Associated Students, Inc., agreed yesterday to request that the California State Student Association push for the renegotiation of collective bargaining agreements, which the California Faculty Association made regarding parking equity.
The goal is that everyone will contribute to improving parking on campus, not just students and staff.
CFA originally agreed with staff, student and faculty equity for parking fees during the latest compensation negotiations. But after the CSU̢۪s fact-finding report was released, CFA reversed its stance. Faculty members pay for parking, but the fees are tied to compensation in their contracts, Chief of Staff Josh McDonald said.
“Frankly, I think CFA turned their back on students,â€Â Russel Statham, ASI’s Vice President of Finance, said at Thursday evening’s meeting.
Other actions:
• Two similar proposals calling for senators to fulfill their office hours or face a possible removal from office were brought before the Senate — one which failed while the other remains to be voted on.
A proposal by Executive Vice President Stephen Trembley, and one by Senator Matt Ortiz and ASI̢۪s legal committee, both asked for similar changes in ASI̢۪s attendance policy.
Ortiz and the legal committee called for senators to fulfill eight hours per month in the ASI office, located in the University Student Union. If a senator fails to serve the hours, the Executive Vice President would recommend to the Senate that he or she be removed by a two-thirds Senate vote. Trembley̢۪s initial proposal called for completion of four hours every two weeks but was then modified to eight hours per month. Trembley̢۪s proposal failed. Ortiz̢۪ amendment was refered back to the legal committee.
Trembley̢۪s proposal would have been in effect until May 2008, while Ortiz̢۪s would have been permanent. The issue will be voted on at the next Senate meeting.
• The Senate voted to schedule ASI’s 2008 election for April 8 to 10, 2008. Trembley recommended these dates “since last year’s turnout was so low.â€Â In April, 494 students voted in the election, about 2.2 percent of the student body.
* The Senate passed a resolution opposing a proposed change to the drops, withdrawals, incompletes and repeats policy. The CSU system is looking to change the policy to limit the number of courses withdrawn by a student to 18 units. Rather, ASI calls for improving advising services among the 23 campuses in the statewide system.
* An amendment to ASI̢۪s election code that would double the amount of time candidate petitions are available to students died at Thursday̢۪s meeting. The amendment required a two-thirds vote, or 10 votes. While it received unanimous approval, it only saw nine votes since some members weren̢۪t present at the time of voting. Ortiz said the Senate expects the amendment to pass at the next meeting.
* The Senate voted to schedule ASI’s 2008 election for April 8-10, 2008. Trembley recommended these dates “since last year’s turnout was so low.â€Â In April, 494 students voted in the election.
Trembley also said he is “cautiously optimisticâ€Â about using electronic voting for the ’08 election. He said ASI is in the process of looking at two companies as possible “e-votingâ€Â options for students to use in next semester’s ASI election.