SGA Senators are set to decide tonight whether SGA President Melissa Westbrook broke open government laws — but an investigation into the Senate suggests that some of the people deciding may be violating the laws themselves.
After learning SGA Senators impeached Westbrook for violating Sunshine Law, misusing funds and neglecting duties, KnightNews.com began an in-depth investigation into the communication of senators outside official meetings. We asked each senator for any cell phone text messages, Facebook messages/postings and personal emails that met the definition of a public record between the dates of Jan. 23 to Feb. 3.
“It’s so frustrating to have to sit back and listen to people’s foolish debate,” SGA Speaker Jaclyn Graham said to another senator in a text message when discussing the impeachment.
But Graham, however, did not turn that record over to UCF; it was only discovered when digging through another senator’s records that were turned over to UCF.
Clifford Rice, the senator who filed the impeachment charges against Westbrook did not turn over any records at all — claiming he didn’t have any. But KnightNews.com’s own reporters were in contact with Rice and spoke to him about SGA’s communication policy and the impeachment hearing. Communications pertaining to SGA business are public records.
We double checked with UCF several times about the missing records from Graham and Rice but were told they didn’t have anything more.
“Following up on your request, we checked again with the two senators you named. They told us there are no additional records in response to your request,” Chad Binette, Director, UCF News & Information said.
Rice initially declined comment but our reporters were able to talk to him after the removal hearing of SGA President Melissa Westbook. Watch his response below:
