With eight out of 13 undergraduate student government offices
going to members of the Students First! slate, the balance of next
year’s council has certainly shifted SF!’s way ““
but councilmembers from both elected slates stressed the importance
of working together.
SF! won five out of the six remaining positions in the
Undergraduate Students Association Council’s runoff elections
Thursday night. Members of the slate also swept the three executive
positions of president, internal vice president and external vice
president in last week’s general elections.
The other slate to be represented on next year’s council,
Students United for Reform and Equality ““ which also proved
to be SF!’s toughest competition ““ will hold two seats
on council.
The remaining three seats will be filled by independents.
Once at the table, most elected councilmembers said they would
concentrate on working as a whole council.
Now that the elections are over, Erica Husse, the Financial
Supports commissioner-elect from the S.U.R.E. slate, said she hopes
that she can work with council as a whole on goals that every
student wants.
Most members of the SF! slate shared the same sentiment.
“We need to work as an entire council, whether it is with
S.U.R.E. or the independents and use everyone’s resources
effectively,” said Matt Kaczmarek, external vice
president-elect.
He added that the responsibility of the executive offices next
year will be to make sure everyone feels included.
Some elected members of S.U.R.E. said they will be making sure
next year’s SF!-dominated council does not reverse
S.U.R.E.’s accomplishments of this year.
“We are going to hold the executive offices in
check,” said Josh Lawson, the top vote-getting general
representative-elect.
He added that he will make sure USAC remains representative of
all student groups and not only the groups that supported SF! in
this year’s elections.
President-elect Anica McKesey from SF! said she would be fair in
her budget allocations to groups.
“It’s not about checking people or about power,
it’s about providing equal access to (student groups),”
McKesey said. “All student organizations that can demonstrate
that that they are adding to the student experience will get
funding.”
Justin Levi, the current budget review director, said he is
skeptical about Anica’s definition of fairness. Levi is
affiliated with the S.U.R.E. slate and will remain budget review
director until June. The new council will be sworn in next
Tuesday.
Defeated S.U.R.E. candidates said they too will be checking the
SF! majority from beyond the council table.
The small margins of victory, especially in the runoff
elections, mandates that S.U.R.E remain involved in USAC, said Adam
Harmetz, the S.U.R.E presidential candidate who was defeated last
week. Some seats were won with differences of 11 and 29 votes.
Next year’s council balance will differ greatly from this
year’s, in which no slate had a clear majority of power.
For most of the year, the split led to many heated debates and
occasional deadlocks on the table. Meetings sometimes ran for five
hours with emotions running high between the two slates. The
difference often came through the independent votes.
Council this year consisted of four S.U.R.E. members, five
Student Empowerment! members and five independents for most of the
year. Financial Supports Commissioner Andrew LaFlamme separated
from S.U.R.E. at the beginning of spring quarter. Before the
elections began, SE! changed its name to SF!.