Last night’s A.S. meeting got off to a sluggish start, due to technical difficulties involving the microphones and projection screen. Members of the public waited to showcase their PowerPoint presentations while various councilmembers scrambled around, fiddling with wires and electronics throughout the forum.
John Muir College Council Chair Daisy Chavez greeted the entire council and gifted members with green highlighters before rushing off to take a quiz.
Members from the Student Sustainability Collective promoted their Resolution in Support of Water Conservation at UCSD, and also provided an update on the formation of the Sustainability Resource Center. They presented their charter, and also discussed the structure of the collective, so as to answer any questions before the council voted on the matter.
Following the presentations, President Utsav Gupta provided some ‘institutional memory’ before proposing that the council ‘only allocate what is necessary now to get to fall,’ and utilize income from the various A.S. enterprises so as to be less dependent on student fees.
His proposed changes sparked a lengthy question-and-answer session following the end of his slideshow.
‘It needs to cover at least the big events that happen in the fall,’ Associate Vice President of Student Advocacy Frank Carroll pointed out.
Associate Vice President of Concerts and Events Garrett Berg stepped up to the mic after Gupta for one last presentation at his final meeting. He brought the council mint-condition baby Sun Gods and welcomed any and all questions regarding last Friday’s Sun God Festival, most of which concerned wristbands and water bottles.
‘Fifteen thousand people panicked, and you can’t process 15,000 people at once,’ Berg said as an explanation for the frightfully long wristband line on Friday morning. ‘But we never ran out of wristbands, so next year, people know not to panic.’
After addressing people’s questions, Berg shifted gears to discuss the delicate and complicated matter of the reorganization of the Concerts and Events Office, which is necessary due to the immense time commitment required of all office staff and affiliates.
Various amendments were made to the sustainability-related items on the agenda before they were approved, to the relief of the ever-patient members of the Social and Environmental Sustainability Committee.
The appointment of associate vice president positions went fairly smoothly, but snagged when the appointment of Aries Yumul for the position of AVP local affairs was briefly contested on the basis that there may not have been enough senators present for the interview process. His appointment was sealed with 10 ayes and 11 abstentions.
Toward the end of the meeting, the entire council sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Campuswide Senator Alex Vu, while Campuswide Senator Bryant Pena enthusiastically picked him up and spun him around.
‘I just want to congratulate everyone for having a responsible Sun God and not winding up at detox,’ Carroll said.