As the semester begins to wind down, I have been increasingly wound up regarding the prospects of graduation and employment. My interest in your Student Assembly has been slowly eroded to a passing curiosity. This evening I elected to jam my cares away at the Meridian’s open mic, which you can look for in the Arts & Culture section of an upcoming Virginia Informer. Former SA Vice President and over eager graduate senator Ryan Ruzic was on note-taking duty. Let’s see how he did.
“Finance Appeal to pay for “Mark Mathabane Discusses Apartied” brings in speaker for 2,000 dollars. Passes 17 yes 2 no. Some conflict about the amount to give them, I guess they wanted 4,100.”
Ryan didn’t have a direct role in this action so he’s a little confused why people still care about it.
“FOIAs for All Act (Curt): They changed it to go through the policy committee if groups want to do it, the policy and finance positively recommended it. Curt makes clear that the bill wasn’t meant to help LWC, suggests subtly that the Policy committee might be a hard hurdle I make a great point about how this bill would let other groups do the same thing the SA can already do, use SA money to FOIA shit. A few senators make other, lesser points, all in favor, but Shep Walker seems concerned that it’s going through Policy Committee instead of Finance Committee. Zack wants to make sure we let people know about this. Unanimously consent passes.”
Ryan chose to jot down all the cute little comments made during debate, but forgets to mention that the bill earmarks $10,000 from the consolidated reserve to to help students or organizations make a FOIA request. LWC refers to the Living Wage Coalition who made a brief appearance and endorsed the bill, immensely irritating its neo-conservative sponsors.
“Graduate Policy Association person talks about bringing Tim Kaine down, FinCom turned her down for money apparently and she wants us to know that the person from her group who asked for it made some mistakes in how he presented it to us. It seems that the request would have him in Wren where only a few people (ie this group) could go, and wouldn’t change it to a larger venue. She is asked by senate why they wouldn’t move it to a bigger venue. She says that the admins (Michael Fox) was adamant that they not do that.”
This isn’t really important, but I first read “bringing Tim Kaine down” as an attempt to politically topple him. Finally, the Graduate Policy Association is taking some real action.
“Endowment Act (Ruzic): if more than 100,000 build up in the consolidate reserve we sent it to the endowment. I point out that it’s a fundamental change that would insure that literally hundreds of thousands don’t build up in the reserve. People really like it, Noah praises me effusively, passes 18-1-1.”
I’m not really sure why the SA isn’t just giving this money back to students, but at least they aren’t giving away any of our money to that stupid senior class gift. Next Tuesday a senator will try to do this. Come to the meeting. Stop him.
“Harry Potter Trolley Act (Douglas) – Moves to old business, funds 250 dollars to keep Williamsburg Area Transport Authority to run trolley service through 3am Friday the 19th of November. I guess the date was chosen because the Harry Potter movie is that day. People like it, a little confused about why we’re just doing this one day. Douglas says that it’s a test to see how popular it is.”
I plan on sketchily hanging around outside the New Town cinema into the wee hours of the morning like a 14-year-old just to take advantage of the extra transportation.
Thanks, Ryan!
