The A.S. Council returned from Spring Break renewed,
refreshed and lacking the quorum necessary to amend its constitution. A
shortage of voting members in attendance prevented councilmembers from passing
an amendment they spent the majority of the meeting discussing.

The amendment at issue would have changed the constitution
to mandate the creation of a “facility advisory board” before a facility fee
referendum could be placed on the ballot. Although abstract at first, the
council dissected the amendment to
clarify its intentions.

Alumni representative Garo Bournoutian, a cosponsor of the
amendment, and representatives from the Graduate Student Association urged the
council to approve the amendment in the interest of present and future
students.

“For any referendum that is a campus-based fee, instead of
administrators telling you, ‘Approve this,’ you have a basic framework of
information of what should be in a referendum,” Bournoutian said of the
proposed amendment.

If passed, the amendment would require facility-fee
referenda to spell out what kinds of services and amenities would be provided
in new facilities. The creation of facility advisory boards would also serve to
oversee facility operations.

Bournoutian used recent controversy over the RIMAC Annex, which
is being funded by student fees and is scheduled to open in 2009, to illustrate
his point. Despite polling by the A.S. Council and the GSA that indicated
students wanted more workout equipment in the annex, administrators decided to
stock it with espresso and new meeting spaces, among other things.

According to Bournoutian, the amendment would improve the
wording of future referenda so that student input would guide the use of fees
more definitively.

Despite cycles of student turnover every four or five years,
referenda for facilities may cover decades of debt payments. This currently
gives administrators with lengthier UCSD careers more influence than students
in overseeing the long-term use of student facility fees, Bournoutian said.

A.S. President Marco Murillo spoke in favor of the
amendment, saying that it would protect student fees and “essentially take
power away from administrators.”

Although there was widespread support for the amendment at
the meeting, the council had to delay a final vote tally until Friday because
of its voting member deficiency.

After discussing an amendment it couldn’t pass, the council
proceeded to open forum, its de facto dustbin for random bits of information.

“On Monday, some things in the Price Center Expansion will
be opening,” said Thurgood Marshall Chair Lana Blank. By “some things,” Blank
was referring to walkways, seating areas and the Sunshine Market. The market
will be “bigger, longer and uncut,” compared to the Sunshine Store that it is
replacing, according to Blank, although she cautioned it still might not live
up to the quality of other grocery stores.

The meeting ended with the council singing a belated happy
21st birthday to Vice President of Finance and Resources Sarah Chang.
Fortunately for her, enough councilmembers were in attendance to meet the
quorum for well-wishing.