Former J-Board Member Visits Council, Incites Tears

Former J-Board Member Visits Council, Incites Tears

Things started out juicy at last night’s council meeting, but they slowly wound down to the usual level of (un)excitement.
The tension and scandal commenced when former Judicial Board member Tanner Smith called Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Life and overseer of A.S. Council operations Gary Ratcliff a “shit-bag” and accused Associated Students Director Heather Belk and A.S. Advisor and Daily Operations Manager Hayley Weddle of being paid by the administration to spy on councilmembers.

“I have come here to publicly out and shame them,” Smith said. “Remember, you don’t need them. They need you, and your money. Students have the power.”

These accusations came two weeks after formal disciplinary action was brought against Smith and 10 others for what he described as his use of free speech at Founder’s Day. Belk and Weddle were both named on the list of witnesses against Smith.

Smith ended his rant by saying, “Heather and Hayley, fuck you. I hope you remember this for a long time.”
After Smith left the podium, Weddle exited the Forum in tears.

To ease tensions, Council decided to move into a five-minute recess, which turned into a 10-minute recess to eat potluck food — even politicians can’t help but eat their feelings — which, unsurprisingly, lasted longer than 10 minutes. When council returned to order, it was determined that Smith’s public input would be discussed at a later time.

AVP of Enterprise Operations Irene Chang then made a special presentation proposing to transition A.S. Lecture Notes to an online service called GradeBuddy. If it means we’ll feel better than UC Berkeley, whose A.S. Lecture Notes service went bankrupt and was discontinued last year, why not? Kidding. Maybe.

President Andy Buselt announced two projects slated for Winter Quarter 2014: a bike path to be constructed alongside Library Walk and a Graffiti Art Park at the Student Center.

AVP Concert and Events Sarah Harley then announced that a Sun God Festival survey is up and running. She said that the survey results would be taken into serious account when deciding who performs at Sun God, so if you want a say, take the survey! (Psst! Do me a favor and vote for The Naked and Famous.)

After almost a year of arguing and promoting changes to confront the transportation crisis, a transportation referendum was passed without a single objection or complaint, and brushed over so quickly I hardly realized it had passed. Congrats for passing the referendum, council, although its language was as ambiguous as the discussion was brief.
Council then moved on to bylaw revisions, passing several motions that aimed to improve council’s efficiency. An ironically inefficient amount of time was spent voting on whether to continue discussing or move on to a non-binding vote, then casting a non-binding vote, and then vote, finally.

And, at long last, Council finally found a second Revelle Senator, just in time for the quarter to end. To the new Revelle Senator, enjoy three weeks of no work. That’s all from me for this quarter; good luck on finals to you all, and have a great break.

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    UCSD studentDec 7, 2013 at 3:13 pm

    Administrators agreeing to serve as witnesses against students voicing their frustrations at university policy are “shit-bags”. I’m glad someone is calling them out for putting profit and unjust university policy over the welfare and concerns of students.

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