Impeachment proceedings against Student Association President Allie Curtis will likely begin during an executive session at Monday’s general assembly meeting if Curtis doesn’t resign before then.

If two-thirds of the general assembly votes to impeach Curtis, the Judicial Review Board will deliberate on the case with evidence and statements collected by the Board of Elections and Membership committee. The JRB will either rule on the impeachment or send the case back to the general assembly for a final vote, according to the SA Constitution.

In an emergency cabinet meeting called Thursday evening, SA cabinet members criticized what they viewed as lack of accountability and transparency from Curtis.

“It became apparent that Allie was not going to change,” said Parliamentarian Ben Jones, “and we felt that it was necessary to have a change in the position.”

The 9 p.m. meeting was called for cabinet members to air grievances about Curtis’ leadership and what they said was an attempt to provide a way for an individual to supersede university regulations. By meeting’s end, the cabinet adopted a resolution calling for Curtis’ resignation by a 7-2 vote. Curtis said she has no intention of stepping down.

While discussing structural changes to SA at a March 24 cabinet meeting, Curtis proposed to create the nonvoting position of a press secretary, separate from the public relations director.

Jones said the suggestion was framed as any other motion but, in actuality, was an attempt by Curtis to allow Colin Crowley to continue his role in SA, though she was aware he was on a leave of absence from the university. Crowley served as chair of the Public Relations Committee until his resignation Sunday.

“At the time that we were voting on this, a majority of cabinet was not aware of Colin’s status,” Jones said. “She knew that she had ulterior motives for this. And she knew that we didn’t know and she was taking advantage of our ignorance.”

Board of Elections and Membership Chair Emily Ballard learned of Crowley’s status as a nonstudent last week and approached Curtis and Chief of Staff PJ Alampi. Heading into Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Ballard said, she was under the impression the three needed to ask for Crowley’s resignation. When Curtis proposed the position of press secretary, Ballard realized that wasn’t the case.

“PJ and I had to pull Allie out of the executive session to tell her that would not follow our guidelines, and that would be doing the same thing that’s already been done by letting him stay in this position,” Ballard said.

As BEM chair, Ballard will head the committee charged with investigating Curtis’ actions. Alampi declined to comment for this article, referring questions to Ballard and Jones.

In a previous interview, Curtis told The Daily Orange both she and Alampi were aware of Crowley’s status as a non-matriculated student since meeting with him a few weeks into the semester. At that point, Crowley relinquished his administrative duties and his voting privileges were reassigned to Cara Johnson, who previously served as co-chair of the Public Relations Committee in an informal capacity.

Jones said he cannot recall whether he was informed of the decision to reassign Crowley’s vote on cabinet to Johnson, but said he was not consulted.

“I feel, personally as parliamentarian, I should have been consulted about switching a vote,” Jones said.

During Thursday’s approximately 50-minute-long meeting, cabinet members conveyed to Curtis their issues with her leadership, including lack of accountability, accessibility and transparency, Jones said. Curtis attended the meeting to make her case and field complaints.

As the discussion continued, Jones said it became apparent Curtis was not receptive to the criticism. At that point, Jones motioned to vote on the resolution calling for Curtis’ resignation.

“When it became apparent what most of us were saying the same thing over and over again, that our grievances weren’t really going to go away from this discussion, that’s when I brought forward the motion,” Jones said.

But Vice President Duane Ford said he believed Jones headed into Thursday’s meeting with the intention of calling for Curtis’ resignation. Ford and Johnson, public relations chair, were the two voting cabinet members who opposed the resolution.

“The resolution was already pre-drafted by Ben Jones, our parliamentarian,” Ford said. “He brought it with him to the meeting, so that was the goal from the very beginning.”

Ford offered to meet one-on-one with Curtis to relay the cabinet members’ concerns, but the emergency meeting undercut his ability to do so, he said. The meeting was emotionally-charged and tense, with cabinet members raising their voices and blasting Curtis for her decisions.

“It was very much the majority of cabinet members bashing, yelling at, accusing and attacking Allie and her leadership abilities and her decision making,” Ford said.

Though Ford said he disagrees with Curtis and Alampi’s decision to allow Crowley to continue serving as public relations director, he does not believe Curtis’ actions call for impeachment. Curtis was popularly elected by the student body and should be trusted with making executive decisions, Ford said.

Ford said he believes invoking impeachment would be counterproductive to SA’s goal of serving the university’s students. If Curtis is impeached, a new president would be chosen from among the cabinet’s voting members to serve the remainder of the term, or a campus-wide election would be conducted by the Board of Elections and Membership.

“To me, it’s the biggest waste of time that we could be doing right now,” Ford said. “To put it simply, we’re not doing our job.”

Published on March 30, 2013 at 12:06 am

Contact Debbie: dbtruong@syr.edu | @debbietruong