The A.S. Council’s decision last week to keep the Grove Caffe open was voided when the A.S. Judicial Board ruled Tuesday that the verdict was reached using incorrect procedure.
Councilmembers voted against discontinuing Grove operations under the assumption that a two-thirds majority was necessary to approve the legislation. A.S. President Donna Bean immediately contested that only a simple majority should have been necessary.
Fifteen councilmembers voted in favor of the legislation, while 11 voted against it. A simple-majority voting system would have resulted in the’ Grove’s closure.
The board reached its decision after reviewing Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, the council’s primary document of parliamentary conduct. According to Judicial Board Chair Stephen Juarez, the vote should have depended only on a simple majority. The board has five days from its decision on Tuesday to release its official statement on the matter.
Given the option of reconsidering the legislation at a meeting last night, councilmembers moved to table the revote until May 6 after a debate arose over the finality of the Judicial Board’s decision.
Though several councilmembers wished to hold the revote at last night’s meeting, others asserted that the council should wait until the board’s official statement on the issue before’ voting once more on the legislation.
Others said the vote should be taken only after members of the public had been notified that the legislation was being reconsidered.
‘How can we go ahead and talk on this when there’s no one else here to have this discussion with?’ Vice President of Finance and Resources Naasir Lakhani said.
Similarly, Sixth College Senator John Cressey said the council should wait until the Grove’s student managers were present to vote on the legislation.
‘Give them the dignity of seeing what happens, in person, to the place they spend all their time,’ Cressey said.
Cressey, along with several other councilmembers, added that the legislation should be reopened for discussion, given the controversy surrounding the voting process.
However, others on the council ‘mdash; among them Associate Vice President of Student Advocacy Frank Carroll and AVP Academic Affairs Lana Blank ‘mdash; said the legislation should not be reopened for discussion since the Judicial Board’s decision only nullified the results of the vote, not the deliberation that preceded it.
‘They didn’t throw out the discussion. ‘hellip; What they threw out was the vote,’ Carroll said.
Speaker Jordan Taylor added that the vote was not being reopened, but rather that an entirely new vote was coming before the council.
‘This isn’t a reopening of the vote,’ Taylor said. ‘It’s as if we haven’t had a vote on this.’
Readers can contact Reza Farazmand at [email protected].