[ Golden Gater Online - February 4, 1997 ]
Dan Harrison
Staff writer
The proposal to restructure Associated Students could mean more than historic changes in the way it does business, it could mean less friction among groups involved in student politics.
"The new bylaws will be able to incorporate other groups that have traditionally been left out of the system" by distributing the control of our affairs among a larger pool of student leaders, said Marie Mallere, AS vice president. "It could reach out to other student groups that haven't been active for the past two to five years."
The most recent draft of the proposed documents, which will be voted on Wednesday, expands the primary decision-making body -- the board of directors -- from 7 voting members to 19.
AS President Lee Sprague said distributing the control over the $2.9 million budget among more student leaders will bring more harmony to student politics than there has been in past years.
"We're opening up the budget process. When I saw who had access to the information in the past, and when decisions had been made in the past, you didn't have all the student officials participating," Sprague said.
In past years it's been all or nothing, Sprague said, because the board which is typically voted in as a single slate has controlled most AS decisions.
"You'll have a good cross-section of campus. It's valuable for this to be a consultative body. I think the restructuring opens it up," Sprague said.
Questions were raised concerning some of the wording in the proposed bylaws
during a board meeting last Wednesday, but they were more about clarification than disagreement.
To pass, the bylaws need the approval of five of seven board members. In interviews, none seemed to disagree with implementing it.
The new document, which has gone through 20 drafts since work began on it last semester, will incorporate the current constitution and bylaws, two documents which have contradicted each other and have led to legal problems and controversy about procedure.
Sprague and other student leaders have made many trips to other schools in the CSU system to analyze their legal documents, and adopted some of their best parts, said junior representative Eric Hammer.
If the new constitution is passed by the board, it will need the approval of the administration to go into effect. According to student leaders, discussions about the proposed documents between Sprague and university President Robert Corrigan went well.
"We're reviewing the bylaws now and it's coming along in a good fashion," said Evelyn Hooker, special assistant to the Dean of Student Affairs.
The board will vote on Wednesday at 1 p.m. in room B-112 in the student center.
[ Golden Gater - February 4, 1997 ]