Four-hour Student Senate meeting gives $403 to paper
By: Susan MacLaughlin
Posted: 2/10/05
Monday night's Student Senate meeting was supposed to focus on making a decision on how to distribute the $2.5 million pot of student segregated fees to a number of campus organizations.
In a marathon session, Senate spent nearly four hours debating the funding of a single organization, The Flip Side, before approving fraction of the publication's request. Senators walked away from the meeting after briefly looking at the rest of the budget, not certain if they had approved it or voted it down.
After a brief discussion on University Activities Commission funding, Senator Justin Grief, who also is managing editor of The Flip Side, asked to amend the budget to include a $3,000 allocation to the paper. In the budget presented by the Student Senate Finance Commission, The Flip Side was denied student segregated fees.
Student Senate Parlementarian Jessica Schaid said Wednesday that senators with interests in The Flip Side were allowed to vote on the amendment because it is allowed under Robert's Rules of Order. In them, she said, there is a clause that says those with conflicting interests in a matter should abstain, but those people should not be forced to do so.
Additionally, Schaid said one should consider many senators are involved in organizations that receive money from Senate.
An allocation of $3,000 would have funded about 10 issues of the newspaper, which has a total circulation of about 2,000, Grief said.
Senator Deanna Breault spoke in favor of the funding.
"The Flip Side has gone through every hoop we have asked them to," she said.
Others, including Student Senate Finance Director Matt Wisnefske disagreed, citing a number of reasons the paper should not be funded, including that it had not shown staying power as an organization, and it hadn't shown it was responsible enough to be trusted with student funds.
"(The finance commission) didn't do this in a vacuum," Wisnefske said. "Vote on whether you think they are responsible with money."
Wisnefske also urged senators not to vote because of their personal feelings toward The Flip Side.
"If that's why you're voting, then you have no reason being senator," he said.
Representatives from The Flip Side spoke in its defense as a number of senators yielded their speaking turns to The Flip Side founders, seniors Andrew Werthmann, Brian Vander Kamp and Jeremy Gragert.
"I think The Flip Side didn't prove that they needed funding."
-Matt Wisnefske
Student Senate Finance director
Representatives for The Flip Side asked the Senate to consider the impact the paper already has made on campus. For example, Gragert explained that The Flip Side has published works by more than 100 writers and artists and those writers came from a variety of majors.
Wisnefske and Student Body Treasurer Adam Pettke also raised concerns about a precedent that could be set by giving funding to the publication.
"The issue is if we fund The Flip Side, we can't tell anyone else no," Wisnefske said.
The debate went through another four amendments.
Senator Nomi Nazeer brought forth the first, asking to amend the original amendment. In his amendment, Nazeer asked the Senate to consider allocating about 30 percent of what the paper's operating budget was, which came to a total of $1,548.
This was discussed for more than a half-hour. The amendment required a two-thirds vote, and failed 8-9-1.
In a move that surprised many senators, Senator Jeremy Ralston asked to make an amendment to deny funding not only to The Flip Side, but also to The Spectator.
After brief debate, Senator Aaron Olson made an apology to The Spectator and for the proposal of the amendment.
"This amendment is a slap in the face to The Spectator and to every student," he said. Olson then called for an immediate vote on the amendment, which failed with a final vote of 3-14-1
"It just wasn't necessary to fund (The Spectator)," Ralston said after the meeting. "I'm just looking for ways to try to save money."
As the meeting crept into its fourth hour, Senator Erica Dinkel-Smith, who also heads public relations for The Flip Side, called for a new amendment for a $1,000 allocation. The amendment passed with little discussion.
The amendment was then revised by Pettke, who asked Senate to consider giving The Flip Side an amount of student funding that was equitable to the request of The Spectator.
The Spectator asked for about 7.2 percent of its operating budget to come from student-segregated fees. Using that amount, Pettke said The Flip Side should receive $403. The amendment passed, 9-6-3.
Senate looked at the remainder of the budget briefly, and discussed other budget items for less than a half hour before calling for a vote on the entire budget. The final vote came in 10-6-2, which did not meet a two-third majority. Senators could not find rules on how great of a majority was required for the vote to pass.
President Chad Wade made the decision to call the vote as having passed with a majority, but the question still loomed as to whether the budget will have to be revisited.
The Senate has not found out yet if they need to revisit the issue, said Director of Public Relations Lindsey Nelson.
"It's really a question related to parliamentary procedure," she said.
Wisnefske said the vote on The Flip Side's funding came down to a popularity contest.
"To be perfectly honest, I think the Flip Side didn't prove that they needed funding. They proved that they had enough people on Senate who like them," he said after the meeting.
Werthmann said overall, representatives for the paper were pleased with Monday's vote to give student segregated fees.