General Studies Lounge

GSSC Minutes for 2/16/2008

Financial Clarification Meeting

attendance: karly curcio, allen settle, monique long, raul dutch wikkeling, niko cunningham, susannah karlsson, nicolle rountree, gabrielle breen, joel pichardo, jake matilsky, helena lellis, elie collie, dave minchin, brody berg, keith hightower, william melendez, aaron j. lewis.

Keith: this is informal, this why we're having visitors.

Why don't we ask Jake what his things are.

Jake: a) finance stuff so we're all on the same page going into town hall, b) there are some constitutional concerns. objective: hash it all out regarding those two points. having you in the room lets us know whats going on in that regard. Everyone can speak, everyone's frustrations are heard.

Elie: make sure everything is clarified.

Brody: documents online

Keith: Make sure everyone understands the state of our budget and what our options are.

William: here to learn, know what's going on. absorb it all

Evan Madeo: I am very new, here to listen/learn and contribute something.

Karly: learn to play postion

Allen: to be constructive in our presentation to the GS student body, in a deliberative and calm way

Monique: If we can agree that these documents can go online that would go a long way to belay peopls concerns and be a great step toward transparency.

Brody: I volunteer to do whatever technical work regarding that.

Raul: I want to get it very business like, I am the oldest person here. I don't have time for bickering. Clear and concise.

Niko: need a concise view of how semester has gone.

Helena: Ask questions, here answers

Susannah: here because i was asked to be, here to offer history, context and perspective

Nicolle: here to know what to communicate

Gabriell: here because I was asked to be, backing Jake, just because budgetary constraints are here, shouldn't have less programming, representing Chad Miller regarding that.

Joel: Constitutional concerns, agrees with Brody about putting things online.

Aaron: here to answer questions

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Keith: Introduces the four documents.

This is the budget the council approved in the fall. I just wanted to refresh everybody's memory.

Brody: Did these numbers turn out to be real?

Keith: no, that's what we're here to talk about

We spent $1,900 on 4 council events. It's something we spoke about at council, discussed how expensive these events are, but that it's important to maintain this tradition.

Next was E-Board expenses. Then F@CU.

F@CU: next sheet is the 2007-2008: Susannah will introduce.

Susannah: Let me contextualize. Every student group on campus is funded by a pool of money: ABC, SGB, your money will come from allocations made in F@CU - funding at columbia university. including Barnard. Incoming and outgoing presidents and finances. all schools sit together and duke it out. 5: intergreek, ABC (cultural prepofessional), SGB (religious and protest) - all together these are the governing boards for every student group on campus. All student councils pay into this. We together decide what each council will pay in. And vote on it. Then we divy out what each council will pay in regarding our student population - this is the RATIO, we pay 7% of the total number because we only constitute 7% of the population. This is the F@CU allocation, or governing board allocation.

Facilities is separate from governing boards - is rooms, space, security etc etc.

1. Governing boards
2. Security (literally, security)
3. Facilities

each of which went up significantly this year.

wkcr had a bailout issue this year. they had an antenna on the wtc, which went bye bye, they've then gone into severe debt. so they came to facu looking for a bailout, to build a new antenna on top of Barnard. Sought student support for getting involved in the effort. it's a new line item and won't be there next year.

Keith: 2 numbers on the 2007-2008 allocations: total paid into all these funds is nearly 1million dollars. Our portion as GSSC is $140,000, so we're only paying a fraction of the total to be able to participate in all of this. have been working all this year to negotiate that number down, to make it even less than it is.

Susannah: our number is based just on full time students.

Keith: we have a really good deal, we have 11% of population, but we only pay 7%.

Jake: we need to get to contentious issues

Keith: that's what the $70,000 went to, and this semester we have to pay a new $70,000.

Brody: and the breaking up of that cost is new?

Keith: yes, i elected to break that up by semester

Keith: Parenthesis numbers means we got re-embursed by a group we applied for co-sponsorship from.

Brody: I only spent $100.

Keith: Your b-form was out so long that it effected this document. It should be a credit.

Monique: why are columns on 2007-08 allocations missing for ccsc, exc, and sga missing?

Keith: F@CU didn't give us those numbers.

Karly: how do we check this document? If brody's number was wrong, how do we check the other numbers?

Susannah: we get the number from Dominic

Keith: he is the only one that has it, I've only seen it on a computer screen. We haven't been issued that permission.

Karly: there may be other dissonances.

Keith: Dominic can spend money, but Keith must sign for Dominic, and vice versa

Karly: if we're talking about these numbers, but these numbers have little errors here and there we have an issue, maybe next time we should have those numbers next time.

Susannah: Dominic, can explain the numbers

Brody: He can't explain it, I was in his office once and he showed me the screen and made some problematic statements.

Nicolle: move on

Keith: A couple of important points going forward for spring budget. I don't have spring printed out yet. If you have a pen, please get it out.

For spring semester the pot of money that we're dealing with, there is a bit of rollover. Let's agree on $100,000 for the fall budget.

And then going down, for the governing boards, as you can see from the actual expenses, the fee is $70,000, so right off the bat we lose $70k. Everybody remembers the governing board allocation was split in two, that's this. Which leaves us with $30,000, which is a big round number, don't quote me. I am asking you guys to bear with me.

Glass House Rocks has taken place: $1,739.64

And then there's the Gala, council voted to give the Gala $11,500.

Then the thing that was missing when we talked about the Gala, was that the Senior class hadn't submitted their proposal. they have now, and I've gone through them. Senior class has asked for roughly $11,500

Spring orientation: $3500.

Dave: Where is this Osekre thing?

Keith: let's not go there yet

We have $3500 left, we have the request for senior funds, but we haven't given it.

Joel: do we have a senior class number from last year?

Gabrielle: yes we have that number

Susannah: $15,500 for the 2006-2007 both semesters combined for the Senior class

Keith: So that's where we pretty much are as what we can spend this semester, depending on which direction the student council wants to go.

Gabrielle: have you looked into getting sponsorships?

Brody: can we table that?

Keith: if we lock into that $11k for the seniors, we have roughly $3500 left to do some programming. There is a four council event at the end of the semester - barbecue. there are cosponsorship requests, there's programming that's already slated, juniors, seniors, community @ large. We have to understand what the situation is.

OSEKRE:

Brody: Osekre was told no by Keith, but hung us out to dry.

Keith: situation being worked out by Dominic.

Brody: Barnard involved too.

Keith: there is a $3000 issue that COULD hit this bottom line.

Dave: We had a concern that the actual numbers would not be in before gala.

Helena: Does Osekre have anything to do with the GSSC at all? does he have any kind of authority or enter into a contract in the name of the GSSC

Keith: no one does other than niko and dominic can enter into a contract.

So now back to Dave. He's asking basically having a roughly $200k budget per year, but those figures are issued to us in February. We still don't have our actual numbers.

Brody: how do we make decisions about budget with the Osekre thing hanging over us?

Keith: I think about it every time I make a decision. Dominic says I shouldn't think about it. it could exist though so I don't ignore it.

Now let's just give you a little historic background. This didn't come about just because of Osekre or because of the numbers on this expense report. Enrollment is down and our expenses went up. Our money is squeezed.

last years student life fees from 06-07: $213,731, this year: $198, 000. our 198 includes a rollover from 06-07 of roughly $17,000. There's a difference of $15k, so we have $15k less based purely on enrollement.

Brody: spoke to Dominic today, says enrollment continues to be down spring semester as well.

Susannah: enrollment is not getting better. But, we did FACU, and committed to a fixed number, which is significantly more than last year.

Keith: 06-07 paid $116k, but we paid $140k

Raul: did people really know that we pay for things with the student life fee?

Keith: glad you brought that up. Student life fee is $367 per student per semester. if you take that times 2, times 1k students. We don't get all that. it goes to pay for many things: email, computers, lerner, dodge fitness, the libraries and there are 20 of them. By the time we get to the GSSC, we get $87 per head. That's what makes up the $200k budget we have.

Evan: other schools pay?

Keith: they pay $467 and their councils get $97

Susannah: other school funding structures are totally different. if the ccsc runs short, they ask their dean, who dips into their huge endowment to invent money from thin air.

Joel: I thought Keith was clear last semester about where money comes from.

Keith: presentation was about that we need to be creative about bringing in funds

Raul: then we shouldn't even need this meeting

Joel: purpose of this meeting was to address some of the individual constitutional questions, not to sit here and go line item by line item.

Monique: we all have questions, we should clarify all the questions, not just the questions of one or two people

Jake: absolutely, and we do need to go over issues of contention before the town hall.

Nicolle: it's 9pm, what else do you have lined up?

Keith: let's start in same order, Jake please start

Jake: you are facilitating? just want to know that when we go into that meeting tuesday night, I want to satisfy allegations of impropriety. I want anyone who is dissatisfied, I want them to voice those concerns now. I would have liked to have seen these numbers earlier

karly: how do I know how to spend my money?

Keith: i'd like to get from the council what direction they'd like to take the council in?

karly: can we make sure that anyone with intentions to spend money can go to keith with those intentions.

gabrielle: or send out some form to get information for money

nicolle: everyone can come to finance meetings

karly: my vision is to spend $700, but I feel the money will be gone

allen: if we're going to be here until midnight let's do it, let's hash the questions out

monique: i'll meet with you keith about the budget for the senior class, if you have other questions regardless of time, i'd rather not hear any more conspiracy theories from the student body which I am actually hearing from students.

william: this coming tuesday is just a meeting for finance, anything else on agenda is cut? They want $60 to be a part of it.

Keith: we'll talk about other things.

Dave: GSSC will not be doing any business tuesday?

Keith: correct

Raul: there's no conspiracy, let's get this thing going

Helena: I would be sad if events were cancelled or tiny

Keith: you can organize a program with other ways to pay for programming. We can still do our jobs very well and effectively with zero money essentially.

Dave: she's saying that the entire budget is basically non-existent.

Helena: is that ok?

Keith: you are right, once I present this budget to the gssc that says that all those groups don't get money, if the council says that's how we want to spend the budget that's how we're going to spend the money. it's not decided, I am just saying what obligations might be out there.

Helena: i know the gala budget is up in the air, and all the things that are up in the air.

Keith: the gala is going forward, that money is allocated and will be spent on the event.

Susannah: my investment is to make clear the differences between this year and last year. we didn't leave you with a debt, that's a myth. you all know where to find me if I can help further.

Gabrielle: Butler! haha

Nicolle: you've done a great job putting it on paper Keith. We allocated $11,500 for Gala, why is there contention between Gala and the Finance Committee.

Gabrielle: I don't have questions about the budget. Students: there's an issue that people are conflating finance with programming. The mere fact that there is no one there to oversee programming along with finance is a huge problem. I think that for Tuesday you should come up with a FAQ type of sheet. I want to make sure that the focus is not anger, focs on the situation at hand. People are really negative, this shouldn't be negative. I think that also a lot of students have been confusing student life with financial problems. I think it's important you have a timeline for promising a budget to the council. Unless that happens nothing is going to happen as far as finances. This also impacts filling positions like parents.

Joel: I wish this was more frequent, you have copies, online. I did ask you for b-forms.

Keith: I can't give you copies, but I can show you the actual ones.

Joel: I want to study the actual b-forms.

Susannah: legally he can't make copies (BLANK B-FORMS)

Keith: you can come and sit during our meetings and go through them.

Gabrielle: you can put them online behind a password

Susannah: you can put b-forms online with "cancelled"

Aaron: questions for people around the table. Something that can be dealt with. Let me make a statement: on both sides of this, finance and council are equally culpable, information hasn't been actively diseminated, people haven't been going to the council meeting. worried about the image this projects.

Keith: I've asked people to be there. People see me at the bar and people don't show up. Only serious people show up. And some people have stopped by.

Brody: what is the weekly report going to look like

K: general ledget report: disseminated each week, comes from dominic, will talk to him.

Brody: what was michael park talk about last year?

Susannah: Just to clarify his question. It's Niko's job to construe the constitution. The way we did it in years past, I was finance VP. it was best for programmers to work with me on one on basis - shoot me an email, 48 hour turn around. one on one would work best. gave bi-semester report: beginning, middle, end. I would just check in, not on weekly basis, tedious, waste of time, not something were interested in. when I was president we did something similar, situation didn't work since we had a less responsive vp finance. went more through student life, get event approved, student life would come up with a max, chad, vp of studnt life which would take it to the vp finance. so budget was reported on each week by student life in a general sense. People with specific questions, could log into their specific ledger and access their specific budget.

Keith: a general ledger is from an accounting software. need software

Susannah: I have to disagree, it's just a document.

Gabrielle: document was online, behind a UNI (HFS!!!)

brody: what is going online?

Keith: I have contacted communication to put documents online. issue came up last year. told comm they could put information online. was told that every committee puts information online themselves which is different than providing access to information. always available to make appointments to see information. as far as me making the information available online.

Nicolle: the thing about this is, is that you may feel the internet is a fad, or internet crap, this is how your constituents have chosen to communicate, to easily access information online. available at meetings but this has become a fundamental flaw in terms of programming and commication within and without the gssc, it must be more accessible, if you don't want to do it, you need to delegate this job. Very clearly this semester comm said it is Comm's job to give you the tools to put everything out there, we don't want to be the ones responsible for putting up wrong info, but to put up the tools, you communicate, we don't communicate for you.

Dave: let's talk about what people should actually be doing. Art 9, section 1, const should be highest authority of the GSSC.

Susannah: it's the role of the president to construe

Dave: art 3, section 4, point c: vp of finance shall submit general ledger every week, what you interpret that to be is Nancy's call.

Keith: this is an accounting statement, not a general ledger.

Dave: why have this in const, it may or may not be feasible, it hasn't been done. make detailed records available. we're now in the semester. a number of people at this table don't feel it's accessible.

Keith: Jake asked me about the numbers.

Jake: "they're around"

Keith: what do I need to do to get people the numbers? tie them down?

Dave: art 2, iii. officers should submit a report. I know you have a class, I haven't seen a report - there's no ledger, no reports. I can't make the finance meeting. So the result is that this information is all happening in the verbal world.

Keith: this meeting is about the budget and the constitution. if we're going through the constitution and point out everything in the constitution. and at that point no one is getting a paycheck here, there are certain protocols here, there's a spirit of the document.

Raul: what is your point Dave?

Dave: I'd like to get these general reports each week.

Raul: can someone get this online?

Allen: I will do that

Raul: I am not going to sit here and listen

Brody: I want to say that Niko hasn't done anything this year. We need leadership and it hasn't been delivered. We've been making Sh*t up as we go. Suzanna made up a system and improved it, but we dont have that kind of leadership from you [niko]. I haven't ever spoken to a Medical School representative like I'm supposed to, so fire me. But we do need leadership and you [niko] need to provide that. You need to be the president.

Niko: What do you want me to do? I've asked you to do things and you've said you won't do them. I'm not your boss. I have been completely hands off with the leadership you and Keith and Nancy have done

Brody: What Needs to happen is this meeting should have happened several months ago, we should have had these documents eseveral months ago

Niko: Communications has tried to ask

Brody: that's fundamentally false

Nicole: Keith didn't have something he was comfortable with us putting up. Two things: Niko, you need to directly articulate expectations for those left on council, and in terms of Keith I think its a great idea but since we have less than 3000 dollars less I dont think we have a need to see it every week unless there is a change to this.

Brody: I'm interim VP of student life but I have nothing to do because I have no budget. I can't do anything because there is no clear line. This is why there are problems with the Social Chair going to the newspaper. It was unprofessional but not unexpected

I want the Student body president to step up and provide leadership, to define how he wants people on the council to do their jobs according to the constitution.

Keith: The constitution says that no one can have two positions at the same time.

Joel: I was not elected last semester, I was elected this semester. I asked about finance numbers to Keith, but I was told by you that "don't start any trouble". That made me feel that I wouldn't have any access. Last night you asked "why did you ask for numbers, why did you go to Stellini?" the response and the lack of numbers on the website is important. I think the constitution is important. my concerns about the gala are important. If I can't go to the const. and say "this is wrong" then what do I do? can someone address me and convince me that we're doing it right? all anyone wanted to talk about that day was gala marketing.

Keith: you asked about orientation, numbers which weren't in yet. then you went into the orientation issues, I said you need to look into it a little further before you make allegations. you wanted to see that it didn't exist (records b-forms).

Joel: I kept hearing rumors about how the money was spent. I wasn't elected at least a month and a half into the semester. If someone has the numbers point me in the direction. I remember being told that I didn't want to get into it that early.

Keith: you are confusing what went wrong with orientation, with how much orientation cost. just be clear in what you are stating.

Joel: it's going to boil down to you said/i said about the council vote about the Gala. I remember a detailed presentation by the gala comm. I remember you Keith coming to the council and asking for the council to vote on this and declare understanding of the impact of the budget.

Raul: I am shocked and embarrassed right now. If this is what goes on. I am a man about campus. Susannah knows, she's the mayor - this is why people don't fuck with GS, because of this shit. We think we're doing great shit but people don't fuck with this because of this stuff. we can do all this, but this is why people say gs gets nothing done. this is how we conduct ourselves?

Keith: what is this?

Raul: that it even had to come to this, like Brody said. When we got into this as a council, when we came back from the retreat I thought there were serious structural issues. As an alumni event I have put on one event. when I contact people I get nothing. Unless we figure out one thing: how can we change the mindset going forward and within the student body I would resign right now.

Dave: what he's saying is that the student body and the alumni can't respect us until we respect ourselves.

Raul: Susannahs been here much longer, stop me if I say something off. i think that Susannah had a vision about how she wanted GS to be viewed, not only from without, but from within. I think that we actually are looked at more favorably by other students in terms of interacting with other schools than the council is. That is embarrassing. We've got four months. Let's not go out like suckers. I am a winner. I feel like I am part of something that sucks. I feel like we can all do better.

I've tried to work with the alumni office, it's like beating my head against the wall. We've got to connect with the student body. People are literally coming to me and telling me that they are not coming to stuff. I don't care about the meeting every tuesday, it doesn't feed my ego. if we're not there to make things happen, I am not coming anymore. I don't need gs council to meet people, for a job, I came here to do something. it's the best fucking thing I've done in 40 years, let me do something for those who can't come to the meeting. we're here to do something for people who aren't here.

Right now we're spending that $87 for some student. Someone came up to me before my tuesday class and said hey you are on council and said "what's going on?" I said we're working on it right now.

I don't know how that email got to the spec, but who they are is a clown. I am going to tell you something else. whoever did that is a moron. you do that, you damaged yourself, you damaged the credibility of what you are a part of. we cannot go around and act like this is some people in a room. this is not just my four years, I am here forever. i don't want to suck, we are sucking in a huge way.

we need to communicate. all this comes down to me. I am a bottom line guy. this sounds like we didn't communicate. dave wanted numbers, keith had them. we needed someone to say : keith, dave, break bread.

I have to agree with Brody, we need better leadership. everybody from their own respective committees. const is all fine and dandy. we can keep talking until the cows come home. without the people we mean nothing.

We can change the const. or whatever, but this organizational stuff was happening far before all that, so let's fix that. it's not about what happens in this room, that's what I am saying.

Dave: I am saying const and leadership are connected

Raul: nope, people don't care about the const, people just want to see stuff going on.

Brody: Niko, you still have nothing to say?

Niko: I was asked to be here

Jake: we embarrassed ourselves, we go into the meeting Tuesday unprepared. Joel has some questions. One of the questions is about leadership. Niko you are here, you do need to speak. I am making sure everybody feels ok going into Tuesday's meeting. Everyone has to be able to be productive. I can't have us look like a trainwreck.

Susannah: I have to go, real quick: this little last bit is the "same thing" When there is a suspicion of impropriety or following the rules, it breeds distrust inside the ranks, when there is distrust people break ranks, publicly, I am embarrased. people come up to me in class and tell me how crazy it must be making me. It DOES embarrass me. for some reason people are breaking ranks. for some reason there is incoherence about who is in charge or what is running what. Even I am confused. I trust Niko, he's a good guy, good judgement, good leadership, likes students. but I don't see how that's being translated. What dave and jake said: what const issues have congruence about how people do their jobs. If I suspect that some council member is going to screw me I am going to guard myself against that, rather than serving the students, which is not what the students paid for. All I ask you to think about in the rest of this conversation that the two issues: const and leadership are totally linked. I am a GS student, I have an opinion and there it is. Niko you have my sympathy. You have four months left, we can go out with a bang, there's all kinds of things that can be done. Gabby is hard to deal with but she's got a lot of cheap ideas. I am always here. I wish you the best of luck, and if there's anything I can do I just emailed niko, keith brody and nicolle last year's numbers. Otherwise I am going to get out of here.

Karly: response to Jake, what I want to know, the question that is inevitably going to come up for conspiracy theorists is "why" why did "this" happen or "that" happen. What are we going to say when we get "why?". Not that I want to know, but our answers should be congruent.

Jake: i need to respond to clarify my point. I want to make sure council members are not asking the "why" question. I want to make sure everyone in this room aren't all asking it at the meeting. that room is there for students. once we all get on the same page we should have the some cohesive message about spending x, y and z. we shouldn't be asking "why" questions at the town hall.

Dave: When the email hit the spec I spoke to Brody. Everyone was embarrassed about the article, told brody that I felt that it would make the council look badly to the entire student body and then try to push things they aren't going to take us seriously. If you want to say something I am into that. I am in contact with people, people are going to ask const questions on Tuesday. The other person who is going to ask questions is the reporter from the Spectator. I drove into the city for this meeting so we don't look stupid in an article in the spectator. There are four or five issues that people are going to be asking about, that everyone is going to be asking about. we can say it's small beans but people are going to ask about it. I don't mind talking about it in a closed session but I do have a problem with doing it on the front page of the paper. Part of being proud of ourselves is doing it right.

Allen: I am seriously troubled that I think none of the important parts of the const are being followed. Serious leadership hole from our president and policy in allowing that to happen. I am troubled by the lack of finance reports, I am troubled by our vp of policy refusing to rule on whether something is const or not. I want to see influence from the president on that. I am troubled by the vp comm on two committees, too much work. I am troubled that numerous people that were told they were on council but wasn't actually on council. All these add up to a council that has gotten less done than it could have. One resolution, very good communications, vp of finance who keeps things very low on price. What do we have? 50% of people on council left? we didn't even have people at the table tuesday to pass resolutions. we need to be expelling people and replacing. we can't pick and choose what we want, we need to follow it. ledger is just inputs and outputs, we all know that you don't know what inputs are, if anyone doesn't understand that, I am angry at them, but we don't know is WHAT you know, just tell us something. I've been kind of quiet, my head is back into it. there need to be serious changes or we should quit and people should run for office and start over.

Karly: I have a policy question, can we pass policy about the timing of the budget on the DOS side? Can we be proactive about that?

Allen: I've spoken to nancy aout this.

Monique: my policy question is quorum. I know people have class. why is it in const to have meeting at certain time? We shouldn't shoehorn ourselves into the document. We should look at our schedules at the beginning so excuses are't "I am in class". so we can start impeachment.

Raul: aside from const issues, let's be blunt, if the Gala doesn't come up, we're going to look like asses. Why did Ashley quit? What was the problem?

Brody: but what about niko firing people

Helena: before gala, what about the VP of Student Life?

Brody: 4 people were there, who's going to do it?

Dave: why do it? there's only hardly any $$$

Raul: I could be wrong, we only need a vp of student life

Keith: when susannah was finance she line itemed, but when she was pres she handed it off to chad.

Raul: that's it, the const is open to interpretation. I've been here since last semester and things are now being done with no hard and fast rules. You can bend anything any way you want. There have always been issues.

========== Gala

Jake: Keith is going to start, and then I am going to facilitate.

Keith: I met with Ashley with Elie and Aaron. Everybody knows here that contacts can't be entered into except by me, niko and dominic. ashley came to me with one contact. she presented me the budget here to $11,500, and if she spent everything and sold 250 tickets she would have $325 left over. mY problem with that is that there we some things missing, she needed to address some of those missing things: dj, sound equipment

Dave, Karly, Helena: there is a dj

Keith: this says band, and dj didn't have sound equipment. on Friday two weeks ago she had a band that was eating up the $500, the dj was free but had no sound equipment. sound equipment rental she thought would be $650 estimated. other thing that was missing was table linens. at this point she's going into a place with wood tables with no linens.

Karly: they didn't come with chair covers?

Keith: no they didn't.

If you look at the attached catering budget. Note that she crossed off kosher food. So with that $325 she was missing food, dj sound and linens. But she DID have umbrellas, which she already ordered, putting her $2,000 over budget. When I told her that no, I couldn't authorize the umbrellas the real issue is that she couldn't afford them according to this budget. until she fixed this budget she couldn't spend a penny. I didn't alter the budget. Instead of being an adult, she quit.

Brody: hear hear

Jake: I am taking questions. Raul, and Dave.

Dave: we've heard a lot about what Ashley said and showed. It's hearsay.

Keith: Aaron can corroborate. This document is evident.

Dave: this is a working document, not a final document. What I do know is that it wasn't final. there were items in this budget like chair covers and marketing that were not fixed. I think the overflow wasn't $2,000.

What happened, and let's start at the beginning we spoke to Keith and he said we could get $5,000. we went to the GSSC in a panic. we then cut 40% out of the budget. met with keith on Dec 1, said they could do it for $11,500. keith said: I don't know spring budget numbers so let's ask council. Council passed unanimously with three abstentions.

Keith: three abstentions makes it not unanimous.

Dave: fine. on the record of that meeting we have niko asking keith whether this plan is acceptable, keith says it was acceptable.

we went forward thinking that this was fine. the umbrellas involved a lead time in order to get a sample, to make sure it's going to be wonderful. in the week leading up to this point. I don't know, but I was told that there were numerous attempts to get ahold of keith.

Raul: that's hearsay, let's hear facts.

Dave: I became concerned we'd be late on umbrellas so I ordered them.

this was day before finance meeting, two weeks ago.

then we hear we can't get the umbrellas, I made a personal connection to get them. I believed I was within my budget and that finance had given that control to gala committee.

Agreed on phone with brody, niko and keith agreed to cover prep costs of umbrellas but cancel order.

spoke with keith more about the dj. keith sent email saying he found jazz band, dj, photographer and speakers for $1100. but ours with the same items cost $1100.

Aaron: Keith said he didn't have authority to cancel umbrella order, wanted to pass it over to the e-board.

Dave: this email was sent out to eboard and I, this was before ashley resigned. Ashley finds out that she wasn't included in conference call, 2, that keith cancelled her dj without talking to her. now, the rule says that it is her job to organize the gs formal. she was never consulted and even though the money was the same. she said that this is what has been happening all year and that she has no control and she was mad at me because I knew about the whole thing and left her out. She was left out, it was creative, and it is not allowable. I had no idea her decision would be taken so fast.

Keith: people need to keep things clear. we need to keep the line items separate. very important and crucial about what went on. in what you said you could probably find money in other areas. your quote was probably, I can't deal with probably when I deal with the budget. I have to deal with reality and numbers and the strength of your numbers. according to you we could have gone over but not that much. and my job is to make sure you don't go over by one penny, the council didn't authorize you to go over by one penny. based on this evidence here, there were things Ashley had big things to deal with. until she had a vision to where she was going there are problems.

as far as her not having her budget in order about the umbrellas - the cost of the umbrellas are %25 of the total cost of the gala. and the way she presented it, once the order was placed it couldn't be backed out. those of us with experience know that the gala can be cancelled up to a week before - and at that time there were only 30 gala tickets sold, and that the umbrellas were bought from Dave Minchin's grandfather. all of those things lead to me not signing this b-form.

monique: dj photographer

Keith: Dave said wow that's a cheap price for dj and photographer are you sure you can do that? I said yes, I would make the phone call and I got back to Dave about their availability. I sent a contract, I didn't enter into an agreement. I then presented an option that Ashley could make. However, I did make a decision about the umbrellas based on what I knew.

Dave: I think it's clear from what you just said Ashley was disincluded.

keith: there was no decision

Dave: umbrellas were cancelled

Keith: she was over budget

Dave: The budget you handed out before about the GSSC budget indicate that numbers are not locked in stone. So what gives with the budget? We knew if we needed chair covers we'd find the money. We'd look into other funds in the GSSC funds. Certainly this sucks, but this doesn't mean that you can make creative decisions without Ashley's control.

Raul: What this really comes down to, this is just a failure to communicate. I am embarrassed again. i am about to jump out the window. I can't believe that all of us with work experience have let this happen. this is a failure for people to work together and not hashing things out. and then to be put on the frontpage is horrendous.

Look, you didn't make any decision, but people were under the impression you did. You said one thing, but people heard another. It comes down to a failure to communicate.

Brody: In Keith's defense I think we all know that Ashley is hard to bargain with and I think that no one could have predicted she would have reacted like this.

William: I talked to Ashley about a dj last year. How could it be so cheap?

Dave: dj agreed to work for free. he told us if push came to shove he would give us a speaker.

William: so, murky waters.

Dave: I mean, how solid can we get?

William: seriously, I just want to know

Monique: So it sounds like Keith, and I want to clarify for both parties, offered up the dj, photog for less? And this is a creative decision?

Keith: in the moment it seemed like my plan would be less, because in that conversation Dave was going to have to rent some equipment. And I offered options but I didn't enter into anything.

Monique: he offered an alternative to you

Dave: if its going to save me money, told keith to call them up and send over contract

Monique: was the contact signed? yes or no?

Dave: no

Monique: but you didn't tell her? you were working very closely on this project. I am just trying to figure out what happened here. I think I understand what happened. When Ashley came to me last week.

Dave: she was mad at me.

William: you were her right hand man.

Dave: still

Keith: if anyone is here to gain and understand of why Ashley quit you can go home now

[clapping]

Dave: Everyone wants to say she's irrational

Raul: this is what I am talking about, people are not communicating! that's why we're a fucking joke because people are quitting rather than hashing things out. I am not saying she's irrational I am saying people need to communicate better.

Allen: I want to say that I was on Finance all year, she never came, she never answered email. she was a bad social chair, she resigned for stupid reasons which is a shame because she is my student and she let down 1400 students over a baby issue. she's not here to defend herself and that sucks for her.

Brody: it sounds like finance needs to take minutes

Dave: well that's why no one is trusting each other, because we're arguing semantics. when we look at things in hindsight it's stupid, but from her perspective based on what she'd been told and what she thought had been done all year she quit.

Niko: So just a couple points over the whole year when she set a deal in stone with a vendor and finance saved us money. Ashley decided to have Dave as Gala cochair, her giving you that role gave the E-board permission to talk to you as a chair.

Knowing that, I asked Brody, and he said who should we call and Brody said Dave. We had a coherent conversation. I feel like the blow up happened when you related it to Ashley (Dave). I respect Dave for the hard facts he gave us. Ashley decided to quit 18 days before the event. I am willing to talk about the const all night, but tomorrow I have a gala to plan.

Brody: THAT WE'VE SOLD 100 TICKETS TO!!!

Keith: and that we have kosher food for!

Dave: in a purely moral sense I think we did the right thing. I said to brody that keith should run the gala, it's the best thing to make the gala happen. but we need to resolve the issue that a resolution passed and we overruled it. i don't want to set a precedent.

Joel: Honestly I asked a question of the council and I wanted clarification - only person from the finance meeting at GSSC meeting was Allen. spoke to Ashley about her email. asked question about clarification about whether the const was being followed, no one could answer. I really don't think the president should over look the const. I ask you Niko to resign. Every one has told me not to trust anyone.

But also it was the communication issue which is why I brought it up at the meeting. WE were skipping const. questions and moving on to marketing. skipping const. other council members were concerned. I want clarification. I heard about ashely and osekre and was concerned. I spoke to stellini and he gave me no information. I asked the e-board about the changed to the gala and got no answers. all I got was silence. unfortunately keith wasn't there and had no answers. then I got quoted in the spec, and now people are concerned, I am not embarrassed, I am worried about the const. I am worried about black and white. We'd like to clarify to everyone on council that this is not how it should work and how things should go.

Niko: We sit here and we keep defending the const. that allen and nancy have known from day one to have so many problems. that's why the const committee is looking through it to make it more air tight. we spent way too much time on the gray area. trying to figure out who did or didn't do what with a flawed document. have there been problems in how I've interpreted the const sure! at the end of the day I am the fall guy. if you Joel want to be president, run. if you want to impeach impeach!

Joel: several people aroudn the table have said there is a lack of leaderhip. I've allowed you to say what you've been doing to help the gssc and students. I am telling you it's not because you are the fall guy it's because you are ineffective.

Niko: there will be absolutely no resignation.

Raul: With all due respect I want to be on the record: I don't want Niko to resign. Do I think Joel has valid points, yes he does. It's not just Niko but it's on all of us here. There has been some leadership lacking, we function as a whole. we only function as strongly as our weakest.

Brody: do we even have a const issue given what Keith said about her not having a budget organized?

William: const doesn't say social chair can just spend the money.

Niko: responding to Brody: when Cheryl resigned due to personal reasons there was no VP of Student Life. We had to make a decision at that moment. Until we had a vp of student life, we decided that Vp finance would be in charge.

Dave: const says a replacement "must" be found

Karly: I am hungry and tired. I'd like to be able to say tomorrow we have solutions. I sympathize with what Raul is saying. What I want to do is either decide that we need to hash this out some other time and deal with the gala. is this council or is this not council? we need leadership, we need examples. we have one or two who are starting examples. e-board is leaders of the leaders. they motivate those who are not stepping up. we need to handle miscommunications that are totally unncecessary that are getting in the way of us doing our job. then these problems will diminish. why am I the only president here???

[hear hear]

What is going on? is it that they get the feeling that they don't need to be here? I would rather have just us and have people step up or step away. I want to be able to say tomorrow, here are some solutions to deal with the systemic problem. I am not sure we have the energy. We need real tangible solutions. If we don't come up with any in a week, the next four years are screwed. I don't care why she quit, if I run into what she ran into I'll make a resolution, there are different ways to handle it.

Keith: response to Brody: everyone has seen what has been presented. has anyone seen what went on between finance and ashley

Brody: can we make some consensus about whether this was within the guidelines or outside them?

Niko: that day, what should we have done?

Allen: gotten a decision by vp policy

Keith: there was no const issue at that time. finance simply decided not to do umbrellas.

Dave: I don't think we should punish, we should move forward. no blame. I think we violated const. right thing for wrong reasons. I think Karly is right, we need solutions. We should go ahead with gala as stands. we should plan for some hearing on const. that we can have quorum at, since we don't have vp policy or quorum here. we should do our best to fix const as it exists at the moment. I just read vp student life responsibilities and i'll do it, I'll step up to that. tuesday we need to have a unified front, we're going ahead with gala. it's going to be fantastic - talk up the fact that we have dinner. and we should fill these roles with people coming to the meetings.

Raul: I just want us to resolve these issues in a way that allows for our legacy as a council to not be the one that sucked.

Joel: I asked for clarification about the constitutionality about the vote to approve the money and the details - detailed presentation on December 4th. I want an answer on the constitutionality - nobody stepped up, nobody wanted to talk about it. I didn't point a finger at finance, I just asked a question. finance committee on dec 4 gave power to council to make the decicision for finance.

Allen: I made the motion: I made the motion to fund the gala at $11,000. Nancy said there was no const issue. It's in the minutes. Decision was made by Nancy. I never would have said "$11,500 and give her everything she wants" that would be insane.

William: when I got this email about this meeting it said to read the const. i read the cosnt. when you guys passed the $11,500, the const _doesn't_say_she_gets_cart_blanche! you are saying we constitutionally wronged Ashley and we need to spank ourselves on our bottoms, if we take responsibility for that, we should look like asses. Constitutionally we did nothing wrong. therefore we shouldn't take responsibility.

Dave: Keith is social chair, Keith is running the gala.

Keith: no, I am executing what Ashley organized. albeit with some disarray.

Jake: I have facilitated meetings with anarchists who follow the rules better than this meeting!

Dave: Keith has cart blanche, he has no vp of student life to run things through. this is a direct violation of article 3 section 5.

Monique: I mean, just like when this first came up at the council meeting on tuesday I didn't feel a need to act on the const issue because keith wasn't there, ashley made a long statement. (to Joel)

Joel: the tuesday meeting is the venue to ask questions.

Monique: to do question and answer? we have these numbers here, we have all this information here. it should go to policy now.

Jake: we have three proposals - go forward with gala, hearing on const where we fix the issues we've had up to this point, we need to move forward, call for good ideas. goal: walk out understanding that things might not be addressed but that they'll get addressed.

Brody: look the e-board

Niko: we are busting our asses, self flagellation is just bullshit. we have allen settle, this is what he does, under his leadership we can fix our flawed const. if we want to work on this const thing so much, work with allen. or, if we want to make ourselves look like assholes we can also do that.

Dave: I must disagree completely. even though we didn't do it on purpose that we did violate the constitution. Under article 8, section 3, we could have allowed someone to hold two offices but we didn't do that. the spec pointed this out to me when I spoke to them on the phone. if we leave here saying we didn't do anything wrong we lose, we should admit we made a mistake.

Karly: logistically for this meeting it sounds like there are different thoughts being not spoken. put thoughts (to dave) into words to we can read what you wrote and read the const.

Dave: that puts off fixing const.

Karly: Niko can motivate people. I don't understand what's being communicated by you about the violation. Some say there is, some say there isn't.

Dave: you have a hearing so we can get adjudication.

Karly: can you send me a paper argument so I can also read the const and agree/disagree with you. No one here is agreeing with you.

Keith: What is the town hall for? the short and long end of the stick here is that we've got a budget crisis. we do have a student body that outside of the fact that gs's name is being dragged through the mud, is not providing programming to students, and is concerned about their student life fee. the town hall is to address concerns about programming and student life fees. we're trying to pay for people to be included and not be ostracized as gs students. what this meeting is about is how can we restructure student life fees or how these moneys are being allocated to benefit students.

Karly: there's always going to be the person who confuses the const and funding issues. Logistically we should split meeting into two pieces. what can we do to make the town hall logistically successful?

Joel: i don't know why we're doing it. people are going to say there's 11,5k for gala and 11,5k for seniors. everyone else that's not a senior is going to say "what about my programming?" do we need a gala? what about the rest of gs?

Allen: first off, Dave, you are talking about a hearing about const. you can't really have a hearing, because it won't fit into hearing.

To Joel, the fact is that they did have more programming last year. this year was vp of student life problems. spring money traditionally goes toward gala and seniors, that's how it has been. money allocation is relatively heirarchical. there's no way we can decrease gala and senior class and people are reasonable and smart.

Dave: i think it's very important to leave this year with a const. that is supreme. we need to get through gala first. we should announce that there's a review scheduled, we're addressing getting people into council that need to be there so we get over the quorum issue.

Joel: We have to address these issues. there wasn't enough communication beforehand and handled soley by the e-board. why are we afraid of questions?

William: I am not saying we're afraid of questions!

Niko: we can spend 100 hours on this, meanwhile we have swipe access, we have financial aid resolution, we have the latin resolution and the gala. agenda for finance town hall is that dean mcgee need to see input that students want to avoid budgetary problems in the future. why are we here? to do groundbreaking things, not worry about our own issues so much. we have to balance it.

Jake: while we might disagree, everyone understands that we're working in good faith. I am calling on e-board to hold special session about the constitution review. this would be a placce to hash things out AFTER the gala. I am calling on you to say what we might have done wrong and send it to the gssc and then move on.