UPDATE: Jereme Pozin has resigned. But the controversy is far from over. KnightNews.com’s attorney says SGA still has an illegal law on the book. Click here to read our lawyer’s demand letter to Kilbride that sources say UCF tried to ignore hoping they could claim the issue was moot because they knew Pozin planned to go.
Veteran Orange County Commissioner Linda Stewart, who is considered among the front-runners in August’s county mayoral race, is speaking out about what she considers a lack of transparency in UCF’s Student Government Association and “misuse of funds” by the organization.
UCF’s Student Government Association held a lavish retreat two weekends ago where officials, like SGA President and UCF Board of Trustee member Michael Kilbride, enjoyed gourmet lunches worth $35 per plate and fancy breakfasts worth $22 at a luxury resort outside Walt Disney World — the grand total of which was pennies shy of $8,000, according to documents obtained by KnightNews.com.
READ THE DEMAND LETTER OUR ATTORNEY SENT TO UCF OVER SECRET MEETINGS
The alleged lack of transparency by student officials comes as the professional SGA advisers are also under fire. In the video below, you can see Christa Coffey, an adviser with Student Government for about five years, dodging the media’s questions about allegations a paid UCF employee, who serves on the student senate, drove around the campus on a UCF golf cart under the influence of alcohol.
During KnightNews.com’s attempts to cover the impeachment proceedings against the paid student official of the SGA state agency, run by students and which oversees a budget of public funds exceeding $15 million, UCF officials shut KnightNews.com out of public meetings and denied to produce public records related to the requests in a reasonable amount of time.
UCF claims it’s following rules to protect student privacy rights, but in the past the University has asserted a federal privacy law required it to charge nearly $500 to produce President John Hitt’s e-mails to the student press, only to produce a nearly identical public records request to a professional local media organization for a fraction of the cost, after that organization sought intervention from Florida Attorney General Bill McCollom’s office, KnightNews.com has learned.
After it was decided UCF had to produce the records electronically — a much cheaper process — UCF didn’t bother to tell KnightNews.com the electronic release process it had been requesting all along was in fact legal, and instead held hostage KnightNews.com’s good faith check made for the initial estimate the University provided to complete the request.
As for the present dispute between the University and KnightNews.com over public records in SGA and the state agency’s compliance of Sunshine Law, an attorney representing KnightNews.com and attorneys with UCF are discussing the disagreement. Multiple SGA sources told KnightNews.com UCF had been intentionally stonewalling the student media organization because administrators had advance notice the accused student senator, Jereme Pozin, had already given UCF officials his intent to resign during tonight’s meeting.
Kilbride has not immediately responded to a request for comment on the “misuse of funds” allegations made by Commissioner Stewart.
KnightNews.com will be at the SGA Senate meeting tonight at 7 p.m. in the Key West Ballroom of the UCF Student Union and let you know what happens.
Check back for updates on this major developing story, and feel free to post your comments below, or e-mail them to news@knightnews.com.
