Tears and beer flowed in near-equal quantities at Round Table Pizza Friday night, when a crowd of anxious A.S. Council hopefuls gathered to hear the results of last week’s election.
Tension quickly dissolved into drunken excitement on the crowded restaurant patio when the candidates and their supporters spotted election manager Frank Carroll ‘mdash; sole bearer of the results ‘mdash; arriving after a four-hour elections-grievance hearing.
Carroll’s eventual arrival was met with applause and scattered heckling, the most poignant of which came from outgoing A.S. President Donna Bean.
‘Get to the part that matters, Frank!’ Bean cried as Carroll explained the single transferable voting system, in which students rank candidates in order of preference.
Independent presidential candidate Utsav Gupta emerged victorious by a landslide, claiming leadership of the council and putting an end to three consecutive years of Student Voice! domination over the coveted top office.
Though he celebrated excitedly, surrounded by a cheering entourage of friends and campaign staffers, the triumphant Gupta adopted a serious tone to acknowledge the challenges of his new position.
‘The first thing I’m going to do is learn,’ Gupta said. ‘There’s a lot I have to learn if I’m going to accomplish things for the student body and do everything I promised. It’s a sizeable responsibility and I understand that, but I think the students are willing to work with me. Students want to see an A.S. [Council] that does tangible things for them. The first step to doing that is to learn as much as I can before I take office.’
Trailing Gupta by just under 1,000 votes was second-place candidate Adam Teitelbaum, face of the newly established Clean Slate. Student Voice! candidate Erin Brodwin followed Gupta and Teitelbaum, securing the fewest votes among the three presidential hopefuls.
‘I think all three of us ran a very solid race,’ Teitelbaum said after Gupta’s victory. ‘I think Utsav and Erin were phenomenal candidates, and I think any three of us in the position would have done great things. The students spoke, and they chose who they wanted.’
Gupta will be joined in his executive post by new Vice President of Finance and Resources Peter Benesch, Vice President of Student Life Ricsie Hernandez and Vice President of External Affairs Gracelynne West.
The newly elected councilmembers will take over seventh week.
Benesch, who worked with outgoing VP Finance Naasir Lakhani to develop a new system of allocating funds to student organizations, said he will devote his attention to ensuring the success of this revised process.
‘I want to make it easier for student o
rgs to go to A.S. so they’ll have funding for their events,’ he said. ‘They’re so stressed because they want to do this and this and they don’t have money for it.’ There are always barriers to them doing what we want them to do. Now, it’s like: If you have an idea, come to us and we’ll help you do what you want to do.’
West will have the opportunity to demonstrate her effectiveness in office right away, when the UC Board of Regents arrives at UCSD next month for a meeting where it is expected to raise systemwide tuition by as much as 10 percent.
‘I definitely want to mobilize everyone to go to the regents meeting ‘hellip; show my face, tell people about the regents meeting that’s coming up, definitely have students’ presence there,’ West said.
VP Student Life candidate Stephanie Usry, who ran with the Clean Slate, said she is still committed to fulfilling her campaign promises despite her defeat.
‘I’ll still work for student involvement, and maybe being outside of A.S. bureaucracy will be a good thing,’ Usry said.’
Usry, who aimed to increase student participation in the council’s proceedings, said she hopes the newly elected Hernandez will expand and improve upon the Student Life office.
‘Broaden the horizons of the office,’ she said, addressing Hernandez. ‘Don’t just focus on appointing the [associate vice presidents]. Make it’s something different from what it has been.’
Student Voice! fared well in the hotly contested campuswide senator race, claiming six out of eight senate seats with candidates Katie Hall, Wafa Ben Hassine, Bryant Pena, Desiree Prevo, Carli Thomas and Alex Vu.
Clean Slate snagged the remaining two senate positions, seating Tobias Haglund and Adam Kenworthy.’
A total of 5,397 students cast their votes on TritonLink last week.’ Eleanor Roosevelt College boasted the highest voter turnout rate, at 27 percent of its student body; Earl Warren College saw the lowest turnout rate at 22 percent.
The student-fee referendum on the Sixth College ballot was passed by a margin of 63 votes, increasing the college’s quarterly activity fee by $3 and filling out the Sixth College Council coffers. A similar referendum on the John Muir College ballot was shot down by a margin of 89 votes.
Readers can contact Reza Farazmand at [email protected].