call.

“Yes,” Kosloff said. “People are blacklisted all the time.”

Gamma Phi Beta denies any blacklisting.

“Gamma Phi Beta does not blacklist people, that’s not a thing.” Gamma Phi Beta President Nicole Kalagain said.

When asked about Doyen possibly being denied to rush Kosloff said that it wasn’t a threat, just a possible outcome.

“We never made a threat about his girlfriend and the possibility of her rushing,” Kosloff told the Emerald. “That isn’t something that the executive has any control over. To contextualize it, this is us saying that him running will hurt a lot of people. He’s the only one that controls what happens.”

In the grievance, Tullis requested that Bowman and his executive ticket, along with Senate Seat 12 candidate Emily Wu, be removed from the ticket. Wu currently sits on the ASUO Senate as the freshman representative. According to Tullis, Wu allegedly approached Delta Upsilon President McCormick and told him that Tullis was running a “smear” campaign against Bowman that would have implications on Delta Upsilon’s reputation.

Wu was unwilling to comment.

“I feel as though Bowman is responsible for the actions and his volunteers and the people who are on his slate,” Tullis said. “I was subject to a very hostile conversation with him, Kosloff and Titus, and I’m seeking that he gets the proper consequences for it.”

In response, Bowman said that he was not worried about being removed from the ballot.

“Every year dozens of ridiculous grievances get filed,” Bowman said. “I can’t see being removed from the ballot by any means. It’s an example of amateur politics.”

The ASUO Elections Board received the grievance and will be collecting statements and evidence from all parties involved.

“As it is finals week, please excuse us if we fail to make the 48 hour response deadline,” MacGregor Ehlen said in an email.

Follow Craig Garcia and Alex Wallachy on Twitter @CraiGarcia and @wall2wallachy

Thomas Tullis’ grievance filed against Ben Bowman by Alexandra Wallachy

The University of Oregon Administration made its recommendation on March 11 to not place all four of OSPIRG’s proposals on the spring election ballot. The ASUO Constitution Court agrees with the administration’s ruling and will not put the proposals on the ballot.

The four ballot measures were sent to the administration after the court thought that OSPIRG’s proposal’s involved interpreting federal law, which the court didn’t feel was its position to interpret.

Two of OSPIRG’s proposals dealt with the ASUO financing OSPIRG at a high enough level that they could  hire professional staffers to conduct research and represent OSPIRG  in Salem and Washington D.C. The administration decided against the proposal, as well as OSPIRG’s other proposal which asked for the organization to be funded at $1.60 per student per term indefinitely. The $1.60 would be added onto the incidental fee.

In regards to that decision, the administration said that “there is no existing legal authority that would provide for such a vote to be binding on the State Board of Higher Education, as the incidental fee is recommended to the board and is not a direct decision by students.”

With the spring elections happening during the second and third week of spring term, OSPIRG will not have enough time to propose another set of ballot measures for the constitution court’s approval.

The Eugene Police Department sent out tips to host a responsible party for the upcoming weekend. According the release, the Eugene Police will be proactively working in the West and South university and downtown. EPD said that the closer students get to spring break, problems associated with alcohol tend to become a more frequent occurrence.

“At the beginning of spring time in the past we’ve experienced more alcohol related and social host problems, and we have gotten more complaints from neighbors and residents during this time of year,” EPD public information officer Melinda Mclaughlin said. “We’ll have party patrols out during this weekend to ensure people are being safe. There are always police around, but the party patrols are a particular effort that watches out for party related incidents.

According to the release, if you plan on hosting a party, be sure to respect the neighbors, control the guest list and only have people 21 and over if serving alcohol. The release also says to notify surrounding neighbors of the party and to monitor noise levels during the party. EPD also reminded people to not hesitate to call 911 if someone at the party might be suspected of having alcohol poisoning, and prevent drunk driving by arranging transportation by a designated driver before anyone drinks.

The release also states that fines for violating the law can cost a student anywhere from a $360 fine for being a minor in possession to $125,000 fine and jail time for having a fake ID.

EPD put an emphasis on the Social Host Ordinance, the ordinance that was voted in by Eugene City Council in March of 2013. The Social Host Ordinance fines the property owners of the party that is being penalized for multiple violations. The base fine for the Social Host Ordinance is $375.00. According to Mclaughlin, 25 Social Host Ordinance citations have been issued, but none of the citations have been at repeat addresses.

On March 7, ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz reviewed and submitted the final 2014-15 Incidental Fee budget for University of Oregon President Michael Gottfredson to approve.

Should Gottfredson approve, the total budget for the next school year will be $15.24 million, which is right on the 3.5 percent increase that the UO Administration recommended for the upcoming year. The incidental fee will be at $215.25, which is seven dollars more than this year’s fee, which pays for student activities and services.

The Athletic Contracts and Finance Committee, Departments Finance Committee, Programs Finance Committee and the EMU Board had budgets approved by the ASUO Senate on March 5, and the approved budgets from senate have not been changed by the ASUO Executive.

EMU Board’s budget is $6 million at a 4.41 percent increase, and the DFC’s budget is over $1 million with a 3.84 percent increase. Those committees were above the 3.5 percent increase, but the increases were balanced out with the ACFC’s 1.63 percent increase at $4 million, and the PFC’s budget of $2 million at a 1.2 percent increase.

“Our priority with the budget from the beginning was to protect student jobs and promote sexual violence prevention,” Dotters-Katz said. “This budget actually creates student jobs, and establishes an institutionalized Sexual Violence Prevention Center, so we’re very happy with the budget.”

The Sexual Violence Prevention Center was thrown into the PFC’s budget a week before the committee needed to present their budget. Even with the extra $42,000 that needed to be allocated to the center, the PFC was able to do it and still be well below its cap.

“I’m very proud of the dedication and hard work of this year’s PFC group, and we are all thrilled we could allocate extra money to programs at the end of the season,” Senator and PFC board member Taylor Allison said. “It was a tough year financially, and we wished we could have allocated more, but we were committed to working with the three other committees to ensure we stayed below the cap.”

After nearly six hours of deliberation during the ASUO Senate meeting on Wednesday night, the body approved the proposed 2014-2015 budgets from the Departments Finance Committee, Program Finance Committee, Athletics Contracts and Finance Committee and the EMU Board. The budgets were approved and came under the proposed 3.5 percent cap from the ASUO Executive and University of Oregon Administration.

The ACFC’s budget was approved at $4,409,385. The primary concern from Senate about the ACFC’s budget was that the committee decided to defund the United States Student Association, due to them not turning in their budget proposal by the deadline.

“It was my opinion not to hear them because they turned in their budget late,” Senator Josh Losner said. “As a committee member of the ACFC and an elected official, I have to hold people to a higher standard, and that’s why I decided to not vote for them.”

The majority of Senate wanted USSA to receive some sort of funding, seeing as if they received none from the ACFC, the organization wouldn’t be able to function. ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz proposed to take $3,000 from the executive’s conference travel line item and to transfer it to the USSA.

“I have never been a big advocate for advocacy organizations,” Dotters-Katz said. “But this is an organization that went from asking for $25,000 to $10,000 and are now just looking for enough to stay relevant.”

ACFC’s budget was approved with an amendment to fund USSA with the $3,000.

The PFC’s budget proposal was a 1.4 percent increase to a total of $2,411,273. The committee’s budget passed, but during the meeting Dotters-Katz suggested to cut $6,000 from the Sexual Assault Prevention Task Force, of which $3,000 would go to fund the DFC’s Mill Center’s nine percent increase, and then the remaining $3,000 would go to the PFC to give increases to some programs. During the hearings, no programs were given increases in the PFC, except for those stipend related expenses.

The PFC decided to allocate $950 to the Blood Drive foundation, $296 to Climate Justice League, $200 to Geological Club, $50 to Rhythm-O, $200 to the Black Heritage Fashion Show and $154 to the Latin Law Student Association.

After the PFC’s cut from the Sexual Prevention Task Force to help pay for the increases to the Mills Center, the DFC was able to have its budget approved with no changes. The DFC was approved with a 3.84 percent increase at $1,040,913. The EMU Board’s budget was also approved quickly with a 4.41 percent increase.

Live coverage of Wednesday night’s ASUO Senate meeting:

Senate Agenda

Vote Tracker