A proposed amendment to the Student Government Association’s bylaws could make it possible to confirm student senators during a public meeting rather than an executive session.
The bill was first read at the senate’s Oct. 16 meeting, and is scheduled to be voted on Oct. 24.
Richard Young, SGA senator, co-wrote the bill with Josh Sesar, senate chair. Young said he felt the bill would make SGA’s meetings more open.
“It does create transparency with us,” Young said. “I don’t think it’s necessary to have executive session every time we bring someone new into the senate.”
James Bonsall, senate treasurer, said he thought SGA should still be able to go into executive session when considering new members in case they need to discuss something about that person.
“I personally feel there may be situations in the future in which executive session may be more suitable,” Bonsall said.
Bonsall suggested adding a line in the amendment allowing SGA to go into executive session for confirmation hearings, but not requiring it.
Young said he thought the way the bill was worded, it didn’t prevent SGA from going into executive session altogether.
The senate has avoided executive session this semester by voting to suspend part of their bylaws to allow the confirmations to be held in public.
In other business, the senate confirmed four associate justices, which filled all of the positions in SGA’s judicial branch.
Ruben Otero, Bradley Carver, Enrique Sotelo and Richard Sinnock were all confirmed yesterday. Before the confirmations, the judicial branch only consisted of Jeff Martin, chief justice.
During the treasurer’s report, Bonsall said the Student Life Committee approved the senate’s salaries, and all paid positions will start getting their pay for the semester.
Bonsall said in the future, he hopes all senators will be paid a small stipend every year. Currently, senators are not paid unless they move into an officer’s position.
Jonathan Moody, senator and chair of the police blotter committee, said he couldn’t have a meeting on Oct. 14 because there weren’t enough members in attendance.
Moody said the committee has worked on putting together a survey for students to get their opinion about The Horizon’s publication of the police blotter and its inclusion of names.
Moody said the intention was solely to get the opinion of students, not to dictate what The Horizon prints. He said the results would be given to The Horizon’s editorial staff, and they could decide what to do after that.
Moody said the survey isn’t complete and is still looking at reworking some of the questions.
“We’re still going to be pushing forward,” Moody said. “We’re going to see how students feel about the blotter.”
By JEROD CLAPP
Senior Editor
jlclapp@ius.edu