Central Council Minutes, 1996 October 9

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Central Council Meeting

October 9, 1996

irm hwab: Okay. Listen up everybody. We're going

to call this meeting to order at 7:34.

Roll Call

Those in attendance: .

Pat Albano, Marc Alessi, Glenda Bautista, Bridget Bergen,

Kamau Blount, Gina Bonica, Amos Brunson, Darlene Classen,

Dina Delicce, Jess Fassler, Craig Fetterman, Neil Freilich,

Jen Hird, David Kalinsack, Larry Kauffman, David Kindberg,

Michelle Lebowits, Jessica Morales, Ashwani Prabhakar,

Stephanie Reich, Johanna Rosenberg, Jodi Rosoff, Micah

Rozenbaum, Steven Schwab, Matt Shapiro, Mike Simon, Glenn

Stein, Todd Teichman, Dori Travieso, Ted Tsakonas, Valerie

Vazquez, Gregory Wahl, Ken Woodward.

Chairman Schwab: Okay. Once again -- I feel like I’m
saying this every meeting -- we have a packed agenda, so let’s try to
get through it as quickly as we can. No, I’m sorry, not as quickly --
let’s just be efficient about our time. We're going to start out with
approval of the minutes for September 11, 1996. I made 25 copies of,
and I think Tali did her best to spread the copies amongst and around
the table. We’re not going to go through it page by page, obviously.
What takes up the most of this is 400 Policy which was revised and
approved at this meeting, so there is no necessity to go through it.

I went through and found a couple problems. The Vice Chairman was
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referred to as Vice President Freilich a few times in the minutes. So
we'll make changes accordingly for that. And there’s some
misspellings, but generally, I think the minutes are pretty accurate.
So what I’m going to do is have everybody throughout the night, you
can look through them. We’re not going to approve them right now.

So, in closing remarks we'll approve the minutes so you guys can have
a chance to look through them a little bit. They’re pretty long. So
that’s what we'll do from now on. Actually, from now on, you'll have
minutes on this meeting, which will be approved for next meeting so
we’ll get everybody a copy of the minutes. So ordinarily what you
would receive today, you'll have a week to look over, and then it will
be approved the following week. That’s how we're going to do that
from now on.

All right, tonight we have with us members of the outing club who
will be addressing council. I'd like to welcome Ariana, who is the
president of the Outing Club. I ask for everyone’s cooperation,
Ariana is just going to talk a little bit about the incident that took
place last week, and she’1l entertain some questions. Again, ask
questions through me.

Ariana: Hi. I guess all of you heard about the incident
that happened on Sunday two weeks ago when Steve Wankmuller was found
missing. The Hiking trip went out on Snowy Mountain, and he was
reported missing for three days and then found early Wednesday at
10:30. He had fallen 150 feet off a ledge into a ravine. There are a
lot of rumors going around about this story, and I just want to clear

a lot of these up, because this is a tragic horrible incident that
happened. I want to brief you step by step of what happened so if
there are ary misconceptions, they will be cleared up, and also to ask
you that if anybody asks you in the future about this trip to clear up
any of the misconceptions that are going on.

I’m going to start from the beginning of what we did to preplan
for this trip, what happened on the trip, the follow-up procedures of
this trip, and then what the club will do in the future. If you
didn’t know, the outing club itself does extensive trips. We have
trip leader meetings to help prepare people to go on these trips and
to lead these trips, and Ron Kessler, who is an Albany graduate, was
leading this trip. He had gotten off the Appalachian Trail after
hiking for several months, and he was a former outing club president.
So he was leading this trip of 11 students, in which Steve was
participating on, up Snowy Mountain, and it was a barbecue hike.

For each trip, the trip leader has to call every member who is
going on this trip to prepare them for it; what to bring, what to
expect, what the whether will be like, and if the participant feels
like they're worthy of doing this. This trip was an intermediate trip
-- beginner - intermediate trip. What made it intermediate was, you
physically had to be fit, which everybody on the trip was physically
fit. It was beginner because it was a pretty simple hike with some
difficult steep parts but no technical instruments needed. So
everyone was prepped on what the trip was about, what to bring, and
what to expect.

Trip was led early that morning which they got to the top no

problem and had a wonderful barbecue at the top. On the way down,
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four people left first. Before hand every person, before they leave,
the group is told to stay on the trail, stick together as a group, to
support each other if anybody needs each other, and to kind of take it
slow at certain points and to, again, see if anyone is physically fit.
The leader often sweeps, which goes behind in case anybody is going
slower. There was a participant on the trip who had tendinitis and
was going slower, so he decided to go down sooner before everybody
left, but they went in a group of four. Now the trail -- the reason
why this was okay was because there are no cross trails. There is one
trail straight up and the same trails back down. So they thought if
they stick together on the trail, they’ll be fine, and there were
other people who were definitely experienced hikers in that group of
four. 45 minutes later, the seven of them proceeded to go down, Ron
in the sweep, who was the trip leader. He had stopped a few minutes
to re-adjust his pack while the six went on, and he heard a calling
for Steve not too far down from the top of the peak. They called for
Steve for a long time in which one of the members of the trip saw him
go off the trail at one point. They called for a while, and Ron
caught up not knowing too much what was happening, and they had
assumed that Steve went ahead, and the party of four assumed that he
was behind. So, they went down and after some period of calling, Ron
decided it was best to get the rest of the group down safely before it
was dark. ‘The moment they got down and realized that Steve wasn’t
out, they called the police, which the dispatcher called the rangers,
and the rangers sent seven people in to search that night for him.

They didn’t want to search too long and too loud, because if Steve was
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hurt, they didn’t want him to move too far and cause further damage,
so they started a more intense search next Monday morning. By
Wednesday, there were more than 45 rangers out searching for him in
which they found him about 450 feet of the trail, which is about a
quarter of a mile, which is probably about a ten minute walk at most
to that area off the trail which he had fallen.

Autopsy reports came in and he had several blows to the head, and
most likely it was instantaneous. This has caused a lot of hardships
on a lot of people, for the outing club, and a lot of rumors. It’s
been harsh because a lot of questions, including the parents, have
been asking me why did he go off the trail, and that we can’t know.
Only he knows. For the safety of the group, they didn’t look further
for him because they needed to get down safely instead of them trying
to find him, is why it took some time for them to find him.

There are a lot of questions of what could the Outing Club have
done at that point when he first was missing, I guess is what I’m
trying to clear up. They did the best thing, the safest thing that
they could do was the concern of the group first. They called for
him, they waited for him, they did everything for him to show up, but
he didn’t show up, and they had to get down before dark, and they
called the police. So as far as the safety procedures go, personally,
being a wilderness EMT, I think that they did the best thing that they
could at first.

What the Outing Club will do now is that, its been really hectic
in these past two weeks. We haven’t held a meeting -- tonight at 8:30

is going to be our first Outing Club meeting to kind of inform
everybody of the situation and also inform them that the memorial
service will be on Sunday at 3:00. That will be held at Chapel House.
The Outing Club sat down -- I couldn’t make it at the time the
officers sat down to talk about some of the things that the outing
club could have done differently on this trip and will do differently
in the future because I was with the DEC searching for Steve.
However, a big conclusion’ that -we got from many people, including the
DEC, including many experienced trip leaders, is that we actually did
the best thing for pre-prep and everything that we could have possibly
done on this trip. There's is nothing that we should have done
differently. However, there are things that -- just because this
incident is just such an eye opener because it’s just very bizarre in
Many senses because it was a beginner hike -- that we’re not ever
going to get tired of emphasizing that the wilderness can be a very
ambiguous place and can turn in any second. We're going to set up
packages for each person on every day hike that they will take that
will have a poncho, some food, a whistle, waterproof matches, a
thermal blanket, and water purification. So each member of the trip
will be carrying one of these with them with instructions of what to
do when they get lost. We're just going to prepare them before hand.
These things that we’re putting together now -- we’re also having
tripleader meetings. We're also shortening the number of members and
nonmembers that are allowed on each trip so there are fewer members
and nonmembers to each tripleader. All of these situations that we
are changing now and for the future -- if all these situations had

been taking place on this last Sunday trip, it wouldn’t have made a
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difference. The incident would still have happened. It was still an

accident by Steve, and there is no one to blame, so there is nothing
further I need to say. Are there any questions about this situation?

Larry Kauffman: How’s the family doing?

Ariana: I went to the wake on Saturday, and I went to go to
the funeral but I got sick. The wake -- I went in, and they were very
perplexed and confused about this whole situation. Steve was from
‘Queens. It was his second hiking trip. He’s done three Outing Club
trips, he did a climbing at the wall, and it was his second trip. His
whole family just had questions, like, "What's hiking about, and how is
it different from going on the sidewalks of Queens"? It was just
very, very hard. I talked with them for two hours. Both parents
seemed very together, very with it. It was more the uncles and aunts
that were very upset, but I think it will hit the parents later.

Larry Kauffman: About the memorial service, I made the
mistake of reading the ASP, which printed the wrong time. Could you
tell us when the real memorial service is.

Ariana: The real memorial service is Sunday, 3:00 at the
Chapel House. The family is very religious so there is going to be
prayers said and verses read. Also, after, hopefully, I’m organizing
to get a tree planted near Indian Lake in memory of him. Also, as far
as the ASP goes, no, there is no snow on the mountain; no, it was a
beautiful clear day, there was no fog, it didn’t rain until later that
night, and it is named Snowy Mountain but there is no snow on the
mountain. The dispatcher that they got the information from only made

one telephone call to the DEC, and that’s all they knew, that’s all
they did.

Kamau Blount: I’m just curious, I don’t mean this ina
hostile manner’or anything, but is it common for people to wander --
I’ve never been hiking or anything -- is it common for people that are
in groups to wander off the path?

Ariana: Well it’s on and off depending on the group. It
depends upon the strength of the group leader too. If they don’t warn
anybody or don’t tell anybody -- which hasn’t happened in the Outing
Club in the past. I know Tanya was on a trip earlier and some people
started going off, and they went right back on the trail after Tanya
spoke to them. It doesn’t happen too often at all, especially if
there on a beginner trip, and if you are on an advanced trip, you know
the repercussions of going off the trail and you usually don’t. It
doesn’t happen too often, no, but it does happen.

Kamau Blount: Are there any precautions that are going to
be taken to curb the amount of flexibility that beginners would have
in regards to wandering off from the trail?

Ariana: Well, they’re warned beforehand to stay with the
group. It’s hard as a tripleader because you don’t want to hold every
18 year old’s hand on the way down, and you don’t want to always
assume that they’re always going to do -- well, you do. You assume
that they’re going to do the absolute worst, but you give them the
benefit of the doubt that they’re smart enough to listen to what you
said before. I mean, there is only so many times that you can repeat
yourself, and you can’t always know what actions an individual is

going to take.
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Tanya: We do have precautions like using the buddy system
where you keep in contact with the other person. We do try to keep
everyone in eye distance. People could see him right before he went
off. It was an individuals decision that led to this happening.
Before the trips, people are given the information. Before they went
back down they were again made aware of what needs to be done, but
these are adults who go on these trips.

Ariana: And each adult signs a waiver form.

Tanya: We go on trails that are clearly marked. We have a
guide that has the level of what we’re doing. Every precaution is
taken.

Chairman Schwab: Any other questions? (No response) I
just want to thank you very much for coming tonight. I think that
Ariana deserves a lot of credit, as well as the outing club, for their
efforts to keep students at the university informed, to be able to be
liaisons to the family, and I just don’t think there is much more that
she could have done as an individual representing the group. I think
that she deserves our praise in terms of that, and in terms of being
able to come in front of us -- I sometimes am intimidated sitting up
here -- and explain what happened, and then to take questions about it
too. I think she deserves our praise for that, and I think everyone
can agree with that.

Ariana: Can I extend that to the rest of the officers of
the Outing Club. They have done a lot too. Don’t be scared to come

to the Outing Club.

Chairman Schwab: If you need anything from us, you know
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that you can come. Thank you. Okay. Just a few more opening
remarks. Becky Spilke from NYPIRG just has a few things to say.

Becky Spilke: Hi, everybody. I’m Becky. I just want to
talk really quickly. I want to thank everybody from S.A. for helping
out with voter registration drive today. About ten groups
participated. It was quite successful. We registered 930 students
; today. I think today was a great effort. This whole semester we've
done a lot of great stuff. Tomorrow we'll be doing more voter
registration as well as cleaning the 930 forms. So if you have a few
minutes, please stop by the NYPIRG office. It’s campus center 349.
You can help us clean the forms.

I also wanted to talk about a candidates debate that will be
sponsored by NYPIRG, The League of Women Voters, and Common Cause. It
will be a non-partisan debate for the 21st Congressional District. It
will take place on October 30 at 7:00 p.m. in Albany Public Library.
This is part of voter education. Now that we‘ve registered all these
students to vote, we have to keep them educated on what their choices
are. So, in order to better do that, I’ve asked a student from SUNY
Albany to be a representative on the panel of this debate which will
be televised. So I'm asking if Central Council would like to be part
of this to sign on. That would be great. Please let me know, and I
would like as many of you as possible to come and tell everybody about
this debate. The students will be asking questions to thé candidates
on higher education issues, on federal student loans, so it’s really
our chance to bring this issue straight to the candidates and find out

where they stand. Thanks again, and please let us know if you would
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like to help out with anything.

Valerie Vazquez: I know it’s non-partisan, but who will be
debating? Is it more than two candidates?

Becky Spilke: All of the candidates who are running for the
position have been invited. The only confirmed candidate that I have
that will be there is Nancy Norman, who is a Republican candidate.
There’s probably about five people running. They’ve all been invited.
I’ve heard Common Cause and League of Women Voters are all non-
partisan organizations and it’s really just about voter education.
There’s also some other community groups too. Any other questions?
Thanks, Steve.

Chairman Schwab: Thanks, Becky. I think NYPIRG deserves a
huge round of applause for getting that many people registered. 900
people in one day is astronomical. JI thought she was going to say
like 90. Not that I don’t expect it, but that is great.

Becky Spilke: 930.

Chairman Schwab: 930. We will move into committee reports.
The first committee report will be K.B. in Internal Affairs. If I can
have order in the gallery, I’d appreciate it.

Committee Reports

Internal Affairs

Kamau Blount: I’d like to welcome everyone to another
exciting council meeting. I’m psyched. I hope you guys are too.
Basically, what we did this week was we worked on our appointments --
the appointments that were made. We’re down to four. I was very

psyched about that, the fact that we got so many done on such a short
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notice. We plan to finish them all up by next week.

I just want to let you know, also, that our meeting times for
Internal Affairs will be Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. If you could let
that be known.

Basically, I said it before, I'm just going to state it again,
that we are going to take a very pro-active stance in regards to
policy changes this year, and I’m going on the record for that. I
‘really want to get into this changing policy because it’s getting
ridiculous now, so I just wanted to let you guys know that and let you
know that that’s going to be the major focus from our committee.
Practically every week you will be seeing some form of policy change,
not this week because we’re focusing on the interviews but once we get
done with this, that’s going to be our primary focus. So if anyone
has any questions, go ahead.

Larry Kauffman: Just out of curiosity, do we also interview
candidates for or people who are possible appointees for Central
Council committees, or just Executive Branch and the Judicial Branch?

Chairman Schwab: Candidates for committees?

rry K fman: No. I was just wondering how I slid
through without any controversy this time.

Chairman Schwab: Well, there’s a resolution up for

appointments tonight.

Lar K : Oh, okay.
Kamau Blount: So you might not actually have slid through.
Chairman Schwab: Any other questions of K.B.? (No

response) Thanks, K.B. Just while we’re on the subject of Internal
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Affairs, for all the new members who aren’t aware of how the process
works, when someone is appointed -- and the appointments you'll see
tonight -- there’s one director, the Affirmative Action Director which
is extremely important -- all appointments are extremely important --
what happens is, when the Executive Branch make their appointments,
they forward those names to Neil and myself, and then we in turn
forward those to the Internal Affairs Committee, and then Internal
Affairs interviews each candidate individually and then through a bill
of form recommends whether or not they approve of that appointment.
All of the appointments tonight have passed, although some not
unanimously. So, when we do get to the appointment, you just -- it’s
something of a trust factor that you listen to those who were involved
in the interview process and take their opinion into account, and then
you as council members have the full right to questions as many times,
for as long as you want, each individual candidate. So don’t be
afraid to ask questions tonight because this is an important process.
Any questions at all -- again, I’m going to extend the invitation for
new members to stop me at any point if I’m going too fast, if you're
confused, and I’m going to try to explain everything as we go through
it again just so you guys aren’t confused. I’m going to ask anybody
who’s sitting on the side, tilt your name tags a little bit towards me
so that I can make sure I’m saying your names correctly. Finance
Committee, Craig.

Finance Committee

Craig Fetterman: Just four things. We held our weekly

FiCom meeting this Monday night. First thing, the only thing that was
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before us on this night was Albany Water Polo Club. They came before
us for New and Unfunded. They’ve been recognized by President
Castrilli, so they wanted funding from the Finance Committee of which
we're allowed to give them a maximum of $250 net allocations. They
presented their budget to us. It looked very good, and it will appea:
before you during the later portion of the meeting as a bill. It’s
Bill 9697-28, and 1/11 speak more about it when that bill comes up.

The other thing, as a previous speaker mentioned about the Outinc
Club. They mentioned they’d like to get additional safety equipment
packets. Obviously, they were not originally budgeted for that, so I
briefly spoke to them before, so they will apply for supplemental
funding. I foresee no problems for them getting funding for that as
the safety of the students and the value of human life is second to
none.

The only other thing is the Controller, Jason Kass, and myself
will be starting relatively soon to go through 800 Policy to make the
relevant changes just like President Castrilli made the changes to 40(
Policy. We’1ll be doing the same with 800 Policy. There are a lot of
discrepancies in 800 Policy, a lot of vagueness, there are blatant
contradictions from one line to the next so we’re going to go through
that and try to make it work a little better.

FiCom meeting, the next one will be this Monday night. We're at
8:00 now, not 7:30, we switched that about weeks ago. We’1ll meet in
S.A. in the back. We’re going to try to work on getting a better
location. Any questions?

Joe Marcowski; The safety packets for the Outing Club --
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where is the money coming from?

rai rn : Well, they're budgeted $2,000 for
equipment, but because this was an unforseen expense, we have
something in the budget called supplemental funding. That's a
separated account that has somewhere around $8,500 in it. It says in
policy that’s for use for emergencies and situations where anything

that was previously budgeted where the costs have gone up or where

‘ there’s an unexpected incurred cost beyond the control of the group.

That’s what supplemental funding is for. They fill out an

application, they give us very specifically what they want to use the

money for, we make the recommendation to council, and council votes.
Chairman Schwab: Any other questions for Craig? (No

response) Thanks, Craig. Student Action, Dori.

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Dori Travieso: Hi. Okay. It will be short and sweet.

Last week a couple of my committee members and myself, we went to the
transportation meeting. I don’t feel I got much out of it. I thought
that there were too many people there screaming at her, just jumping
at her -- at J.J. Hayward and her committee. So, what my committee
thought we’d do was, we’d compose a bunch of questions,
straightforward stuff that we want answered, and we're going to invite
her to one of our committee meetings. We don’t want too many people
there. If you have good questions, and you’re ready to talk nicely
without jumping up at her like many people did, you’re invited to
come. We don’t know when. We’re going to call her this week and try

to make an appointment, and try to do our best with that. If you have
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any more concerns please let us know so that we can definitely address
them to her in a nice fashion at that meeting.

Also, we have new committee members. Amos was there. He dida
great job already. We had the first meeting yesterday, and he did so
much, and I just want him to come up her to tell you because he has
some stuff about the suggestion boxes. Remember last week I was
saying about suggestion boxes? >

Amos Brunson: Yesterday I called the lady from Telecom.
Kamau gave me the idea of calling Telecom and set up an extension in
which we could set up an advertisement on the university channels 37,
40, and 41. The lady said she’s going to get back to me. We have to
set up a proposal and tell her exactly what we want the extension to
be used for and how long we want the message -- like when people call
in, how long do we want the message to go on for. The suggestion box
is going to be used for, if you have anything that you want us to
address -- the Student Action Committee or just S.A. in general, you
can call up and leave a message and we‘’ll try and hail to your issue.

I also, with the help of Anthony Lopez, made up letterhead for
Student Action Committee. I would just like to send these around,
just the three of them together, and then on the back if everyone
could just put a line or a check mark on which one you like the best,
and we'll just take everybody's opinion into account.

Dori Travieso: That's really it for now. I’d really like
questions brought to my attention or Jen’s attention or anybody else’s
attention about transportation and parking and stuff. Jen, do you

have anything you want to add? No, okay. That’s it.
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Larry Kauffman: What if we like the print on one, the font
on one, but the design on the other, which I do, seriously.

Dori Travieso: I guess you could just write it on the back.
Don’t write on the front.

Kamau Blount: Yes. In regards to the phone line. I know I
discussed with you guys in regards to having a separate line for all
the other committees if anyone wanted to leave a message for the other
committees. Would it be possible for us to have something along those
lines for all the other committees?

Dori Travieso: I don’t know. When Amos called, she said
that it was the first time that anyone had ever requested something
like that. So she’s going to send us information on it. If there’s
something we could do like press 1 for FiCom, press 2 for -- we'll see
what we can do.

Chairman Schwab: Too, what she might have been intending
with this line was not the specific use of Student Action.

Dori Travieso: Yeah.

Chairman Schwab: It’s more or less student concerns which
happen to fall under student action, but they could relay those to the
appropriate committees and to the executive branch directors. But I
think that’s an excellent idea. If we could promote that line -- a
number that students can call to address concerns, because often times
students won’t come into the offices. I mean, when I have asked this
committee or when they have come up with an idea, it’s done. I think
you’ve seen that every week. So I’m really proud of this committee.

Concerns come up, questions get asked, and the immediate following
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Wednesday you hear something it. Good job, Dori.

Gregory Wahl: Hi. I’m going to keep this short because we
have a resolution on the table that probably is going to take some
debating. Academic Affairs hasn't had its first meeting, but we now
have our committee which is Jess, Jodi, and Dave. So afterward I’m
going to ask them plus my vice chair, Ted, to get together with me and
decide on a time. When we do decide on a time, we will post it at
S.A., you won’t have to worry about that.

One of the things on our agenda will be, I would like to -- I
don’t know if this is a word -- unsubmit -- I want to take away from
Steve the proposal for our amendments for our bylaws since I do have a
committee now and it hasn’t been put in, so that we can all look at it
so it won’t be something just for me.

I wanted to tell you that the presidential debates that were held
by the school went very well. There were, a lot of people there. I
hope that I had something to do with it but who knows.

I guess I’ll stay up here to tell you about this past week SUNY
Albany and all the other -- most of the other SUNY schools represented
at the SASU convention at SUNY Farmingdale, which is in Farmingdale on
Long Island. We had a really good time. We talked about a lot of
issues, there were workshops on tons of things from civil disobedience
where we learned the right way to get arrested to things such as
racial and ethnic tensions and women’s liberation and everything in
between and everything that you can think of. The University of

Albany was the second largest delegation there. We had 18 people,
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which is great to see. We were looking for 30, but 18 -- that’s
pretty goeae Only Stonybrook had a bigger delegation than us, and
they were a half hour away.

I guess I’m going to refrain from saying anything else until 27R
comes up, and then I’m going to request to come back up here and
explain my position.

John Laico: You mentioned civil disobedience. Does SASU
endorse this kind of behavior -- students getting arrested?

Gregory Wahl: SASU endorses students getting arrested for
things that they believe in and things that might change things for
the better of all students.

Larry Kauffman: Forgive the sarcasm, Mr. Chairman, but
doesn’t that include virtually everything according to someone’s
definition?

Gregory Wahl: The idea of civil disobedience for those of
you who don’t know, is the fact that you can be disobedient civilly,
meaning that you don’t have to hurt anybody, and you don’t have to do
anything violent, and you can still get your point across. And if
some people are willing to be arrested for ideas that they believe in
without hurting anybody and without damaging public property, then
civil disobedience and getting arrested is a good way to go. And when
you know how to do it the correct way, then that is the proper thing
to do.

Larry Kauffman: Correct or the politically correct way?

Gregory Wahl: Yes.

Marc Alessi: Just so I can know next time, what’s the right
20
way to get arrested?

Gregory Wahl: Well, former Central Council member, Mimi
Nguyen, taught that so maybe we should have her come in and give a
workshop for us. What do you say?

Chairman Schwab: Is that it? Any other questions? (No
response.) Thanks, Greg. ICAC next, Marc Alessi.

L Llegi Athleti C .

Marc Alessi: I’d like to announce that we actually had our
first meeting. It was Monday, 8:00 in the S.A. lounge. Great
turnout. For my new members who I haven’t met with yet, please come
down. If it’s not a good time, give me a call. I need you to meet
with me after the meeting, give me your numbers, because I don’t have
your numbers yet. What we did discuss at the meeting was, we’re going
to be selling a raffle at homecoming -- $75 raffles, there’s going to
be two of them, $1 a piece. We’re going to sell 300 for each raffle
so you have a one in 300 chance of winning. Whatever is left over is
going to be going to ACIA to help buy the shirts that are owed to
teams that won championships last year, before we start working on
this year.

On top of that, after homecoming to keep the crowds at games,
we're going to be sponsoring $50 to whatever S.A. groups or Greek
organizations or an organization that comes down in full force,
whoever has the greatest numbers will get a $50 award.

On top of that, I put-out a letter for the quads to become active
in ACIA but unfortunately it’s a little too late. We’re two weeks

into the season, so we’re stretching that agenda to quad boards.
21
We're trying to get them involved in some kind of olympics where the
quads play against each other.

On top of that, I’d like to get the ACIA reports printed on the
Student Voice every week: the statistics, the rankings for each team,
and such. Any questions?

Todd Teichman: Marc, you said if you come down to the
football game, the greatest nunber in the groups will get prizes.
Could that be made into the greatest number of proportional of the
group? Some of the groups are larger than others.

Marc Alessi: Yeah, this was just the form they used at the
basketball games last year. I figured we'd use the same, but that’s
something to look into.

Kamau Blount: I was just curious, you said that your
meetings are Monday at 8:00 p.m. in the back of the S.A. lounge. I
wasn’t sure, isn’t that the same time as FiCom?

Marc Alessi: No, it’s not in the back of S.A. lounge, we’re
in the front. Actually, I’m between the front and the back, sorry.

Jen Hird: I was wondering if you had any ideas how to come
up with the other sports besides football, like volleyball and soccer
and rugby? I know that our girls volleyball team is really good -- in
terms of getting people to go to these events.

Marc Alessi: If you can give me any ideas, just come down
to my meeting or give me a call and I'll work with it. I have no
ideas.

Chairman Schwab: Thanks, Marc. We’re just going to hold

off for one minute, we’ve got a little presentation to do, and then
22
we're going to move into Legislative Report. I have a question from
Mike.

Mike Castrilli: Has the agenda been changed now? Is it the
Executive Report after the Legislative Report?

Chairman Schwab: We just did it for this evening so that we
could have these appointments done right away. Actually, in policy it
says Legislative then Executive. If you guys want to at any point
‘during these appointments -- I will give you guys priority to speak if
you want to come up quickly and talk about each appointment, Mike,
I’ll do that. Mike?

Mike Castrilli: Yes, of course.

Chairman Schwab: If I can have Samantha and Ashish and Neil
come stand up here, please. It’s right in the middle of three people
in S.A.'s birthday. Ashish’s birthday past. It was last week.
Samantha’s is this evening, and Neil’s is on the 14th. I just want to
wish these guys a happy birthday. These three people do a lot for
Student Association, and council wanted to show our appreciation to
them. If Ted wants to bring out our form of appreciation for these
guys. I just want to extent warm wishes on your birthday. (Council
sang happy birthday.) We’1ll move right into Legislative Report. This
is Bill 9697-27R, and it’s introduced by the Academic Affairs
Committee. It’s dated October 9, 1996, and I’1l let Greg go ahead and
read this bill, and I’1l ask you to be quiet while Greg explains the
rational and reads the bill into the minutes.

Gregory Wahl: I’m going to read the bill, and hold off your

comments until I explain what it is and what’s happening, and then
23
I'll be glad to take any comments that you’d like to make.

Introduced by: Academic Affairs Committee Bill 9697-27R
. Chairman Gregory Wahl Committee Vote:
Vice Chairman Ted Tsakonas ACCLAMATION

Date: October 9, 1996

Whereas: This country was founded by and enriched by immigration; and

Whereas: Education is the backbone of a healthy and prosperous
society; and

Whereas: President Clinton has recently signed into law HR2202, known
as the Immigration Bill; and

Whereas: This law will restrict financial aid to thousands of college
students who are not American citizens, including those who
are legal immigrants working towards citizenship; and

Whereas: This bill, though amended to be more "student friendly,"
still remains a mean-spirited document which penalizes
undocumented persons and makes it difficult for legal
immigrants and US citizens to reunite with their families;
therefore

Be it Hereby Resolved that:
The Student Association of the State University of New York
at Albany and the students it represents are in opposition
to the passage of this bill, and any other that will so
significantly devastate both members of our university
community and students everywhere; and

Be it Further Resolved that:

We as students will no longer tolerate the ruthless assault
on the educational system by Federal, State, Local, and
Educational Authorities who prefer peacetime expansion of
our military to the future of our youth; and

Be it Finally Resolved that:
Copies of this resolution are sent to President Bill
Clinton, former Senator Bob Dole, US Secretary of Education
Robert Reich, USSA President M. Kazim Ali, SASU President
Annette Hicks, and the Student Voice.
Gregory Wahl: This is House Resolution 2202. This
immigration bill was sponsored by Republican representative Smith from
Texas. It passed the House, and was most recently signed September 30

by President Clinton. While some of the worst provisions of
24
immigration legislation was removed prior to the Senate and its
administrative approval, the bill remains a mean-spirited document
which penalizes everyone. Originally, this House Resolution was
really stacked. They cut a lot of things out to make it more "student
friendly." What they did take out was deeming, which means that they
won't anymore take out someone’s sponsor -- the sponsor’s income as
being the person’s driwerniey, therefore depleting financial aid for the
immigrant. They took out the amendment which would have denied public
education to undocumented children. They took out the deportation of
immigrants who receive public benefits for 12 months. They took out
the denial of certain public benefits to legal immigrations. They
also decided to be nice and take out the denial of legal immigrants of
access for treatment for HIV.

Provisions which still remain in the bill: There’s establishment
of pilot program for collecting information about non-immigrant
students, that’s us, to insure that such students do not overstay
their visas. The program would require entering foreign students to
pay a fee of up to $100 per person to support the program.

This bill also maintains provision that requires the sponsors of
the immigrant relatives to earn at least 125% over the poverty level.
It limits the term you can apply for political asylum to one year. It
denies certain due process measures to persons who arrive without
document, including political assylees. It establishes and employee
verification program, which I believe I have something on right here.
They would use the immigration and naturalization services and the

social security administration computer databases to develop a pilot
25

national employment verification program. They contain mistakes as
much as 28% of the time, which effects approximately 18 million
people. So, in other words, they’re going to set up this great thing
that’s going to be a great identification system except it’s going to
be wrong 28% of the time. They’re going to be using things such as

department of motor vehicle computers so everything will be hooked up.

_ If you do anything -- it will be like when we were in elementary

school and someone said, "You better not do that, or it will go on
your permanent record." Well, now you will have a permanent record,
and anyone will be able to use it from the traffic cop who stops you
for going 56 in a 55 mile an hour zone up to anything. Don’t worry,
this won't effect everyone in the country. It will only effect
certain randomly chosen states, and I use that term very loosely. The
randomly chosen states are, and see if you can track a trend,
California, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York,
and Florida. Well, these randomly chosen states have the highest
immigration populations in the country. They’re not very random.

Other provisions which remain in the bill; it increased the
burden of proof for perspective employees claiming hiring
discrimination based on immigration status. Such persons will need to
show an intent to discriminate. Now, how many people do you think
will say, "I intended to discriminate when I hired."

The last thing that remains in the bill is increased border
control including 1,000 new agents for the border patrol by the year
2001, and $12 million allocated for a new border fence, which is the

first promotion to a new 20 feet thick concrete wall linking San Diego
26

and the Rio Grand.
So, I can take any questions that anyone has right now.

Damien Scalafani: Greg, how long is the bill? I mean, if
it’s not that long, how come you didn’t attach a copy of it?

Gregory Wahl: The actual bill? The immigration bill? How
long is the bill itself?

Damien i: How come instead of telling us about the
bill, why didn’t you just give us a copy of it?

Gregory Wahl: Because it’s long. It started out as just an
immigration bill, therefore we call it the immigration bill, and they
tacked all this stuff on to it, and people said, "Hey, that’s great,
why don’t we keep that." So, we do have copies somewhere. Mimi
Nguyen has them. If you’d like it, I could probably get Mimi to bring
some to the S.A. office soon -- the bill in its complete form as
signed by Clinton on the 30th of September.

Chairman Schwab: Damien, it’s not a regular thing to attach
the bill.

Point of order

Larry Kauffman: I raised my hand to make a motion, that’s
my point of order. Now I’d like to make my motion if I may.

Chairman Schwab: When your next, when you’re on the list,
you can address your motion.

Larry Kauffman: Then I won’t need a point of order to do
it. A motion comes first.

Chairman Schwab: No. A point of order is to tell me that

procedurally something is going wrong. When you come up on the list,
27
I'll address..your motion.

Larry Kauffman: The fact that my motion wasn’t being
answered -- it’s not a question. It’s not a debate. It’s a motion.
Chairman Schwab: I haven’t recognized you as being next on

the list. At that point --

Larry Kauffman: That’s the point of order I was raising,
that a motion comes first according to Robert's Rules.

Chairman Schwab: I’m not questioning. I’m telling Damien -
- I’m giving him some information that we don’t usually attach the
bills, and then I was going to address you. You are next on the List.
So one second.

Larry Kauffman: Forgive me.

Chairman Schwab: Damien, that is not regular to attach that

to the list.

n fani: The only thing I was just curious about

was, I wasn’t even aware this was going to come up.

Chairman Schwab: Damien, he has every right as --
mi fani: I know he has every right, I’m just

saying I’m a little surprised.

Chairman Schwab: We can save this for debate. Larry
Kauffman?
Larry Kauffman: I move to table this until we get a copy of

the full bill.

Gregory Wahl: Would you like me to send the facts sheet

around?

Larry Kauffman: Is that the entire bill or just the
28

Gregory Wahl: No, it’s not the entire bill.

Larry Kauffman: I just want the bill, not the summary.
hai in Schwab: I have a motion to table this bill until

we can get a complete copy of the bill, do I have a second? Second
from Mike Simon. Do I have any objections? Okay, I have clear

objections so we’re not going to table this bill, unless you want me

to do a roll call.

Larry Kauffman: Yeah, let’s do a roll call.
Chairman Schwab: Okay. We're going to do a roll call vote.

If I could have quiet.

Point of inquiry

Gregory Wahl: What’s the vote that we need?

Chairman Schwab: Two-thirds.

Poi inguiry: What are we voting on?

Chairman Schwab: Okay. I need everybody to listen to the
proceedings. Right now, there’s a motion on the floor to table this
bill until we can get a complete copy of the bill that this resolution
is addressing, okay. So, I am right now going to do roll call, and I
need to check right now to see if I need a majority or if I need two-

thirds vote.

porn f i :

Dina Delicce: Would this be tabled to later tonight or next
week?
thai in hwab: No, this would be tabled until next week,

until we have a copy of this bill. We’re going to call your name and
f
t
i
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I
i
i
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'

29
a yes vote will be -- you will be stating that you are in favor of

tabling this bill.

Point of inguiry
Kamau Blount: What is necessary for this bill to be tabled?
Chairman Schwab: Two-thirds vote, so we need two-thirds of

council to say yes to table this bill. Saying yes says you're in
favor of tabling. A no says that you want to address this resolution
this evening. I need order. Larry, please. This is concerning your
motion,

Dina Delicce: What is the importance that this gets
discussed tonight? If it were to be tabled until next week, is

that --

Chairman Schwab: This is a big issue right now. I think
Greg can answer that.

Gregory Wahl:. The big thing here is it was just passed, and
this is something that’s a major point on not only for us as a
university but this is a nationwide issue. Schools from all over the
nation are going to be addressing this this week, and we're hoping
that if everyone or if many -- as many schools as possible can make
resolutions or whatever the specific school association does --
concerning this issue and can send it to the proper authorities, they
can see that students are really united behind this cause, that we
really don’t appreciate them telling us this because it’s just wrong.

Dina Delicce: I understand that and I totally agree with

you, however, would next week be too late to send this to President
30
Clinton or whoever we’re sending it too?
Valerie Vazquez: Can I answer that?
thai hwab: Go ahead, Valerie.

Valerie Vazquez: I think that the reason some of us fell
that it should be now is because it is such an important issue. It
effects a lot of people directly and the quicker we make a statement
_ about it, the stronger our stance is against the bill or in favor of
the bill.

Point of inquiry

John Laico: This is to the chairman. Before you said that
you need two-third vote of council, or council members present?

Chairman Schwab: Two-thirds of the council members present.

Larry Kauffman: If it’s such an important issue as I’m sure
it is, why can’t we just wait the week it takes to get the
information. And if it’s so important for us --

Chairman Schwab: This is debate.

Larry Kauffman: I thought we were going into debate.

Chairman Schwab: No, we’re not in debate yet.

rry K. : My mistake, I withdraw that, but please put
me first on the debate list.

Matt Shapiro: Right now the bill is signed, so what good is

what we’re going to do? It’s not going to make any difference.

Chairman Schwab: I totally disagree that -- Grég’s purpose
for doing this bill -- he’s Academic Affairs chair -- I’m speaking to
this right now -- therefore, he sees what was signed into law is

something that’s affecting a great amount of students on this campus,
i
|

Bab

so he’s simply sending a message that says we disagree with it. I
commend Greg for that, but this council has every right to table the
bill until they see the actual bill from Congress. So, right now we
are explaining the rational of the bill. We’re not taking questions.
Damien, do you have a question of Greg concerning this bill, because
we have a motion on the floor?

Damien Scalafani: I just have a point. The only thing I’m
saying is that it would only be fair to table the bill --

a hwab: Okay, you’re in debate. We’re not in
debate yet. You’re debating. I’11 put you second on the list in
debate.

. fi .

Ashish Prabhakar: What is the impact if the resolution is
passed?

Chairman Schwab: There’s no binding action that this
resolution is going to take. It’s simply a suggestion. Can I have
order. This is just a resolution that’s going to say that the
majority opinion of council disagrees with the actions taken by the
United States Congress, the President, concerning this immigration
bill. It’s no binding action on S.A. A resolution is a suggestion on
our part or I guess a message is a better definition. So we’re going
to vote on this motion. I need a two-thirds to say yes, again, to

table this bill.
Poi in: ion
Valerie Vazquez: Could you just restate so that everybody

knows what yes, no means.
32
Chairman Schwab: I just said that, and I'll say it once
more. A yes vote will be in favor of tabling this bill until next
week, a no vote will say that we will address this bill this evening,

tonight. So let’s go.

Pat Albano - no
Marc Alessi - abstention
Glenda Bautista - no vote
Bridget Bergen - no
Kamau Blount - no
Gina Bonica - no
Amos Brunson . - no
Darlene Classen - no
Dina Delicce - no
Jess Fassler - no
Craig Fetterman - yes
Neil Freilich - yes
Jen Hird - no
David Kalinsack - yes
Larry Kauffman - yes
Ed Kerr -
David Kindberg - yes
Michelle Lebowits - no
Jessica Morales - no
Ashwani Prabhakar - yes
Omar Price - no
Stephanie Reich - no
Johanna Rosenberg - yes
Jodi Rosoff - yes
Micah Rozenbaum - no
Steven Schwab - no
Matt Shapiro - yes
Mike Simon - no
Jose Socorro ~
Glenn Stein - no
Todd Teichman - abstain
Camille Torres - no
Dori Travieso - no
Ted Tsakonas - no vote
Valerie Vazquez - no
Gregory Wahl - no
Ken Woodward - no
Chairman Schwab: This motion fails. 22 no’s, 9 yes’s, 2 no

votes, and 2 abstentions.

Larry Kauffman: I have a motion, Mr. Chairman, since we’re
33
headlong into the abyss, what do you say we get out of here in time
and move to debate.

Chairman Schwab: I have a motion to move to debate. Do I
have a second? Second from Glenn Stein. Any objections to moving
into debate? None. Okay. I have a debate list so I will start with
Larry Kauffman.

Larry Kauffman makes a motion to move to question,
seconded by Craig Fetterman.
K.B. has an objection, so we’re now in debate. I have Damien on
the debate list.

mi fani: What’s an issue to me is not the bill
itself. What’s an issue to me is whether we vote on the bill tonight
or next week. Right now, nine people voted to table it. So, there
are nine people in council that are not informed’ enough, through no
fault of their own, to vote with it or against it. Now, if the issue
is that this bill is a good and we should support it, wouldn’t it be
that much better to wait a week so everyone is equally informed on it
and knew enough about it so that we could vote on it unanimously or
with acclimation or whatnot. The only reason there is to voting on it
right now is to rush it through so that people who don’t know enough
about it -- the only thing that can happen between now and then is
information. So essentially by insisting on voting for it now, what
you're doing is you're saying, "You can’t learn anymore about this."
I don’t know anything about this. He didn’t say anything about this.
This happens week after week after week. I sit down here, I don’t

even get a copy of the agenda, and then I get a bill in front of me.
34
This bill here has so much background in it -- I’m not saying you have
to read the entire bill, but at least some people should get some
chance to research this or look at it or whatever. That’s all I’m
going to say.

Gregory Wahl: My response to that is we haven’t put any
bills through. This is our first bill of the year, so if anyone
thinks that I’m trying to be slick Greg, this is our first bill. Now,
the reason for the expedition of this bill is so that we can be
proactive. I realize that we couldn’t have been proactive enough to
have this resolution out before Clinton signed the bill, because we
didn’t know exactly which provisions were going to be in and which
provisions were going to be out. But the pro-activity that is
involved in these -- expedition of this resolution 27R is that we show
that we are united. I realize that some people aren’t up to boot on
this. I wasn’t up to boot on this until maybe a week ago. But, the
thing is that this is something that we will get information on to
you, and we will promise you that you will not like. I have anything
you need, and Larry, I don’t care how much you say that it’s biased
because it’s there.

Larry Kauffman: Can I respond to that?

Chairman Schwab: When he’s done, you may respond. That was
out of order.

Gregory Wahl: ‘That was out of order. My response to that
is, the reason for expedition is pro-activity, and that’s supposed to
be the basis of our student government this year.

ffman: You say pro-actively, I’m talking
35

productivity. Let’s at least see what we're voting for. Mind you, I
just might surprise you guys and vote for it, even if you don’t show
me. But I’d like to see it. It’s not an unreasonable request.
Glenn Stein: I just want to say that I think people’s
political opinion is very important. I value that. I just don’t

think it’s the Student Association's role to convey one political

position on that.

As for tabling it, if we get a copy of this bill, really, I don’t
know how many people, first of all would read it or understand it just
deciphering through the jargon. The facts sheet, whether you want to
believe it or not, are biased based on. I’ve written plenty of
legislative memos, and they are totally slanted. I think, rather than
sending one resolution from the Student Association, if people really
want to show that they oppose this, individual letters -- how many
students are here? 17,000 letters would be much more effective.

Gregory Wahl: I just want to make a tine response to that.
When you say that everyone is not -- because it’s a political matter.
This is a political matter, and you’re right. There’s got to be some
politics in everything. I’m not opposed to every single measure in
this. It’s just the fact that this is something that hurts students,

and student government should be willing to protect the students.

Chairman Schwab: I’m just going to address that, too.
Typically, what these types of resolutions are for -- and they have
come up in the past, several of them -- simply, like Glenn said, your

political opinion is important, and we do value that. I think after

speaking with Greg about why he wanted to introduce this bill, it was
36
basically because it does address the needs of a constituency on this
campus. I’m sure that this constituency makes up each and every one
of ours, and I think Greg, although 100% of our constituency’s might
not agree that this bill should have been passed or should not have
been passed. It’s just to say that we’re in favor of the rights of
those students that are affected by such legislation. It just lets
them know that we are Keeping aware of what our federal government is
doing and how it’s affecting us in the state level. So, that’s what I
wanted to say. Craig Fetterman?

Larry Kauffman: Move to call to question.

Chairman Schwab: As soon as you get on the list, you can
make your motion.

Larry Kauffman: I don’t want to debate, though. It’s a
motion that ends the debate.

Chairman Schwab: Right. And when you are on the list, I
will address your motion. You can’t surpass everyone who is in front
of you.

Larry Kauffman: Anyone who has a motion can do that. It
was done all last year.

Chairman Schwab: No, it was not. You need to be on the
list.

Larry Kauffman: They moved to interrupt me in the middle of
my executive address.

hai n_ Schr : You can call your motion when and if you
are on the list and I come to you on that list. Every council member

at this table has the right to speak.
37
Larry Kauffman: How about a point of order? Do I have to

wait for that?

Chairman Schwab: No. Points of order, information.

Larry Kauffman: Point of order.

Chairman Schwab: What’s your point of order?

Larry Kauffman: That you're out of order by not honoring my

motion, or at least see if there’s a second.

Chairman Schwab: I’m not out of order, Larry. Can I have

order, please.

Larry Kauffman: I have a motion. I move to appeal the°
chairs decision. That requires two-thirds plus a second.

Point of order

Valerie Vazquez: You do not have the floor.

Point of information

Gregory Wahl: According to the parliamentary procedure

guide that we were given, the motion to postpone discussion, the
motion to end debate, and the motion to move to question, none of them
are able to interrupt any kind of proceedings.

Lar nm: Oh. In that case, I withdraw the previous
three motions I made. I’m sorry.

Chairman Schwab: Thank you, Larry.

Craig Fetterman: Do I have the floor?

Chairman Schwab: Yes, Craig, you do have the floor. Larry,

would you like to be put on the list?

Larry Kauffman: For what? I’ve done just about everything

you could do in Robert’s Rules of Order.
38

Chairman Schwab: Craig, go ahead.

Craig Fetterman: Thank you.

Larry Kauffman: I don’t want to repeat myself.

Chairman Schwab: Larry, talk when I recognize you.

Larry Kauffman: You just did.

Chairman Schwab: This is the last time.

Larry Kauffman: You asked me if I wanted to be put on the
list, and I was responding to it.

Chairman Schwab: If I could have council members order now.

Larry Kauffman: With due respect, Mr. Chairman, first of
all, point of order. Secondly, you were asking me if I wanted to be
put on the list. I was responding to that. You didn’t shut me up,
you didn’t call someone else.

Chairman Schwab: And then when I recognized Craig and he
had the floor, you spoke again. Speak freely when you’re recognized.

Point of personal privilege: I can’t hear Craig when Larry
is talking.

Poi £ per: 1 ivil

Larry Kauffman: I can’t hear myself think when someone’s
being interrupted when the chairman himself is the one who asked me if
I had something to say. I’11 shut up now, but please, when I’m
finished speaking, or cut me off at least.

Point of order: Craig has the floor.

Chairman Schwab: Thank you, Valerie. Craig, go ahead.

Larry Kauffman: I had a point of personal privilege,
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39

seriously. I had a point of personal privilege. That can’t be
interrupted for a point of order. I ask that she be held out of

order, please. It’s not unreasonable.

hai hwab: Everybody settle down, please.
Poi in
Larry Kauffman: .Why did she make a point of order?

Chairman Schwab: Larry, quiet. Valerie, you are out of
order. He had a point of personal privilege. Your point of personal
privilege is being addressed, okay.

Larry Kauffman: Could you inquire what the point of order

was about my point of inquiry? I’m just curious.

From the floor: I said it’s too noisy.

Chairman Schwab: A point of personal privilege when it’s
noisy -- that’s the point you need to make. Okay. Larry.

Larry Kauffman: The vice chairman was just talking to me.

Chairman Schwab: Okay. What I need you to do is allow the

privilege that these council members have to take the floor and let’s
get through this, okay.

Poi ei i

Larry Kauffman: With regard to what you just said.

Chairman Schwab: What is it?

Larry Kauffman: Does that mean I can’t interrupt them, and
does that mean they can’t call points of order and personal privilege
and inquiry?

Chairman Schwab: No, they can call whenever they want.
40
Larry Kauffman: Can I also?
Chairman Schwab: Yes, you may.
Larry Kauffman: Thank you.
Chairman Schwab: At the appropriate times. Craig, go
_ ahead. You have the floor.
raig Fi rman: I have to remember what I was going to
say. For starters, it is kind of impossible for us as representatives
of our constituents to vote on something that states the position of
the Student Association when we don’t -- this resolution before us
says we're opposed to a bill that we have not read. That’s not
representing our constituents. It says it’s a mean-spirited document.
That's a matter of personal opinion. It also says that the resolution
resolves that the Student Association of the State University of New
York at Albany and the students it represents are in opposition to the
passage of this bill. It also refers to the ruthless assault on the
educational system, again, a matter of personal opinion. So, I think
it would be leading our constituents to vote in favor of a resolution
that we don’t know. I can’t vote in favor of something saying I’m
opposed to something that I haven’t even read.
Vice Chairman Freilich: Next on the list is me. I agree
with the chairman of the Finance Committee, Craig Fetterman. I
haven’t read this bill, and I really couldn’t vote yes or no on a bill
I didn’t réad. There may be parts I like about it, there.may be parts
I don’t like about it. But I don’t have the bill in front of me. I’m
not fully informed, and I don’t think any one of us really is unless

we have that bill. So I really can’t vote on it. That’s why I’m
4l
actually disappointed we tabled Larry’s motion.

Larry Kauffman: Can I make the motion again?

Chairman Schwab: I asked you if you wanted to go on the
list to make a motion.

Larry Kauffman: No, this is a point of inquiry. I was
responding to what he said.

Chairman Schwab: Sure, you can make the motion when we come
to your name on the list.

Larry Kauffman: I’m not on the list though, am I?

Chairman Schwab: No. I asked you if you wanted to, and you
said no.

Larry Kauffman: Keep me off. Thanks, just curious.

Vice Chairman Freilich: I would like to address some of the
points that are in this resolution and that I believe are in the bill.
For instance, the third whereas says that President Clinton signed
this bill into law. Obviously, it seems this was a bill sponsored by
Republicans. President Clinton is a Democrat and he signed it into
law.

a € int ‘

Gregory Wahl: There were five very, very key Democrats that
were also in favor of this.

Vice Chairman Freilich: So this bill is bi-partisan. There
are a couple things in here that just trouble me. It sort of puts
down the military, and says that we’re all safe, there’s peace in the

whole world, and we know that’s not true. We know the world is a
42
pretty dangerous place. There’s fighting in the Middle East and
Bosnia, even here at home. Some people may favor a strong military.
Even people that are against this bill might favor a strong military,
and they would vote against this bill. And there are a number of
other things, but in the interest of time I’m not going to mention it
yet, and I will raise a motion to table this until next week when we
have more information and we all can have the bill in front of us, we
could read it, we could be fully informed. Is there a second on my

motion to table this until next week?

Point of order

Gregory Wahl: You can’t do that.

vi i ilich: I have the floor.

Gregory Wahl: You have to introduce the motion separately.
Larry Kauffman: You're the chairman, you can do whatever

you want. They can do an appeal from your decision according to
Robert’s Rules. You can define Robert’s Rules until someone can call
you wrong who has superior knowledge. By the way, I’m going to
withdraw that point of information because the Chairman's back, and it
won’t apply.

Vice Chairman Freilich: With the return of Chairman Schwab,
I now introduce a motion to table this bill until next week when we
have the bill in front of us. We could be more fully informed. Is
there a second to my motion?

Chairman Schwab: I have a point of inquiry from Kamau

Blount.
43

K fman: Point of order.
Chairman Schwab: I have a point of inquiry, and then I'11l
address your point of order.
Kamau Blount: If we speak on a matter after -- after we
speak, can we then make a motion?
Chairman Schwab: No, you can’t. So, Vice Chairman
Freilich, you can introduce your motion when you’re next on the list.

Thank you K.B., I was going to say that.

Larry Kauffman: My point of order -- no offense, Mr.
Chairman -- was against you for calling him before you called me when

I raised my hand first before he opened his mouth.

Chairman Schwab: I’m sorry. Shout out points then, okay.

Larry Kauffman: I did, but you told me to shut up.

Chairman Schwab: I did not tell you to shut up.

Larry Kauffman: Well you told me to stop talking.

Chairman Schwab: Larry, what is your point of order?

Larry Kauffman: The fact that you called me after you
called him.

Chairman Schwab: Do you have a point at this time?
Larry Kauffman: No, I had a motion at the time. Excuse me,

my seconding of his motion. That’s my point of order.

Chairman Schwab: There’s no motion on the floor at this

time, so next on the list is Matt.
Matt Shapiro: I think we’re jumping into things. We’re
being led blindly into something we don’t know.

Poi € inf +
44
rr K : There was a motion on the floor, because I
seconded it. You ‘just didn’t call it.
Chairman Schwab: No. Vice Chairman Freilich was out of

order. He spoke on the bill --

Larry Kauffman: Oh, you ruled him out of order?
ae in hi : Yes, he spoke on the bill and then

introduced a motion.

Larry Kauffman: Apologies.
Chairman Schwab: Thank you. Matt?
M hapiro: Personally, I think we’re being led blindly

into something we don’t know anything about. Obviously, there’s
another side to the story. If known liberals like Feinstein and
Kennedy have endorsed the bill, I don’t think it is as mean spirited
and right winged as you’re making it out to be. So I think we owe it
to ourselves not to be lead blindly into this, look into it and see
what the good aspect of the bill is before we say we’re against
something that we don’t even know anything about.

Chairman Schwab: This is the last time that I’m going to
ask anybody in this room to stop talking. We have a resolution here,
and we need to address this. So what I need is for everybody that’s
at this table to quiet down and to let the speakers say what they have
to say. And everybody sitting in the gallery be respectful and
mindful of the rights of those who are at the table. Go ahead, Matt.

Matt Shapiro: I think it’s ludicrous that we’re being led
like sheep into something we don’t know anything about. We deserve to

know all the information about it. Especially when it’s passed into
45

law. There's no rush to get our voice, we can’t make that much of a
difference. So I really think we owe it to ourselves to be informed
about this.
thai hhwab: Okay. Thanks, Matt. Ken?
Ken Woodard: From the September 11th meeting, we had a

representative of SASU here that spoke about this bill. We should

_have took action then, not now, because the bill was passed 19 days

after she came. We should have took action immediately. It’s too
late now to do anything. You’re not going to change any of the bill,
because it’s already been signed into law. So there’s no sense in us
arguing about this. The only thing we’re going to do is show
government we’re disappointed.

Gregory Wahl: I just want to say something. When you vote
for election, one vote can count.

Ashwani Prabhakar: A lot of people have addressed the fact
that a lot of us feel that we do not endorse it completely. The first
be it hereby resolved says that the Student Association, the students
it represents. I don’t feel I can represent my constituents fully
because I haven’t been provided with the information. I feel very
uncomfortable making this decision. I can not understand how anyone
can feel comfortable when they’ve only been provided information by
USSA. I don’t mean to take away from USSA but I want to see the real
bill.

In terms of urgency, the point of urgency was addressed. Let’s
be real. This acclimation we're going to pass, the assistant to the

assistant secretary is going to use this for toilet paper.
46

Chairman Schwab: Just something quickly I want to address,
Ashwani has a good point. But I want to tell you, what it says for
acclimation -- we wouldn’t pass this for acclimation necessarily,
Ashwani. It was passed by the committee by acclimation. As chair I
have the privilege to refer this bill, and at this time I’m going to
refer this bill back to the Academic Affairs Committee. It seems as
if we have a lot of confusion as to what this bill on the federal
level might be doing, how it’s effecting us. So at this point I’m
going to refer this back to the Academic Affairs Committee, and I
would ask them at their next meeting -- when Greg decides on a meeting
time, he will advertise it as such in the Student Association offices,
and I’d invite anybody who is interested in getting in on discussion
over this bill, to go to the next Academic Affairs Committee, and
Maybe next week we can introduce this bill in it’s complete form. I'm
not saying it’s not complete at all, because I agree with this bill.

Gregory Wahl: No, it’s not complete.

Chairman Schwab: Next week we will see the bill in addition
to what, maybe, the federal level bill has to say. So, we'll move on
to the next bill. This is referred to the Academic Affairs Committee.
We have a bill introduced by the Finance Committee, so Craig, if you

want to go ahead.
47
Introduced by the Finance Committee Bill 9697-28
October 9, 1996 Committee Vote 8-0-0-0
Be it hereby proposed that the following be enacted:

Ir. That the Albany Water Polo Club be granted the following budget
with the funds being taken from Account 216 (New and Unfunded

Allocation).
Line 01 SAS $ 50.00
Line 07 Equipment $620.00
Total $670.00
Line 99 Income $420.00
Total Appropriation $250.00

II. That this bill take effect immediately upon passage in accordance
with the Student Association Constitution.

; Craig Fetterman: As I said earlier, one of the main things
that Finance Committee does is handle new and unfunded. The Albany
Water Polo Club has been recognized by President Castrilli. A lot of
them are former members of the swim team which used to be an official
team but are no longer. So they have enough interest to form a club.
They submitted a budget which looked very good. In fact, it’s
probably the best budget I’ve seen submitted yet. It was very well
detailed. Unfortunately, I don’t believe there’s anyone here right
now from Water Polo because they have their general interest meeting
at this time. But if anybody would like I’1ll very quickly just read
down the breakdown of the budget. Of their SAS, which they're
allocated $50, $20 the club will use for copies of documents. The
remaining $30 will be used for advertising. Of the equipment which is
a $620 line, that will be broken up as follows: $80 for water polo
balls, two balls at $40 each; $80 for nets, two nets at $40 each; $300
for mens swimsuits, 15 suits at $20 each; $160 for womens suits, 4

suits at $40 each. The income is $420 which will be 20 people paying
48
$15 each which causes $300, and $120 of fundraising. They said they
were going to do most of the fundraising through bagel sales and a
swim-a-thon. Any questions?

Kamau Blount: Basically, I wanted to say that if we can’t
vote on this (Bill 9697-27R) because we don’t have enough information,
I would like to see the proposal that they handed out. I feel that we
all should see it before we vote on this.

Craig Fetterman: The proposal itself?

Kamau Blount: Yes.

Chairman Schwab: K.B. Finance Committee New and Unfunded
bills come up, and this is something regular. I don’t know if this is
in response to that bill being referred or what your question is for.
The application process for New and Unfunded is something that is done
by the Finance Committee. That is their right, to hear requests. The
club is urged, then, to come to the council meeting on its own behalf
and speak on the bill. There’s no necessary information on that

- packet but what you see in front of you right now, the proposed
budget. And if you had wanted to know about this, you could have
attended the Finance Committee meeting.

Kamau Blount: Along those same lines, the fact that this is
the responsibility of the Finance Committee, I feel that that is the
responsibility of the Academic Affairs Committee. Basically, this is
one of the jobs that the Academic Affairs Committee is doing, so for
us to say that we need to see the bill for that, we need to see every

bill.
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49
Poi £ ing .

di: kis: Just thinking back, when you had an
interview for Internal Affairs and you bring it up, you bring it up
when they pass, and when they pass you don’t bring up the tapes. The
bill that was passed with Academic Affairs was simply because they
didn’t know what they were. voting on. Everybody knows what they're
voting on with. Finance Committee because it was broken down.

Kamau Blount: In regards to that, nobody is really at the
meetings, so unless they hear the tapes, they can’t fully understand
what went down at the meetings, so they should listen-to the tapes
also. If you want to go like that, then that’s something that we’ll
have to do.

Vice Chairman Freilich: Over here on the Finance Committee
bill it says that eight people attended the meeting and all eight
voted in favor of the bill. The reason there’s a difference between
Chairman Wahl’s resolution and Chairman Fetterman’s bill is that
Chairman Wahl didn’t have the congressional bill so we had no idea
what we were voting for. We don’t know what’s in that bill. With
Chairman Fetterman, he has the breakdown of the lines. He has written
down what the club wrote, why they want $50, how they rationalize it,
why they want $620. We have all that information. It’s written down
from the president of the group himself. So the two are totally
different.

Chairman Schwab: What I didn’t explain, a major reason why
I referred this back to the Academic Affairs Committee, it says on

this bill that the Academic Affairs Committee vote was acclimation.
50

In reality, the only two members of Academic Affairs Committee that
were present for this were Greg and Ted. Now they have a complete
committee, and I thought it was the right of that committee, as the
Finance Committee does have a complete committee and did, to vote on
that bill and then have come to the floor. Now, this bill was passed
8-0-0-0. This is Internal Affairs privilege to hear interviews, their
_ privilege to decide and hear the case of the group. That’s why we
don’t bring the group entirely to council, so that this committee as a
trust -- because we do trust the Finance Committee and fellow members
of council to make a recommendation to us. We take what they had at
that hearing, they tell us, and then we decide. That’s how it works,
and this bill is on the floor.

Kamau Blount: Just like we take their recommendation,
shouldn’t we take the Academic Affairs recommendation?

Point of order

Matthew Kraut: Aren’t we trying to focus on what the
chairman is trying to get across.

Chairman Schwab: We are, but K.B. has every right to bring
up what he’s bringing up.

Point of inquiry

Larry Kauffman: Do you know how you just answered his point
of order even though he wasn’t on the debate list?

Chairman Schwab: Any point at any time, you can raise and
shout and I’ll address points.

Larry Kauffman: But not motions.

Chairman Schwab: Not motions, correct.
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51

Larry Kauffman: Sorry, I withdraw that one.

rai rman: He said he wanted more information. I
just read the entire budget in detail. I can read it through very
slowly and answer questions on every single line, specifically, if
that’s what you'd like.

Kam mt: That’s not personally what I would like, but
this is the feel I’m getting from council.

Chairman Schwab: I think this is two totally separate,
different cases. There is a federal-level bill that’s probably about
300 pages long that that resolution was applicable to. I think enough
people on this council had a concern that they weren’t informed on
that. As Chair, as I said, I was in favor of that bill, but because
of the substantial amount of council that was confused, there needs to
be a process change. I need to get these bills out to council members
before this night meeting, post them so that they can be informed, and
at this point this is something regular that’s happened. This is
something the committee did, and I don’t think -- and I'll go through
and do a vote -- that this council wants the application from the
Finance Committee. I don’t think that’s something this council wants.
All they do is write their names, the names of the officer. This
budget that you see on this bill is what they write on that, then they
testify to the Finance Committee, they make a decision, and that’s it.

Point of inquiry

Kamau Blount: You said that the bill that was passed is

over 300 pages long?

Chairman Schwab: I’m saying any bill at the federal level
52
can be as long as that. I’m assuming this one is probably close to
that.

Kamau Blount: Okay. So, it’s my understanding that
everybody wanted to read that bill before they made. That’s what they
were saying?

Chairman Schwab: Correct.

Craig Fetterman: You read this bill.

Chairman Schwab: This is the bill.

Kamau Blount: The bill that you referred, you were arguing
that --

Chairman Schwab: No. I’m saying a substantial number of
council members wanted that bill. It might not have been a majority,
but if there’s a substantial --

Kamau Blount: A substantial number of council members
wanted over a 300 page bill to read before they made a vote on this.

Chairman Schwab: That’s correct, and as Chair I made the
decision to refer that because I don’t want my council to vote on
something that they’re unclear on. I don’t think that’s fair.

Kamau Blount: I understand. So does this mean that we’re
going to have to read that 300 page bill before we vote on it?

Chairman Schwab: We will be getting copies to each council
member, and they have the option to read it.

Point of inguiry: What’s the maximum amount of money we car
give to a new and unfunded group?

Craig Fetterman: $250. There’s two totals here. The first

total says $670. The second one says total appropriations, $250. The
53

total appropriation is maximum of $250. The regular total is $670,
but that’s before income. We can only give them $250.

Jason Kass: I just wanted to say something, maybe to help
the proceedings a little bit.

Chairman Schwab: Point of information?

Jason Kass: Okay. Point of information.

Chairman Schwab: Thanks.

Jason Kass: This is a group that’s been funded before.

It’s just unfortunately the people who did their budget last year did
not do it properly. They were unable to get a budget. They should be
funded, and FiCom saw that, and I think that you should maybe take the
recommendation of FiCom. Everybody passed it through with
acclimation. They are a very competent committee. I sat through last
years Ficom --

Chairman Schwab: Jay, I hate to interrupt you, but you gave
us information that they were funded, but that’s debate. I/'11 put you
first on the debate list. I’ve called other people on it. We're
going to be going into debate in one second and I’1l let you say what
you want to say in favor of this bill. That’s where that falls.

Right now we’re just questioning the sponsor. Any other questions?
During this point, what you want to do is ask questions about what
this bill is going to do, and then when we go into debate you can say
whether or not you’re in favor of it. So, I have Pat next on the
questions list.

Pat Albano makes a motion to move to debate,

seconded by Johanna Rosenberg. No objections.
54

Chairman Schwab: I have Jay Kass first on the debate list.
Go ahead, Jay. I would invite you to reiterate what you were saying.

Jason Kass: I just wanted to say I’m fully in support of
this. They were funded last year, unfortunately they screwed up. The
past administration did not put in the proper proposal. They should
be funded. They came with a very comprehensive proposal to FiCom.

The swim team got cut so they formed a water polo team. I support it
one hundred percent. Thank you.

M Kr : I just want to say also, not to reiterate what
Jay already said, one of the first words that FiCom had said that they
were already impressed with what’ they had brought before them. They
have a very good outlook for their club, and they don’t have a lot of
money that they have to raise. I was totally in favor. I wasn’t able
to vote but everybody else proved it by voting unanimously 8-0.

Dori Travieso: I just want to say that I have a lot of
faith in the FiCom Committee, and eight council members voted for it.
I am in support of it. I’d also like to say that any new and unfunded
group should deserve the money to start. It’s only $250.

Neil Freilich makes a motion to move to

question, seconded by Pat Albano. No

objections. Todd Teichman makes a

motion for unanimous consent, seconded

by Valerie Vazquez. No objections.
Chairman Schwab: This bill passes by unanimous consent.
From the floor: You mentioned that they were getting mens

swimsuits. Are they getting womens?
5

55

Craig Fetterman: Yes, mens and womens.

irm wab: Moving right along so we can get through

this. Can I have everyone’s attention, please.

Bill 9697-29R

Introduced by Chairman Schwab and Vice Chairman Freilich

Date: October 9, 1996

Whereas: The Central Council Chairman and Vice Chairman have made
their final decisions on the 1996-1997 Central Council

committee appointments; and

Be it Hereby Resolved: That the following committee appointments

\take affect:

Internal Affairs

Kamau Blount - Chairman

Valerie Vazquez - Vice Chairwoman
Omar Price

Pat Albano

Ken Woodard

Darlene Classen

Ashwani Prabhakar

Todd Teichman

Finance Committee

Craig Fetterman - Chairman

Johanna Rosenberg - Vice Chairwoman
Glenn Stein

Camille Torres

Jessica Morales

Stephanie Reich

Matt Shapiro

David Kindberg

Student Action

Dori Travieso - Chairwoman
Jennifer Hird - Vice Chairwoman
Jose Socorro

Gina Bonica

Amos Brunson Jr.

Glenda Bautista

Brigid Bergen

ICAC

Marc Alessi - Chairman
Larry Kauffman - Vice Chair
Micha Rozenbaum

Ed Kerr

Mike Simon

Dina Delicce

Michele Lebowits

Academic Affairs

Gregory Wahl - Chairman

Ted Tsakonas - Vice Chairman
David Kalinsack

Jess Fassler

Jodi Rosoff

Chairman Schwab: Jess, you wanted to be on ICAC?

Jess Fassler: Yeah. I was never asked, I was just kind of

put.
5é

Lar: K : Everybody was asked last week and the week
before.
Chairman Schwab: Jess, everybody last week received a

committee information sheet in their folder, and it was asked that
everybody turn that in and hand it in by the end of the meeting.
Anybody who didn’t was going to get put on a committee that we would
assign. What we‘’ll do right now is vote on this resolution. It
doesn't mean that we can’t switch the committee assignment, and then
we'll talk after the meeting.

Poi £4 7

Larry Kauffman: We're going to vote on the resolution, what

kind of resolve does that show if we change it?

Chairman Schwab: We’d have to enter something else.
Larry Kauffman: Like a resolution?
Chairman Schwab: Right. Do I have any other questions on

this bill? (No response.)

Valerie Vazquez makes a motion to move to debate,

seconded by Todd Teichman. No objections. Jen

Hird makes a motion to move to question, seconded

by Valerie Vazquez. No objections. Ed Kerr

motion to move to unanimous consent, seconded by

Johanna Rosenberg.

Chairman Schwab: This bill passes with unanimous consent.
Moving right along. We’re now going to go into Executive

appointments.
§7

Marc Alessi: Motion to break agenda.
Chairman Schwab: We have someone who wanted to address

Council; is that correct?

Marc Alessi: Yes. Being that we signed up so many students
to vote we’d like to give an opportunity to meet the candidates that
we vote for.

Chairman Schwab: That is open as long as the candidate is
aware that they can inform the Council of their candidacy, speak about
themselves and not necessarily campaign, so to speak.

Marc Alessi: Are we allowed to ask questions.

Chairman Schwab: Sure. I did tell Marc -- Marc had asked
me before this meeting if and when Judge Rosen was able to join us
tonight -- that I would the judge say a few words, and I would invite
him to come forward.

Judge Rosen: I'll take two minutes of your time to answer
any questions that you might have. My name is Larry Rosen, and I am
the present county court judge in Albany County, and I am running on
the Liberal line and the Democratic line for Supreme Court on the
Third Judicial District, which is a seven county area. I won't say
too much other than I will be happy to answer any questions.

I’ve been a member of the Judiciary for ten years. I’ve been the
police court judge for five years, Albany County court judge for two
years. I have been very sensitive to student concerns. There are
people in this room that have asked help for students of me, and that
help has been forthcoming. My son is a graduate student at SUNY

Albany. I’ve lived in Albany for approximately 22 or 23 years. My
5é
daughter is a senior at Binghamton. They both went through the Albany
city school system, and both have gone through the SUNY system. I
spoke to Marc yesterday, and I’ve known Larry for a couple of years.
He helped me out in the campaign two years ago when I was elected
county court judge in Albany.

I need the help of the students. I think I deserve the help of
the students. I’m not the type of judge that hasn’t been sensitive to
student concerns. Student vote is very important. There are three
Democrats with the Liberal endorsement, so I’1l be on the Democrat and
Liberal line, and my three Republican opponents will be on the
conservative and Republican line. Marc was kind enough to invite me
here. Again, I had two meetings earlier. We’re putting lawn signs
together, and I’ve got one more meeting tonight. I don’t mean to take
up any more of your time than necessary, but if anybody had any
questions about my candidacy or any questions about the Supreme Court
race. I’d ask your Chairman to just cut in whenever I’ve taken too
much time, and then I’1l leave your campus.

Ken Woodard: What seven counties?

Judge Rosen: Rennsalear County, Albany County, Schoharie
County, although there's not many votes there, Green and Columbia
County, Ulster and Sullivan County. The district is huge so it goes
from Rennsalear County all the way down to Sullivan County. I would
say the last seven nights I’ve been in every one of those counties at
their either Democrat or Liberal party meetings.

Poi ei ‘

Kamau Blount: No disrespect or anything, but I’m just
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59

curious, what is it that we’re supposed to be getting out of this?

hai hwab: This is what I’m doing -- what we’re going
to do is invite as many candidates from the upcoming elections to come
in front of Council to announce the candidacy and to address
questions. Obviously, he’s not making a speech about his candidacy.
He’s just going to inform us what ticket he’s running on and take any
questions that you guys might have concerning his candidacy and what
he’s running for. It’s simply informational, educational, and that’s
what Neil and I decided to do is to get that type of speaker at every
meeting so that you guys can get a little bit more of the political
process.

Judge Rosen: Believe me, you could get a lot of information
here, but as soon as there’s no longer any questions, I’m out of here.

Jen Hird: I was wondering what kind of issues you deal with
as Supreme Court Judge?

Judge Rogen: A Supreme Court Judge in the state of New York
handles a tremendous amount of issues. The reason I almost couldn't
answer that -- it’s non-criminal. Civil, not criminal cases. All the
lawsuits against the state, for instance. All the administrative
boards, whatever cases they have before them. I/11 tell you just one
other sentence why it’s very important. The Republican Party has
nomination and Republican State Committee has put a tremendous amount
of money into the three Republican candidates for State Supreme Court.
And it’s a situation where, if the present Governor gets his way,
there will be three judges elected to Supreme Court which will be

dealing with -- by the way, it’s a 14 year term -- who will be dealing
60
with cases, for instance, if students sue the state, you would come
before State Supreme Court. It’s the court of original jurisdiction.
Any non-criminal case that you can think of that involves
constitutional issues or matters over $25,000 would go to a state
Supreme Court Justice. If the Republicans have their way, and they’re
putting a lot of money into media campaigns, and are able to elect
three Republican conservative judges, it will affect all of your lives
and your families lives in those seven counties for a long time. Any
issues that the state of New York has, any suits against the state of
New York go before State Supreme Court.

Larry Kauffman: What are we looking at in terms of
difficulty, vote spreads, that kind of stuff, anything you can tell
us? How tough of a race is it?

Judge Rosen: It’s a very tough race because seven counties
are involved. It appears now that the numbers will be that if the
Democrat Liberal candidates do extremely well -- and this is why I
enlist student support -- if we do very well in the city and county of
Albany, Albany and Rennsalear have the bulk of the population. If I
come out of Albany County with a strong vote, I’m going to come out of
Albany County as a winner.

Larry Kauffman: So the biggest thing is obviously Albany
County then?

Judge Rosen: And when I heard that you’ve registered 3,000
new voters my interest peaked on coming here today.

Kamau Blount: Basically, my question is, the position that

you're running for is not going to be a position where you’re going to
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61
be affected by politics?

Judge Rosen: That’s a very interesting observation. I
mean, politics sort of creeps into everything. The Republican State
Committee is financing the campaign of the Republican candidates big
time -- media, television. I can’t handle that. Politics will creep
in. I ask students to remember that you’re better off with a judge
who owes 100,000 people a dollar than a judge who owes one person
$100,000. Do you see the difference. When I was in Albany Police
Court, for instance, for five years, 250 - 300 cases a day. Hopefully
none of you have actually seen me in action there, unless you were
visiting with a friend or something like that. In any event, I have a
daughter who’s in Binghamton. My son went to Stonybrook the first
year, but he graduated right here and is in graduated school as I
mentioned. Many of you from towns outside of the seventh district,
you might come from the island, you might come from the city -- I’m
sensitive. I would want my daughter treated in court in Binghamton
the exact same way I treated SUNY students when they came before me in
Albany Police Court. And that’s what it’s about.

Kamau Blount: Basically, what I wanted to know is --

Judge Rogen: It would have been easy for me to say politics
is not a part of it, but politics is part of getting elected. You
can’t get around that.

Kamau Blount: I understand that, but once you are in
office, there are no checks, correct?

dudge Rosen: That’s not exactly true. We do have an

appellate court system.
62

Kamau Blount: But I mean, you’re not affected by politics
in a sense that you have constituents.

Judge Rosen: No. Your constituency should be your
conscience, and that’s my constituency. Do you see my point? We’re
all who we are. If I made you a Supreme Court Judge today, you are
who you are. Your experiences place you where you are. I grew up in
Brooklyn, and I came up through the ranks, and that’s going to affect
my politics with a small "p," do you see what I’m saying? I am who I
am, but you’re right that I don’t owe too much to anyone. I owe a
little to a lot of people, but not a lot. to anybody. So it’s not like
somebody could call me and say this is the way you got to rule on this
case. The law is the law, but conscience comes into play in almost
all cases interestingly enough. You’re not a robot. It’s not like
you hit the computer button and find out what the decision is. A lot
of times you sort of make the decision and then have your law clerk
figure out the way to write it so you come to that decision. That’s a
big difference if you comprehend what I’m saying.

Larry Kauffman: Mr. Chairman, would you mind, and if you
don't mind my asking the judge, Judge, do you mind since you're a
modest guy and since you have had 250 cases a day for the last four or
five years when you were on the bench --

Judge Rosen: Oh, wait a minute now, I handled -- I’ve got
to tell you one thing, Larry, in all seriousness, I was the Judge who
handled the most complex felony cases the last two years, one of which
being very intimate to this community. I tried the Tortericci case

last January. I was the judge who handled that case. 37 of your
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63

colleagues were taken hostage at gun point in a lecture hall in this
campus two years ago. And one young man, 21 years of age, suffered a
grievous, horrible injury. I won’t get into it unless somebody wants
me to get into it. I charged that jury for two and a half hours. It
took them 90 minutes to return guilty on 15 counts. I sentenced Ralph
Tortericci, nobody’s going to have to worry about Ralph Tortericci.

In that case there was a mental: disease and a not responsible defense.
It was a very complicated case. That jury rejected the not
responsible by reason of a mental illness defense. Ralph Tortericci
secreted a rifle and one of the bullets went right through the groin
of a student. There were 37 kids. The parents of those other 37 kids
should kiss Macaninni’s feet every day, and some commentator horribly
forced that young man to leave this campus. He was chased out of
town, and it was a horrible thing that happened to him. He was
heroic, but Tortericci was a wrestler and when Macaninni grabbed the
rifle and pulled it down, tragically, Tortericci was strong enough
that he resisted it and the round went right through his groin. This
is all matter of public record. You could have been at the trial, and
many students were at that trial as a matter of fact. The students
who spent ten days with me this past January in that trial, and by the
way, when a student comes to me, I take the student under my wing.
When a student comes to me, that student is in my courtroom, if they
care. I’ve nursed a lot of you into law school. My letters have
gotten SUNY students into law school, even a young lady who worked in
the public defender’s office when I was in police court and she

panicked on law boards. She just couldn’t handle that kind of test,
64
but she was a very motivated student. It was my letters that got her
into law school. The last I heard, she’s making $65,000 a year in New
York in a law firm. That’s not bad. So come see me sometime in
court.

Hi kis: I just want to thank you for doing what
you did and the ruling, because Jason was one of my friends, so thank
you.

Chairman Schwab: We’re back in order. I just want to say,
to be fair, we did make calls to the Republican opponents and fellow
Democratic running mates.’ We made calls around 4:00. We haven’t
gotten responses yet, but understandably it was in the afternoon. But
to be fair that’s what we did, to invite them either to this meeting
or the next one to do the same type of thing. I think that’s good to
have candidates come. You can see them a little bit and basically
just ask questions and not hear them preach about what they’re for,
what they’re against. Go ahead, Larry.

Larry Kauffman: I wasn’t joking when I said the judge is a
modest guy. He doesn’t like people saying nice things about him,
especially in his presence. I just wanted to give one quick example,
and I’m referring to the fraternity --

Matt Shapiro: We’ve heard the judge already, we know what
he stands for. Can we just get on with things?

Matt Krout: I feel Larry should be able to speak.

Chairman Schwab: He does have the floor and he’s going to
65
go for 30 seconds. Larry, 30 seconds.

Lar: ff : Well, no, I can’t do 30 seconds for this

I’ve used up 30° seconds just to respond to a fellow council member who

won’t let me even speak.

Chairman Schwab: Go ahead for 30 seconds, please.
Larry Kauffman: It’s not fair to limit me to 30 seconds.

Chairman Schwab: We’re not in debate concerning the speaker
though. That’s what I’m trying to say.

L pio : I wanted to say something, that’s all.

Chairman Schwab: Okay, go ahead.

L ffi : I'm referring to the fraternity brothers of
a council member here. The kids were arrested for trashing downtown
Albany. They were sentenced to a $250 fine. I went before Judge
Rosen and I asked him -- I was nobody then. I wasn’t president, I
wasn’t even a council member then. This was in the fall of ‘94, and I
told him very honestly that they couldn't afford to do community
service because their grades weren’t good enough, and they told me
that. I told him they don’t have any money, that’s why they were
using a public defender. They couldn’t even get an attorney to
represent them for this case, and that they couldn’t afford a $250
fine. First of all, the judge vacated the fine in the interest of
justice. Secondly, he allowed them to do community service on campus.
That’s all I wanted to say, and I’m not pushing for him. I just want
you to know that there are some people that really do care about the

students.

And one last thing, I had the choice of running the campaign on
66
campus but because I’m a controversial guy, and I’m an impeached ex-
president who got naked, I don’t want to make the judge look bad, and
I don’t want to make the campaign look bad. That’s why I asked Marc
to do this. And everybody who knows what an ego maniac I am can also
understand what it’s like to play second fiddle to anybody which is
not in my nature, it’s certainly not in my wishes. I did this because
I believe in the guy and because I’m very grateful for what he’s done
for the students, and I just wanted to say that much. And I won't
take up any more of your time except to say that that’s not the only
time I went before the judge on behalf of students and it sure as hell
wasn’t the only time he helped students.

Chairman Schwab: Thank you, Larry. We’re moving right
along to Bill 9697-30. I’m going to let K.B. read this and we‘ll
start with Executive appointments now. K.B. is going to read this
bill, he’1l entertain questions on the interview that took place today
concerning this appointment, and then I’m going to let Mike and/or
Ashish come to the podium, speak about their interview if that sounds

okay to Mike and Ashish. The agenda is a little different tonight.
[
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67

Introduced by: Internal Affairs Committee Bill 9697-30
~ Chairman Kamau Blount Committee Vote: 3-1-0-0
Vice Chair Valerie Vazquez
Date: October 9, 1996
Be it hereby proposed and that the following be enacted:

Tes That Meghana Mude be appointed as Affirmative Action
Director for the 1996-1997 year.

II. That this bill becomes effective immediately in accordance
with the Student Association Constitution.

Voting Members Present

Kamau Blount - Chair

Pat Albano

Todd Teichman

Ashwani Prabhakar

Kamau Blount: Basically, I felt that this was a very strong

appointment in regards to the fact that the questions that we did ask
her, she gave highly intellectual answers that I feel were qualified
for the Affirmative Action Director. I just want to let everybody
know that I was the one that voted in the no for the simple fact that
she didn’t have a concrete understanding of policy. When I say
concrete understanding of policy, I can understand that some people
might feel that a person can learn their job as they go along.
However, I felt for this interview, she didn’t really have an
understanding of what it is her job entails at all in regards to the
fact that one of the questions that was asked about the grievance
board -- she didn’t know that it was her responsibility to actually
run the grievance board. If she comes before you guys aaa: Has
improved on that, I have no objections in regards to this appointment.

Todd Teichman: While we interviewed her, we asked her a lot

of probing questions and situational questions, and she had very good
68
answers. She understood discrimination and affirmative action, but
the one problem as Kamau said was that she did not have a firm grasp
of policy. I did vote for her, not for that reason but for the reason
that she’s a very new student here and she hasn’t really had time to
look over policy. She was called up the night before and she didn’t
know to read policy. I believe if she read it over she could learn it
well enough to do her job very ‘well. That is why I have no objection
to her nomination.

Ashwani Prabhakar: I voted yes for the proposal that you
have before you. Meghana came in today. We gave her some questions,
and some of the questions that were important to me and influenced my
decision were questions, as Todd pointed out, Meghana is new to the
Student Association. As you probably all just observed, the S.A. is
just this circle that just keeps going on and on, people moving from
quad boards to Central Council to Executive Board, and it just keeps
going on. Meghana is a fresh face which is what is very crucial. The
person who's up for Affirmative Action has to represent students, the
under-represented classes. Meghana, I think,.can do that really well.
She’s not attached to Central Council, she’s not attached to the
Executive Board. She’s a student, and she feels she can represent the
under-represented classes. We had a question about that. The
question states, "What would you do if you heard the Executive
Director make numerous derogatory statements about a particular
group"? Her answer to that was that she would first go to the
director. That’s what we wanted to hear. She would speak with the

director about where these comments were coming from and basically try
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69
to correct the problem with them before she went out and took further
action. She was willing to take further action if it was necessary.

I think that's very good.

In terms of policy, she wasn’t that versed on policy, but what we
took into consideration -- the three yes votes -- was that we called
her up at about 10:30 the night before her interview, told her to be
there the next morning at 9:30 for the interview. S.A. was closed.
She couldn’t get her hands on policy. I, myself, don’t have policy.
Things are not going right now as they should in terms of policy being
distributed and so on. There was a computer breakdown. Also, in
terms of policy, she’s very capable, I think, of learning policy.

It's very simple. She’s really demonstrated an ability to adapt. In
terms of the grievance board question that K.B. brought up, K.B. asked
her a question about the grievance board, she was very honest. She
asked what the grievance board was all about. We explained it to her
in about ten seconds. She came up with a great answer, so she quickly
learned what the grievance board was about. Just give me a second and
let me look over some of the other questions.

Valerie Vazquez: Some of those questions were going to be
used for assistant directorships, so could you not give those out.

Ashwani Prabhakar: Really? I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware.

Chairman Schwab: I was just going to make that point. Too,
just to let you know, for rational, it’s a brief summation of why
you're in favor of the bill, and then you save other comments until

debate.

A i Pr : Okay. I guess I'll stop there then.
70

Chairman Schwab: I‘ll put you first on the debate list.
Does anybody have any questions of any of the sponsors of the bill?
There will be time to ask questions when Mike, Ashish, and Meghana are
up here.

President Castrilli: Ashish and I are very, very pleased
with our appointment for Affirmative Action Director. We had a
fantastic interview with Meghana on Saturday. One of the words that
I would say describes her best is objective. She came across in our
interview as one of those people that looks at everything, not at one
single issue, and takes a wide perspective. Our words tonight won't
do anything until you meet her, and she is a fantastic individual.
She is a transfer from Temple. What we do is, Ashish and I go through
the applications and read through the applications first, obviously.
She wrote an introductory letter about herself, and it says, "As
Affirmative Action Director I hope to facilitate the social education
that is central to the abatement of ignorance." I think Ashish is
going to go on about her presentation to us, but Meghana knows her
stuff. When we talked, we talked about what her perspective was on
Affirmative Action Director, and one of her best comments was about
recruitment and how important it is to recruit individuals for
positions, but not only for positions, but to just get involved. And
I do believe she will do that. She was at the NYPIRG meeting a couple
weeks ago. She was at the transportation meeting. That’s actually
where Maria Perez met her. She’s an active student, and I think she
is a fantastic appointment. She has served in other capacities

before. I’m just going to read a bunch of some of her qualifications.
71

One of the things she’s done'was an academic recruiter and
coordinator. She also has been in Amnesty International. She is just
a phenomenal character. One of the other things she’s done was her
act for peace saying, and that was a political action committee that
was consumer based. What they do is learn how to target legislation
and so forth. Also she’d be the liaison to go to legislative meetings
and really be an active advocate for that. And I think that’s another
role that we need as an Affirmative Action Director. We need someone
that can actively pursue the goals of affirmative action, and I think
she could do that very well. I think you're going to enjoy her
presentation. All the officers that have met her in the last two days
have come up to me after and said what a fantastic character she was
and how she has impressed them so much. So I’m excited to introduce
her, but before I do that I want to introduce Ashish Prabhakar.

Vice President Prabhakar: To restate what Mike said, again,
a fantastic candidate, very articulate, eloquent. Like Mike said, you
will enjoy her coming up here and speaking to you because she’s had a
lot of experience. What I’d just briefly like to do is read a
paragraph from a letter that was written by Meghana. It says, "I feel
that the internal component for a positive future at SUNY Albany lies
in the strength of the students. In the role of Affirmative Action
Director, I hope to best facilitate the social education that is
central to the abatement of ignorance. Furthermore, the increasing
roles that nontraditional students are taking on is a call to the
general public of the significance of everyone in our dynamic society.

The office of Affirmative Action has been designed to better
72
facilitate the transitions taking place both within the university as
well as the Henainaer of society. The primary duty of the office of
Affirmative Action is to prepare socially and academically well-
educated individuals. In turn, these individuals will be able to best
contribute to their communities. This will allow us to move ina
positive direction together. I am enthusiastic about the upcoming
year and hope to play a role in the recruitment of our wonderful

; university. I will do my very best to meet both the goals of the
university and the Affirmative Action office."

Again, we're very proud of her, and I think you'll all see for
yourself why we think she’s such a fantastic candidate. I’d like to
introduce to you Meghana Mude.

Meghana Mude: Hi, everyone. I’m new to this school so bear
with me, and also I have a cold. The first thing was that I’m coming
from a university of about 40,000 students. I came from Temple
University. I was involved with their honors program, and I was
actively involved with the science component. I started out as a bio-
chem major. There’s a reason why I’m standing here today in relation
to where I was in 1992. To make a long story short, it starts with
what did I want to do with my future.

I started out as a bio-chem major and I had a lot of problems two
years into my years at Temple. Both of my parents have disabilities
so I was supporting myself. I started out as an honors student, but
through legislation and various other things, my funding was taken
away. After I was out of school, there was a mugging. Three months

later there was a rape. Four months later there was an accident.
73

After the accident I was in rehab for about six months. Now despite

all of these other personal adversities that come along in our lives,
! the thing that shaped me most was not what happened to my parents, was
not only what my parents experienced or friends experienced or the
students experience, but moreover what happened after the accident.
Apart from being a student and being actively involved as a full-
time employee with Allegheny University and recruiting, I was also in
physical therapy. Last year I was using a cane at this time and I
remember someone shoving me aside saying, "You can’t do that," and
some derogatory comments because I was waiting at a water fountain.
It hit me right then and there what affirmative action meant. So,

over the course of this past year approximately, I have informally and

formally been involved at various levels of affirmative action. As
far as affirmative action goes, this is the only office that I felt
was worthwhile for me to put my application in for after coming to
; this school. I have experience with legislation, I have experience
with other groups, but I felt this was the most important thing.
The other thing is, I think SUNY Albany is the kind of
environment that is what today’s world is. I think it’s

representative both demographically and in terms of idea wise of what

we as a society are. As far as the actual process of me coming to
| Albany, to make a long story short, I was working, and I decided that
i I needed to go back to school. I said this is more important for me
: to prioritize. Now I’m a social and business major. That’s first
thing. Second thing is, here I am not in biochemistry, not anything

related to science, but related to people, still wanting to help and
74
improve things.

So when I saw this position open, I thought why not give it a
shot. I enjoy doing this stuff, I have experience with mediation,
litigation, being a liaison and what have you. But above all, I
thought, granted, I don’t have any direct experience in the role of
Affirmative Action Director or liaison or facilitator in an
organization. However, I think the skills that I’ve acquired and that
anyone needs to best fulfill this role, can be found within the
characteristics of the individual, not in the characteristics of the
office.

As far as the interviews went, I think there were three or four
separate informal interviews, one formal with Mike, another formal one
with Ashish, but I’ve talked to Maria, I’ve talked to the
transportation people. I’ve run into lots of groups in the
university. I know that this university is active in various
respects, especially with the minority groups, the under represented
groups so to speak, and all the non traditional students. For
example, there’s AAA which isn’t in most other universities. I have
done research into that. There’s nothing along the lines of an Asian
American Alliance. But then also you have other needs being addressed
apart from the "ethnic needs." The disabilities office has a student
action type of role. There’s Liga Filipina and Fuerza Latina that
take a more political role. So these are all various things that I
think play a role in where the university is going to go. These are
groups that have a role in what’s going to happen tomorrow, but most

importantly, what I think my job would be is to sort of facilitate and
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75

environment -- I use the word facilitate because I’m there to either
be served by or to serve, but to help one another grow towards this
direction of nisyiag one another.

I recognize also and K.B. mentioned to me that I wasn’t entirely
versed on how the procedures, particularly for the grievance policy,
work. And I recognize that. I was called yesterday night at 10:30 to
come this morning. It was kind of difficult for me to be educated on
that. I tried to do the best I could during the interview. I’m
leaving it to your whims, of course, to decide what you think is best.
But as for me, there's a lot of personal vested interest in what I’m
going to be doing. It’s going to affect me directly. I think there’s
no better way of getting someone to put their all into any position or
any duty unless it has a personal appeal. This should be something
that’s personally effective to all of us. Affirmative action is not
about a particular group or a particular policy, but it’s about how we
make the educational and social environment better for all of us.
That's pretty much it.

hai hwab: Meghana, I’m going to invite Council and
members of the gallery to ask questions. We'll take a questions list,
and I’m going to first ask a question of Meghana. First of all, I was
impressed to hear you familiarity with some of the groups already,
being new. What do you see as something of a priority from the get-
go? Say your appointment goes through tonight, what will you do in
the next week or so? It seems like you’ve already started to get
familiar with the groups. Is it to continue that, or what else is it?

Meghana Mude: I think there’s two separate things that are
76
going on. I’ve actually talked to Ashish and a bunch of other people
about what the most pressing needs are. The one is recognizing of a
couple of groups. I know that Vietnamese Student Association still
needs to be recognized on the grievance board. So going through the
housekeeping details of what is required for the office of the
grievance board, but also as far as going through policies, seeing if
the policies are up to date in reference to other current affirmative
action manuals and policies. I think there are two projects that are
pretty important right now. One is obviously the routine housekeeping
that I spoke about. The second is the long term educational role that
I think this office plays. Regardless of who the officer is, the role
requires a certain degree of putting information out there for
students, awareness, interaction. I know that one of the things
that’s been a problem on this university has been the university
police department, perhaps putting them into some sort of sensitizing
training. I know that SASU and I have talked about this at length.
Not just the student body -- getting them sensitized to minority or
nontraditional students issues, but also the administration and the
powers that be, for lack of a better word.

Valerie Vazquez: I think this question was asked at your
interview, but I was just wondering if you've thought more about it,
about programs that you’re going to be putting on as Affirmative
Action Director?

Maghana Mude: Absolutely. Again, there’s all kinds of
media that can be employed for this and I think I used those exact

words during the meeting earlier today. The programs that would be
77
put on would be along these lines -- I haven’t had much time to think
since it’s only been twelve hours -- but along those lines would be
obviously having outside influential speakers within the
nontraditional groups or people who are influential in those
communities, Workshops, workshops, workshops, and lots of sort of

scenario problem solving, perhaps re-educating all of the RA’s and

directors on all the quads on how to approach a student who’s not from

* your ethnic and socio-economic background. How do you deal with this

type of an issue without bringing race or ethnicity or culture into
it, but problem solving skills that are necessary for all of us.
However, being sensitized to the various issues that deal with
affirmative action.

John Laico: First of all, let me apologize for not being at
the interview. There was a communications breakdown. You used the
term before that’s really not defined in policy as a nontraditional
student. I was wondering what you meant by that.

Meghana Mude: As with so many things, again, there’s a lot
of school of thought with what nontraditional student means. Of
course you have the traditionally underrepresented groups and the
"protected" groups. But also, non traditional I think means ideas and
lifestyles that aren’t necessarily what the majority of society
practices. It has to do with how do you tackle various viewpoints,
lifestyles, backgrounds, and ideals, and still use that as a
foundation to move on to problem solving. Does that answer your
question?

John Laico: Yeah, pretty much.
78

Meghana Mude: Basically, what I wanted to say, it’s not
necessarily ethnicity or race or culture specific, but more what's
value specific, what’s ideal specific.

re ry W. : I was wondering if you could give us your
opinion on whether or not there is such a thing as reverse
discrimination?

Meghana Mude: It's very difficult to speak across the board
on whether there is or there isn’t any type of discrimination. Most
things work on a case by case basis, obviously. That’s the first
thing I would say. I think there’s discrimination across the board at
various levels. Sometimes it’s blatant, sometimes it’s covert,
sometimes it’s overt. It’s difficult to define at what level it
exists. A professor can say, "Well, I didn’t like where that came
from," to another student, for example. That could be interpreted in
a number of ways. I think the same think goes with reverse
discrimination, or any type of discrimination where there’s animosity
and ambiguity on two parties sides. How does one party view another
party? How do I relate to this person? That’s where race relations
problems come from. As far as reverse discrimination goes, I’m sure
it’s there with some extreme individuals, as there is the opposite
which is traditional segregation and prejudice. But on the whole,
it’s definitely at varying levels and varying degrees of intensity.

Camille Torres: I wanted to ask Internal Affairs and Mike
and Ashish -- do you think it will hinder the process, especially the
grievance board, that she didn’t know about it -- for many student

groups that’s an avenue for any grievance that they have, that she
79

didn’t know about it? And also, since she’s new she may not know who
the student groups are and some of the politics and issues that they
face.

Meghana Mude: Okay. I wanted to answer this question.
I’1l give them a chance to, but I wanted to let you know that at every
institution that I’ve either worked at or been, there’s always been a
grievance board. I recognized that there is a grievance board. Just
to clarify the confusion, I didn’t recognize that that was a direct
responsibility of the office. I was under the impression it was and
amalgamation of different officers and different officers duties,
which is understandable because that’s how my framework comes from.
As far as different ethnic groups and racial groups and different
types of student groups, so to speak, I think in a university of
40,000 you have just as many as there are here. Basically, what I’m
suggesting is that I feel that there’s not that much difference as far
as the number or the types of groups. More importantly, what are
their interests and what are their needs and what are their goals.
That, I think, is where the key lies.

Ashish Prabhakar: Will it hinder her performance? No. I
think Meghana is going to do one of the most amazing jobs as
Affirmative Action Director that you’ve ever seen an Affirmative
Action Director do. As far as learning about the grievance board,
it’s not a big deal. The biggest problem that occurs with the
grievance board, I’11 tell you from my past experience as Affirmative
Action Director, is not whether the Affirmative Action Director is

really informed on what the grievance board is and who’s on it. That
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takes about a minute to do. You can just read policy, read a page.
What's difficult is to get the groups there.

Camille Torres: That’s my point, the fact that she doesn’t
know the groups and understanding the politics behind it since she is
a new student.

Ashish Prabhakar: As far as it being a hindrance, it’s not
a hindrance. What’s a hindrance, like I said, is getting to know the
people, but the thing is you have to deal with that anyway. It’s
unavoidable. You have to make yourself familiar with them, and I
think Meghana is going to have no problems talking to people on the E-
Boards and going to meetings and things like that, working in
conjunction with Samantha and Maria so that she can get to know these
people. I don’t think that’s a big deal.

Camille Torres: Can I get a comment from Internal Affairs?

Kamau Blount: I’m sorry, could you just repeat the
question.

Camille Torres: The fact that the grievance board, that she
didn’t know about it, and also the fact that since she’s a new student
-- being that the grievance board is the most popular way that most
student groups interact with the Affirmative Action office -- that
since she’s a new student, she won’t know some of the issues or some
of the politics that go around some of the grievances that occur.

Kamau Blount: I feel that was definitely one of my
concerns. Basically, I thought that if a person is going for a
certain position that they should at least know what that position

entails so they at least know what they’re getting themselves involved
81

with. Now, the fact that she’s a new student, it can work itself ina

positive and negative way. It can work in a positive in the fact that

nobody has any animosity or hostility towards that person, so it
basically starts with a fresh slate. But, it’s also a negative in the
fact that she doesn’t know what the particular problems of the groups
are. She doesn’t have a rapport with them, as yet, to say that this
group has conflicts with this group. That’s going to take time to
develop. My main concern was the fact that she didn’t understand what
it is that her role entails. That’s my major concern. The fact that
she doesn’t know the groups, I feel that that’s something that can
come in time. That can be gained just by being in the office, but the
4 fact that she didn’t understand what it is her job entails, the fact
that she didn’t know that the grievance board is something that her
office basically runs, was a major concern of mine.

John Laico: K.B. and I discussed this afterwards. I
listened to excerpts of the tape. I wasn’t able to be there as
: everybody knows. Valerie and I talked about it as well. And we are
of the opinion that policy is something that can be learned. I think
that the personality traits, the ability to work with the groups are
: stuff that you can’t learn. You do have the ability to go into the
offices and contact the people that you need to talk to and get you
point across. I just want to reiterate pretty much everything that

K.B. said. I think he speaks pretty much for the whole committee on

what he had just said.

i Matt Shapiro: I wanted to know what you feel about -- I

don’t know if you’re aware, you probably are -- a week from today
y
82
there’s going to be another Million Man March sponsored by Louis
Farakan. I wanted to know how you feel about that and will your
office support something like that?

Meghana Mude: If you'd like to discuss specific policies
with me, I’d be more than happy to sit aside with you to discuss them.
But I think this is a forum where I’m publicly being interviewed, not
_ to minimize what's important to you. But we can discuss specific
things because I’ve talked to both of these guys and them at length
about this. But as far as what my qualifications and abilities are
and how you all feel as a group about me and my abilities is what I’m
here to sort of address, if you don’t mind.

Matt Shapiro: I think this is an issue that affects a lot
of people on campus, and I think Council has the right to know how
you'd handle a situation like that.

Meghana Mude: I haven’t even been officially appointed the
officer, so I will speak about that after the role comes into play. I
don’t mean to sort of deter your question, but I don’t have the
authority to speak about it at this point quite frankly.

Chairman Schwab: I think what she’s saying is that she
doesn’t want to speak for S.A. before she’s appointed.

Meghana Mude: Absolutely.

Chairman Schwab: Camille, I’m sorry, I wasn’t clear on what
your question was, but I’m going to go back and get the rest of the
committee’s view. You were asking the committee; is that correct?

Camille Torres: Yeah, they answered it.

Chairman Schwab: Oh, they did. Okay.
83

Ashwani Prabhakar: The question was addressed to the
committee, I’d like to have part --
irm hwab: Okay. Well, see I walked in, I was in the
bathroom so --
A ni hakar: Policy, that was something that

definitely had to be considered. Meghana wasn’t that well versed at
all on policy. I owe it to you guys to explain why even with that
factor I voted yes. When you’re doing an interview, you're basically
judging the person. Meghana didn’t know policy.

Point of order

h jotakis: I don’t mean to interrupt you because I
value what you're saying but your question should have been aimed
towards debate.

Chairman Schwab: Your comments have to be directed to
answering her question. You can save the opinion part of it until we
get to debate.

Samantha Hiotakis: If you want to debate, someone make a
motion to debate.

Chairman Schwab: We’ve got to wait until we get to someone
on the list to do that, and Dina, you're up next.

Dina Delicce: I was wondering, in your opinion, what are
some of the under represented groups on this campus and what you can
do as the affirmative action director to help them?

Meghana Mude:' That’s a very important issue.

Traditionally, under represented groups, obviously, include all of the
84
demographic and ethnic minorities. I don’t like using these terms
because that’s not how I personally view them as, but it serves the
purpose right now. Native American students, for example, African-
American students, Chinese and Asian -- basically Asian students in
general; SASA, AAA, what have you. Those are all under represented
components of the population. But also, you have LGBA here, which is
a good thing, but that is not a traditional category of "under
represented." However, it’s a very important issue in todays world.
Also, these days you're getting people from various ethnicities, part
Mexican, part African American, part Chinese. How do you address.
these people’s multi-ethnic type of issues. I think we’re on the
threshold of a society that has not only various ethnic and sub-ethnic
and subcultural groups, but a different way of thinking, different
ideas, different norms, and this is what we’re trying to ease the
transition into. That’s what I feel is the bottom line.

Vice Chairman Freilich: We all know that today there’s a
big national debate about affirmative action. It means a lot of
different things to a lot of different people. Do you believe that
there should be preferences based on ones race to promote affirmative
action, or do you believe it’s more of an outreach?

Meghana Mude: I think the way I‘m going to answer this
question is the way I answered the young man over there, which is, I
can speak specific to the issues once I’m in the office given what my
duties and responsibilities are, but my personal opinion verses what
the offices role is are two slightly different things.

Gregory Wahl: You said in your opening statement that
85

affirmative action is not for any specific particular group. I was
wondering if you believe that people who aren’t covered by affirmative
action find a place in your office and in the dealings with your
office?

Meghana Mude: The first thing that I feel is the role of
affirmative action office is what do the students want, what do they
need, what is the main area of difficulty in terms of interrelating to
one another on this campus. That has nothing to do with what your
background is or what your orientation is. It has everything to do
with, how do I better relate to my community, my university, and how
do I best interact and maximize my educational years and time here,
and what do I take back with me that’s going to help me grow as a
person, help me contribute to society as a whole and help me maybe be
a little less ignorant about everyone else around me including myself.
So, yes, there’s a forum for everyone. The first thing I told Ashish
and Mike was that I think what Affirmative Action office needs to
establish first is an "I’m there for you" type of role. When these
tragedies happened for me, half the time people were there, half the
time people weren’t there. Luckily, when some of the worst things
happened, there was somebody there to hear me out and then say, this
is the resource you go to. Hopefully, this is what the Affirmative
Action Officer’s role would be, which is, we’re here to listen to your
concerns and we’re going to try to help you get to the right resource.
But most importantly, how do you feel about this and what can I help

you do.

Valerie Vazquez: I’m hoping this question will clear up the
86
policy issue because in terms of thinking as an Affirmative Action
Director there are certain responsibilities and duties that go along
with that title in any type of organization. What types of things,
aside from what you already said that your ideas are for the office,
what type of duties do you see that fall under your responsibility?

Meghana Mude: As far as -duties go, number one is mediation
of problems between various groups. Second, most important, is
education of the university as a whole and then the different
populations that the university is comprised of; the professors, the
administrators, the regular staff people here, S.A., everybody. I The
third is implementation. What programs do we and not just I as an
Affirmative Action Officer, but what all of the various student
organizations, the different groups, the people on the grievance
board, everyone including the S.A. feel about a particular policy or a
particular program. This is not just "my office," it’s everybody's
office. We're all actively responsible for this. It’s just, I would
be the person who facilitates things.

Dori Travieso: My biggest concern is that you're a new
student. I was just wondering, since you've been here, how many
meetings have you attended with under represented groups and what
issues on affirmative action do you think affect this campus directly?

Meghana Mude: I try to be as active as possible, but as you
can understand I’m in the learning curve process so I’m not even aware
of everything that’s out there. Right now I’m involved with SASU.
I’ve been mildly involved with SASA, which South Asian Student

Association. I also have other community things that I do. One of
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87

the things that I’m working on on the side is working on a homeless
type of project. So there are things that I do outside of the
university community that are also community specific. As far as

actual university stuff, I saw you at the transportation meeting. I’m

‘planning on being there. I’m enrolled with the disabled student

services, I talk to the students often. I wouldn’t say it’s ina

. formalized manner, but I would say it’s more of the interactions that

I have. And fortunately I’ve had an opportunity to meet with a number
of you in various arenas, either running into at the S.A. office or
here or the transportation meeting and what have you. So I’m trying
my best to be active, but it’s one month into school.

Dori Travieso: What issues concerning afFlimative aecion do
you think affect this campus directly?

Meghana Mude: I've heard a great deal from a lot of
students and what I see right now is sort of creating a forum for
students -- it seems to me just as an outsider, an objective person,
that there really isn’t a place that people feel they can go and voice
their concerns to without having some sort of opinions, judgements,
what have you, made about them and some sort of damages coming out of
it. So I guess the first thing would be to implement an environment
and an office and have one, two, or three people that would be there
to act as counselors, advisors, and resource people. First thing,
listening; second thing, working.

Dori Travieso: If you had your position when that whole
incident with the taxicab happened, what would you have done?

Meghana Mude: As far as the taxicab situation is concerned,
88
I actually talked about it at the transportation meeting and my
proposition is kind of radical, but it would be finding out a way for
students to get their own transportation in the sense that we would
co-op a van. Instead of the university paying 60 or $80,000 for one
of the big buses, get one or two small vans and have it run as a
student owned co-op and having that whole issue of outside people,
stereotypes, problems, beatings, what have you, not be an issue
because we’re servicing our own community, we’re making and breaking
ourselves. I think we would be most sensitized to helping ourselves
outside of anybody else.
; ille T : I don’t know if this is the forum, but I

wanted to get some information on who else applied for this.

Chairman Schwab: You can ask that during Executive Report.

Presi illi: I don’t see what that has to do with
Meghana’s appointment.

Camille Torres: I want to know before I vote. I want to
know who else was running.

President Castrilli: I don’t think that should matter.

Camille Torres: Not now. I just wanted to know when was
the appropriate time, and he just told me.

President Castrilli: Okay. That’s fine. I just wanted to
clear that up.

Marc Alessi makes a motion to move to debate, seconded
by Larry Kauffman.
Kamau Blount: If we move to debate, that means that we
89

can’t ask any more questions?

Chairman Schwab: Correct.

Bi

Are we in debate?

orm:

Chairman Schwab: There are people on the questions list.

Do I have any objections to moving into debate? There are objections.

Okay, then I’m going to go into a vote. I need two-thirds vote not to

move into debate.

If you vote with a yes vote, we're going into

debate. With a no vote, we're going to stay in questioning this

candidate.

Point of inquiry

Li

nm: If you get one-third yes, that means we

immediately go to debate?

Chairman Schwab: No. We need two-thirds of this council to

say no.

Larry Kauffman: Which means if one-third plus one says yes,

we go into debate.

Chairman Schwab: Yes, we go into debate.

Pat Albano
Marc Alessi
Glenda Bautista
Bridget Bergen
Kamau Blount
Gina Bonica
Amos Brunson
Darlene Classen
Dina Delicce
Jess Fassler
Craig Fetterman
Neil Freilich
Jen Hird

David Kalinsack

yes

no

yes
yes
no

yes
yes
yes
yes
90

Larry Kauffman - yes
Ed Kerr . - yes
David Kindberg - yes
Michelle Lebowits - yes
Jessica Morales - yes
Ashwani Prabhakar - no vote
Omar Price - yes
Stephanie Reich - yes
Johanna Rosenberg - yes
Jodi Rosoff - yes
Micah Rozenbaum -
Steven Schwab - no
Matt Shapiro - no

Mike Simon -
Jose Socorro -

Glenn Stein - yes
Todd Teichman - yes
Camille Torres - yes
Dori Travieso - no
Ted Tsakonas - yes
Valerie Vazquez - no
Gregory Wahl - no
Ken Woodward - yes

Vice Chairman Freilich: 21-7-0-1. We’re now in debate.

Gina Bonica: How many more council members wanted to ask
questions?

Chairman Schwab: There were seven people on the list. I
just wanted council members to know that I did inform you that there.
still was a questions list. That means that people at this table
still had questions of that candidate but we still did go into debate,
which is why some voted no.

Jen Hird: Some people on that list also wanted to move to
debate, because I did. All those people didn’t have questions.

Chairman Schwab: Okay. We’re in debate.

Samantha Hiotakis: First of all, I would like to

congratulate you all on all your questions, they were very intelligent
'
7
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91
and they were forthright and most of them pertained to Meghana and her

appointment. But, you have to realize that when you're looking at
Meghana, you're looking at a new student, okay.
n inf ak

Marc Alessi: Last year when we were in debate, we asked the
candidate to leave.

Samantha Hiotakis: No, that was for Central Council Chair.
She has drive, she has initiative, she has an obvious passion for this
position and for it’s cause. Now, when you think about it, many third
year students at this university don’t even know what. S.A. is about.
This is her first time at this university and she’s showing that she
wants to be here, She wants to serve the students. There’s been
problems raised about policy. If you think about it, every one of us
including myself could read about what her position entails, come here
the next day, recite it back to you depending on how good our memory
is, and be praised for knowing policy. That’s not what it’s all
about. This evening she showed you eloquence, she has a personal
vested interest in affirmative action, and she has obvious
qualifications. So when you’re voting tonight, I want you to try to
vote on who you saw in front of you, who answered your questions with
such grace and very blunt, no cutting corners, okay. We can have our
policy without her, our policy might just end up being writing on
Paper. A candidate who knows policy so well, might know policy, but
may not have the initiative and the drive to act and implement that
policy on this campus. She is a benefit for the advancement and the

prestige and the well-earned professional status of the Student
92
Association.-- So keep that in mind when your voting, please.

Chairman Schwab: Okay, I’m next on the list. I wanted to
address two points. It stinks, first of all, that these meetings have
to be run by Robert’s Rules of Order. Often times someone is cut off

‘when they are speaking about a candidate. Ashwani, I apologize that
you were talking about her candidacy and you were interrupted. But I

, think that Ashwani brought up a good point, actually that changed my
mind entirely about something that was asked. S.A. does go ona
circular track that Ashwani was talking about, and Meghana is a new
face that I think has shed some light on some things and made some
good points. She’s come here and she’s seen that we have strong
groups that represent our students. She’s gone, I think, beyond --
and looked to see that we have groups that represent ethnicities
specifically. She may not get the names of the groups correct all the
time, yet she’s a new student. It took me until second semester of my
freshman year to get to know everyone’s names and such. She has
experience, maybe not so much just in affirmative action, but in a lot
of other areas that do coincide with affirmative action. She’s
obviously got a great interest in fulfilling what this job entails.
She said specifically, she saw this and it was obviously a strong
consideration on her part what type of job she was going to go for.
The job doesn’t pay a lot, so she’s got to have ambition to want to dc
something. That’s what I’m feeling from her pretty strongly. The
attraction has got to be that she wants to serve students. It’s not
the prestige that the position brings because, I’m sorry to say,

there's probably not a lot. And there isn’t in all of our positions.
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And I think that it’s great that you had the ambition to go ahead with

it. It sounds like you’re really motivated to help some students out.
I think she’s got a pretty clear vision of what she wants to do when
she’s appointed. That’s all I have to say.

Todd Teichman makes a motion to move to

question, seconded by Larry Kauffman.

Chaizman Schwab: I see clear objections, so we are still in
debate.

Vice Chairman Freilich: I’d like to thank Meghana for
applying for this position and trying to get involved with S.A. A lot
of new students come here and they don’t get involved with S.A. and
that’s a shame. I just would like to thank her for wanting to get
involved with S.A. But a couple of things that just trouble me about
the appointment based on the questions that some of the council people
asked, for instance, with regard to the taxi situation, the candidate
voiced her opinion about it and she has a right to and I respect that.
She should and I agree with her. But with regard to the question,
should racial quotas be used to promote affirmative action or should
the affirmative action office promote Louis Farakan’s March, she did
not wish to answer. She should be consistent. If she’s going to
answer about the taxis, answer about the other two. And if she
doesn’t want to answer about the other two, don’t answer about the
taxis. Just say, "I have no comment until I get the position." That
troubles me. That’s all I have to say.

Matt Shapiro: I was going to say the same thing. It really

angers me that she totally put my question aside, but answered Dori’s
94
question about the taxi. My question had a lot to do with the
constituencies we represent. The fact that she could just sideswipe
really angers me because as Affirmative Action Director, she should
inform us how she stands on issues that affirmative action addresses.
Her failure to do that is a disgrace.

Kamau Blount: Basically, I wanted to let you guys know
where I’m coming from with this. I went on the record to say that I
want to change policy, and my first goal is to change 1000 Policy
which is the Affirmative Action Policy. Now, I understand you guys
saying that she can pick up policy and read over her position, but
Affirmative Action Policy is not that clear and concise where it’s
just isolated in one area. It’s put out all throughout the whole
constitution basically. So for you to say that she can just learn it
like that is a very bad thing to say, I feel personally. I for one
was more than willing, I was actually hoping for this appointment to
go through because I wanted to get started on this as soon as
possible. But, I can not with a good conscience say, "Let’s put this
person in," if they don’t even understand what their job is because
that’s going to take more time for them to actually look through the
constitution and think about which sections they don’t like, which
areas do they want to change, and to give me input on that. That’s
the reason that I felt the way I felt about this. That’s basically
all I wanted to say.

Ashwani Prabhakar: Before I say anything, could you restate
the questions that you asked Meghana.

Matt Shapiro: I want to know what her feelings are as
95

Affirmative Action Director supporting Louis Farakan’s Million Man
March, and the other question was about racial quotas. I think these
are very fair questions for the Affirmative Action Director. Her
failure to answer them shows a lot about her character, that she’s
not --

Chairman Schwab: Matt, I’m going to have to cut you off,
because he just wanted to know the questions and you’re debating.

As di x: The question as you are stating it right
now, deals with a man that does not go to the University at Albany and
an organization which isn’t that strongly represented at the
University at Albany. I have not yet seen a flyer from the Nation of
Islam at the University of Albany. Tell me if I’m out of order; I
think it’s a silly question.

Matt Shapiro: Last year there was a club on campus with
people supporting the Nation of Islam. There was a big rally with a
lot of protest, so obviously it is a campus issue.

Ashwani Prabhakar: If the question had been to Meghana that
basically there were people supporting the Million Man March and
people against the Million Man March, and you know this is going to
happen, how would you react? What steps would you take in this
situation? As you stated the question to me, you did not state that
to her. She didn’t have to answer that, she’s not psychic.

About the policy, I do disagree to what K.B. said. I don’t tr
it’s that hard to learn. As I said, I don’t know about the other

members but I’m not that well versed on Central Council policy. ¢
96
computers had been erased. This is what we should keep in mind from
now on, until that whole situation is resolved with the computer
system, even if a candidate wishes to look at policy for a position
they’re up for, they’re going to have a hard time doing it. I’ma
member of Central Council, and I still don’t have a copy of policy.
I’m trying, but I can’t get one. So let’s keep that in mind also.

Kamau Blount: Can I respond? He mentioned my name.

Chairman Schwab: Sure. Very quickly.

Point of order

President Castrilli: Chairman, you can’t respond to someone
else’s debate.

Chairman Schwab: First of all, I told council members not
to use fellow council members names. In the past what I’ve done is
when someone uses someone’s name directly, I quickly let that person
respond. So go ahead, K.B., very quickly.

Kamau Blount: I just wanted to state that it took me a long
time to find out where I was throughout this constitution, and
Affirmative Action Director is in a similar situation because in the
areas that I saw my position, I saw Affirmative Action position in
some of these areas also. So it’s not something you can just sit down
and look at say: 400 Policy and say, okay, this, this, and this are my
responsibility.

John Laico: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to
address a couple of things that have been said already tonight. I
hate to disagree with somebody that I respect greatly as the Chair of

IA but I think that you can learn policy. Policy has undergone more
97

changes this -year with this council that’s seated at this table than
it has since its inception. To say that somebody doesn’t know policy
at this point is kind of ambiguous because your looking for somebody,
like K.B. said, to change policy and make it less -- where there area
lot of conflicts and a lot of contradictions. So when you're judging

somebody by their knowledge of policy or their lack thereof, it’s not

. really going to make a difference because we're looking to this person

to rewrite how this university feels, especially Affirmative Action.
There are certain parts of policy we've eliminated completely at this
point as well. So keep that in mind.

A couple of other things I want to address that a council member
said with reference to the Nation of Islam. JI share that council
members views on the Nation of Islam, but I don’t think that Louis
Farakan’s positions has a lot to do with the way that our affirmative
action policy works on this campus. I know a lot of people are going
to disagree with me on that, and I think that she did show a lot of
character in not dancing around the questions. She came right out and
said, "I'm not going to comment until I have a specific situation
placed before me." I think there is a certain amount of respect that
you have to give to somebody who is very straight up, honest, letting
you know that their not going to say anything on this because the
question was really more on a national scale than it was ona campus
scale. I think if the question was rephrased it would have been
addressed differently. I think that there’s a lot that goes along
with Ashish’s recommendation. This is somebody who was the

Affirmative Action Director last year. I don’t anybody at this table
98
is going to disagree with the fact that he handled himself very good
last year. He did his job well, there were a few grievances, they
were addressed right away. I remember an occasion riding on the bus
from Alumni Quad and I had occasion to sit next to Ashish and an
incident happened the day before. He already had a plan of action by
the next day at 8 a.m. when I’m riding on the bus with him. Sol
think that somebody who was as thorough as Ashish in doing his job, to
recommend somebody like this to bring before you who would be his
predecessor, you’ve got to think about that too. That’s all I have to
say.

Prabh. : The question of policy, I don’t think a

lot of people in this room have gotten through all of policy. I’m
Vice President and I don’t know a lot of policy. No disrespect to
you, K.B. but I think it doesn’t take too long to read it over. As
far as affirmative action being in every single policy, I don’t know
how true that is. I don’t think there’s a lot and she should be able
to learn that very quickly,

Dina Delicce: I have a couple things to say. First of all,
I wanted to say that I was one of the people that voted no to moving
to debate simply because I, like many other council members had more
questions. I'd like to remind council that asking the candidates
questions is basically our chance to, in essence, interview her
ourselves, a privilege that Mike and Ashish had even before IA. So I
think in the future maybe we should just be knowledgeable of the fact
that there are more council members that want to ask specific

questions.
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In terms of this candidates qualifications, I’m not going to
inflict my frustrations for not asking my question or hearing other
questions on my vote. I think she showed experience, intelligence,
and drive for the position. I think she’s a strong candidate and I’m
in support of her, although I would have liked to ask my question and
hear what other questions people were asking because I do consider
this an important interview for the candidate of the Executive Branch.
This just goes back to checks and balances of the two branches. I am
in support of her. I think she has a lot of drive. I think she can
learn policy, and I think she'll be a very good Affirmative Action
Director.

Jen Hird makes a motion to move to question,

seconded by Todd Teichman.

Chairman Schwab: Do I have any objections to moving into
question? Again, I need to see everybody’s hands. I’m going to let
you know I have a long debate list left. So anybody who is in favor
of not moving into question, please raise your hand. Okay, we’re
going to continue debate.

Dori Travieso: As far as the whole Farakan scenario, I
think that was asking her for a personal political view. My question
was more campus based. As far as policy is concerned, I personally am
sick of what people know about policy. I want to see someone do
something for this school. Do you know what I’m saying? Forget about
policy, do something for affirmative action. Show me something.

Craig Fetterman: I don’t know how I’m going to follow that,

but basically, it’s kind of like she’s applying for a job with us. If
100
you think of that, as far as her knowledge of policy -- when was the
last time that you applied for a job when you didn’t need any training
once you got hired. I’m interviewing with firms right now. I have no
idea what I’m going to be doing for them. I just know that I’m
applying for a job in my general field. She could always look
something up if she’s not sure of that policy. I would hope that even
if she did know policy, if there was any issues that she was facing
that involved policy, she would double check it anyway. Either way
she’s going to be looking it up. I did not memorize 800 Policy at
all. I’ve read policy, it doesn’t mean I’ve memorized it. If there
is ever an issue, I’ll look it up. Whether she knew offhand about the
grievance board is irrelevant.

Meghana Mude: I want to clarify to everyone that as far as
policy is concerned, I was called right about this time yesterday. I
didn’t have a chance to be briefed by anyone. I didn’t have a chance
to look over any paperwork. And I also want to remind you that there
are affirmative action policies outside of SUNY at Albany, and I have
been at other state universities and other large institutions and
actually worked for them, worked in recruiting and hiring and
coordinating so I understand a lot of what that duty involves.

The second thing was, as far as not answering the question, the
question about the taxi I felt was campus specific, I read about it, I
went to the transportation meeting. However, I can not express my
political views on a national scale. I don’t think that’s what the
job requires. The job requires what is campus and issue specific.

That was all I had to say.
101
Chairman Schwab: Meghana, to clarify to this council,

because it is such a huge inquiry, were you given a copy of 1000
Policy at the time of being appointed by the Executive Branch?
Meghana Mude: This afternoon at around 12 or so, Ashish
handed me a copy apologizing that the university system has had a lot
of problems. So, yes, I was handed a copy, but no, I wasn’t handed it
in preparation for it.
ri z: I have a couple of things I want to
address, so you guys are going to have to bear with me. My first
issue is that I strongly agree with Dori in the fact that I’m tired of
hearing how you have to know policy but you don’t actually act upon
it. However, when we interviewed all the directors, one of our major
requirements and the reason we turned down the last Affirmative Action
Director was because they were unfamiliar with policy. And I don’t
think it’s fair to expect any less of this appointment then the
appointees that we have already passed.
My second issue is, I’m a little concerned about the fact that
she is a new student. I applaud anybody getting involved with S.A.
their first year in the university, however --
, f inf
Jen Hird: On that last Affirmative Action Director, it
wasn’t about policy, it was more about ideas of the future.
Chairman Schwab: And Jen, that’s your opinion. She can
give her opinion in debate.
Poi inf.

Larry Kauffman: That definition of policy was policy and
102
that’s the definition. That point of information was off point as it
were. It’s about ideology and ideas. That’s what policy is all
about .

Valerie Vazquez: As I was saying, I applaud people who get
involved in S.A. At the same time, though, I’m concerned. She has a
lot of resources but if there are students concerned about not knowing
the grievance board -- I totally lost my train of thought.

Chairman Schwab: I’'11 come back to you.

Vice Chairman Freilich: Just a couple of points. Someone
mentioned there’s a difference between cases because the taxis
affected students here on campus and the other two don’t, but I
disagree. My question was, do you support racial quotas on the basis
for hiring or for affirmative action. We have Affirmative Action
Director. We hire people for Student Association positions and
directors and that affects students on campus. Should that be a
criteria and I didn’t get the answer. While Mr. Shapiro wasn’t
specific about the Million Man March, last year there was an incident
on campus between two groups. One group supported the march, one
group was against it, and there were heated discussions and debates,
and that affected students on campus, the fact that student groups
were going against each others throats.

And one other thing, last May, I believe, we had Jose Socorro
come up here before us and he wanted to be Affirmative Action
Director, and I like Jose a lot, I think it was 16 to 7. We voted
against him because he didn’t know policy. And what would Jose say

tomorrow if when he comes in the council people tell him, "We didn’t
103
feel the candidate knew policy 100%, but we voted her in anyway."

What’s Jose going to feel that we didn’t give Jose that opportunity,
but yet we're giving this candidate that opportunity. That’s all I
have to say.

nk f in. rivile

rry K nm: The first is to take the liberty to say
he‘ll be pissed regardless that he didn’t get it. With regards to the
personal privilege, can we give her a few seconds, rather than bump
her at the bottom of the list? I think it’s only fair.

Chairman Schwab: I will, I said I was going to do that.

4 € inf .
Wi ie V. z: He did.
Larry Kauffman: I’m sorry, I thought he bumped you to the

end of the line.

Chairman Schwab: Thank you, Valerie. Todd?

Todd Teichman: I have two points. My first point is that I
believe that she does know her affirmative action policy. I believe
it’s not SUNY Albany affirmative action policy, but it is affirmative
action policy. I believe that affirmative action policy has common
goals wherever you go. It’s all the same basically.

Secondly, we can keep on going back and forth saying, "I
disagree, I think she needs to know policy," and another person would
say, "Oh, she doesn’t need to know policy." But that’s never going to
change anybody’s mind. We’re just going to keep on going back and
forth. I believe that if we keep on going back and forth we're going

to stay here for the next five hours and we’re not going change
104
anybody's opinion. So I wish that someone would make a motion to move
to question.

Larry Kauffman: This is just my personal opinion as most
debate is, but if I couldn’t lead a good government, at least I'd like
to assist one. And if the Executive Branch has faith in the applicant
and we’ve gone this long without an Affirmative Action Director for
this long when it should have been last April, what do you say we go
ahead and give her a chance. I think anybody who can survive this
long really deserves a chance at least.

Secondly, I would also remind you what my policy was as
President, that if Council didn’t appoint my people, as in Women’s
Issues Director, that position went vacant and I kept putting the
person up. We got her through on the second time, but I would have
kept putting it up until Council got tired of shooting that individual
down or that individual got tired of being shot down. Now, the real
losers are the student body and Council and Executive Branch. It’s a
black eye to the President to shoot down a candidate that he’s
obviously grilled more thoroughly than any of us could possibly hope
to or want to or be able to. It's bad for Council because it ties us,
never mind the fact that I should be somewhere ten minutes ago.

That’s the least of it. And we’ve got another applicant after this.
It's bad for the government because it’s conflict between branches,
and I move to question.

Chairman Schwab: You can make point after point of opinion
in debate, but to use your debate privilege and then to use a motion

is separate.
105

Larry Kauffman: All right. Then I’1l finish my debate. I
really think we should do this, and if someone would -- like the next
speaker perhaps -- make a motion to move to question, I be a second.

Ed Kerr makes a motion to move to question,

seconded by Larry Kauffman. No objections.

Vi iz: reilich: Just to remind everybody, we need
two-thirds for the bill to pass.
Pat Albano -
Marc Alessi - yes

Glenda Bautista -
Bridget Bergen -

Kamau Blount - no
Gina Bonica =

Amos Brunson - yes
Darlene Classen - yes
Dina Delicce - yes
Jess Fassler - yes
Craig Fetterman - yes
Neil Freilich - no
Jen Hird s

David Kalinsack - yes
Larry Kauffman - yes
Ed Kerr - yes
David Kindberg - yes
Michelle Lebowits - no
Jessica Morales - no
Ashwani Prabhakar - yes
Omar Price - yes
Stephanie Reich - yes
Johanna Rosenberg - yes
Jodi Rosoff - yes
Micah Rozenbaum =

Steven Schwab - yes
Matt Shapiro - no

Mike Simon -
Jose Socorro -

Glenn Stein ~- yes
Todd Teichman - yes
Camille Torres - no
Dori Travieso - yes
Ted Tsakonas - yes
Valerie Vazquez - abstain
Gregory Wahl - yes

Ken Woodward - yes
106
Vice Ki n ilich: This bill passes 22-6-0-1.
Chairman Schwab: I need your order, we‘ve got to get
through this. “rem going to let Samantha make a quick announcement
because she has to get going.
Women's Issues Director
Hi kis: Thank you very much. I have about 15
minutes left of my birthday, and I really want to thank you guys for
the cake. I know you guys are very tired. What’s on October 22nd at
8:00 p.m. in the ballroom and costs nothing? Hot, Sexy, and Safer.
This is going to be the greatest sexual experience of your life. I
would hope that I can have help in postering, getting the word out.
It's going to be great. I’ve showed all my housemates the video, and
they can’t wait to go. I’m not going to show you the video, though.
I don’t want to ruin it for you guys. I just want to get you guys
psyched.

Also, you know that I’m involved in community service. There’s
two community service events. I talked to Steve and Neil about this,
and what they said they would do to kind of push you guys to get
involved in these is to take off a half absence if you participate,
which is a good thing and also you’re doing something for your
community. Now there’s two of them, and they fall on the same day.
Both of them are equally important in my mind. What I’m going to do
before I leave is send around a list, and you can sign up for which
one you want to do. The first is a walk for breast cancer, and the
second is a walk for hunger. They are both on Sunday, October 20th.

The breast cancer walk is going to be held in Washington Park. It’s a
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three mile walk, and it starts at 11 a.m. I’m not asking you guys to

get up at 8. If you want, I can get transportation.

Also, there’s a walk for hunger. You can either walk or you can
rollerblade. Again, that’s Sunday, October 20th. That is at 11:30,
and that’s at the Corning Preserve bike path. 1/11 have directions.
Just think of which one you want to do.

In addition, I got a letter in the mail regarding a sexuality
game show. Just so you know, the Hot, Sexy, and Safer is a national
program, and it cost approximately $4,000 because we have to fly in
the individual, put them up, and they charge $2200 to speak. We also
have to pay for their meals. The gentleman who will be doing the
sexuality game show will pick random people out of the audience and
put them on teams against each other and talk about sexuality, men
verses women. The great thing about this program, which I think will
be very fun, only costs $350.

The last one is the National Young Women’s Day of Action. That
is on October 24th. I want to bring the individual Bill Baird here.
He was an activist in the '70s for pro-choice, I want to make our
Women's Day a pro-choice day for Albany. The way I see is whether
you're pro-life or pro-choice, you still have to stand by other women
and allow them to still have the right to choose. There was
questioning as to whether this would be appropriate for this campus,
but I think that as women and as Women’s Issues Director, we still
have to make sure that women have that right. So he would speak, and
the think is, I’m going to propose this to Steve and Neil, the

Ballroom is booked and the only other suitable room would be the
108
Assembly Hall, and I was hoping maybe I could buy the room for Central

Council or we could delay Central Council. I don’t know, it’s up to
you guys. And have him speak about pro-choice and then on October 24
when we’re working for women’s rights and the right to choose, people
will be after the issue instead of doing it later that evening. This
way people will be more active. I need help. I need ideas on how to
motivate the university. There was also something I was thinking
" about where we could make little gravestones and put them up all
around campus for women who died from illegal abortions because either
the state required that they get parental permission before having the
abortion or having a court approve the abortion. In most cases when
they can’t tell their parents and it has to go through a court,
there’s nothing that says it has to be a speedy process so the woman
could go to term. That is why a lot of young women go to these back
alleys to get their abortions. So that’s something we have to deal
with. I really thank you guys for letting me break your agenda.
Chairman Schwab: Thanks, Samantha. I stress the fact that
anybody who doesn’t participate in those walks for charity will gain a
half absence. We're really trying to stress the fact that we want
council to be just as motivated and get involved in community service
as the Executive Branch has. It would be good if you guys got
involved in that. The next bill is introduced by the Internal

Affairs. Valerie will be reading this bill.
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109

Introduced by: Internal Affairs Committee Bill 9697-31
Chairman Kamau Blount Committee Vote: 3-0-0-0
Vice Chair Valerie Vazquez

Date: October 9, 1996

Be it hereby proposed and that the following be enacted:

I. That Mojavi Wright be appointed as Assistant Multicultural
Affairs Director for the 1996-1997 year.

II. That this bill becomes effective immediately in accordance
with the Student Association Constitution.

Voting Members Present

Kamau Blount - Chair

Valerie Vazquez - Vice Chair

Darlene Classen

lerie Vaz : Like the vote says, all three of us were

very much in favor of Mojavi becoming Assistant Multicultural Affairs
Director. He answered our questions thoroughly. He knew what the
duties of his position entailed. He has a lot of experience working
with Multicultural Affairs and other organizations. I strongly
support his appointment.

Darlene Classen: Mojavi had a lot of experience. He knew
what his job entailed, and he had a lot of good ideas for programming
and stuff.

Chairman Schwab: K.B. reiterates what was said. Any
questions for these guys as to what this bill is about? (No
response.) Okay, Mike?

President Castrilli: Okay. Mojavi Wright. I met Mojavi
when I was a freshman. I was in Central Council, and I used to go to

copies plus and he was always there. Anyway, Mojavi had a great

interview with Ashish and I on Saturday. One of the best qualities of
110

Mojavi, again, he was very eloquent in his words. He is also
energetic. I think that’s what he’s going to add to that office.
He’s been with the Charge Program. Mojavi also headed the Committee
on Education Policy for ASUBA. In talking to other people about his
appointment, they had high praise for Mojavi, and we forward to ‘his
appointment. Mojavi and I have had discussions before, and I think
the best quality that he brings is honesty. He came to me and told me
“some things, and I think that’s what we need. We need people in the
Multicultural Affairs office to let us know what's going on. He'll be
honest. I think he’ll do a fantastic job.

Vice President Prabhakar: Mojavi is a very sincere person.
He's willing to work with all the offices to make S.A. a success.
He’s not afraid of the hard work he’s going to have to put in working
with Maria. Mike told you about his experience with Charge and other
cultural programming, so therefore, he has the experience, he has the
knowledge. He’s a pretty smart guy. I’m sure he‘1ll do an excellent

job. I’d like to introduce to you Mojavi Wright.

:

I don’t like to brag on myself. I’m not a
bragger, I’ve never been a bragger. I just like to get the job done.
I’m a little bit nervous. This is my first official S.A. type of
thing. I’ve never worked with S.A. I’ve always worked with cultural
groups since I got here. I really don’t have much to say. I’m better
at answering questions than speaking about myself. If anybody has any
questions, I think I’m better at that than speaking. These guys brag
far more on me than I would brag on myself.

Vi thai Fr ich: I know you were probably asked this
111

in committee, but could you name four multicultural groups on campus?

Point of order

Valerie Vazquez: I don’t mean to be rude, but a lot of
council members aren’t here, and I don’t think it’s fair that they
don’t get to hear Mojavi’s excellent answers.

Vice Chairman Freilich: Someone called house, and if
they’re still on campus they should be here, and Mojavi waited four
hours, I think we owe it to him to continue.

Mojavi Wright: To answer your question, four multicultural
groups would be KSA, CSA, Fuerza Latina, and ASUBA.

Vice Chairman Freilich: I have a motion to move to debate
by Jess Fassler, seconded by Larry Kauffnian. Any objections to that?

Jen Hird: I object.

Vice Chairman Freilich: Would you like to ask hima
question?

Point of inguiry: Is there anybody on the questions list?

Vice Chairman Freilich: I don’t have anybody on the
questions list? Jen Hird, with a question.

Jen Hird: How do you see your role working with -- how do
you expect to use your skills with your information about
multicultural groups? How do Foil see your role in working with Maria
as well as working with the other Assistant Directors?

Mojavi Wright: Well, first off, in working with somebody,
you both bring ideas to the table. Assuming that I’m an assistant to
her, I understand that her word is probably the final word that goes,

but since I am an assistant, my ideas count as well. So when I bring
£12
my ideas, we’re going to operate as a collective in order to bring
about the better function of our office. Without those ideas coming
together we can’t function properly. So, when I’m working with her I
do have an understanding that we have to function in a certain way
that if she has an idea, I’1ll try to blend all my skills and talent to
the idea. If I have information that she can use, so be it. If she
can’t do something, then I will act as her arm and I will do it for
her. It’s a collective.

Kamau Blount: Would you be able to give us some examples of
types of programs that you would be interested in putting on in your
office?

Mojavi Wright: One of the most major things -- I think I
spoke about this in our interview -- I would like to see a stereotype
workshop. I really would. I would like to see it especially in S.A.
because there’s a lot of general stereotypes that’s used and not
understanding what they stand for. And I think that it will help to
curtail the ignorance that we feel on a day to day basis. We may say
that we don’t participate in this or we don’t say that, and yet we do
without knowing. I think it’s better to know what we’re actually
dealing with. That would be one of the first programs I would like to
deal with in the office.

Another program I would like to deal with is basically, I would
like to see a cultural marketplace -- a true represented cultural
marketplace. Not where we just have a person go out and get a vendor
and bring him in and this persons supposed to be the vendor under VSA

or this person is supposed to be a vendor under ASUBA, but actually
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113

things representative of the culture that has a background and is
standing behind us so we can say this is a true representation of my
culture. I wouldn’t want to see anything like, "We got a vendor from
South Pearl and he came up and sold this in the name of our group."
No. I’m talking about cultural things that we can learn from, not
anything else.

Ken Woodard makes a motion to move to debate,

seconded by Larry Kauffman. No objections. Larry

Kauffman makes a motion to move to question,

seconded by Marc Alessi. No objections. Valerie

Vazquez makes a motion for unanimous consent,

seconded by Larry Kauffman. No objections.

i ak reilich: This bill passes with unanimous
consent.
Introduced by: Internal Affairs Committee Bill 9697-32
Chairman Kamau Blount Committee Vote: 3-0-0-1

Vice Chair Valerie Vazquez
Date: October 9, 1996
Be it hereby proposed and that the following be enacted:

Is That Marlon Pavon be appointed as Assistant Multicultural
Affairs Director for the 1996-1997 year.

II. That this bill becomes effective immediately in accordance
with the Student Association Constitution.

Nonvoting Members: Voting Members Present
Neil Freilich (ex-officio) Kamau Blount - Chair
Jonathan G. Laico Valerie Vazquez - Vice Chair

Darlene Classen
Todd Teichman
114

Kamau Blount: We basically felt that Marlon did a very good
job. He answered all the questions in a very appropriate manner. He
did know of different groups on campus. He knew his policy. He was
okay with that. I yield to Valerie Vazquez.

Valerie Vazquez: I agree with everything that K.B. said,
plus I’d like to add that even though Marlon doesn’t actually have
this position, I’d like to make it known that he has been working very
hard with the multicultural affairs director in her events. Even
though it’s not his official title, he has already done his duties and
responsibilities. He knew his policy. He knew a lot of cultural
groups. I just thought that he was really good.

Darlene Classen: I agree with both of them. I think he’s
very experienced. He has a big voice, and he knows a lot of people.

I think he could do a lot.

Vice Chairman Freilich: I sat in on the meeting and Marlon
was very knowledgeable about the groups on campus. He attended events
from the groups on campus that they held last year and this year.

He’s very enthusiastic. He has a lot of great ideas for programming,
and I urge a yes vote.

Todd Teichman: I was the no vote because I came in half way
through the meeting, and I did not feel I had enough information to
vote, but from the half that I saw, he did seem very knowledgeable.

He seemed to know his stuff. I would give him my endorsement.

John Laico: I can’t vote on the committee yet, because I’m

not a full voting member. But had I been able to vote, he would have

gotten a yes vote from me. I was incredibly impressed with Marlon,
115

the way he answered affirmative action questions and his knowledge of
the office. I think it’s really important what valerie brought up
that he does have an excellent working relationship with the current
director, Maria. I’m sure if she was here right now she’s also speak
‘in his defense, but since she’s not just go with that.

President Castrilli: Ashish and I are very pleased, again,

_with Marlon’s appointment also. Marlon is one of those people that if

I turn to and I need something to be done, that I can depend on that
it will get done. There’s a lot of people that have that quality, but
he just doesn’t do it, he does it right and he does it with the best
intentions. Our interview with Marlon went very well. His
qualifications, he’s been a great student leader on this campus. He’s
done a numerous amount of community service projects. He’s involved
with Fuerza Latina. He talked about meeting with the cultural groups.
One of the things that I didn’t mention, one of the things in policy,
is that the assistants run the multicultural task force. And that was
one of the questions that went into the discussion in all our
interviews, even with Mojavi, that can he run a meeting. Marlon was
very forward in saying, "I can run a meeting. I can get the groups
together." I’m really confident’ in his appointment. Ashish and I
both are.

Establishing a bridge of communication and trust between the
cultural groups, that’s one of the things he wrote on his application.
I think he’s a great candidate. Not only is he going to exhibit this
now, but he’s volunteered all summer. And ever since the first day we

got in he was in the office, and not just multicultural affairs, but
116
media and programming and helping me out with personal projects. He's
the best.

Vice President Prabhakar: I can’t say enough good things
about Marlon. Marlon’s been working in the Multicultural Affairs
office as a volunteer for a long time now, probably two, three months
now. Not only does he work with the Multicultural Affairs office, but
he has helped out the educational affairs office, I see him in the
media office working. Again his help is there, if you need it, he’s
always there for you.

Chairman Schwab: That’s out of order. Totally, totally,
and I’m totally sickened at seeing that. I don’t want to see that
again.

Vice President Prabhakar: What happened?

Chairman Schwab: Larry just left so everyone clapped. If I
see it again I'll call you out of order. And that was also very rude
to Ashish.

Vice President Prabhakar: He has a lot of experience when
it comes to multicultural programming. We're very, very confident in
Marlon that he’1l do an amazing job, and I’d like to introduce you to
Marlon Pavon,.

Marlon Pavon: First I would like to introduce myself. My
se 6 Marlon Pavon. I’11 tell you a little bit about myself. I’m
Equadorian, but my background -- my grandfather, he’s black and
Japanese. My grandmother is Native American, South America. From my
mothers side, she’s Italian, German, and Spanish. So I feel myself,

I’m very multicultural. I fell that I should give to all cultures.
117

That we should try to educate each other from all cultures, because

for a long time there’s been sort of an ignorance towards our culture
because there hasn’t been enough information or the wrong information
has been said. So I feel by being Assistant Multicultural Director I

might be able to try to stop -- to try to educate our people as a

whole collective community on campus. If you guys have any questions

I would like to answer them.

Ken Woodard makes a motion to move to debate,

H seconded by David Kindberg. No objections.

Vice Chairman Preilich: We're now in debate. Matt Kraut,
| your are the first on the debate list.

Matt Kraut: I’m glad you guys just quickly went over
questioning. I’ve seen Marlon in the office all summer. He's been a
help not just in Multicultural helping Maria, he’s helped me out an
extreme amount posting, helping out at Frosh Mosh. Definitely a hard

worker. Definitely a team player. A big help all around in the

office. He's a great guy. I don’t see why he shouldn’t be a clear
and good appointment.

Marc Alessi makes a motion to move to question,

seconded by Todd Teichman. No objections. Todd
Teichman makes a motion for unanimous consent,

seconded by Darlene Classen. No objections.

Vice Chairman Freilich: This bill passes with unanimous

consent.
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Introduced by: Internal Affairs Committee Bill 9697-33
Chairman Kamau Blount Committee Vote: 5-0-0-0
Vice Chair Valerie Vazquez
Date: October 9, 1996
Be it hereby proposed and the following be enacted:

I. That Joshua G. Fensterstock be appointed as Assistant
Controller for the 1996-1997 year.

II. That this bill becomes effective immediately in accordance
with the Student Association Constitution.

Voting Members Present
Kamau Blount - Chair
Valerie Vazquez - Vice Chair
Ashwani Prabhakar
Ken Woodard
Todd Teichman
Non Voting Members
Steven M. Schwab (ex-officio)
Jonathan G. Laico
Craig Fetterman (FiCom Chair)
wy rie V. : I think I can speak for all of us in
saying that we were very impressed with Josh’s interview. He knew
policy. He had a lot of experience working in financial fields. All
I have to say is that he reminded me so much of Jay in the interview.
Chairman Schwab: I too sat in and was in the back at my
desk writing things. I stopped just because he caught my ear and
listened to what he had to say, and it really caught my attention.
First of all, Josh has been in the controllers office since what Jay,
September 1 since we classes maybe? Jay?
Jason Kass: The night I got appointed back in May. He
stayed on a Friday night until 8:00.
Chairman Schwab: Oh yeah, since May. It’s so funny because

Jay Kass did the same thing last year as Assistant Controller. Not
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the fact that they’re so similar, we already know that Jay Kass is an

amazing controller. Josh Fensterstock looks at the controllers office
as a business office. I think that’s very important. He said that he
doesn’t think politics should be a part of what goes on in the
controllers office. I think that’s a very good statement because what
the controller is charged to do is to enforce our finance policy which
for the most part stipulates straightforward what kind of actions they
have to take when certain things happen. He knows his policy probably
better than I do. It’s amazing. He was on council last year too, so
it’s not surprising. I can’t Say enough good things about him. Every
day I walk in he’s in there with his head down writing something.
Again, this is not a fiscally rewarding job. I think he does it
because he sees it as a needed service. He respects Jay, obviously,
because he talked about how he likes working with him and how he
envisions the office the same way he does. I know I’m going on and on
and maybe I should save it for debate. I definitely should. I went
way too long.

Kamau Blount: I just wanted to add that he brought up some
very good points. One of the things that I really liked about his
view was he had some new ideas for the office which usually you don’t
get in regards to controllers office. He also knew, like Steve said,
he knew policy very well. He wanted to take a pro-active stance in
regards to changing 800 Policy and working with FiCom Committee in
changing 800 Policy which I think was an excellent plus for him.

Ashwani Prabhakar: Excellent candidate. He’s an excellent

man for this position. I also want to point out that her performed
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exceptionally well on the treasurer’s exam.

Joshua Fensterstock: I didn’t take the exam.

Chairman Schwab: Ashwani brings up a good point. He knew
the question that no one knew.

Ashwani Prabhakar: Yes. Josh answered a question -- there
was only one person out of fifteen people who took the treasurers exam
were able to answer.

Point of information: It was one person out of 100.

Chaizman Schwab: Anything else Ashwani?

Ashwani Prabhakar: No, that’s it.

Craig Fetterman: Just to clarify. There was a question on
the treasurer’s exam that only one person got right out of 100 people.
So I figured I’d ask him that question to see if he knew it. He knows
it better than I did which isn’t good because it’s my job to know 800
Policy. He knows it very well. Also I see a lot of characteristics
that I see in Jay. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was just the
beginning for him.

Ken Woodard: I go into the office a lot. Every time I stop
into the controllers office I always see him working in there. He's a
very, very hard worker. He knows what he’s doing and I vote yes for
him.

John Laico: Again, unfortunately I didn’t have voting
rights for this particular review, but I would have cast a yes vote.

I know Josh very well personally. We’ve had some political

differences throughout our careers here at the university, and I have
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a lot of respect for him. I like the way that he says politics

doesn’t have a part in controllers office. I think he must have
mentioned it at least 50 times that it’s a business office. It’s all
about numbers. That's the kind of person we need in that office.

Todd Teichman: I was almost in awe. If there could bea
perfect answer for every question, he had it. My only problem with
him was whether I should get down on my knees and bow.

Chairman Schwab: Marc, only the sponsors of the bill can
talk. Everyone has said one thing and that’s what we allow, just a
quick rational for the bill. So save the rest of your comments for
debate.

President Castrilli: Ashish and I really don’t need to say
anything, but I want to say a few things actually. Josh came into our
interview knowing a lot about policy and so forth. Josh and I kind of
grew together last year. In September instead of going to Jay he came
to me for Central Council when I was the Chair last year. He ran for
Council, did a great job. He came in and we gave him FiCom, and he
was one of the most fiscally responsible people on Council. He's a
fantastic individual. He’s an individual that’s going to aspire to be
something greater. I think he’s going to be a huge asset to Jay and
the Student Association and I guess we welcome him.

Vice President Prabhakar: He’s a wonderful candidate. Same
thing, fiscally responsible. He’s been a former Central Council
representative. He knows his stuff. One thing I found very
interesting, which the chairman mentioned when we began speaking about

Josh, he doesn’t thing the controller’s office is a place for politics
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which is absolutely correct. It’s not really an office that kind of
deals with those kinds of things, most of the time I guess. It was
surprising that Josh on his controllers application was concerned with
budget cuts and things like that. That to me was kind of impressive
that he’s not just interested in controllers operations in S.A. but
rather he does have some outside political concerns that he wants to
get involved in. Anyway, here’s Josh.

F a] k: Everyone mentioned that I had all
these great ideas, and I just want to bring them to Council because I
really want to implement them this year. The way I look at things is
that S.A. is really in a bind financially. I don’t know if anybody
realizes this, but last year when the auditors came, they told us that
we had a fund balance line of approximately $300,000. That‘’s our
cushion in S.A., and about $100,000 of that was over spent last year.
So you can kiss that money good-bye. That’s not good. That’s really
not good, especially if you continue on the trend of overspending,
because if the balance gets too low in that account, the
administration in going to step in and they’re going to start to cut
and consolidate groups. And I don’t think anybody wants that. If it
should come down to that, to use an example, they'll probably take
groups like CSA, VSA, KSA, and they’1l consolidate them into AAA and
that’s it. And I don’t think anybody wants that or anything like that
to happen to a group of theirs or anybody else. So, in order to
combat this overexpenditure that has been a serious problem, I think
it’s very important that we computerize the controllers office.

There’s computer in there, but the way that the system works now is
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that a voucher is processed and then it’s entered into the computer
and pops up on the green sheet which is produced once a week. Now
there’s a time lag factor. If a group comes in on Monday and says,
"We need this voucher processed," and I look at their green sheet from
Friday, it looks okay. But the reality of it, they could have spent
money over the weekend that’s not recorded in the green sheet, and
that can lead to an overexpenditure. That’s where the problem comes
in. And if each group overspends let's say $50, for the group it’s no
big deal, but when you add up how many groups there are plus $50 to
each group, that’s when you start to get into trouble. Now by
computerizing the office, what you essentially do is you give the
controller easy access to the computer right there. He can pull up
and account, pull out their balance sheet and their income statement
and any other financial report that he could possibly need to figure
out how the group is not going to overspend.

Secondly, another step to fighting overexpenditure is to rewrite
800 Policy. If you ever open it up, it is an absolute nightmare.
It’s a mess, and frankly when you’re dealing with dollars and cents,
probably the most important thing for the S.A. you can’t have
contradictions. Especially when it comes to the powers of enforcement
between FiCom and the controllers office. Both have the power to
freeze and unfreeze a budget, but as to who can unfreeze whose budget
policy is vague. We really need set definitions. We need set
definitions of the stipend tiers also. Policy states that there
should be two tiers of stipends, yet there are, I think, 14 different

levels of stipends. I mean, that’s not two tiers. So that needs to
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be rewritten.

Thirdly, as has been mentioned a couple of times, is that the
controllers office is a business office, and it needs to have a
professional attitude, which hopefully will spread to the rest of S.A.
Professionalism is key. We do represent people, and we do have
responsibilities. When politics jump in, I saw it last year when I
was on FiCom, that’s when people don’t represent well. That’s when
things get biased, and that’s when it becomes a problem. So I really >
think that professionalism in all senses on every level is important,
not just the controllers office.

Chairman Schwab: Any questions of Josh? Ken?

Ken Woodard makes a motion to debate, seconded by

Ashwani Prabhakar. No objections.

Chairman Schwab: I’m on the debate list. It’s impressive
how much he knows his stuff, so vote yes.

Matt Shapiro: I just want to say last year I endorsed him
in Central Council. I can’t say enough good things about Josh. It
gives me a lot of pride to endorse him again. He’s the best.

Craig Fetterman makes a motion to move to

question, seconded by Johanna Rosenberg. No

objections. Camille Torres makes a motion for

unanimous consent, seconded by Marc Alessi. No

objections. Valerie Vazquez makes a motion for

acclimation, seconded by Darlene Classen. No

objections.

Chairman Schwab: This bill passes with acclimation. Moving
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right along. Next up is Executive Report, and I would request that we
go right into it. I need order.

Executive Report
resi rilli: Welcome. Thank you. It’s great to
see that the last three appointments passed with unanimous consent or

acclimation, and our first appointment I guarantee you will be a

fantastic advocate for the Student Association. I know you all want

to go home, but I’m sorry. We’ve been sitting here, so I’m going to
tell you what the updates of the week are.

The transportation task force has been set up. We're going to
get that together. We had a pep band meeting the other night. Pep
band is getting ready. Eight people have joined. You can tell people
to pick up applications in the Student Association. Homecoming is
looking fantastic. These guys are doing a fantastic job for that.
Coming Out Week this week, which I think Ashish is going to talk about
more in depth, was a resounding success this week. Let’s give dawn a
round of applause. I’m also very excited to say that I’ve made all
the appointments to the UAS board of directors, and one of your fellow
council members, Camille Torres, will be on board, and Steve Schwab,
of course. It’s exciting to see that we made those appointments.

It’s the first time UAS board has been appointed by February so we’re
excited. Everything else is looking good. Student Voice is coming
out. I vetoed Bill 9697-25 for a number of reasons. One ‘of the
reasons was some clarity in the wording. I don’t think the wording is
clear enough for my books. Also, there’s definitely some conflict in

some proceeding policies. We’re going to pass a bill that Executive
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Branch can’t be on committees, then the Executive Branch should be
able to approve the committee assignments, because I don’t approve the
chairs, becausé it’s a resolution. So if we're going to do something
like that, we’re going to need to make some amends with that. If
we’re going to have a check on that, then I want to have some say, or
I should be able to approve chairs. Everyone that works with me
except for Ashish has been appointed by you, so I think the same
should go if you guys want to have that same checks and balances. So
that’s why I vetoed the bill. I guess everything is looking great.
Homecoming is going to be fantastic. Come to the parade. It’s going
to be fun. Come to the game. Come to the Unity Dinner. Steven
Wright’s going to be here, and the Presidents Breakfast in honor of
Karen R. Hitchcock. I’m in a real bad mood tonight, but it’s just
because I’m tired. I’ve said this before, and I'll say it again, I
have open office hours. If you have a question and stuff that you
didn’t get answered tonight, you can ask me now too, but please come
by the office.

Vice Chairman Freilich: Just one thing, Mike, I don’t want
to get in a full-fledged debate because we’1l do that next week
regarding your veto, but I remember when you were doing the 400
Policy, correct me if I’m wrong, was there a stipulation that members
that you appoint to be directors are not allowed to be presidents,
vice presidents, treasurers of student association groups?

President Castrilli: Yes, I did say that. We can talk
about it next week. The reason I waited was because I didn’t want to

give that to you and then not be able to talk about it, because I
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needed to talk about it when you looked at it.

Jen Hird: You mentioned the transportation task force.
What is that exactly?

PB. iden: rilli: What we're going to do is Chris Pace
and I are going to set up a task force. And what we’re going to do is
have a form for people to fill out, like complaints or whatever. Then
what we're going to do with that task force, which will be a wide
section of student leaders and so forth, is formulate some opinions
and give to the transportation department some opinions and some
solutions. Solutions, not just-opinions. That’s the problem, no-one
gives solutions. I heard earlier that you guys are doing something
too, so we should probably get together. That’s another thing,
committee wise if you guys need some help with us, let me know what I
can do. I’1l1 come to your meetings as best I can, just let me know
when they are. We're looking good. We’re on track. We're building
bridges to the 21st century.

Vi i Pri r: How's it going? Thanks for
passing the appointments and everything. I don’t have much to say.
Any questions?

Camille Torres: What’s an update on getting a new
transportation director?

Vi i Pr. r: We’ve appointed one, and they
will be, rather he will be going in front of IA, I guess whenever the
appointment is set up. So hopefully he’1l be in front of you next
Wednesday. Everybody has been appointed as far as assistants.

Chairman Schwab: Two assistants positions are still open.
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i P iden : Media and Assistant Controller.
Everyone else is appointed. I apologize because I have to run out. I
have to write an article for the Voice, but I‘1l see you guys next
Wednesday.
Controller
Jason Kass: Thank you very much for appointing my
_assistant. I appreciate it. He’s a good guy. He has a test tonight
so that’s why he jetted out of here. He has a test tomorrow. He does
a fabulous job in the office. I know I spoke to you guys last week
about the report on Fall Fest. However, I just received some invoices
today. I wouldn’t even be able to give you numbers yet. I'11 give it
to you next week. I'11 have a report next week. Everything should be
in by then. That’s it. I have a boring office. I’m sorry.
Media Director
Greg Coulon: How you guys doing tonight? 1I/'11 be brief,
because it’s getting late. Student Voice came out on Thursday. For
those of you who are happy with it, thank you. A couple people have
come up to me and congratulated me. For those of you who noticed,
there’s a lot of typos and what not. That’s kind of a staff problem.
We're working on solving that. Basically, lack of staff is pretty
much the problem. I want to thank Tony Lopez. He was in all night on
last Wednesday. Last Wednesday was a crazy night. We were here until
9:00 in the morning on Thursday putting the paper together. Mike
Kustra, who’s the editor-in-chief, was also there. dawn was here all
night. She helped out a lot. I guess that’s it. We're working on

reorganizing the computers again this week. We’re still having some
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129
slight problems, but they’re being solved. I’m also working with Matt

Kraut on comedy night. Any questions?

Chairman Schwab: I wanted to thank Greg because these
lovely name tags that you see in front of you are his creation.

Greg Coulon: If there are any misspellings, any committees
are wrong, bring them to me and I'll fix them for you.

Kamau Blount: It was brought to my attention that there
were certain situations where the office was working on a project in
regards to Student Voice. However, this was during office hours, and
people were being kicked out because of the fact -- I-don’t know the
facts of the scenario, but basically what I got from it was that the
door was locked during the office hours.

Greg Coulon: Well, who were these people being kicked out?
I mean, yes, today I did close the door because I’ve had a problem
where people were hanging out in media office, and we have a lot of
work to do. It’s not a question of people coming in and they need
flyers and they’re getting kicked out, they’re not. It’s people who
are just hanging out in the media office just talking. I have a
problem working like that under those conditions.

Kamau Blount: JI understand that. The only worry that I
have is if a group comes to the office and they see the door closed,
that will give them the impression that no one is there or that
they’re not supposed to enter. You understand what I’m saying?

Greg Coulon: Point taken. Yeah, you’re right. I just had

to do that today because it was just too hectic in there.
130

LGBI Director

dawn Schirmer: I’d just like to thank all the council
members who showed up on Monday. I really appreciate it. Like
everyone said, Monday was a great success. We had between 50 and 100
people at Coming Out Stories on Indian Quad, which is amazing. Last
year when I held the program over there I had maybe 20 people, and
they were all members of the LGBI so it was kind of counter
productive. My speakers, I think, went really well. All the
questions that were asked were really great questions. Hopefully all
of them were answered. :

Yesterday we chalked the podium. I don’t know if anybody saw it
or not. It was kind of hard to miss. Unfortunately, it rained last
night so we had to re-chalk it today, which I think came out much
better today. I had a lot more people. Yesterday I had me and one
other person started at 8:30. Valerie came and chalked at 9:00 and
throughout the day, so I have to thank Valerie for helping me do that,
and I missed her today. I have to admit that I skipped my class
yesterday because I just couldn’t get away from it. I was just so in
awe of all the gay pride that was going on yesterday. It was amazing.

I was late to the meeting tonight because I had a program which
also went really well. There wasn’t too many people, maybe eight
people, but it was really informal discussion kind of thing. My
speaker told a little bit about herself and then it was mostly back
and forth talking with the group, and I think that it went really well
even though there wasn’t many people.

I'd like to remind you tomorrow night, 7:00, there’s no Central
131

Council meeting so you don’t have an excuse not to show up -- I’m
sorry, Marc and Matt were at the meeting tonight before Central

Council, so I’d like to thank them for coming in before Central

Council.
Chairman Schwab: Could you clarify what's tomorrow night.
dawn Schirmer: Yes, I will. I’m sorry, I was sidetracked

because I saw Marc. Tomorrow night is a discussion about
transexuality which is a really interesting topic. Not Many people
know about it. The topic is so vast. There’s a wide range of aspects
of it. So I urge all of you to come. It’s in room 361 the campus
center.

Friday is also dress-up day. Don’t forget to wear your sneakers,
jeans, backpack, and hat. I'd really appreciated it. And if I come
up to you guys and you don’t wear these, I don’t know what’s going to
happen but it won’t be pretty. I deemed Friday, which is National
Coming Out Day, as dress-up day, and you wear things to support gay
rights and I deemed hats, sneakers, backpack, and jeans as the things
you should wear. Also, Friday night after the Unity Dinner, I’m
having a social downstairs in the snack bar. I have a DJ from
Saratoga. I have some free raffles. I have food, music. There’s a
$2 cover with a nonperishable food item, $3 without. All the items
will be donated to either AIDS shelter or a gay, lesbian youth runaway

shelter/hostile type thing.

Ed . L_Affai Di
Damien Scalafani: How’s it going guys? It’s kind of

unfortunate that a lot of you have gone because my executive report
132
pertains to everyone that’s on council. You've all received
invitations to the President’s Breakfast. I hope you have them by
now. In any event, you have until 12 noon tomorrow to R.S.V.P.
whether or not you’1l be going. Please do by then. If you don’t by
then, I’11 assume you’re not going. I would suggest you go because
it’s going to be really nice. That's pretty much it.

Ted Tsakonas: How do we R.S.V.P.?

Damien Scalafani: That’s a good question. Just stop in the
Student Association and go up to one of the administrative assistants
and say that you would like to R.S.V.P. for the President's Breakfast.
It’s the last day of Homecoming weekend, October 13 from 10 a.m. until
11:30 a.m.

Ted Tsakonas: Are we allowed a guest?

Damien Scalafani: No, you just get one. You can buy a
ticket for $6 at the check-in. There might be some tickets left at
the door, but I don’t know how quickly they’re going to sell because
this is the first year we’re having an official check-in. It’s
probably going to sell out.

Gregory Wahl: I must be wrong on all these times because
you just said 10 and there is 10:30 listed on the invitation.

Damien Scalafani: Yeah, I know that. The invitations say
10:30 but I want you guys there at 10:00. JI want all the student
leaders there before our guests from administration and faculty just
to kind of make the seating a little more simple, and also I was kind
of hoping that you guys would kind of help greet guests coming in,

introduce yourselves, be friendly, smile, look good, stuff like that.
133
Only R.S.V.P. if you’re certain you're going to go because there's

other people that want the tickets too. That’s pretty much it.

Programming Director

Matt Kraut: It’s nice to see most of Council is still here.
My reports probably going to be quite extensive, so if you want, make
yourselves comfortable. And yes, I do lie often. I know a lot of you
guys are part of other groups besides being on Council. There’s been
a lot of violations of postering policies, and in conjunction with the
Campus Life Advisory Committee which is actually just being formed
now, we're going to start imposing sanctions against groups who
violate this postering policy. I’ve gotten extremely upset with what
people have done with other posters. Homecoming is this weekend. I’m
just waiting for the day now. Everything is all set up for the show.
Jay is going to have the Fall Fest numbers for everybody. I have two
guys who were appointed by Mike and Ashish working in my office now
helping me out, finalizing the show, and also starting to coordinate
the programming board, take care of all the criteria for the Battle of
the Bands, which is also an inaugural event. Aside from that, this
show will also not be overspent. That’s really it. Any questions?

Matt Shapiro: What time do the doors open Saturday?

Matt Kraut: Doors open at 7:00.

Ted Tsakonas: You mentioned repercussions for the
postering. Do you have anything in mind, or anything in the works?

Matt Kraut: Well, several things I had sat down and spoke
to Jessica about ranges anywhere from fines to as extreme as freezing

their budgets if we have to. A clear example was the little fiasco
134
that WCDB pulled, but they were spoken to. Glenda and I had a very
calm and productive conversation, and a lot of groups will be getting
phone calls. It’s got to be determined. They haven’t been set yet.
Some cases are worse than others. Certain criteria have to be set.

President Castrilli: One final thing, on Friday at 12 we're
having the pep rally out in front of the small fountain. I’m going to
be MC. We need people there. The bottom line is, I love talking but
when I don’t talk to anybody it’s going to stink. So please come and
have fun. If you come to the President’s Breakfast you can meet my
entire family because they’re all coming.

Old Business: None.

New Business

Ashwani Prabhakar: I just want to bring to your attention,
I know you are aware of it already, but I just thought it would be a
good idea for me to enforce it, it’s policy 313.3. It says, "A bill
scheduled on the agenda for a regular meeting of Central Council must
be place along with a copy in the mailboxes of all voting and ex-
officio members of council no fewer than 24 hours prior to the
scheduled start of the meeting." The only reason I’m bringing this up
is because I think it would avoid a lot of problems. If we could just
try and enforce that a little more often. It’s only 24 hours.

Chairman Schwab: I totally agree with that, and what I just
want to address is this, this was created about two and a half years
ago. What happened was, the mailboxes were set up and then no one
came in the office. I do plan on getting the bulletin board that we

had last year back up again. What I was going to propose was when I
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do my revisions to 300, I was going to put in it that those bills be

posted 48 hours previous to the meeting and then I would request that
all council members please come to the office, read over the bills.
I’ve been asked to keep copies at a minimum. In that regard I’m
thinking of posting the bills 48 hours previous to the meeting.

Council members could them read them, get any questions out of the way

_ to the sponsors. So that would give you two days to get a hold of the

sponsors if they’re not Neil or myself. I’m going to put in a work
order to get the bulletin board put up this week and that’s what we’ll
do, Ashwani, if that’s okay with you?

Ashwani Prabhakar: Maybe if they could just write their

phone number on it.

Chairman Schwab: Sure. We’re going to have a phone list
out this week too.

Point of inquiry

Gregory Wahl: How would this affect the Internal Affairs
bills that would come up today?

Chairman Schwab: Well, we have to talk about that, but what
I was thinking was that a bill that would come up after that -- my
revisions are going to say that by Monday night everyone be aware of
what’s coming up on Wednesday night. That alleviates what I did
today. I’m sorry to say but I’m beginning to not like Wednesdays. I
love these meetings, but all day Wednesday I’m pulling my hairs out
along with Tali and Jemma and Neil to get everything ready. And it’s
because I don’t get bills until Wednesday morning, and I need them

from now on, and I’m going to enforce this, I need at least notice
136
from you that. you’re doing a bill Monday afternoon and a hard copy no
later than Tuesday morning, but I’d prefer it Monday evening.

John haico: I want to address what Greg brought up. So far
as the IA bills today, I knew that this existed in policy, but the
president can also -- if you read in 313.3C -- the president can also
issue a message of necessity saying why this should be considered
right away, and the whole 24 hour aging process be waived. Rather
than go and make Mike do all that work, we kind of went around it and
left it as is.

Poi £4 .

Kamau Blount: Does that mean that we should change our
meetings?

Chairman Schwab: No. That’s something else we have to talk
about too. What I’m going to do, we’re going to have a caucus
meeting, which is the chairs and vice chairs and I’m going to invite
as many members of council that want to come to that, and we’re going
to discuss this issue. In fact, I was going to address this in my
closing remarks, so we’1ll get to that, and that’s when we'll discuss
the times. Is there any other new business at this point? None.
Okay.

Announcements

Chairman Schwab: I want to quickly remind everybody, Unity
Dinner 6:00, Friday night. Previous to that is the pep rally at noon
on Friday, and then dawn’s social after that. Saturday morning, noon,
the parade. Please go. Bring your parents. 2:00, football game. As

well at 2:00 is the women’s field hockey game. I’m doing this all
,
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from memory. . And that evening the Unity Dinner at 6:00. I’m sorry we

just did that. Then the next morning at 10 a.m. is the breakfast.
Please guys, we need representation at the memorial service on Sunday
at 3:00 in the Chapel House. I’m going to do a voice mail to
everybody on Friday and see if we can walk over together, as many of
us that can go. I would really appreciate it. We're going to plan on
meeting at 2:30 in S.A.

rie Vazquez: I would just like to say that I thank the
members who stayed and also remind you that attendance is taken at the
beginning and the end of the meeting and that I as Vice Chair going to
keep in close contact with Neil to make sure that you’re all here at
the beginning and the end. I don’t think it’s fair to those of us who

stay so you might want to pass the word on to those who have left.

Chairman Schwab: I want to congratulate those who did stay
too.
Ashwani Prabhakar: Are we taking any steps to let the

university community know about that memorial?

Chairman Schwab: Yes.

A 1 kar: It’s just going to look bad if it’s just
going to be a handful of people. It’s going to be on television.

Chairman Schwab: Maybe we should get down to Greg at the
Voice as soon as possible. Maybe they can get something in the voice
by tomorrow. Autumn barbecue, R.S.V.P. if you're going. Take your
stuff out of your folders because I have no room to leave you guys
anything anymore. Leave your name tags in there and that’s it,

please. The Central Council office -- we have a computer desk in
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there for members to come use. My desk is my desk. I like using my
desk. I like keeping certain things in certain spots, and you have
every right to come in and if you ask me to sit at my desk I’1l let
you sit at my desk. I have no problem with that. Try to stay at the
“computer desk. I’ve lost things, I come in and people have their feet
on my desk. I just think it’s rude. No problem doing that as long as
.you ask. Any new members, I'd like you to make an appointment with me
for sometime between now and next Wednesday. I want to go over how
you guys think things are going, make sure you guys know your
procedures well. I have office hours posted, and you can make an
appointment either with Jemma who works in the office Monday,
Wednesday, Friday, or with the administrative assistants up front.
Please do that by next Wednesday. I’d like to see all new members. I
have three hours of office hours every day. Please do that.

Everybody has got to know when their committee meeting times are.
That’s it.

Closing Roll Call

Those present:

Marc Alessi, Kamau Blount, Amos Brunson, Darlene Classen,
Dina Delicce, Jess Fassler, Craig Fetterman, Neil Freilich, Jen Hird,
David Kalinsack, Jessica Morales, Ashwani Prabhakar, Stephanie Reich,
Johanna Rosenberg, Jodi Rosoff, Steven Schwab, Matt Shapiro, Todd
Teichman, Camille Torres, Dori Travieso, Ted Tsakonas, Valerie
Vazquez, Gregory Wahl, Ken Woodard.

Chairman Schwab: This meeting is adjourned at 12:42.