AAS Meeting Minutes
Meeting Date: 4/9/12
Meeting Begins: 8:30 PM
I. Attendance (Nathan Nash ‘12)
II. Call to Order (Geoff Ainslie ‘12)
III. Resignation & Statements
Abigail Xu ’15 sworn in as new treasurer.
IV. Swearing in new senator(s) (George)
Pierce Edwards ’13 sworn in.
V. BC Recs (Abigail Xu ‘15)
Matt Aizpuru ‘12: GlobeMed Day Auction rental of equipment. He requested $500. $300 additional.
Abigail: WAMH didn’t get funding because they didn’t come to our meeting. AAS credit card is not accessible as of now. If clubs have a speaker, they should send an invoice to the budgetary committee.
BC recs passed.
VI. Senate Project Funding (Benyam Ashenafi ‘15)
Benyam is trying to get picnic tables and hammocks for around campus.
VII. Dvij Bajpai 15’s card-swiping idea for music practice rooms:
Alex Hurst ‘12: Since last time we voted to spend this sum of money, we put a referendum before the student body. I propose we do this again.
Dvij: Discretionary spends thousands of dollars on improving student life. This is a one time investment that will make a huge benefit. Every semester, much money is spent on coaches fees. We have an obligation to students to give them a richer and more fulfilling campus.
George Tepe ‘14: AAS bylaw states that a vote out of reserves, we need 2/3 vote for it to pass.
Justin Rhett ‘12: How much money do we actually have in reserves?
Romen Borsellino ‘12: The way our system works is if we fund anything week to week out of discretionary, if it’s more than $10,000 it has to go to an all-school referendum. But we have a reserves fund that only requires a vote of 2/3 of the Senate. Different funds are subject to different rules.
Motion to fund $12,500 for Dvij’s project out of reserves (2/3 vote should pass it).
YESSES: 15
NOS: 12
ABSTENTIONS: 1
Passed by majority but not by 2/3. Referendum must be sent to student body.
VII. Reports
VIII. Committee Reports
Peter Crane ‘15: Program Board met. Ludacris tickets almost sold out. Please find campus center manager.
Romen: Heather Paulson has extra tickets. Go to her if PB runs out.
Alex Hurst: Committee on Priorities and Resources (CPR) met. Considering grossing up salaries. Since married couples get a federal tax benefit and the federal government doesn’t recognize gay marriage, there was a proposal for the college to kick up the salaries of people who should get that tax benefit because MA has gay marriage, but don’t get the tax benefit at the federal level.
Adam Gerchick ‘13: Would that decision to gross up salaries only apply those recognized by MA or would it apply to anyone who declares domestic partnership nationwide?
Hurst: You get that benefit if you’re married, but the college chose to recognize domestic partnerships for the healthcare coverage for the health plans. Couples who get married under MA law recognizing gay marriage would be eligible for this salary, but those who stay in their domestic partnerships while still being able to receive healthcare coverage for their partner would not be able for their boost in their salary to compensate their not getting the federal tax benefit, because they have the choice to get married officially.
Matt deButts ‘14: Committee on Educational Policy met. We approved a certificate for queer and sexuality study in the five colleges. That will go on to the committee of 6 for approval and then on to the faculty. We also approved an engineering program that would be a five-year program at Dartmouth.
Romen: College council had an important meeting last week with Biddy. We talked about how we’re not very proactive. We want to become a more integrated part of the school because right now, we kind of simply sign off on ideas.
Brendan Burke ‘13: Arts committee is almost ready to put up a student-art exhibition in Schwemm’s.
Amani Ahmed ‘15: Budgetary committee met. Fall club budget meeting on Thursday. We met yesterday and nominated Abigail as interim treasurer.
IX. General Announcements
Amanda Villarreal ‘12:Friday, April 20th, there’s a campus visit. Red room: younger girls leadership workshop.
Chris Friend ‘14: History week. Not many attended the meeting.
X. Officer Reports
Geoff: Speaker Board. Pilot program..first event is Reggie Love. Next event: Pruyne Lecture hall in Faye 8:00 PM.
Nathan Nash ’14: I apologize Program Board e-mail.
Romen: Late night snack option was a great success.
John Yarchoan ‘13: Next late night snack is the 17th and the next one is the 24th.
Cash: Variety would be nice in the menu.
XI. Approve Minutes, 4-2-12 (Geoff)
Minutes approved.
XII. New Business
Christina Won volunteers to write senate column.
Joe Kim ‘14: I was in charge of getting boxes for moveout last week. I spoke to the person who did it last year. Usually, we get about 4,000 boxes and we give out two boxes per person. Since we run out of boxes quickly, we should probably get 5,000 boxes. It probably comes out to around $2,700-$3,000.
Geoff: Trial is going on. Investigation. We should be respectful.
Josh Mayer ‘12:
I’m going to go ahead and stand. This is my last Senate speech, so I figured I might as well. I want to make it clear that I no longer have any stake in this situation. I’m not campaigning for President and I soon won’t be a senator. I will fight to stay on the ballot since I did nothing to sway the result of the election, but I will also stop campaigning. I’m not here on anyone else’s behalf. My sole motivation is to clear the air. The AAS has doubled my blood-pressure since Tania encouraged me to run for president two weeks ago tonight, and I’m beyond ready to be done with it.
I’d like to offer to you once more what happened on Thursday. At 10 AM in class, Diwa informed me that I was likely to go into a run-off against Tania. She did not mention any numbers other than that Tania was close to 50%. I sat on that information until the end of class at 11:20 AM, until seeing Alex Stein at 2 PM. The meeting was not arranged. I told Alex that I was likely to go into a runoff with Tania and repeated what I had told him all week long: if he wanted to prevent Tania from being elected in the first round, he needed to campaign harder. That piece of advice was not contingent on knowing the information Diwa gave me. It was my political intuition from the moment Tania told me she had changed her mind and decided to run for president. After speaking with Alex, I went to the Frost Café, spoke with a friend, from after that meeting until 4 PM, and I did not mention anything about what Diwa told me. At that point, I went home, took a nap, at 7 PM had orchestra rehearsal, at 9 PM went home again for the night. Despite that, I want to apologize for my role in what did happen. Just because it happens all the time, doesn’t make it the right thing to do. And I understand the desire to investigate it by those who have spent less time in the AAS. In particular, I congratulate Tania in being one of the very few people involved in the AAS to be completely untouched by and uninvolved in this incident. I do want to make clear in the public sphere that there was no election day conspiracy to defeat her. As candidates for elective office, Alex and I both sought to win and we chose to work to prevent Tania from winning in the first round as a strategic move long before Thursday. This is not corruption, it’s politics. I apologize if Tania or her supporters are offended by that reality, but I personally don’t think it’s all that unreasonable. This certainly doesn’t make me popular, but those who know me, know that I would never dream of the types of actions of which I’m accused. I regret my failure to live up to my own standards, but I am baffled by the nastiness and blatant lies of the allocations.
Now back to the core of this speech. The present leadership of the AAS has suddenly decided that everything must be run in the Utopian manner. That is laudable; however, they are committing the ultimate hypocrisy to make it seem like this is a unique occurrence. The article posted online in the Amherst Student blares that this is an election gone wrong. If that’s the case, then let’s be clear that Amherst elections gone right are exceedingly rare. Before I begin on this, I also want to make clear that I’m not seeking to take anyone down on this. I just want to show that what happened is a commonplace and indeed harmless action. When I first ran for Senate, I learned the results before the embargo on releasing election results, and when I ran a second time, I learned the results again before the embargo ended. My familiarity with AAS insiders assured this. Then, there was the 2011 executive board election. Romen, you told a student, while I was appalled to hear that a member of the AAS executive board would attempt to steal an election from the student body, I’d like to remind folks that the actions of certain individuals are not indicative of the AAS as a whole. We will get to the bottom of this and ensure that the AAS continues to belong to the students and not to one or two individuals. Are you prepared to tell all of us that if you ever learned the results of the elections prior to the embargo, you would denounce that as “an attempt to steal an election from the student body.”
Romen: Is that a legitimate question?
Josh: Point of information.
Romen: So, my---
Josh: Yes or no question.
Romen: That’s not a fair question.
Josh: I don’t think a statement is necessary. It’s a very simple yes/no question. I’ll continue with my speech.
Let’s talk about my third election to Senate. While Alex and I were unopposed, I asked Alex in Romen’s company, whether I should be concerned about write-in candidates. Alex told me not to worry. I would love to feign outrage at this clear incidence of Romen ignoring, by his own standard, an election actively being stolen, but it clearly didn’t matter. Later on, during the embargo on the day after the election, Romen asked me about what to do when a write-in candidate was elected with only 4 votes. I told him to do the only thing he could do, allow him to take his seat. Instead, Romen encouraged the candidate to decline his seat. I remind everyone that this happened DURING the embargo on releasing election results. Again, this is not to say that Romen should resign as President for this. It’s to say that if we’re supposedly going to clean up the AAS, we should clean with an even hand.
On the other hand, the results of this incident have led to an offense that should result in resignations on the executive board. Yesterday, after Diwa’s resignation as treasurer, the budgetary committee unanimously elected a clerk to be the interim treasurer. On the premise that Diwa did not have the authority to hold such a meeting, I assure you that she did exactly what was done when last year’s treasurer resigned, the executive board unanimously rejected the nomination. They then scheduled a new meeting of the BC to select an interim treasurer. Prior to that meeting, Romen and George Tepe, the JC Chair and candidate for Vice President, offered Chris Friend the position of interim treasurer in exchange for dropping out of the Vice Presidential race. This was declined by Chris and he should be commended. However, now that is an election flaw of an unprecedented nature. That is election fog of an unprecedented nature. To seek to remove one of George’s obstacles in becoming the next Vice President by exploiting a vacant seat. That seat was [golden], and they wouldn’t give it away for nothing. I would have rather not had this end as it did. It’s not for my sake, but for the sake of the wonderful people who have ended their involvement in the AAS because of this incident. Still, I’m not willing to stand around as electoral engineering at the highest levels takes place. Romen and George clearly sought to stack the deck in two out of five executive board seats, even excluding the presidential race. I bring these allegations to light because I have nothing to lose, and fear that others in the know have more at stake. I’ll be resigning my seat on Senate tonight but I want to get the ball rolling. I move to refer the matter of impeachment and removal of the President and Judiciary Council Chair of the AAS to the committee of inquiry that consists of five senators elected by the Senate on secret ballot. The committee shall return a report of the evidence and recommendations of further actions by the Senate no later than 8:30 PM on April 16th, 2012.
George Tepe: When the JC has impeachment proceedings brought against them, the student body President usually sits as the head of the JC for a review of the case. The JC would appoint an additional person and that committee would elect a chair.
Josh: Point of order. That’s not the motion I made. I made the motion to refer the matter to a committee to recommend to the Senate that we do refer this to the JC. Motion on the floor is to refer this to a committee of inquiry as set out in my statement.
Chris: To Josh. How dare you? I am personally insulted by this allegation. When we look through BC minutes, it clearly states that I said that if we did reject Abigail as treasurer, if that’s what the E-board had decided to do, that I would personally only take the seat for that period of time. I wouldn’t even run for treasurer next year, I would most likely stay in the current Vice Presidential race. I’m personally insulted that you wouldn’t even come talk to me about this. We could have saved the entire Senate body a whole bunch of time because that never happened. There was never any explicit deal, nor even a mentioned deal. The Vice President was never even mentioned in the talking. I believe Romen may have thought or preferred me for Treasurer, but there were perhaps legitimate reasons to prefer me as an interim treasurer. I don’t think I’d be a good interim treasurer. That’s why I voted for Abigail. Your allegations are unfounded, unfair and inappropriate for this entire body and I’m personally insulted that you would do this to me.
Romen: I did hear that Chris was interested in being Treasurer. I guess that turned out to not be true because he didn’t accept the nomination. I nominated him and he turned it down. There was never any talk about his race. Absolutely unfounded. It’s just not true.
Move to end debate.
Motion passes.
Josh Mayer walks out of the senate meeting. He has resigned.
Vote on Josh’s Proposed ADHOC Committee:
YESSES: 6
NOS: 17
ABSTENTIONS: 5
Motion does not pass.
XIII. Adjournment: 9:38 PM.