SGA Leaders, President Peterson: ‘You Let Us Down’
Editorials, UCF SGA — By Staff on February 20, 2010 at 2:46 pmfrom Shirley, Vikki
to ucfknightnews@gmail.com
date Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 1:35 PM
subject FW: Urgent Request For Mediation
hide details Feb 19 (2 days ago)
We received your email today concerning a public records request made to the University of Central Florida Student Government Association. We have spoken with Scott Cole, UCF’s General Counsel, and have been advised that they are in the process of compiling information responsive to your request. Tonya Perry, a paralegal in the UCF’s General Counsel’s office is working on your request and it our understanding that some of the information may be available to you as of later today. Ms. Perry can be contacted at (407)823-2482.
With respect to your question concerning Sunshine Law requirements, the law requires meetings of public bodies that are subject to the law to be open to the public and for the body to provide reasonable notice to the public of the date and time of the meeting. The UCF Student Government has also enacted an SGA Sunshine Law statute that is posted on their webpage.
With respect to the allocation of activity and service fees, attached is Board of Governors Regulation 7.003 which addresses the allocation and expenditure of such fees in subparagraph (7)(c)2.
If we can be of any additional assistance, please let us know.
Vikki Shirley
General Counsel
Board of Governors
—–Original Message—–
From: McDermott, Shannon
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 7:43 AM
To: Shirley, Vikki
Cc: Venters, Monoka; McKinnie, Karen
Subject: FW: Urgent Request For Mediation
Vikki – Can you respond?
Shannon M. McDermott
Assistant to the Chancellor
Board of Governors
State University System of Florida
325 West Gaines Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399
Phone: (850) 245-9687
Fax: (850) 245-9685
shannon.mcdermott@flbog.edu
Visit us online at www.flbog.edu
—–Original Message—–
From: ucfknightnews@gmail.com [mailto:ucfknightnews@gmail.com] On Behalf Of KnightNews.com
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 3:30 AM
To: Clark, Lori; Chancellor, Board of Governors
Subject: Fwd: Urgent Request For Mediation
Dear Florida Board of Governors:
The Attorney General’s office suggested we contact you regarding a
serious dispute we are having with the Student Government Association
at UCF.
You can review the entire chain of emails below, but in a nutshell, we
don’t think the university is complying with this specific piece of
case law the Attorney General’s Office pointed out to us:
“The Florida Supreme Court has stated that the only delay in producing
records permitted under Ch. 119, F.S., “is the limited reasonable time
allowed the custodian to retrieve the record and delete those portions
of the record the custodian asserts are exempt.” Tribune Company v.
Cannella, 458 So. 2d 1075, 1078 (Fla. 1984), appeal dismissed sub
nom., DePerte v. Tribune Company, 105 S.Ct. 2315 (1985).”
We requested this information last Friday, and on Wednesday, we were
told we’d have to wait at least another week to get ANY of the
information we requested — conveniently after the SGA Presidential
Elections happen. We’re sure SOMETHING we requested would be available
now under these terms, even if it’s the audio recordings to listen to.
But so far, nothing has been turned over.
In addition, we are questioning whether the meetings held over break
(at a time when students were kicked out of dorms and unable to
attend) live up to sunshine law requirements of providing reasonable
access. Do you know if any other state universities use the same
methods? Is this common? Is this legal? Isn’t the senate supposed to
decide how this money gets spent and not a group of people who are
appointed instead of elected?
Please let us know if you can help get the records turned over.
-KnightNews.com
=========================
Dear Attorney General’s Office:
KnightNews.com is a student news service at UCF.
We are trying to cover our Student Government Association, which
controls $15 million in public money, leading up to Monday’s SGA
elections.
We were told that over Christmas Break, on the day students who pay
this money got kicked out of their dorms in December, SGA’s leaders
quietly met in the empty student union for hours on end, and
reportedly allocated $14 million of the $15 million budget for next
fiscal year. We never got a press release or notification this was
happening, and students told us they had no idea this meeting was
happening. Even if students were told, they’d likely be unable to
attend because they had no place to stay in Orlando, as the meetings
lasted several days after dorms closed.
We put in this public records request (below) last Friday to the UCF
administrator charged with overseeing the student Activity and Service
Fee funds, and keeping custody of the records. We did not get any
response from him, so on Wednesday we walked to his office, only to be
told that he forwarded our email to the UCF General Counsel. He said
just because they are public documents doesn’t mean we’re entitled to
them, and there may be a cost involved.
We felt like they were trying to discourage us from following through
with our request, and we were surprised there would be a cost, when we
understand most, if not all of these records are available in
electronic format, likely already stored in emails, and they could
just easily forward them to us in 30 seconds.
He also told us, five days after we requested them, it will take about
another week for UCF’s General Counsel to make a ruling and get back
to us — conveniently, after the SGA Presidential Elections are over.
We are writing to you to ask that UCF’s SGA and the Activity and
Service Fee Office enter into a mediation with us over withholding
these records until after the elections. That December meeting is
becoming a matter of great public interest in this important election,
and we feel it is unreasonable for them to withhold them — from a
major campus news organization no less — until after the election is
over.
Please let us know if you can help.
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: KnightNews.com
Date: Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 2:02 PM
Subject: ASF Budget Records Request
To: jsciarri@mail.ucf.edu
Good afternoon,
Could you please fulfill our public records request for the following:
1) The ASF proposed budget/spreadsheets as they stand currently in an
electronic format (ex. Excel spreadsheets)
2) Any e-mails or packet of materials given to the committee prior to
the series of ASF meetings in December, in addition to any changes
made during and immediately after the committee met. (In essence, we
would like to see the proposals before they met, and be able to
compare them with what was agreed upon in the committee at the end of
the series of December meetings). We request this information in
electronic format if it exists that way. For example, if e-mails
containing this information exist, or the documents exist on a
thumbdrive or hard drive, we’d like it forwarded to us.
3. An e-mailed or electronic copy of all minutes of every ASF meeting
for the budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
4. Access to review audio recordings of the ASF meetings for this
fiscal year. (If these are in electronic format, we can come download
them or pick up a cd with them… if they are on tape, we’d come set
up a time to listen to them).
If some of this is easier for you to get to first, you can send me
what’s easiest first, and we can deal with the rest later.
When you respond, please send it to both news@knightnews.com and our
gmail, ucfknightnews@gmail.com, in case the files are too big for our
corporate server.
Sincerely,
Cliff Jett
=============
See SGA’s email before they knew we got the records with Tallahassee’s help:
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74 Comments
This is the silliest thing I have ever seen for a student newspaper. The truth is that the ASF committee is EXTREMELY complex to navigate. It has so much power and very little regulation. You cannot possibly expect that the average student is going to have any clue how to vote or how to operate on a committee like this. The idea of appointing the “average” student to something ASF is ludicrous. SGA should never have even included this position in the first place. For years, the spots have been filled with SGA insiders because they understand the internal politics and they know the parliamentary process that governs the proceedings. If the student media really wants the “average” student to be involved, they need to analyze why it is that so many senators are elected from greek organizations…. Why? Because those students vote. If the “average” student won’t do their part to elect “average” students to the easiest spots to win….. then the “average” student doesn’t deserve a voice in SGA. Tell those “average” students that you are so fond of promoting, that they need to get off their butts and get involved. Decisions are made by those that show up, and if the students don’t care enough, they don’t have the right to disagree when SGA makes decisions they don’t like. Deal with it.
Personally I think Peterson did a great job this past year. This article is very biased and seems its just one more way stein can rip into Peterson because he is still angry about being beaten and outclassed I remind you. Stein this website is obvious bullshit and you can count on one less reader of your News site.
This article and this news coverage is B squared: Bitter and Bullsh*t.
@ Mike Mordaci
This is the response that everyone who really gives a shit about students fears. SGA is a resource for students to express themselves and advocate for their beliefs to the administration and other parts of the government.
If people people like those running Knightnews keep up with these false accusations and nihilistic methods of mediation, there may not be an A&SF budget next year.
You are incorrect in your facts, the faculty senate cannot touch SGA, but Knightnews isn’t bothering them. They are contacting people in the Board of Governors and Florida legislature (or so the allege). These are the people who, year after year, discuss taking away the A&SF because they feel students are too childish to handle it.
I don’t think it is fair that all students and all student organizations should have to be punished because the people running Knightnews are a bunch of lying, whining, brats who need to know how to follow simple procedures.
That is part of college, learning how to navigate your way through society and work with the systems in place to get what you need, or take the opportunity to make changes for the better.
Sounds to me like freshman Cliff Jett hasn’t learned how to do this yet. Stand up against Knightnews, DON’T LET THEM RUIN IT FOR EVERYONE!
This fraud is getting out of hand! Everyone knows this whole election is a fraud and SGA is a complete joke and whoever wins will be completely wasting our money and spending irresponsibly to support these idiots who bicker of the most ignorant pointless BS. Whoever wins will elect a cabinet or campaign supporters and corrupt individuals to continue on the SGA tradition. I think it is time that UCF Faculty Senate jumps in and completely takes action against this behavior. This election should be called off and everyone currently involved in SGA should be impeached for aiding in corruption and all new people need to be put in place. You guys are making every student at UCF hate SGA more than they already did. UCF faculty needs to take control of these little kids that think they are politicians when really are they are is a bunch of power hungry elitists with nothing better to with their time. Another form of Illuminati on the college level!
Knightnews= UCF version of TMZ
TMZ= not a credible resource
do you really want a media outlet with no credibility endorsing a campaign with no experience? I know I dont.
Killbride all the wayyy!
No one said chief of operations is supposed to get that job, I will say yet again for you “most qualified individual” if that happens to be someone who holds a position in SGA then so be it, that individual is still a student and still has the right to apply for positions. Are you saying that he should give up all his student rights because he works in Student Government?
And if you want the names of people or to dive into the issue further then go to SGA, schedule a sit down meeting with Brian and have a discussion. Just because you can’t get answers to your questions on a discussion board doesn’t mean the answers aren’t there. Use your brain and legs and mosey on over to Student Government.
Since you know so much. What were the names of the students who didn’t get the job? I’d love to see knightnews or the future interview them about how they feel about Peterson’s buddy boy beating them out of the job. If Chief of Operations was supposed to be on the committee, the senate would have wrote the statutes that way.
If you want met to refute Knight News then I will do so, it is quite simple:
The at-large position was advertised long before the position was selected, it was advertised through a-frames, facebook, Peterson\Andrick weekly tabling, official postings, SGA website, etc… to name a few. The application was open the allotted time, few people applied (not including Seeff and Wolkenfeld who claim that they care “oh so much” about A&SF spending) and the most qualified was Mike Kilbride. In any position no matter it be SGA or a business you choose the most qualified who will do the best job. The heads of all three branches (President: voted on by students, Senate Speaker: voted on by senate who is voted on by students) met and selected the best candidate for the position. Therefore the students put people into power because they have faith that they will put the best candidates and most qualified people into these positions, well in turn that means the students did the right thing. If you disagree with the students choice then bash away as you have been doing, however this entire article is based off of slander and dramatics. And I am sorry but “Regular students” that you say should have gotten the position, well they didn’t apply. And that “Regular Student” almost always has no understanding of A&SF dollars and what means to be fiscally responsible when deciding who to allocate them too. So therefore Knight News thinks that an untrained and unknowing regular student would have been more fit (if they had even applied) for this position then someone who is involved in SGA, an SGA Agency, and student organizations.
Let me reiterate one more time:
VERY FEW PEOPLE APPLIED FOR THE POSITION, THE MOST QUALIFIED GOT THE JOB.
You can either suck it up and face the facts or you can keep claiming that these mysterious “regular students” were shutout of an opportunity that was presented to them in as many ways as possible.
Stop using your Fox News UCF equivalent to spread hatred and unrest over issues that do not need it.
Seeff\Wolkenfeld: If you really cared about A&SF you would have applied for the position. I know that Wolkenfeld knew about it as a senator, and if Seeff as a “Business Strategist” dealing with funds and fiscal responsibility didn’t even know about the A&SF at-large position and doesn’t even attend meetings then he is SPREADING CRAP TO THE STUDENT BODY.
Wake-up UCF and breath in that fresh Seeff dookie.
NORML AND COLLEGE DEMOCRATS DO NOT SUPPORT SEEF/WOLDENFELD NO MATTER WHAT THEIR LYING CAMPAIGNERS SAY!
I like how no one has even disputed a single fact in this article, they just bash KnightNews because it is exposing their friends, who are corrupt.
Peterson literally gave the only position of 3rd party oversight to his Chief of Staff, who he knew was running for President so that it would make him look good for giving out millions of dollars to students.
Am I saying Peterson is a bad president? Absolutely not. Did he do something ridiculous here? Obviously. His defense was “many president before me have done this.” Alright Peterson, if the presidents before you sold cocaine out of their office, would you justify doing so?
Stop bashing KnightNews for bringing this to your attention. If anything, commend them for having the courage to do so when the Central Florida Future lets this stuff happen and doesn’t report it, while SGA sits back and writes them checks for advertising space.
Its a beautiful thing when you claim things to be opinions but try to present them as truths. The whole article attacks, attacks, attacks. And where was the Knightnews staff asking these “tough questions” and providing these great “editorials” prior to elections? The timing of these opinions is just plain astonishing. Could it have come at better time for a fake news group like this thats supporting Daniel and Kevin to publish an opinion article blasting SGA? How crazy is this timing. Gee I wonder why that is….
The future didn’t give an opinion you idiot, they wrote a straight news article on it. This story on knightnews is an opinion, hence why they clearly state it is an editorial on the giant graphic and on the top.
No wonder you can’t understand what the hell is going on… and are probably voting for kilbride and his corrupt friends.
Ok the central florida future just came out with a similar article.
But it gives an unbiased opinion, as well as a look into both sides. You know…..what real news outlet is supposed to do.
Were not hating, were being honest.
Well, if you don’t believe knightnews when they say Kilbride is corrupt, check out your “trusted source” … they finally caught up to KnightNews.com….
http://www.centralfloridafuture.com/asf-budget-committee-spurs-debate-1.2162714
Stein,
You are a good friend, but I will have to say that the news reporting your website has is Yellow Journalism.
Wow!!!!
I think Knightnews either needs to get their facts straight or stop working for the Daniel & Kevin campaign. point blank.
Though this may be my first year at the university, my first year experience will always be remembered for what SGA brought to my life. The people who are criticizing this years administration probably are the people who had no involvement on this campus for this whatsoever, it is easy to criticize when you do nothing.
Brian peterson did a great job, and we are lucky to have somebody from his cabinet running for office!
“Knightro
FEBRUARY 21, 2010 AT 8:24 AM
Peterson and his cabinet went to Universal Orlando Resort for their retreat and stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel. The minimum rate for that hotel is around $200. Multiply that towards their entire cabinet.
Sorry but when I pay tuition I am not paying for them to go on vacation.
I want a change.
Daniel and Kevin have my vote!!!”
Wow, this is all very false. We got a free pass to Universal and went with several student leaders from the Office of Student Involvement (OSI) – and we didn’t stay at the Hard Rock, are you kidding? We stayed in an apartment style hotel, 8-10 people per hotel room. I think there were four total? Most of us had to share a bed, sleep on a pull out couch, or chair. We also cooked dinner ourselves one night, we made lasagna and brought it to one of the rooms and at there. Breakfast was made via toaster where we had our meetings… As far as I know, we’ve spent the least amount on retreat this year than the years prior. Quit gossiping and get your fact straight.
Wolkenfeld = Senator = Majority of A&SF Committee = Corrupt
Wolkenfeld = ?
Kilbride = Peterson Administration = Corruption
Kilbride = ?
Universal works closely with UCF in terms of providing discount tickets and freebies (Universal works with the Student Union ticket center for distribution of tickets).
If you are employed by the university, and were to contact the appropriate individual at Universal for DONATED (aka free) tickets for a legitimate reason (student program, team building purposes, prize for an event, etc) they will happily work with you in providing those tickets.
Please stop suggesting that admission to Universal was a “kickback” or “bribery.” It was Universal doing business and supporting UCF by supplying admission to student leaders
The fact that you went to universal for vacation on our dime is disgusting.
You may not have paid for the tickets then, but we all know you bribed universal with the spring event … they gave you a kickback with those free tickets and cheap rooms. You could have done this retreat in the union for free!
Where are you getting your facts?? I was on the retreat. We paid closer to $250 per room, had 4 rooms, 8-10+ people in each. For the record they were apartment style, and we used every pull out sofa bed in the place. NOT hardrock hotel.
Also because they were apartment style we cooked our own meals. Here is what we ate: First night dinner was at Bubba Gump, about $12-15 per person (special group rate). Day 2: Bagels, toast, and juice in the morning – we set up our own toaster in the meeting room. We had the hotel cater 1 lunch, sandwiches and chips. We made our own dinner (I can’t remember exactly what it was but I remember I made the corn). Day 3: Repeated breakfast. Had lunch on our own.
**This is the most fiscally responsible SGA has ever been (well in my 4 year experience) during cabinet retreat to ensure student dollars aren’t spent on lavish meals!
And YES we DID go to Universal. It was FREE. They donated the tickets to us. Also at Universal were students involved in OSI (Office of Student Involvement)who got one free day in the park after spending a year of unpaid time to make OSI what it is and put on all the events that students attend!
The Cabinet retreat is not a secret. But you sir (or madam) are LYING. Probably because you are either part of the scheme-machine that is Knightnews or because unfortunately you have fallen for their lies.
Next time, Check your facts or just ask us!
Well if as several posters have stated only 3 people applied for the position of a student-at-large seat, maybe he was the most qualified. Generally speaking only about a small handful of students ever apply for the positions and of them, usually at least one Senator applies (which is ridiculous since Senate already has a bunch of seats allocated to them). If you don’t have a large pool of potential candidates, why not select the individual who was in charge of the very successful Dance Marathon that was nationally recognized and who is involved in various OSI-related activities? Also, since people always love to ignorantly blame the SGA President for everything, here’s a little fact for ya- The 2 positions are selected by a panel of the THREE HEADS OF BRANCHES: President, Speaker of the Senate, and Chief Justice. Seeing as the Speaker of the Senate was voted onto Senate by this year’s students, President by last year’s students, and the Chief Justice is generally revered to be the most unbiased person in Student Government I fail to see how the selection of the two “at-large” seats were kickbacks for the President’s “buddies.”