Student Assembly Finance Commission
April 18th, 2007
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, Angad Bhai (alt), Jason Blinder, Sarah Boxer , Jeffrey Cohan, Darius Dillon, Michael Eisner, Erica Fischer, Lisa Gilbertson, Sorby Grant, Jovan Grogan, Steve Hecht, David Lederman, Michael Louis, Sean MacGregor, Spencer Pepper, Carlos Perez, Ashwin Phadins, Eric Shulman, Dana Sckolnick, Anastasiya Sidorva, Phela Townsend, Marissa Wilson, Joey Zielinski

III. Business of the Day

By-Law Changes

D. Lederman handed out the Bylaw changes proposals. He said that we will go through and discuss each one and then vote on them. He introduced the first change.

S. Grant said that it seemed pretty broad.

D. Lederman said that one can’t be a treasurer of a group and be on the e-board of SAFC.

J. Blinder said that he wasn’t sure if it would work. He said that you don’t have to be the treasurer to have an influence in the budgets.

D. Lederman said that it will be needed just as a precaution.

L. Gilbertson said that this rule is really about how the SAFC will look to the outside world.

J. Grogan said that if we want to have a statement to the outside world, then it should be changed so that the person can’t even be on any position of the e-board of the group.

D. Dillon said that Steve had just made a bad decision, and thus this rule doesn’t seem to be necessary.

P. Townsend said that this needs to be made much clearer/explicit in terms of its effects with dealing with budgets.

J. Zielinski said that instead we should just keep the list of treasurers up-to-date more often.

D. Lederman said that we could add that commissioners need to update their conflict of interest sheets more often.

C. Perez said that maybe we should go with the idea of just not allowing any person to be on the e-board of the group, and explicitly put it in the change.

L. Gilbertson said that we could get into many problems with we get too narrow.

J. Zielinski said that we shouldn’t change out rules simply because of one bad event.

J. Grogan said that we need to make clear that people cannot be entangled in groups, and that this should be enforced.

D. Lederman said that we should also make the oath of office clearer as well.

M. Wilson said that we need to stress the importance of making the right decisions in terms of violating the oath of office. From a P.R. stand point this would look better to the outside world.

S. Boxer said that this rule would send a message about who you should elect to each groups e-board.

J. Blinder asked if we should also bar presidents as well as treasurers.

D. Lederman said that he didn’t feel as if the presidents of the groups will have as much of an impact as the treasurers themselves.

J. Grogan said that he agreed that this rule would be good from a P.R. position, and added that maybe SAFC commissioners all together can’t be in the e-boards of groups.

D. Bean agreed that if we are baring treasurers, we should also bar presidents, but not the SAFC committee members all together.

S. Grant agreed that SAFC members shouldn’t have to limit their Cornell experience by having to choose either being on the e-board of a group, or on the SAFC.

D. Bean said that Steve was a unique situation and that the commission as a whole should have a lot more trust in each other, so he agreed with S. Grant about SAFC commissioners in other e-boards.

J. Blinder said that we haven’t had problems with getting rid of commissioners who have crossed the line before. Steve was unique, and if anything does happen with conflicts of interest, we will find it out sooner than later.

- Vote on two things: Treasurer can’t be on SAFC e-board: failed - Each person must update their conflict of interest sheet more often: passed.

Now #2 for Bylaw changes. D. Lederman gave a quick explanation of the two-tiered system for removing an SAFC e-board member.

J. Blinder said that you can be automically kicked off of the SAFC due to the wording in the bylaws, and that should be changed so that you are off only after voting.

D. Lederman now jumped to #6 on the list in which different situations for voting would have to have different numbers to pass. Thus a 2/3 vote in some situations.

J. Grogan next asked if we could bring clarity to who can vote if they are abroad or not.

D. Lederman said that the voting was upheld by people in the room that day.

S. Boxer asked if we should vote on whether or not people should be able to vote abroad.

D. Lederman next moved back to the two-tiered system of voting off.

M. Wilson said that the e-board can have more leniencies with this rule, and this should be equalized.

D. Bean said he wasn’t sure how else he could help this leniency.

J. Zielinski said that he thinks the double standard is fine.

M. Wilson said that commissioners are now held to a higher standard to they shouldn’t have both tiers.

J. Grogan suggested a point system for kicking people off of SAFC.

S. Boxer asked if she should get clarifications on punishments.

J. Blinder said that for a possible weak punishment for doing something bad was that they were allowed to talk and argue in meetings, but not vote.

P. Townsend said that she liked that two-tiered system.

S. Hecht said that whenever you are on a commission like this, trust is extremely crucial. He also said that there should only be one tier for everyone since the double standard is bad.

M. Wilson said that people just don’t think and do stupid things sometimes, so kicking them off for that would be stupid.

S. Boxer said that everyone should be held to the same standard, but there are more situations for mess up on e-board, so she agreed with the 2-tier system.

- Vote on 2-tier system: passes

D. Lederman now jumps to #6, in which certain votes should have take different amounts of votes to pass. These would be impeachment and attendance votes in particular.

J. Blinder said that 2/3 does favor the minority, but in certain times you need to hear the minority voice.

S. Boxer agreed that it should be 2/3. Its not as though is was friends vs. enemies during these votes.

J. Blinder said that if the 2/3’s change was passed it would make the outcome more definite.

J. Zielinski believed that only the majority should win.

M. Wilson said that people love the SAFC and thus if you want to impeach them, it should take more than simple majority. She then went on to make light of the Frisbee Club�.

J. Grogan said that both impeachment and attendance should be 2/3 since there are friend networks and this would make sure someone is kicked off for good reason.

J. Zielinski said that trust is important within a group so it should only have to be a majority to kick people off.

D. Bean said that even if 2/3 is not reached, the person’s ability will still be questioned if it’s more than _. Thus many on the committee couldn’t work with that person because of that lack of trust.

S. Hecht said that a lot of people band wagon when meetings run very long just to end the meeting. Thus we need 2/3 in these cases to make sure the person is being kicked off for the right reasons.

J. Blinder said that e-board members are elected to represent the majority. Thus it should only take _ to send an e-board member down, then 2/3 to kick them off.

- Vote on 2/3 vote for impeachment/attendance and only _ for everything else: passes.

D. Lederman now moves on to the change that during elections, it should boil down to a run off between the top two challengers.

Q- What if one wins, and two others tie? A- Then one wins and there is a runoff between the two.

D. Dillon wants a simple plurality for voting.

S. Boxer said a very loud expletive.

S. Grant asked what the problems were with plurality voting.

A- That not enough votes for a majority could elect people, the “Nader Effect” (Blinder) D. Bean said that with such a small group we don’t really need runoffs.

J. Blinder asked if it was important for majority to win or not.

S. Boxer said that people did win last year with 2 or 3 votes.

D. Lederman asked if we wanted plurality or majority.

D. Bean said that the logic with this problem is that even with runoffs we still run into small amounts of votes with people leaving.

J. Grogan said he liked the idea of a runoff.

S. Grant wanted an electoral college for the SAFC.

- Vote for Runoff: passes with 16 votes for out of 20.

D. Lederman than moved on to #8 on the list of changes.

M. Eisner asked if we could do heads down thumbs up for this vote.

D. Lederman explains #8 as having the SA liaison review rationales instead of the co-chairs.

J. Blinder said that this might be more for the P.R. person.

L. Gilbertson said that the SA liaison can explain to the SA if groups bring challenges up to them.

J. Grogan said that this was more SA liaison than P.R.

J. Blinder said that is doesn’t make sense for the SA liaison to do it because otherwise the SA as a whole has too much power.

S. Boxer yelled out she caught many mistakes during last years budgeting.

J. Blinder said that we should tie this to someone else like e-board.

J. Grogan said that the best person appointed by e-board should do it. He said maybe in fact the co-chair.

J. Zielinski said that he wanted the SA liaison to do it, and also asked what she actually does.

S. Boxer said that what she normally does is just explain the SAFC meetings to the SA.

L. Gilbertson said that she officially she reports to the SA on what goes on during SAFC meetings.

- Vote for Co-chair delegation to check rational: passes with 17 votes for it out of 20.

IV. Meeting ended at 6:15 pm.

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