SGA Leaders, President Peterson: ‘You Let Us Down’
Editorials, UCF SGA — By Staff on February 20, 2010 at 2:46 pmIt took one week of waiting, a flurry of e-mails to Tallahassee — and even the threat of legal action against SGA, but late Friday afternoon, KnightNews.com finally got a portion of budget records we requested on Feb. 12.
And as KnightNews.com spent all week fighting to get this spreadsheet e-mailed to us, we found out more troubling information about the Activity and Service Fee Budget Committee, the same body under fire for allocating nearly the entire $15 million budget over Winter Break.
A committee member, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, confirmed to us that the SGA Chief of Operations and Presidential Candidate Mike Kilbride was appointed to the student-at-large seat on the budget committe — a seat intended for a regular student, who could have helped share the perspective of an SGA outsider when deciding where student money should be spent.
The “at-large” seat is common with student governing bodies at UCF. Kilbride had to know he was taking the place of the “regular student” when he accepted the ASF seat, because Kilbride was also appointed the at-large member of Greek Council — becoming the only non-Greek allowed to help decide how Greek life is run at UCF.
How would Kilbride have felt if the “at-large” Greek Council position he applied for was given to someone on IFC instead?
He’d be outraged — and rightfully so.
So, why is it OK for SGA President Brian Peterson to pick his right-hand man to occupy a seat that is supposed to be the one voice of the regular student?
No wonder SGA fought us tooth and nail to try and keep the agenda and minutes which confirm this happened secret.
President Peterson: Did you heavily advertise this “at-large” position to the regular student, before resorting to appointing your chief of operations?
How many SGA outsiders applied for the spot, before Kilbride beat him out?
Did the regular student honestly even have a chance?
In a letter to the Central Florida Future you wrote in November, you said: “It’s no mystery that many students feel out of touch with their student government. Hopefully we’ve been able to change that this year.”
How is appointing your SGA Chief of Operations insider to the position the regular student should have changing anything?
How are you any better than the SGA Presidents before you that did the same thing, so their fraternity brothers could have a leg up when they ran for office next year?
President Peterson, you promised us action, you promised us change, but in the end, you brought us more of the same — and you let us down.
You’ve helped prove the saying: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
And you’ve helped prove the point of our editorial board: Bringing total transparency to SGA is the only way regular students will really ever know what’s going on.
We doubt a regular student wanting this information would have gotten it before the election, when even KnightNews.com felt in over its head, having to communicate with top lawyers with the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees every public university in Florida, in order to get our request for the ASF budget fulfilled.
But even as attorneys from the Florida Board of Governors discussed our records request with UCF’s top attorney — whose office then promptly and politely released a portion to us Friday — SGA continued to make things difficult.
Even though we e-mailed our original request to the man in charge of the Activity and Service Fee office, SGA members suggested we hadn’t gone through the proper channels, and e-mailed us this complicated records request form, which states SGA can wait up to 72 hours before even looking at it and getting started on fulfilling our requests.
Thankfully, those running the “real” government didn’t see that as neccessary, and gave us clear, easier options to obtain SGA records in the future.
Around the time all this played out, one of the campaigns wrote this on a Facebook event page: “If you want to see this University in the hands of those with the integrity to make the STUDENTS proud then come out and show your colors.”
We couldn’t agree more.
UCF, KnightNews.com has done its job fighting to get information for you. Now you do yours, use it and get out to vote this Monday thru Wednesday.
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See some of the emails we exchanged with the lawyers in Tallahassee on the NEXT PAGE:
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74 Comments
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!!!
All I know is, over $14,000,000 of a $15,500,000 ASF Budget is going to operating costs in SGA. If that’s not bullshit, I don’t know what is.
I randomly stumbled across the site and I read all these comments. Ive seen a bunch of people attack knightnews and all that… but I haven’t really seen anyone explain why SGA wouldnt just email this budget when knightnews asked in the first place…. or why Kilbride was put on the at-large seat.
Knightnews isnt running for sga… he is… and no one seems to be denying anything about how he got on the committee and how sga refused to release this until lawyers were called. If you want to educate people stumbling across it… why not explain that?
Here are some more facts for anyone randomly stumbling upon this site and wondering what is up.
A guy named Andrew Stein runs KnightNews. He ran for sga president last year. He lost quite badly to Brian Peterson, who is slammed in this article.
When Andrew lost the election, he helped form this blog. Now he controls almost all the content you see posted on here.
Andrew is best friends with Daniel Seeff who is now running for president. Andrew endorses Daniel, as the banner on the top of the site shows.
When Daniel worked for Logan Berkowitz when he was president, Daniel worked to endorse Andrew’s campaign and actively campaigned for him, trying to get him elected.
This site is bankrolled by a guy named Max Friedman.
When Logan was president he gave thousands of dollars in contracts to Max, who now pays for this site.
This whole site is nothing but scratching the back of the guy who scratched yours. It’s using a fake news blog to get back at old rivals and get friends elected. And you all call the current administration dirty, scandalous, and corrupt?
Right.
FACT: EVERY YEAR candidates talk about making SGA more relevant/transparent.
FACT: No matter how much you advertise or try to relay information to the public there will always be a population that does not believe enough was done.
FACT: In politics you can never please everyone.
FACT: The idea that “At-large” positions in ASF should go to average students is absurd because the people who apply or run for SGA positions are not “average” they are leaders and the 50,000+ population at UCF is not comprised of over 50% leaders.
FACT: The Peterson administration utilized news sources, facebook, campus-wide advertisements for their events and yet still there are some that “never heard” about certain events.
FACT: The ASF budget allocation of $8000 for the exec retreat is pretty standard as it has been about that every year for the past few years.
FACT: Student organizations only get 0 funded because: 1) they don’t turn in their request in time, 2) don’t fulfill the requirements set forth by OSI and SGA, 3) they request money for events they have never done or participated in and must then request funding through an allocation or Senate bill, or 4) because they are new organizations. It is not cause by a lack of desire by anyone on the committee to fund the organizations.
FACT: Organizations with long histories on campus for successful events do receive higher funding= SAE, Campus Crusade, NORML, etc.
OPINION: This article is so saturated in bias its ridiculous. Way to go. Hope your bubbies are proud.
I think it would be awful if what Stephen says is true and we may lose SGA over scandals like this.
I hope that whichever side wins really enacts this transparency idea. I think it will go a long way in proving to Tallahassee that we are stepping up and making things right.
I agree with everything Stephen says about how we shouldn’t destroy SGA, but I blame the corrupt regime in charge and not KnightNews.com
All KnightNews.com did is ask for records that are public. SGA and ASF refused to respond when they should have… and said it wouldn’t happen until after the election, so KnightNews as a media source, gossip site, student newspaper or whatever you want to call it, did what it had to do.
This should be a lesson to SGA leaders to cut the crap and be open with us. I hope this crazyness can stop and everyone can work together.
Katie, comparing Knightnews to TMZ is insulting….to TMZ.
(Continued from previous post)
In years past, the Florida Board of Governors and members of the Florida Legislature have given serious consideration to taking A&SF control away from state Student Governments and handing it to the university administrations. I have even met with Florida Legislators personally who want to do this. The reason is because of election and fiscal scandals that give the Board of Governors and some legislators serious doubt that a group of “childish college children” can have the maturity or competence to manage a budget. By contacting the Attorney General of Florida and the Florida Board of Governors, and then publishing it all on a website, and then people responding with dozens of 2-year-old insults, you are making this situation astronomically worse. Do you want students to not have any say over the A&SF budget and for the over 400 Registered Student Organizations to suffer as a result? Do you want the Board of Governors to view us with even less respect than they currently have (which isn’t much)?
This also goes out to everyone who is commenting–please, STOP COMMENTING ON THE ARTICLE AND FEEDING THIS FIRE IN A PUBLIC WRITTEN FORUM. Your comments are viewable by everyone on the internet, and if you believe that people higher up than Student Government don’t monitor what is going on here, you are sorely mistaken.
Please, just go out and campaign this week and may the best ticket win. Do not let your passion and anger destroy everything that you are fighting for.
Am I the only one here that recognizes the magnitude of this article and its comments? People, STOP THIS MADNESS BEFORE YOU DESTROY EVERYTHING ALTOGETHER.
KnightNews, my god… you contacted the Attorney General of Florida and the Florida Board of Governors over this? I understand that you do not like the current Student Government, but what you are doing in jeopardizing to ALL Student Governments, including one run by the candidates you endorsed. I don’t care about this election; what this article is doing is damaging to ALL STUDENTS AND STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS, including yourselves. The Florida Board of Governors and Florida Legislature has talked about destroying Student Governments in the past over perceived scandals like this. If you have a problem with Student Government public records, contact General Counsel, or Legal Services, or Dispute Resolution Services, or the Ombudsman. By taking this outside of the university to the Board of Governors and Attorney General of Florida, you are jeopardizing the rights of Student Governments, Student Organizations and students across the state and contributing to the notion that students do not deserve to have a Student Government or Student Organizations.
The same leaders we elected to fight for our tailgating rights? Alumni fought hard and got theirs back… the students were screwed.
No thanks, I’ll take the new guys.
I don’t quite understand the “scandal” here…even if students DID go to the ASF meeting, they would have had to sit quietly in the back – they would not been able to have any say in the proceedings.
The students’ say comes from the leaders they have elected (Senators, President, VP), and also through those elected leaders’ appointments (student at large, cabinet members). You vote for the people who you want to speak for you.
The general feeling that KN is attempting to convey is that if students had gone to the meeting, they would have been able to give their opinion, but that is not the case. Even if the meeting would have taken place in front of the Student Union at 1:00pm on a Wednesday, the only people who vote are those who have been elected by the students to do so.
In the same vein, you can go to a meeting of the Orange County Board of Commisioners, and they’ll have some chairs for you to sit down and watch…but you still can’t vote or have any say.
That is because you have elected leaders who will speak for you, and if you have something you are concerned about or want to express, you contact them. It is a representative form of government, instituted because it would be much less efficient (and not as fair, actually) for any random student to be able to come and vote.
POS 2041 (American National Government), anyone??? Kind of amazing to me that no one else has pointed that out yet.
To everyone that is reading this:
I really hope everyone realizes how big of a joke “Knight News” is. The ONLY reason… I repeat, the ONLY reason I am responding to this article is because it was brought to my attention; believe me, I do not seek to read this crap. I am here to state just one thing:
KNIGHT NEWS IS THE TMZ OF UCF. It is completely biased and based solely on opinion and is, quite frankly, comical to read.
The Peterson/Andrick campaign has accomplished so much more than you ever would have, Andrew & Chace (I’m pretty sure that’s your names…) and I’m so sorry to you that you’re still bitter for that astounding loss. If you have any rebuttal to that, feel free to contact me. You can find my contact info in the SGA office… that is, if you’re not too scared to go in there.
With that said, I don’t have a direct comment regarding this article because I don’t need to look as pathetic as you do typing it. People like you NEVER last, and this website proves it. As far as the campaign you’re endorsing… Stick to your day jobs, boys… You’ll be going right back to them. Scandalous people NEVER prevail.
Sincerely,
KATIE CELANO
Where’s the unbiased reporting? is there any on this site?
A media outlet endorsing a campaign..
Taking revenge on the current SGA administration because your campaign lost against them…
Hmm..
I smell Kyle Trager.
I usually tend to read this website just to see what’s going on at my old school, but I can honestly say that this article is complete crap.
I am an alumni of Gamma Alpha Yellow fraternity and we think it is an absolute joke that Mike Kilbride is running. We know Daniel personally and know that he is passionate about students and is the true choice to UCF. This year has been one of the only years I have actually been contacted by SGA and it was done by none other than Mr. Kevin Wolkenfeld. I plan on going to grad school in the future at UCF and he emailed me telling me about upcoming events. THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED! EVER!
Take it from one of Mike’s fraternity’s alumni. This is a complete joke and they are nowhere near qualified.
I usually tend to read this website just to see what’s going on at my old school, but I can honestly say that this article is complete crap.
I am an alumni of Alpha Tau Omega and we think it is an absolute joke that Taylore Lochrane is running. We know Daniel personally and know that he is passionate about students and is the true choice to UCF. This year has been one of the only years I have actually been contacted by SGA and it was done by none other than Mr. Kevin Wolkenfeld. I plan on going to grad school in the future at UCF and he emailed me telling me about upcoming events. THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED! EVER!
Take it from one of Taylors’s fraternity’s alumni. This is a complete joke and they are nowhere near qualified.
Did you see these?
http://knightnews.com/2010/02/get-to-know-the-kilbride-lockrane-ucf-sga-ticket/
http://knightnews.com/2010/02/kilbride-and-lochrane-want-more-student-services-input/
And thats not the budget that was voted on this year by Kilbride.
By the way, news starts with an N, not a K
Where is the Attorney General of Florida’s response?
I agree my payroll was high amount but in having that I employed hundreds of students who could work on campus where they study instead of driving somewhere far away. This money paid for students to lobby and program for the entire university. I completely support student jobs on campus. The only people making a decent salary were my Vice President and I. We got paid around 10k for the year. I make that in 2 months now. I think the 10k came down to about $3.20 an hour if you broke in down. Everyone else made like 150 bucks a week. Cant even pay rent with that.
Good luck to all who is running.
Fiscal year 09-10 is what we are in right now.
Fiscal year 10-11 is being worked on now. It starts in July for the state.
You can’t find fiscal year 10-11 on that site, because THEY DONT WANT YOU TO SEE WHO THEY ARE BUYING OFF TO VOTE FOR KILBRIDE.
10K FOR THE CHRISTIANS
78,000 FOR PARTIES FOR THE MSC.. FREE FOOD, ETC.
WAY TO BUY THE VOTES GUYS!
I don’t understand how he scared people away since declaration is only a week long….
Is he like the big bad wolf or something?
If you are scared to run…then you shouldn’t. This should be a well- thoughout plan
http://www.asf.ucf.edu/financial/finindex.htm
Enjoy you idiots.
i havent seen one positive thing about Kilbride on this site. you all are the biggest biggots i have ever seen. seeff and wolkenfeld are seriously only hurting themselves.
What is the link to the public web site?
The only web site with the that spreadsheet on it right now is knightnews.com…. the ASF web site has the budget for last year… not the one kilbride handcrafted for himself before he thought he scared everyone off who’d run against him for president.
I don’t understand why people think this is all a secret. This is on a PUBLIC website. You all are morons.
How much does Kilbride get paid now?
Those organizations were expecting to be 0 funded because they go to SENATE TO GET FUNDED!
If you would like all other budgets, go to the ASF site. ALL OF THEM ARE THERE AND IT SEEMS LIKE BERKOWITZ GAVE HIS OWN CABINET A LITTLE PAY RAISE
Funny how the kilbride people can only attack knightnews as corrupt… and have no explanation for the secrecy, at large seat, and all the facts knightnews presented.
we see through you guys… on monday we will take back our sga… and throw your asses out where you belong!
Logan Berkowitz’s cabinet costed him $230,000. FYI. enjoy everyone.
How can you all say knightnews is lying if the lawyers agreed with them?
Sounds to me like you all got caught in your lies.
I read the spreadsheet you all didn’t want me to read too…
looks like you zero funded 29 of 43 student organizations who applied for money.
I dont know how you can sleep at night when you collect those huge paychecks instead.
I used to hate the greeks and lambda chi, but you guys are no better.
You have let this power poison you.
You annointed Mike Kilbride and groomed him for this job and scared everyone else off who wanted to run. Guess you didn’t realize someone who knew all your secrets would use them against you.
I honestly hate both sides, but at least what Daniel wants to do is like an “arms agreement.” He is making it so NO ONE can hoarde all the info and power in the future to get their friends elected. That is some good change we need here right now. If this power can corrupt Peterson, it obviously can corrupt anyone. IT MUST BE STOPPED!
Let’s take a look at Logan Berkowitz Cabinet. I’m sure their payroll and corruption was ten times the amount of anyone. Lambda Chi is known for one thing and one thing only- CORRUPTION
It looks like a lot of you have a hand in this fight… but I came across this and honestly want to know this: why did SGA fight so hard to keep this from the media?
And I check out the Future a lot too. I do think they might be a little more “by the book.” They always are at senate meetings tweeting… but if sga wanted students involved, why didn’t they tell anyone about this winter break meeting?
Did sga contact either knightnews or the future about the position.
From what it sounds like… Kilbride got a really unfair advantage in this race and basically got to take credit for giving 10,000 to clubs… like the $10k they gave to campus crusade and NORML.
Isn’t that like buying votes?
And I dont get this stuff about Daniel and Kevin being corrupt… their whole gimmick is they wont hide this from students. It seems to me like they are the only way to stop this… no matter who is incharge!
634,018 for senate last year… and Kilbride and friends cut them down to only 586,368 next year?
Guess everyone on ASF is counting on a job on exec and doesn’t give a shit about the student organizations who could get funding from Senate.
Exec actually got funded close to a million bucks next year!
944,075 is all they wanted… but they threw on another 12 grand or so and gave them… 956,075.
A million bucks for SGA. Maybe Kilbride can get another 2 monitors and steal them from the graphics department again?
$8,000 for a retreat for Kilbrides cabinet?
WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY STAYING … THE RITZ?
I usually ignore this SGA bs but this is insane.
If you actually look at the document they were trying to hide, you can see how much money they are WASTING.
My dad works for the county government in the panhandle. I asked him what OPS meant on the spreadsheet. IT IS PAYROLL.
KILBRIDE WANTS TO PAY HIS STAFF THIS MUCH NEXT YEAR: 217,400
That is beyond f–ked up!
The “committee member” is clearly Jereme Pozin that made those statements.
-KnightNews: he is actally an alternate on the committee.
-Pozin is also a Lambda Chi.
Interesting how everything comes together now.. Lambda Chi? Wanting to make Peterson/Kilbride look bad?? No way…
I have been to ASF meetings and they say “Student-At-Large Kilbride” at roll call every week. Did you ever want to go and actually watch a meeting? AND why did you decide to do this before Kilbride ran?
Sounds like a CORRUPT, BIAS NEWS MEDIA. what a joke.
I usually tend to read this website just to see what’s going on at my old school, but I can honestly say that this article is complete crap.
I am an alumni of Alpha Epsilon Pi and my best friends were in Lambda Chi and we think it is an absolute joke that Kevin Wolkenfeld is running. We know Kilbride personally and know that he is passionate about students and is the true choice to UCF. This year has been one of the only years I have actually been contacted by SGA and it was done by none other than Mr.Taylor Lochrane. I plan on going to grad school in the future at UCF and he emailed me telling me about upcoming events. THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED! EVER!
Take it from one of Kevin’s fraternity’s alumni. This is a complete joke and they are nowhere near qualified.
why did knightnews have to threaten to sue to get this information? i thought kilbride said he wanted student input…
and… if the lawyers agree with knightnews, doesn’t that make peterson and kilbride liars?
Is it ironic that the people involved with KnightNews are the main supporters behind Daniel and Kevin? Andrew Stein and Chace Peckham lost the presidential race last year. Daniel and Kevin is a way for all of those corrupt, power-seeking Lambda Chi’s (and groupies) to get back in SGA for all of the wrong reasons. THE MASTERMINDS BEHIND THE DANIEL/KEVIN TICKET are the SAME PEOPLE WHO RUN KNIGHTNEWS. Ironic?
Also, I am still waiting for Daniel and Kevin to explain how hey are going to carry out their platform goals. All you (Andrew Stein, Max Friedman, Randy Marsden, Zeve Salman) can do is bash the other side, with FALSE ASSUMPTIONS AND FACTS. Let’s be honest, the four of you are the ones feeding Seeff what to say. He is too nice of a person to ever come up with something like that on his own. I am so ashamed that he is turning out to be just like the rest of his supporters though, it isvery disappotining.
SGA has made PHENOMENAL strides this year and how dare you try to put such a negative light on President Peterson. In thw four years that I have been here, I have never seen SGA move in such a positive direction before. Peterson’s administration has accomplished so many goals that are visible to the eye, as well as has united SGA so that all 3 branches feel as one. Peterson is a passionate, well educated, hard working individual and I am so glad that I finally saw the positive impact that he could have on the Student Body. Peterson makes choices everyday in favor of students and UCF is so lucky to have a President like him.
Now let’s address this sickening article. The ASF seat was advertised very well and less than a handful of people applied forthe 2 student at large positions. President Peterson, Speaker Stauffer and CJ McGriskin chose the two most qualified people for those positions and they did a phenoenal job at selecting the two members. One of the students at large went on to be the Chair of the committee and the other one was Mike Kilbride who is current Chief of Operations and is now running for President. ASF is not a joke and I think it is a disgrace that Daniel and Kevin NEVER ATTENDED an ASF meeting prior to Friday. Did you know that the President and Vice President sit on the ASF Committee??? Also, Kilbride has doen wonders for that committee, which is why I can say with confidence that with him as President, SGA will be in safe hands next year. Kilbride funded an extra Late Knights event, met with OSI agencies before budget requests were due to make sure that they were filled out properly and were reasonable and was one of the main advocaters for funding for the MSC Funding Board. He has been nothing but great.
Just remember to take into consideration the TRUE FACTS when you read this article.
Also, I’m thinking that it wouldn’t be surprising if the Florida Legislature or Board of Governors decided to further limit student power over A&SF if you keep throwing their names around (like you actually contacted them) in regards to these fictitious issues. Awe, wouldn’t it be horrible if the knightnews racketeers didn’t have an SGA budget to try to take over and give to Max Friedman?
This site is a joke! Another Kilbride slam piece from the TMZ of UCF. Luckily, your readers (if there are any?) can figure out which ticket is more qualified to run SGA (Hint: it’s not the two clowns at the top of this website). The last thing UCF needs is the continuation of the corruption brought by the Lambda Chi cronies, along with Max Friedman, etc. etc.
i dont know how many people applied but i definitely saw ads in the future for it before so it was advertised.
i dont really know what the rest of the article is about but i looked at the “complicated request form” and it actually looks really simple. i was expting to see some kind of irs form but this is one page with like 6 lines.
im starting to think knight news is just a bunch of cry babies. and the whole endorsment thing just skews every single thing that comes out of their mouths. how do you expect me to see only part of your website as bias when you have daniel and kevin’s faces staring at me on every page
I remember seeing advertisements for the at-large seat for ASF yet only 3 people applied.. Since Kilbride is obviously qualified for President, he is surely qualified to be 1 of the 3 members appointed to the ASF committee.
Apparently KnightNews does not even understand the “at large” position.
Anyone with eyes can see that this is nothing more than a bitter immature little kids way of defaming the people that beat him.
SGA has done more visible things this year than I have seen since I got to UCF. Is it perfect? No. But at least they’re doing something productive. More than I can say for the baby that runs this site.
I truly think Andrew Stein needs to stop corrupting UCF and actually get a life and realize that he would NEVER be a good SGA President and that he is a joke of a human being.
Brian Peterson and Mike Kilbride has done more in the matter of one semester for UCF than this site or Andrew Stein would ever do in their entire lives.
The Peterson Administration is full of corruption. If Peterson’s administration is filled with corruption and he endorses Kilbride, I’m sure Kilbride’s administration will be filled with corruption too.