By An Associated Students Inc. resolution to cement permanent meeting times for sub committees, passed its first reading with a vote of 17-2-2, after a lengthy discussion at Wednesday’s senate meeting.
The resolution would require subcommittees of the ASI Senate to have permanent meeting times, as meeting dates moving around have lead to students being unable to attend the committees.
According to ASI Vice President Leen Almahdi, a major reason for the bill’s introduction was transparency in relation to ASI subcommittee meetings, whose times are currently subject to change from semester to semester.
“Similar to how we have senate every Wednesday at 3:30 [p.m.] … we want to introduce a model where other boards have standing meeting times,” Almahdi said. “That way we can be consistent, we can have more of the general student body or students at large engaged in those meetings.”
According to Almahdi, another issue the resolution addresses is board member retention, which she says is impacted by variable meeting times.
“With a board with so many people, one time is not going to work for everyone,” she said. “Saying that if the resolution were to be passed, board members could build their schedules around static meeting times.”
Sen. Alejandra Aguilar also favored the resolution and shared similar concerns to Almahdi about student participation on boards.
“If it is standard, then if you are looking into that board, they’ll be able to see when it is,” she said. “I don’t think people are doing these things on a fluke.”
While Almahdi found the resolution to be critically important, Sen. Augustus Krider, who was one of two senators who voted no on the resolution, was strongly opposed to permanent meeting times.
“By making the time mandatory, we may, in some way, exclude some population of the student body, and I think that’s unconscionable,” he said.
In regards to worries expressed during the meeting about moving dates being used to exclude people, Krider pointed to ASI’s checks and balances as a preventative measure.
“The Judiciary could be there to police any sort of action,” he said. “So could the senate, the president.”
Sen. Justin Contreras also voted no and doubted the necessity of the bill.
“From my experience, the reason why a lot of people have left a lot of other boards is mainly just because they lost interest with ASI,” he said “They didn’t feel supported.”
He argued that static times for lobby corps and similar subcommittees leads to fewer applicants and doesn’t help with turnover.
ASI Assistant Director Lindsay San Miguel responded to Contreras’ doubts.
“Students don’t know currently when they apply for a position, what time it’s going to be at,” she said. “From fall semester to spring semester, we lost applicants [because of this].”
The next ASI meeting will be held Wednesday, April 17 at the University Student Union room 234 at 3:30 p.m.
