The Student Union Election Commission announced election dates and resignations last night at the Boston University Student Union Senate’s weekly meeting.
John Macom, the SUEC Chair, announced elections for the Student Union Executive Board would take place between April 24 at 9 a.m. and April 26 at 3 p.m., and voting would be available through the Student Link. Just as last year, the elections for many school and college governments will also take place during the same period.
The results will be announced on April 26 at 5 p.m. in the Ziskind lounge at the George Sherman Union.
Macom and the four other SUEC commissioners also set several other important dates for the 2002 election. All potential candidates will have to declare their candidacy by April 1, and the campaigning period will be between April 13-26. The slates will be campaigning on Marsh Plaza on April 24, with the days and times of the three debates yet to be announced.
Although the elections are less than two months away, the resignations of Matthew Tabor and Mary Wozniak were announced last night, leaving SUEC with only five commissioners, including Macom, who said there was no minimum number of commissioners needed to run the election.
“The number needed to run an election isn’t specified, but it’s mandated that Zach [Coseglia] fills the spots within two weeks,” said Macom, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Macom said SUEC chose to set election dates later than they were last year so the time period would coincide with the Union’s Spring Thaw.
“We moved the dates back to the end of April when Spring Thaw is going on,” Macom said. “There will be a lot of PR coverage of Spring Thaw and the drive-in movie, and we hope we’ll bring out a lot of people in the spring.”
Macom said he had several goals for the upcoming elections, but cited the biggest as creating more competition for offices.
“One of my goals is trying to get as many of the different college governments contested so there’s two or more slates running for each college government,” Macom said.
SUEC is also looking to fill Senate seats in Warren Towers and Myles Standish Hall, Macom said.
In addition to the announcement of election dates, the BU Choral Society and the Siblings program both made funding requests.
Union Senator and BU Choral Society Treasurer Tiffany Caufield requested $960 from the Senate external account, and the request was heavily debated in the Senate. Joel Fajardo, a Warren Towers senator and member of the Financial Review Board, gave the Board’s recommendation for the Choral Society.
“It would be in the Senate’s best interest to recommend the Choral Society receive $250 in the Senate external account,” said Fajardo, a CAS freshman. “The group is a small group and the event is somewhat directed to a small crowd.”
During the discussion that ensued, senators raised several questions about running out of money in the Senate external account. The account is currently left with approximately $2,000, according to VP of Financial Affairs Carl Woog.
Senators proposed amounts of $250, $460, $350, $500 and $250, but every funding request failed, due to a lack of support for the motions and dissension among members about how much the group should receive. After over 30 minutes of debate and discussion about the appropriate amount, the motion was tabled ,with 26 senators voting for the allocation, zero opposing and one abstaining.
The Senate then chose to allocate $500 to the Siblings program with hardly any debate. Twenty-two senators voted for the allocation, zero opposed and five abstained.
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