Select Committee on the Future of GPSF
January 22, 2017 at 5:30pm
Location TBA
1. Call to Order / Roll Call
Attendance:
Mac Gilliland (MG): Present
Nick Levis (NL): Present
Caroline Miller (CM):
Katie Stember (KS): Present
Toney Thompson (TT):
Dylan Russell (DR):
Brian Coussens (BC):
Anel Jaramillo (AJ):
Megan Broad (MB): Present
Marie Eszenyi (ME):
Madelyn Percy (MP):
Desmond Spencer (DS):
Autumn McClellan (AM): Present
Jen Kernan (JK):
Also in Attendance:
2. Selection and Approval of Additional Committee Candidates as Voting Members (If applicable)
3. Independent Agencies – what needs to happen where?
AJ: Those commitees just need to be not taken out of their bylaws. Some committees do have bylaws, like faculty transportation etc. They need to update that. All other committees are sort of unofficial and don’t have documentation.
AM: My big thing is there are specific committees mentioned in the constitution and the code and I think technically they are the only ones that both governments will have authority over in the future. There are lots of other committees that student government appoints people to but they are unofficial. Send letter to the 13 on the list.
KS: Do we need something more unofficial to send to the others?
AJ: Do we maybe want to wait to do that until we have more information?
AM: Agree, we could wait on that and focus on this first. Travis who is running for SBP gave me the name of a woman who works with current e-branch. Emily Blackburn is her name and she’s an executive assistant. Before we send out this e-mail to these committees, should we reach out to her and ask if that is the complete list of agencies/government bodies to see if there are more that we are missing. Is that appropriate?
AJ: We shared our list at the beginning of the year, so they should be the same. We could ask her but I don’t know how helpful she will be.
AM: There are a lot of committees that aren’t on that list so I just wanted to make sure if any of those other people should be getting this e-mail as well.
AJ: I talked to someone about this earlier and I’m pretty sure those are the ones. I don’t want to be poking around.
AM: I wanted to make sure we don’t reach out to committees that we shouldn’t be and put them on the defensive.
KS: If I can’t get in touch with people would you be willing to follow up with people Anel?
4. BOE Elections vs. Appointments continued discussion
MG: Why did you want to have BOE Elected? I agree with Dylan.
AM: He makes a good point about weakening the executive branch. We had issues of bias in BOE in the past. Election would hopefully avoid that. Conflict of interest avoided by election, keep lifetime membership which would avoid issues with who elects BOE.
MG: Proportional undergrad and grad members?
AM: I do still think the supreme court should be appointed because it would preserve some executive powers, mirrors way actual government works. I’m less concerned with the supreme court than with the BOE. If there’s every going to be some sort of challenge or opposition power it will go through BOE before it gets to Supreme court.
KS: Didn’t Dylan suggest the opposite? BOE appointed, supreme court elected.
MG: Right now it’s just appointed by student body president right? Either is fine with me as long as it’s proportional UG/G.
AM: If this is unique opportunity to avoid problems we had in the past, do we maybe want to change things instead of doing it the way we’ve been doing it.
NL: Part of the concern anyway was that so many positions are appointed by pres, not elected by senate etc.
AM: In terms of direct access to authority, appointments are only direct access. We don’t really have executive order function for pres, everything has to go through legislature. Currently GPSF Pres appoints rest of Exec board. Is that remaining in effect? I see the merit of having people be able to choose their team.
NL: Major check is having grad and undergrad.
AM: Also that they would need to be confirmed. Senate confirmation seems above board but doesn’t actually mean much. I don’t want to think this confirmation process solves a bunch of problems that an election may actually solve.
MB: I was interviewed, but senate confirmation didn’t require much. If I had to campaign I don’t think I would have done it, it’s a lot more work.
MG: 99% of the time you aren’t going to need it, but when you do it’s good to have it.
NL: Exec branch is there to serve president, makes sense that they are appointed.
AM: It’s only an issue if multiple people are running and then the campaign process will weed out those who don’t want to do the work. When it comes to BOE, they shouldn’t be serving executive branch, they should be serving all students not the executive branch. I’m thinking you’re beholden to the person who puts you in power.
MG: Once you are appointed, you are no longer beholden to president once you are appointed. I think it’s less efficient to hold an election, unnecessarily inefficient.
NL: Just because someone can go against the view point, I think they are more likely not to if they are appointed. It’s a trade-off of propriety vs efficiency.
AM: Because we already have a lot of shoulder tapping in student government it feels very much like a click. Technically it’s an open process but it feels like you can’t apply unless someone asks you to. Can we put processes in place to avoid that?
KS: What would give the senate a reason to say no?
MG: If the senate and e-branch were ever not on the same page, then senate confirmation would become important.
MB: What made my uncomfortable was that I was approached for the position, and they wanted me to be it. They would give everyone a fair chance but I agree that’s not how you’re supposed to do it.
KS: Is there some way we could make sure multiple people are competing for positions?
MG: All positions at UNC have to have at least 3 applicants, but there are work arounds for that too. I agree that the policy itself is a good idea.
AM: Would it make more sense to try and introduce regulation about what information needs to be presented at senate confirmation about candidates. Some sort of requirement that senate is actually involved in confirmation.
NL: Maybe some sort of standard questions and the candidates answers.
MB: I think you could get someone good that you get involved with the organization who weren’t involved before. We may never have 3 people apply.
AM: I agree, we could also refer them to other areas of the organization. I think we have vulnerabilities that could be exploited.
KS: Changes to the student government, fees etc. may change things and increase risk for conflict of interest.
MG: I don’t see elections as changing conflict of interest.
AM: My other issue too is that if we keep things the other way now, the only people who are directly elected in GPSF are your president and senator. Given that we are about to be an organization that controls $200K+ of student fees, it concerns me that they are the only ones elected. It worries me that I can only elect two people, so all of the decision that are made are made by those two people. There are only two elected people out of the whole system? I would like to entertain elections for BOE or Supreme Court because they are the next most important decision makers. Even if one was elected instead of appointed, I would feel better.
MG: But the people with the most power who are deciding what to do with the money will be elected.
NL: I think there’s not going to be a BOE decision every year, but the supreme court makes decisions all the time. So Dylan’s compromise might work.
MB: This is about creating something new. We can change it in the future.
AM: It will be harder to change but we can do it.
5. Look at updated mission statement and start thinking about how to improve (if time)
Don’t have updated mission statement, can look next time.
6. Replace members of committee who haven’t participated?
AM: Talk to Brian about process for replacing committee members.
MG: I will be done in March, may need to replace me?
KS: Might be hard to find replacements, but it would be nice to have more hands on deck
for the 5 year plan. Will e-board be involved with this? Will committee continue after finishing 5 year plan and getting everything for new government in order?
7. Adjournment