Sachin Medhekar, a satirical candidate running for this year’s General Representative office in the Undergraduate Students Association Council election, recently talked with Daily Bruin campus reporter Jasmine Aquino about his campaign platforms and why he decided to run for USAC. The third-year computer science student and sole candidate of the new ¡Bruin Satyrists! slate spoke about his aims to increase the General Representative 1 stipend, decrease traffic on the 405 Freeway and install a scooter lane on campus, among other goals.
Daily Bruin: How did you get interested in USAC?
Sachin Medhekar: Well I mean, it’s our student governing body. I’m interested in trying to help as many people as I can, you know. … I just saw that being a part of USAC would be that role and I could do that for the students.
DB: What is the reasoning behind the inverted exclamation point in ¡Bruin Satyrists!?
SM: I’m a really big fan of languages that use that sort of grammar, Spanish is one of them. You don’t want to find yourself three or four syllables into a word and realize that you were supposed to be emphasizing it as a question or you were supposed to be exclaiming it. I think that’s very analogous to my stances and my platforms because you know right up front what I stand for. You’re not going to be halfway through my candidacy and realize that – you know – that I stood for this instead. People know right up front what they’re voting for, and I think that’s really well encapsulated by that logo.
DB: What are some of the slate’s platforms?
SM: The common ones that people know about are increasing pay for (General Representative 1) because people think it’s for all (General Representatives), but really it’s just for the position that I’ll be taking.
Another big one is building a scooter lane. I am an avid scooter-er.
DB: What are your other platforms?
SM: Bringing tobacco back to campus. We’re going to decrease traffic on the 405. We’re going to increase transparency in USAC by installing more windows in the upper floors of Kerckhoff.
I’m going to be holding an office hour every year for students that may or may not be 60 full minutes, maybe like 30 minutes.
I already made a Twitter account so that’s like, you know, half the battle. Snapchat maybe to kind of reach out (to students).
A lot of students really enjoy the food trucks on Thursdays. I’m going to implement a system that will bring them on Wednesdays, so they’ll be a whole 24 hours earlier so students can get their food faster because I don’t want to keep students waiting.
And also a really big one is adding more computers in the dining halls.
DB: Why is it important to add more computers in the dining halls?
SM: There’s only like two or three in each dining hall and I think we can really improve that.
Because how often is it that you’re eating in there for Late Night and you realize that the five-page paper that you only finished three pages of is due in, like, 10 minutes and you don’t have time to go back to your room, or whatever. Having the computers there would be helpful.
And often you’re eating something and you want to Google something. You don’t really trust your phone to accurately display the Google results because you need a bigger desktop screen. And I totally understand that, I’m a computer science student. I understand the need to have a larger computer screen.
DB: Why do you think it’s important to bring tobacco back on campus?
SM: Well I’m not even a smoker, but you know UCLA has been around since – arguably – 1919, we’ve been around for a hundred years now. So why change a system that works?
And beyond just that, you know smoking and hookah and things like that, those are a part of people’s cultural identity. We’re suppressing people for who they are and what their culture is and I think that’s not right.
I’m here to represent all students, not just students who don’t smoke.
DB: If elected, how do you plan to announce and conduct your office hours?
SM: I understand that it will be difficult with the number of people who want to see me on a daily basis, which is already high. What I would do is I would either tweet or Snapchat out an announcement probably 15 or 20 minutes before it begins.
DB: Have you spoken to any students on campus to campaign or have you been flyering?
SM: No, I’m not trying to bother students.
A lot of people want to know why I won’t reach out to student groups, and that’s because, you know, they’re having their meetings and I don’t want to be in there during those. That’s why I’ll have that office hour so they can come to me if they need me. They do them, I do me.
I haven’t been flyering personally but I had, like, 238 people volunteer to flier for me but they all called in sick. But, you know, I have a poster which exists so that’s that.
DB: Who helped you put up your signboard?
SM: I hired a group of second- and third-graders and they worked for a solid 12 hours straight. But it was good, I called them interns and they had juice boxes. They didn’t have much food, but they did a good job with what they had.
DB: How will you decrease traffic on the 405?
SM: It would be like a carpool lane, but called the Bruin Lane. We would give out special license plate frames – decorative, of course – that you’d put on your car as a student and it (would allow) you on the Bruin Lane. And alumni of four years could also use the Bruin Lane.
And of course the Bruin Lane would be painted blue and gold because we’re Bruins and those are our colors.
DB: How much are you planning to raise your monthly stipend to?
SM: I’ll raise it to $1,500 a month. I think that’s just right around where it should be.
Obviously when I lobby for it, I’ll shoot for around $1,700 so that I can come down to $1,500 to look like the nice guy, you know?
DB: What if you win General Representative 2 or 3 instead of General Representative 1?
SM: It would be really hard for me to swallow something like being only 2 or 3, but I would have to hear what the students want.
At the same time I’m not going to set a ground rule that I won’t accept those positions. I don’t want to abandon the students immediately because maybe the votes were counted wrong and I was supposed to be (General Representative) 1. But obviously that’s what I’m running for – (General Representative) 1.