Student Assembly Finance Commission
April 11th, 2005
5:00 p.m. — 6:00 p.m.
163 Day Hall

I. Call to Order

The Meeting was called to order at 5:05 p.m.

II. Roll Call

Commissioners

David Bean, Jason Blinder, Sarah Boxer, Jeffrey Cohan, Darius Dillon, Michael Eisner, Lisa Gilbertson, Sorby Grant, Jovan Grogan, David Lederman, Sean MacGregor, Spencer Pepper, Ashwin Phadins, Eric Shulman, Anastasiya Sidorva , Riti Singh, Kate-Lynn Timmermans, Phela Townsend, Evan Walker, Marissa Wilson, Joey Zielinski

III. Business of the Day

Interviews

D. Lederman passed out posters and quarter cards for upcoming interviews. He asked that each commissioner get these advertisements out wherever they can.

D. Bean said that he will send out an e-mail so that people can forward it on to whomever they want. He will also be sending one out to Denise Cassaro for her to send out campus wide.

K. Timmermans said that policy and By-law changed will be coming up very soon. She had asked for e-mails from the commissioners if they had any ideas, but no one sent any in. Since this happened, there will be to committees to help bring up ideas for the changes. These committees won’t have final say in the ideas; they will just be presenting them to the rest of the commissioners the Monday after their meetings. One committee will deal with policy changes and will meet on Saturday the 23rd in Olin caf� from 2–4pm. The other committee will deal with the By-law changes and they will meet Saturday the 16th also in Olin caf� also from 2–4pm. All these ideas will then be presented Monday the 25th.

D. Lederman said that he wanted these groups to actually make presentations that will then be put up to vote by the SAFC. He said that if you can’t make the meetings you should e-mail him with whatever the idea is and he will bring it up. These e-mails should also be before their respective meetings.

K. Timmermans asked if this idea of the committees was okay. The decisions made on that following Monday will have to be approved by the SA so the decisions will not be immediate.

-There was a general consensus that this idea was ok.

A. Sidorova asked what the differences in the committees would be.

L. Gilbertson said that the By-laws stuff has more to do with internal affairs, while the policy stuff has more to do with the funding of groups and the commissioner folders.

D. Lederman stressed that people should go to the meetings so that we have new things for next semester.

K. Timmermans also stressed to be at the interviews.

S. Boxer said that there are very few spots to fill for next year, so there will be many cuts before the interviews.

K. Timmermans next said that if any commissioners were not planning on coming back to please e-mail her to let her know.

Cornell Democrats Budget

D. Lederman asked what people’s feelings were about the Democrats’ budget and what should be done with this whole fiasco.

S. Boxer said that it’s been looked at many times, and there were no problems with the actual budget. There is just a question of whether or not there should be something done because of all the problems.

K. Timmermans said that if we ignore this, it could be construed poorly, but we aren’t sure what to do anyway. She offered to bring in the new Democrats’ e-board or send the whole issue to the Appropriations committee and ask them to deal with it.

Q- What happened with the Cornell American when they had their problems?

S. Boxer said that they turned the problem over to the appropriations committee and had it examined by them. The American then received a 10% cut to their budget.

J. Blinder gave a word of caution, but said that the SAFC does have a procedure for malfeasance. The e-board would meet with the e-board of the Democrats and give them a warning, and then they could do whatever they wanted after that. If anything is done, however, the SAFC could end up looking very bad. With the American, it looked very bad since it seemed as if the SAFC had made up their own rules and sent it over to the SA.

L. Gilbertson gave the suggestion that the SAFC e-board sit down with the new e-board of the Democrats and talk to them.

J Zielinski said that during it, the SAFC could say that we are watching them closer now because of it.

D. Lederman said that even though the SAFC will be talking to them, it will be regarded as more of a formality than anything else.

D. Dillon said that the meeting should be non-confrontational to make the SAFC appear better.

D. Lederman again reminded that commissioners to come to the committee meetings.

D. Bean said that if any commissioner wanted to have an effect of the SAFC as a whole, they should be at this meeting.

D. Lederman also stressed that people should be there for the voting for the new changes.

K. Timmermans lastly said again to e-mail any ideas for the committees to D. Lederman.

IV. Meeting ended at 5:30 pm.

Respectfully Submitted,
Daniel Kantor
SAFC Clerk, Office of the Assemblies