AS senate approves funding for The Collegian
By MAGGIE THACH
Students will have no problem voting for The Collegian student fee referendum
next week, Associated Students election Commissioner Deborah Napoleon
said.
The ballots in this year’s election will be in a three-column, one-page
format.
“We wanted to put The Collegian referendum and the candidates running
for office on the same page, not on the back to risk students not seeing
it,” Napoleon said. “It’s very clearly marked.”
The Collegian referendum and the amount of money allocated to the publication
was one of the issues discussed at the AS meetingThursday.
AS will allocate $49,000 to The Collegian, the same amount it received
for the 2004-2005 school year.
Vice president of finance Jennifer Reimer believes the amount is just
enough to sustain the publication.
“We want to help them along, but we didn’t want to be the
entity that continues growth,” Reimer said. “We want to allow
The Collegian to maintain.”
But the Collegian’s business manager, Virginia Sellars-Erxleben,
said $49,000 is considerably less than The Collegian’s original
proposal.
“They will still need the $49,000 [next year],” Reimer said.
“We want to keep [The Collegian] at status quo.”
If the referendum passes, the student newspaper would not receive any
funds until the following school year according to AS.
In reality the increase will take effect next school year, as outlined
by the California State education code.
“We need that additional money,” Sellars-Erxleben said. “Now
we’ll look into applying for additional IRA funding,”
The Collegian referendum proposes that the student body ree be raised
by $1.50 in fall 2005 and increased by $1.00 each school year until 2009-2010.
Other issues discussed at Thursday evening’s meeting were public
notifications made by Napoleon and election commission member Stephen
Trembly.
The election commission set the election petition deadline for April 4
at 3 p.m. but later realized that Election Code 2.1 stated that the deadline
is to be set 14 days before the election, extending the deadline to April
6.
But, after a lengthy review, the election commission voted 4-0 that the
original deadline would stand and all applications submitted after the
April 4 deadline would be turned away. Four applications were denied due
to the ruling.
“We wanted to stick to our guns,” Napoleon said. “The
date was very well-advertised. We didn’t want to show favoritism.
This is the fairest way we could think of.”
Napoleon and Trembly also notified AS of the election commission’s
ruling on write-in candidates. To prevent a candidate for running for
two offices, the election commission voted to void all write-in votes
cast for a candidate listed on the official ballot unless the candidate
informed the election commission in writing of his or her desire to withdraw
from their candidacy as listed 0n the official ballot.
“We just wanted to avoid problems,” Trembly said. “We’re
making sure it’s a fair and equitable election.”
AS elections will be held Apr. 20 and 21 from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Voting
booths will be located at the University Student Union, the Satellite
Student Union, the Joyal Administration Building and the South Gym.
-Elizabeth Leffall contributed to this article.
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