All for one, and one for unity, and united we stand, and all together now, we push, and … oh bother, I’ve gone and mixed it all up again. As if it wasn’t already hard enough to keep four classes worth of information straight, every winter quarter we have to go into finals week trying to sort out who’s running with who and for what and on which slate in the A.S. Council elections.
If you haven’t seen the posters, flyers, T-shirts and tattoos proclaiming the start of the yearly race to see who gets to hand out our million-plus student government fees, then you’re blinder than a bat with its eyes poked out by one of those cool pencils engraved with “”vote for me.””
What you may not know, unless I tell you (and boy am I gonna) is what the jobs really are, and how well they got done by the motley crew you elected last year. Maybe you’d rather vote uninformed. That’s OK. Some people like Russian roullette, too.
Speaking of shooting yourself in the head, that’s exactly what I asked a handful of current A.S. Council members to do. I asked A.S. Council President Doc Khaleghi, Vice President External Eugene Mahmoud, Commissioner of Judicial Affairs Amy Kuo, Commissioner of Services Matt Conroy, and Commissioner of Communications Rami Sharaawy to grade themselves on their service in office thus far.
I chose them on the basis of the following criteria: They hold all-campus elected positions; they are not running for re-election; they returned my e-mails.
As starved for attention and appreciation as our A.S. Council members are, they came through for me. Heck, if it weren’t for the stomach flu I picked up at the Rathskellar, this article would write itself.
As it is, my own gradings may be more fevered rambling than focused reasoning, but that in itself is a lot of what the A.S. Council is about. As our fair president said, “”I knew by being (1999-2000 President Tesh Khullar’s) assistant that one can’t really form an exact plan on anything. So I just left my promises as things I would work on. I said my overall goal was to improve student life and my personal focuses were housing, parking and athletics.””
On this, I give Khaleghi his lowest grade, a C- for amazingly weak and undefined promises. When you see candidates offering housing, parking or athletics as campaign promises, kick ’em in the shin. These are standing areas of advocacy for A.S. Council members. It’s as if a U.S. president could get away with promising not to allow any foreign countries to invade the country.
That said, Khaleghi has accomplished a great deal in these areas. He has tried to revise the system that the UC Office of the President uses to estimate living expenses. If this multi-campus, long-term effort succeeds, it will result in millions more financial aid dollars at every campus.
Khaleghi has actually managed to get 200 more yellow spaces, and has been effective in advocating other areas of this issue. He also played a hand in creating our new and dearly beloved mascot.
As A.S. Council president, Khaleghi has been a highly effective gadfly. His impressive people skills and determination have earned him (and us) far reaching success, including another shot at an all-campus commencement, a possible main campus trolley station, and a revision (still in the works) of the Student Organization Funding Advisory Board.
He merits an A- for these efforts.
As a galvanizer, Khaleghi has a poorer track record. Despite taking office with a huge portion of his “”Independent”” slate, Khaleghi’s council has shown none of the focused energy and strength voters expect from a landslide partisan victory. I give Khaleghi a B- for his competent but not dynamic leadership of his council.
All together, I agree with Khaleghi’s self-imposed grade of a B. He may be in USA Today’s top 100 students, but he has only partially fulfilled his office’s potential. But he ain’t done yet! Expect to see a great deal more from him in the coming weeks.
As you consider this year’s candidates for Khaleghi’s job, consider the balance they will have to strike between macro-advocacy and micro-management. When they come knocking at your door to drum up votes, ask them how they feel about everything that bugs you, and listen closely. Do they have real information, or just an opinion they know you will like? And don’t be afraid to kick ’em in the shin.
Tune in after spring break for more comments on more of these wacky, wild elected officials.
