Presidential appointments have been a flash point of political
conflict for undergraduate student government this summer, but
councilmembers have come to a compromise over heavily contested
appointments.
Ending a bitter battle over appointments to the Student Fee
Advisory Committee, the Undergraduate Students Association Council
approved second-year sociology student Gregory Cendana and
fourth-year Chicana/o studies and political science student Daniela
Conde for two-year appointments at its Aug. 23 meeting. The
committee is the sole advisory body at UCLA that makes
recommendations on how student fees should be allocated to campus
entities.
Councilmembers from the Bruins United slate had previously
attempted to prevent council from voting on the appointments at an
Aug. 16 meeting by staging a walkout after attempts to negotiate
the appointments stalled.
The difficulty in making appointments stems from the fact that
the president holds the sole power to select candidates for
positions, but a majority vote from USAC is required to approve the
appointment. On this year’s council, the president and the
majority come from opposing slates.
But after a week of negotiations, both sides of the argument
came to a compromise, which involved accepting President Jenny
Wood’s candidates for the Student Fee Advisory Committee and
a group of candidates with diverse viewpoints for the Undergraduate
Students Association Judicial Board.
“We had a lot of discussions about the appointments in
general, and I reiterated to many councilmembers the qualifications
of the appointees, and really stressed why I think they’re
the only qualified candidates,” Wood said.
Councilmembers said coming to a consensus on the appointments
was especially difficult because not all councilmembers were
willing to work together with the same goal in mind.
“We had met four or five times on SFAC and J-Board,”
said General Representative Ryan Smeets. Each time, they were
stonewalled, he said.
Smeets said his slate isn’t trying to get a Bruins United
majority on any body, but due to their commitment to get fair and
balanced students appointed, there are certain candidates they
cannot compromise on.
“We’re in a situation right now where we’re
doing a great job trying to extend our hand and we’re not
being met on (Wood’s) side,” Smeets said.
Wood maintains that the controversy that has plagued the
appointments this year, and the staunch refusal of both sides to
compromise until forced, stems from elected councilmembers’
role as student advocates, not as politicians.
“This wasn’t an issue of any sort of politics, but
an issue of wanting the most experienced and the most qualified
students to sit on these committees,” Wood said.
Facilities Commissioner Joe Vardner said the end result for the
Judicial Board is that the political leanings of appointees will
now be fairly distributed between slates, interests and those who
are truly unbiased and have no political leanings.
“J-Board, since it’s the only board which can
override council … we’re trying to get it as unbiased and
non-partisan as possible, and it really hasn’t been that way
the past couple of years because council has been dominated by one
slate,” Vardner said.
Although council’s lines of communication may not be fully
open and elected councilmembers with opposing viewpoints may not be
in favor of working together, only recently have outside
discussions and negotiations streamlined happenings at the council
table.
Since its installation in May, this year’s council has
struggled to come to conclusions over heavily contested issues,
with meetings frequently adjourning frequently past midnight. The
council’s efforts to prevent these marathon meetings in the
future include more outside discussion and preset time limits for
agenda items.
But appointments aren’t over yet. This week council plans
to approve its budget review director, who oversees the committee
that determines operational budget allocations for student
groups.
In spring, the appointment of a budget review director proved
problematic and ultimately impossible for council ““
eventually it was forced to appoint someone temporarily to position
and continue voting at a later date.
Vardner expressed concern with the late and sudden appointment,
saying that he and other councilmembers were not consulted.
“After such a huge deal was raised over appointing an
interim (budget review director) ““ three weeks of voting on
that in spring ““ no one’s opinion was asked for this
time around, and that’s kind of alarming,” Vardner
said.
Councilmembers maintain that they are working on improving
inter-council dynamics and communication, but work still needs to
be done to realize their maximum effectiveness for the student
body.
“It’s issues like appointments where we need to see
compromise on all sides, and we haven’t seen that yet. But
we’ve got the rest of the year,” Vardner said.