Student Association members elected 10 students to its finance board Monday, taking its first step toward preparing for its 2004 budget hearings.

Each of the 15 candidates for the board elections addressed the assembly, introduced themselves and explained their credentials and motivations for a position. The assembly approved each candidate to the ballot, and after asking the candidates additional questions, the members voted through a secret ballot.

Comptroller Maggie Misztal said that the mix of former board members, new board members, as well as members from different years, will help bring diverse perspectives to the board’s decisions.

‘We have a really broad perspective, which is so important, especially because we have a large input on what goes on, on campus,’ Miztal said. ‘We have a lot of diverse groups on this campus, and all their needs need to be met.’

The finance board will hold hearings in the spring for each campus organization to present its budget for the 2004-2005 fiscal year. The board then will decide how much of the $1.4 million student fee budget to allocate to each organization.

The following students were elected to the finance board: Charyla Harlow, Rosslyn Ortega, Andrew Urankar, Eric Crites, Brianna Bard, Allen Frimpong, Leslie Robinson, Sherlen Archibald, Waskar Espinosa and Michelle Santousa.

The assembly passed a bill stating its support for the upgrade of some Public Safety officers to peace officer status with no discussion or dissent.

Jessie Cordova, chairwoman of the board of elections and membership, explained the voting process of the upcoming referendum regarding New York Public Interest Research Group funding. If less than 10 percent of the students vote by 8 p.m. on the fourth consecutive day of voting, then the referendum voting will continue for a fifth day, and will continue until either 10 percent of students have voted, or until the eighth day.

Former SA President Andrew Thomson then told assembly members the online referendum for the NYPIRG vote beginning at 11 a.m. Wednesday and said that the online form appears exactly as the assembly had approved it.

Cordova read parts of SA’s response letter to NYPIRG’s letter which addressed its concerns with the treatment members received at the SA meeting Feb. 2.

A crowd of about 25 NYPIRG members sat throughout the meeting with white gags tied around their mouths, and some held posters reading ‘silenced.’ The members were protesting how SA had treated them at the Feb. 2 meeting, said April Putney, a senior international relations and Spanish major.

‘We wanted to come here to voice our opinion silently,’ Putney said. ‘We didn’t want to disrupt their meeting because we respect what they’re doing. But we still wanted to show what we felt and believe.’

In other SA news:

n Vice President Travis Mason announced that the Armory Square shuttle will resume in time for Opening Weekend this fall.

SA will again sponsor a spring break shuttle to transport students from the Hancock International Airport and the Regional Transportation Center back to campus after spring break, SA President Drew Lederman announced.

n The SA assembly elected two new members: Jeffrey Paquette, a junior public relations and information management and technology major, and Sharon Clott, a freshman speech communications major.

n The assembly passed a bill approving the establishment of a Student Organization Council, which would consist of one voting seat for each organization recognized by the Office of Greek and Experiential Learning and one voting seat for one assembly representative.

Published on February 9, 2004 at 12:00 pm