By: Richard Stein
Part of my vision for this campaign was to shed some light on how SGA really works.
I think students are entitled to know how their money is being spent. Student Government needs to be fair, honest and fiscally responsible.
But it’s not.
Let’s talk about the President:
The President of SGA is given $15,000 every year for his “President Initiative Fund”. This money is given to the President to accomplish promises he made to the students during the campaign. This money is supposed to be used for the benefit of the students.
So, what has the President been doing with this money? When I went to the books, I was surprised to learn that the “Presidents Initiative Fund” almost doubled to $27,140.00 for this year. Where did all those thousands of extra dollars come from? When I consulted the Activity and Service Fee (A&SF) budget office, I learned that they had been taken from you. President Bayes took money away from A&SF for his own purposes. He took hundreds of dollars from the Scantron and Blue Book Fund; that fund now has only three and a half dollars left in its account. He took thousands of dollars from the Executive Employee Compensation fund; that fund will soon run a deficit.
You may be wondering where Brian and Cait were. What were they doing? Were they calling meetings to defend you? Were they bringing this issue to you so you could have a say in how your money was spent? No. Instead, they were nothing. And now they want you to vote for them. They want you to vote for the Status Quo. For bullsh*t.
Our Student Government was built with three branches: (1) Executive, (2) Legislative and (3) Judicial. Our Government was designed this way to preserve checks and balances. It was designed to be fair. But instead, I have learned that SGA runs like something out of House of Cards. Resident “king-makers” decide who will be President before they are ever elected. This isn’t the time of Government I want. I know it’s not the one you deserve.
And now with Weston’s endorsement of Cait, what will we do? Do we allow the king-makers to continue their control of “our” democratic process, or do we do something about it? We need to stand up and take SGA back.
While there may be three tickets, there are only two options. Do you want a President who works for you or just another member of the SGA political machine?
My opponents claim to be different from one another. But let’s look past rhetoric and stick to the facts, because Brian and Cait have more in common than they’d like you to believe.
Fact 1: Brian and Cait have time and time again voted together.
Fact 2: While Brian claims to be against the SGA establishment, he and Cait have almost always sided with the majority.
Fact 3: Despite claiming to care about you, they’ve never once sponsored legislation accomplishing the goals they’ve set out in their platforms.
I want you to think about these facts and the type of Presidents these people will be.
It’s time to change a broken system.
