Keshav Tadimeti: Inactivity of USAC officers prevents council’s success

Winter has come for the undergraduate student government.

With the fall quarter learning curve behind us, the cycle will begin anew: Undergraduate Students Association Council officers will begin to feel the heat and scramble to cross off items on their to-do lists, awaiting end-of-term evaluations and the ever-looming spring quarter election.

But, despite this soon-to-develop drama, there is something far more troubling lurking in Kerckhoff 417: inactivity. On one hand, there are council members who appear to be working tirelessly to champion student issues. On the other, some council members have little to show for their efforts.

This needs to change. USAC officers who have been mired in idleness must hold themselves accountable and do good on their promises to the student body. This means consistently coming to council meetings with updates, actively participating in council discussions and moreover, demonstrating unwavering transparency to students and fellow officers. The burden of representing students should not fall on just the shoulders of the more prominent members of council – all members have a role to play.

Sluggishness on the council is nothing new to the student body, and instances of lax council members have been reported for years on end. What’s concerning this time around is that it comes at a moment when students’ needs are at an all-time high. Campus mental health resources are scarce, off-campus student housing is drying up and tuition is back on the rise. And that’s not even mentioning students’ growing concerns over the increasingly disconnected university administration and the polarized political climate.

Several council members have been hard at work, though. Be it organizing student campaigns against detrimental city policies or installing solar umbrellas in Kerckhoff patio, it’s clear the council has made progress this year. But some members don’t seem to have gotten the memo.

Case in point: Ariel Rafalian. As the council’s Financial Supports commissioner, he has pledged, among many things, to provide rentable phone chargers at libraries and teach students interview skills. Yet, he hasn’t done much more than getting six free phone chargers in the libraries, drafting a syllabus for a Fiat Lux and allowing fellow Bruins to intern as a part of his office. Forty more chargers should show up in the next three to four weeks and a couple of personal finance workshops are scheduled for this year, but that’s after nearly 10 months since Rafalian took office. And sure, if you consider posting vague questions on Facebook such as “If you were a superhero, which would you be and why?” as interview preparation, then he’s taught students some interview skills.

It’s hopeful to think Rafalian at least plays a part in council discussions, but as of the past two council meetings, he has yet to get off his phone and open his mouth for even so much as an update from his office.

And it’s not just Rafalian. Council members such as Zoe Borden, one of the three general representatives, appear to have barely scrapped for peanuts when it comes to representing the student body. Borden updated the council two weeks ago about working to add hyperlinks to MyUCLA to point to the Financial Aid and Scholarship Resource Center pages, but it doesn’t take someone with a computer science degree to tell you those are frivolously trivial tasks.

These may seem like isolated instances, but they underscore a worrying practice where responsibilities shirked by some council members are being forced onto others. For example, the Financial Supports Commission has been largely absent in the fight for more affordable tuition – one of the office’s main purposes – which the external vice president’s office has undertaken with great ardor. And the fight for better access to mental health resources has been largely assumed by the Student Wellness Commission, despite other council members’ pledges to work on it.

What’s more saddening, however, is that, according to USAC President Danny Siegel, there is no procedural way for council members to hold each other accountable because there is no feasible way to punish legislative inertia.

This is unacceptable. Council members who have been shying away from their duties must turn a new leaf and fulfill their responsibilities. It’s more than obvious to fellow council members and members of the student body who these deadweights are. The council’s strength lies in the diversity and diverse interests of its fourteen members, and abandoning one’s obligations only hurts the rest of the council.

Certainly, this may seem a pointed attack at specific council members, but my intention is not to tear down USAC’s achievements. The council has taken a crucial role in helping the student body to navigate the numerous circumstances that face our university and nation, and it’s ignorant to look past all that it has accomplished in less than a year. But it is precisely because of this importance that it must be stressed that all council members – not just the eminent ones – have a role to play.

Before we know it, the 2017 USAC election will be racing toward us, and it will be too late for lethargic officers to assemble their cases to the student body. If council members are to weather the scrutiny of students, they need to carry out their roles with commitment and honesty.

Last I checked, though, checking your Snapchat feed during council meetings isn’t the way to do that.