KnightNews.com Endorses Daniel and Kevin for SGA
Editorials, UCF SGA — By Staff on February 18, 2010 at 2:02 pmTimes are changing at the University of Central Florida.
For the first time we can remember, the Central Florida Future has decided not to endorse a candidate for UCF’s Student Government Association presidential election. And for the first time, KnightNews.com will be the only media source for students — who aren’t able to research the candidates and issues on their own time — to rely on to endorse a candidate it thinks would be best for the student body, after thoroughly looking at both sides.
We wish we didn’t have to endorse, either. We wish students could have all the information at their fingertips to decide exactly which candidate is best for them. We wish we didn’t have to ask tough questions, or dig up major changes to tailgating policies that affect your lives. We wish we could make funny music videos about El Corral all day long and just make you laugh — but we can’t.
We owe it to you, our visitors, and all UCF students, to endorse a candidate in this presidential race. In fact, one of the biggest reasons we have to endorse a ticket this year, is because we hope we won’t have to next time around.
KnightNews.com fully endorses Daniel Seeff and Kevin Wolkenfeld for your next SGA President and Vice President, because if they win, they promise to “totally transform” how SGA works by making it “totally transparent.” They promise to stream live video of important SGA meetings, and keep archives online so you can see what happened. They also promise to post all the financial documents online.
We think that’s exactly what SGA needs. We believe if that starts happening, students can finally have the option of doing their own research — and students can always watch what their leaders are doing and hold them accountable if they break a promise.
The Seeff/Wolkenfeld campaign announced by video that SGA met over Winter Break, when students had already left town, to decide how almost all of the $14 million student activity and service fee budget would be spent — over a catered buffet lunch, bought with student money, in an empty student union.
Seeff/Wolkenfeld Campaign Video:
Truth be told, this happens every year. The small group of SGA’s most powerful members attend, including SGA Presidential candidate Mike Kilbride. They work long hours over break to smash out this huge budget, after talking to other powerful insiders in CAB, OSI and other agencies. Kilbride, and most others in SGA, probably don’t see anything wrong with this meeting — and that’s part of the problem.
The small group of SGA’s top leaders and insiders running the show now — many of whom endorsed Kilbride before even hearing what the other side had to say — seems so comfortable with the status quo, so comfortable making decisions for you, that they appear to just assume to know what’s best for you without bothering to ask or include you.
Why do we feel this way? Because we put in a public records request for surveys, questionnaires, e-mails and anything else SGA’s leadership has done to determine student opinion before talking to administrators about tailgating policies changes — and SGA hasn’t been able to produce anything proving they sought student opinion.
UCF, that’s what Daniel Seeff and Kevin Wolkenfeld are promising to do for you, by sharing everything they know, when they know it, and asking your opinion. And, even if you disagree with them, at least you’ll be able to watch their every move on video, and hold them accountable if they don’t represent the student.
As far as Mike Kilbride, and the SGA insiders he touts as his endorsing team, good luck getting information out of the SGA they control.
KnightNews.com has been trying to get financial documents showing how SGA allocated the reported nearly $14 million over winter break, but when we stopped into the Activity and Service Fee office Wednesday to try and pick them up, we were told our request was sent to UCF’s team of lawyers to see if we are entitled to it — and to see how much of a cost they will charge us to get it for you.
The office told us we shouldn’t expect a decision for another week — after the elections are over.
If KnightNews.com can’t get the public information about where your money is going before this election, how can a regular student be expected to get the information needed to make an informed decision?
If they stick to their guns, and these records aren’t released soon, the election will be over before we know
the following:
- How much of that reported $14 million pie might those leaders endorsing Kilbride possibly have been allocated for their organizations while you were home for break?
- How much money is allocated to the executive branch next year, versus the student senate which has the ability spend it directly on student organizations?
- Whether anything was said on audio recordings while these winter meetings carried out that could influence how you vote.
Whether you’re Greek or Progressive, Republican or Democrat, freshman or doctoral students — you only have one candidate who promises to put this secrecy to an end.
And, if you don’t like the job they do next year, at least you’ll be in the position to know everything they do, so you can run and do a better job — without a group of insiders telling you you’re not ready, you’re not good enough, you don’t know enough, and you can’t get the job done.
If Mike Kilbride wins, we’re sure things will run just as smoothly as they do now — he is, after all, one of the few with access to the knowledge and information to keep things the way they are. But if he wins, don’t be surprised if your tailgating time gets cut by another two hours next year, and you don’t hear about it until you read about it in the Orlando Sentinel, Central Florida Future or KnightNews.com.
Daniel and Kevin have promised to transform SGA and open it up so every student will know everything that’s going on, and that total transformation of SGA is why KnightNews.com fully endorses them as your next student body president and vice president.
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73 Comments
Kilbride is going to put all 15 million of his budge into his scarf collection…seriously he has like at least 30 scarfs.
is headed by Seth Green and he is a DANIEL AND KEVIN supporter…so that makes you a liar.
I I I I
V V V V
kilbride is already promising paid cabinet positions to his friends in order to get them to help him campaign. when did SGA elections get so sketchy?
First off, if any of you have any experience within Student Government, you would know that Daniel Seefe did nothing as a Business Strategist, and currently doesn’t even hold a position with SGA. Kevin Wolkenfield has only served as a member of SBPAC (and did nothing in it) and a Senator for less than an entire year. The promises that they make, as idealistic as they may be, would cost the Student Body millions of dollars that simply could be spent doing useful things, like building more printing on campus (in which Kilbride had a huge impact on) and creating a safe-ride program (like KnightDrive, which is headed up by several Kilbride supporters).
KnightNews says that they are a legitimate news source, but by endorsing Daniel Seefe and Kevin Wolkenfield, they have just erased any credibility they may have had. ALL SGA meetings are open to the public; if you walk into the SGA office and see a meeting occuring, you will notice the doors are always open for students to come in. And in regards to the “extravagant” lunch provided to the A&SF budget committee, how would you like to sit in a bare office over the first week of winter break, directly after the stressful week of finals, and run numbers for 8 hours a day and ensure that the student body’s money is being spent responsibly.
Also, to the ignorant SOB’s that decide to comment on this article, and say that “your an SGA executive member” and you “hate working for Kilbride”, yet you don’t even know who Taylor Lochrane is? Maybe if you stepped into the office once in a while and ACTUALLY ARE a member of SGA’s executive cabinet, you would know who Lochrane is and would endorse him 100%. And to the people who say SGA is stealing your money by paying us our salaries, you try working 40 hours a week (when we’re only required to work 15), staying in the office till 10pm almost every night, and doing it all for free. SGA is for the students, and it will stay that way under the Kilbride & Lochrane Administration.
THE DIFFERENCE IS YOU UCF! VOTE MICHAEL KILBRIDE & TAYLOR LOCHRANE!
The money spent on remodeling the sga office was turning a completely empty, wasted office into a meeting room that could be utilized by not just SGA, but also by registered student organizations who could reserve rooms to hold their own meetings. As an executive member of an organization, I know how hard it can be to reserve spaces in the Union with almost 400 other organizations here at UCF. This new remodeled space in SGA was a great way to help increase the amount of available rooms for us to use and I am extremely grateful that it was done by the Peterson/Andrick Administration.
Well of course Knightnews would endorse candidates they are friends with! That’s not surprising at all and neither is the sensationalism produced about how “Kilbride is stealing money” and “things will be more transparent.” The student radio station already streams the senate meetings and CFF twitters away during Senate meetings. As for the individual committee meetings (exec and senate)? Well they ARE open to the public and if the other ticket really cared to make it “transparent”, they don’t need to be President/VP in order to make that happen. With Daniel you will see a return of the LXA corruption that this year was able to go away a bit and high paychecks to idiots who have to be threatened with losing their jobs in order to get them to do what is asked of them (except who will be the voice of reason in that kind of cabinet?) Lets be real here, its the same old story of the past 3 years where the same little group of friends all want to “take over” so they can exploit the SGA budget to fund their personal businesses.
Screw Kilbride I seriously hate him and his fake ass. He was terrible to work for up until the middle of January, when he realized he needed to be nice to his staff to get our support.
Everything these guys are saying is true. Its like working in a secretive boot camp. I never liked KnightNews, but I love the initiative here to make SGA totally open – I feel guilty collecting an SGA paycheck because I work for a bunch of elitist people that dont share anything with the average student.
NOT BUYING IT KILBRIDE. Have no idea who Lochrane is, he seems ok.
Fuck Kilbride I seriously hate him and his fake ass. He was terrible to work for up until the middle of January, when he realized he needed to be nice to his staff to get our support.
NOT BUYING IT KILBRIDE.
They can work weekends for all I care — THEY’RE GETTING PAID LIKE WHAT – 1400 A MONTH TO DO THIS JOB?!
They don’t need to have these meeting over break when a student who wants to stay and watch would have to buy a hotel to do it since they got kicked out of the dorm on the same day!
Maybe but atleast the frat bros will do something to help the students. These same frat bros are responsible for the KnightDrive program that will beneifit hundreds of students.
And what would the other side do? Share the party with their frat bros to make official the new cabinet positions for them?
@alreaydisgusted
Support Kilbride all you want but don’t expect to get a thank you. After the elections he’ll go back to looking at you and the rest of the students like you’re a peasant. That’s what they did all year and will do next year. Kilbride can’t wait to win this election so he can make the Presidential Ceremony his own private party. Right now there’s a tight budget going into it but lets see how fast it rises if Kilbride wins the election.
What does their salary have to do with them giving up a portion of their winter break?
Since you are so in the know, shouldn’t you make it clear that it isn’t the whole winter break, rather just a few days?
Also, when would you propose students do this huge amount of work if not in a break?
Isnt one of the members of the ticket you support on Senate, why didnt he try to do anything about this?
And not to confuse anyone… by THESE ASSHOLES I mean Kilbride… and pretty much every other person on ASF who stayed behind and just so happens to endorse him, ate a buffet of food with your money.
You all will vomit when the GARBAGE they WASTED money one gets exposed.
One more thing… they didn’t give up ONE SECOND of their break. These assholes paid themselves their disgusting salaries THE HIGHEST OF ANY SGA IN THE STATE OF FLORIDA… to stay over break and scheme and push your millions in student fees all over the place like monopoly money!
I am already disgusted by the lies and ignorance out of the other side’s supporters… i am proud to say i support two students who have dedicated their time not to partying but to bettering other students’ experiences here. How much money has daniel EVER gone for other students? I can tell you the amount right now and you may be disgusted… ZEEEEERO
You can also check these numbers. Stop by the SGA office if you’d like to request a copy of these documents. You can sit at the brand new table or in the comfy couches while you read where your money went.
How much money did Kilbride for over the the MSC to hold picnics and parties… just to get their endorsement?
No wonder they won’t release those documents. When it comes out… and one day it will… you will be disgusted. Trust me.
anyone can make numbers up… its a sad thing that the only way you can qualify one person is to lie about the other
i just unsubscribed from the facebook group and will stop visiting this site… this is so sketchy.
I support KEVIN & DANIEL. It’s a same that Logan & Brandon decided to pay there friend $8000 of your dollars to design a website that doesn’t work but atleast they tried to benefit the students. What is even worst is how MIKE KILBRIDE spent more than $20,000 of YOUR dollars just to remodel the SGA office. That’s right. New tables, leather chairs, carpet, couches and flat screen tv. Even an unnecessary $800 SGA logo in the front of the office. Why did the SGA office need remodeling? Oh yeah, because Kilbride wanted it. So image what the Presidential office will look like if Kilbride wins…
BE APART OF THE CHANGE AND SUPPORT KEVIN & DANIEL.
What filth has been poisoning campus? people who work hard and take a portion of their winter break to sit and discuss budget line items all day that dont benefit them at all but rather go toward the bettering of the entire student body? I dont know, one mans poison is another mans pleasure… if thats what Kilbride means more of, Ill be voting for him
So what if they promise these things? What makes that valid? Im beginning to think from reading their interviews that the last words of their sentences don’t even agree with the first… why should i believe their promises? At least the other guys know how to do the job
i was going to vote for these guys until I read some of the comments here and realized im being misled… i dont know much about the other ones but anythings better i guess lol
Just because you make a choice to ignore what SGA puts out, doesn’t mean they are secretly doing anything. If you cared enough about the A&SF Process or anything else SGA does, you would be looking for the information on how you can be involved or at least in attendance when such decisions are had. Don’t you know that there’s a calendar in the SGA workroom right now that lists specifically the A&SF meetings? Don’t you know that A&SF Meetings still take place now, during the school semester, on Fridays? And now, when you inevitably say you don’t, why didn’t that video revealing this so-called “secret” inform you of that fact? Is it because they don’t know themselves or is it because that’s not what this is really about?
Knightnews.com is a tabloid that takes non-issues and turns them into scandals. This is a perfect example. SGA CONSTANTLY has events that NOBODY shows up to. Why? Because they don’t publicize? I call BS. I receive countless e-mails about what SGA does and I take it upon myself to stay informed. Do you want to be spoon fed the dates of every single event the organization puts on and have a SGA agent physically lead you to the location? Because if that’s what you’re looking for out of EITHER ticket, you won’t find it. You have a responsibility to go to events when they are publicized. Next time you go and get your free scantron, why don’t you also take a look at the dates of committee meetings, exec. meetings, A&SF meetings, open forums, and whatever else you’d like to find out about.
If Knightnews is so concerned with bringing information to the students, why is Knightnews NEVER reporting the SGA Senate meetings? It seems a little bit suspicious that the only time Knightnews cares about something is when it’s election season. Then they decide to take one little line out of a long response from the SGA President and report that that’s all he said. No, it’s not. SGA never once indicated what students wanted as far as tailgating hours are concerned. Out of the MANY things Peterson said, he included that some students had intimated that they wouldn’t mind later hours but he made sure to clarify that this wasn’t something he informed anybody was the consensus of the student body. But that’s not gossip, there’s no scandal there, because it’s the truth. Knightnews is allergic to the truth!
If the FoxNews/E!Tonight/National Enquirer of UCF wants to sit around and do the owner’s friends favors by virtually changing the entire site to reflect their SGA Presidential political campaign, it only serves to show how little this site actually does to serve students. I suggest Knightnews stick to making up things about apartment buildings and singing about chicken… you know, the things it’s good at.
Obviously you do. Idiot.
I am a senior at UCF and I never vote in these stupid elections, but I’m embarrassed to say I go to school here after reading what SGA is able to get away with. How in the HELL do they spend $14 million when we are all home for break and then refuse to turn over the public documents?!
How in the HELL does anyone accuse these Daniel and Kevin guys of being secretive or planning to do screwed up things, when THEY WILL LET YOU READ ALL THEIR EMAILS AND PUT THEMSELVES ON LIVE VIDEO TO WATCH ALL DAY!? This year I will vote for the first time… I will vote for Daniel and Kevin, and God Willing they will win and clean out this filth thats been poisoning campus for so long!
You’re totally right Mike Mordaci! KnightNews staff definitely praises owls in the middle of the Redwoods and sells their souls for power and chants in robes during secret meetings in the middle of the night. On point!
Why does it NOT surprise me that Jessica Livingston misses the point that KnightNews is a company and makes their own opinion on who to back up. The whole voting process happens during the actual election, fyi.
It’s only natural the best UCF news source would choose the best candidates for pres and vp. Daniel & Kevin, true facts.
Who the hell reads Knightnews? No one will care about this endorsement anyway. Im voting for Andrew and Chace!
Since Ive known Seef for a while I am still a Daniel and Kevin supporter but I am also a realist and dont believe in politics and hate when people are deceptive in politics! and to be quite honest this is definitely an obvious favor regardless of what knight news says about being unbiased. Andrew the founder of knight news is one of Seefs best friends so how could they possibly endorse a candidate without biase and favoritism. Anyone that has been following SGA for a while knows that knight News is just a continuation of Berkowitz presidency with all the jews that run things in SGA banding together. Who can fault them…its just like the Illuminati with the most powerful people in the US joining forces..who can fault them. Honestly they do a great job at promoting and marketing and thats how to win these elections. They are not about whose the most qualified…its about thoose who can hustle the best! Please just dont lie and say that you are unbiased! Be real and not a politician! Thats what we need at UCF! no more BS politics like always!
A group of students endorsing Daniel and Kevin were able to give high payment contracts to their close friends without the students knowledge, last year. My specific example is: $8,000 for an individual’s best friend to design a website that still doesn’t work!!
Kickbacks for friends and roommates at ridiculously high rates is not something I want from the leaders representing me, and that’s why I’m voting for Kilbride/Lockrane
Wow Ryan Garrett. Just wow. I know you and I’m extremely disappointed in your comment. And I didn’t know you were 25. LMAO.
I was going to support Kilbride/Lochrane in the beginning, but after seeing how some of their supporters are acting (pretty disgusting, i.e. Ryan Garrett), I’m now supporting Daniel/Kevin.
Not quite the biggest joke Garrett… that would be you: 25 and outcasted from his fraternity so he joins greek council to annoy the hell out of them instead
Come on.. How could you not trust the british guy?
It’s almost fitting. A fake news source with no experience or credibility endorses the fake ticket with no experience or credibility. Hillarious!
This is one of the biggest jokes I have ever seen in my life. I guarantee Daniel/Kevin promised Knightnews.com SGA money (just like the Future gets) for this endorsement.
I’m with Knightnews and the Daniel/Kevin campaign.
Kilbride/Lochrane are endorsed by corrupt ex-SGA people who have to use bribery to get into office like Will Lusk.
NOT REPRESENTATIVE,
I am the content manager for KnightNews.com. The decision to endorse Daniel and Kevin was made by an editorial board, not one or two people, as you claim. The board was chosen to represent KnightNews as a whole, as many of our writers will remain unbiased. The editorial board offered to meet with both campaigns, and then voted on an endorsement.
With that being said, you, as well as everyone else, can feel free to continue to comment about who you endorse, however, KnightNews endorses Daniel and Kevin.
Im a writer for KnightNews – I gave my opinion, and apparently they listed, because Daniel and Kevin are who they endorsed. The 5 person editorial staff voted – I’ve never worked somewhere where the entire writing staff voted. That would be stupid.
Why does it not surprise me that Knight News didn’t take a vote to determine it’s endorsement.. hm.
In regard to your lesbian comment, which one? Daniel or Kevin?
The decision to endorse these candidates was made by one or two people and is not representative of the full staff.
Knightnews does not endorse Daniel and Kevin. There was no vote taken by those who write for knightnews on who they wish to endorse. I have written for knightnews and I fully endorse Kilbride and Lochrane, the only two candidates with any actual experience.
If you are “Part of the Plan” you are part of the problem. I will
definitly be voing for Kilbride/Lochrane 2010!!!
Voting is February 22, 23, 24.
I’m definitely voting Daniel and Kevin.
Voting starts monday from what i see on Facebook. Search for UCF election commission or something like that. i think if you vote in their tents they give you a UCF shirt.
same sentiments, i remember the whole lusk thing. when does voting start
I was unsure of who to support, but now I will support Daniel and Kevin because of KnightNews’s endorsement.
Kilbride/Lochrane = Endorsed by Will Lusk = Bribery
Killbride/Lochrane = ?
LESBIAN. LESBIAN. LESBIAN. LESBIAN. LESBIAN.
FAIL. FAIL. FAIL. FAIL. FAIL.