SSFC – First Meeting – 5/6/2010

6:08-

Open Forum – Boan Sianpar, former SSFC member. Speaking against Matt Manes. Admitted himself that he does have good social communication skills. Felt that sometimes his comments were offensive. Hope you choose someone approachable and open.

Evan Hurley – VC of WISPIRG, have a lot of GSSF funding experience. WISPIRG doesn’t endorse any candidates. This is myself saying this. I endorse Jolie Lizotte. Her experience with GSSF groups outside of SSFC is critically important to what the committee does. Will bring integrity to the process. Also has a ton of GSSF experience, understands language of SSFC. Also will advocate for the statement to be read by the Romenesko from the WISPIRG Chair.

Leah Shlact (sp?) coordinator for ALPs – qualities we believe are important in the next chair. For the next coming chair, being willing to meet in person or e-mail or respond in person. Bridging the gap between the GSSF group and the SSFC. The chair is a good resource to bring those two groups together. Make sure there isn’t that barrier, I know we’ve used mixers, but I hope that the mixers are not in a place that is emotionally charged. Do it in a place that is neutral in both groups.

Tina Trevino-Murphy – speaking for herself, not CWC. I just want to speak to some of the qualities that GSSF groups need to have. Rep. Manes is planning on running for chair, the precedent has been set that you are not friendly to these groups. I really implore you to find someone that understands GSSF groups and can be approachable. I just think we can be open to having a chair that might have a little less of a technical experience. Also want to echo ALPs statements.

Carl Fergus – former chair of SSFC – first year in awhile that we’ve had a full committee. Want to speak quickly about what is important in leadership. It’s important for future leadership to have a wide vision, knowledge of SSFC and can already train others. Would like to speak on behalf of the former VC Michael Romenesko. He’s been a really hard worker during the eligibility session, would fully support Romenesko for VC.

Patrick McEwan – WSL president – talk to you on behalf of Matt Manes and Michael Romenesko. Biggest thing you look for is an expertise of the bylaws. The first person you seek to ask if the Chair or the VC. It’s nice, but if it’s misguided, that’s a problem and the biggest potential issue to consider. Didn’t know either of them this year. Are they harsh? Yes, sometimes, but it’s a reflection of the rules and they’ll separate out that technical expertise and knowledge. They’re not being mean to you when you do these certain things.

Kurt Gosselin – Congratulations – position of power and responsibility – charged with looking at the entire seg fee fund and decide how its going to impact all 42,000 students on campus. Chair Emeritus Fergus spoke to this stuff as well, but I want to talk about what’s valuable to have in your leadership. Trevino-Murphy spoke about this great right to the money. It’s not a right, it’s a responsibility. It’s a responsibility to all the students on campus. The reason I bring it up is that Manes has brought up this depth of vision and intellectual precision. A good ability to work with other committee members – this is critical to having a functional SSFC. Being able to look at this with different perspectives. The depth of experience that the chair role requires almost requires having served before. Williams, Fergus, etc. had served on the committee before and done a great job. I’m doing my thesis on the segregated fee system.

Michael Romenesko (WISPIRG Chair Scott Thompson) – I’m speaking as myself, and endorse Romenesko – wears a tie too much but is approachable and has an expansive knowledge.

Szarzynski – endorses Lizotte for chair. Having someone outside the committee would add a fresh perspective. Previous chair Alex Gallagher was elected without any previous experience and most people would agree his tenure was insturmental. Everyone who has had the experience of working with him has had nothing but good things to say about him. Often a tendency for new members to have issues when voting for leadership — please don’t abstain on the chair vote. For people who have followed the news, you will be aware that there is a lot of criticisms from marginalized groups. One that is more representative of the body on this group.

Nichols – What did you do for the committee in your leadership?

Szarzynski – The thing is I’m not running for leadership. If you want a private conversation, we can have that.

Alvarez – what marginalized groups?

Szar- MEChA, CWC, just to name a few.

Romenesko – Wasn’t it true that Gallagher on SSFC before?

Szar – You might have been right, he might have been on for a few meetings.

Nichols – When taking your ideas into account, I’d like to know what your vision for leadership would be.

Szar – The most important thing that a chair can bring to this committee, which is a skill anyone can bring up that’s competent, is to be able to approach groups and bring them into the GSSF world.

CJ-elect – Feifel(SP) – What I would expect to see from an SSFC member who is in front of the court. I would really hope the next chair would place a great emphasis on respect, professionalism. And you’ve got big shoes to fill.

Williams – Preposterous to give someone a seat who’s never sat on this committee before. To give a seat to someone who doesn’t know system policy, who doesn’t understand the process. I endorse Manes and Romenesko, they helped lead us through rough times. There is no trade-off for experience. Michael has done a great job as VC. Secretary position has been a jumping point for chair. Important to think about the secretary position. Absolutely imperative to elect someone with experience in leadership.

Darby makes a quick statement about professionalism in the chair.

Nick Novak is sworn in.

Nominations for Chair:

Manes and Lizotte are nominated.

Lizotte: Previous experience are with GSSF background. Worked with WISPIRG for two years and helping them put together their contract status. Background in GSSF group will help bring a new perspective to SSFC and help create a more positive experience between GSSF groups and SSFC. Help create a good atmosphere and operate as an effective committee.

Manes: Served on the student services finance committee for a year. Went through thousands of pages. Lots of committee members, familiar with SJ process, F50, helped craft ASM’s first comprehensive stipend bylaws. There’s been a lot of talk about making the GSSF process more approachable and open and talking with Tommy Hughes, the former SUFAC chair of UW-Milwaukee, and I’ve come up with a GSSF 4-point plan: Create a real appeals process, impact statements, create a rigorous accountability liaison, like an auditor. Focus a lot more on the non-allocables. Focus on the Union a lot.

I make a motion to extend that can’t be made. Whoops.

Q and A:

Plamann – anything else to say?

Manes: Want to start working with Union to try and get rid of the mandate that you can’t bring in outside food. Also, want to bring in the campus services fund. First of it’s kind that I’m aware of – identify a service we need and find a way to fund it.

Lizotte: Campus Services Fund – while I think it’s a really good idea, my issue is how do we deserve what services are missing. Who are we to decide what services are missing and how do we do that in a VPN manner. While I know it came about due to the lack of Tenant Services, we need boundaries on this. We also must give the right answer, not jump to the wrong one. Also, we must make sure that if there is something that comes up, that it is important to create a good appeals process to go through, which can also help groups that thought they had a VPN violation. That’s just some of the ideas I have had.

Nichols – VPN is a complex conception – what does VPN mean to you and what has been your experience with it in the past?

Lizotte: You can’t take the viewpoint of the group into account when deciding funding. I want to obviously make sure other members of SSFC are conducting themselves in a VPN manner. It’s very important that we have good relationships with groups. When you come to this table, you should not take their views into consideration. It’s not about who they are or who they’re representing.

Manes: In short, VPN means your decisions have to be free of bias when deciding funding decisions. Came out of the Southworth case. Difficult to understand, trying to put this in layman’s terms. It’s important in terms of fairness and legality. Have some good experience with it.

Nichols: Some might struggle with certain aspects of the job, what are those weaknesses and how will you overcome that?

Manes: Some groups have the perception that I’m not approachable. If people feel you’re not approachable, then you’re not approachable. You’re here to make a lot of hard decisions. It has nothing to do with personal likings, it has to do with you being able to do your job. Have I burned bridges, perhaps. But I’ve outlined my plan on how to remedy these relations with the GSSF.

Lizotte: One thing I know coming in here is that, yes, I haven’t sat on that committee before, but I will spend my summer familiarizing the bylaws. Haven’t had time in the last three days to remember the bylaws.

Smathers: Direct services – how do you define that. (Obviously, I wasn’t really focusing on writing during that.)

Romenesko – experience with the auxillary units?

Manes: Worked with Dale Carruthers from Rec Sports, have some experience with this. Want more student input, not necessarily student control. Should be working together with this groups, not against them.

Lizotte: Have the ability to have a good conversation with them, but haven’t been in a capacity to need to do that. But one thing that we need to consider is working with Shared Governance. Has the potential to get students involved.

Romenesko – Roberts Rules familiarity?

Lizotte: Have some experience, was at a 9-hour meeting of SC last week.

Manes: I’ve been on SC for a year, I’ve been on SSFC and I’ve chaired an SC meeting. There’s a lot to learn, but I’m getting there.

Zhang asks a question about their strengths…sorry, I was trying to play catch up.

Manes: Has to do with your vision of the world, having a broadbased view.

Lizotte: Have a wide perspective, certainly approachable, have a lot of experience running meetings, know what an effective meeting looks like. Know how to strengthen relationships between members of the committee and holding them accountable.

Zhang: Long meetings, sometimes we just debate back and forth on one item or two, so how could you make the meetings more efficient?

Lizotte: Having some conversations outside of the meeting. A member should already come in knowing a lot. There will be some meetings where we NEED to meet six hours to get something done.  But we need to make sure we’re asking the right questions.

Manes: You’re running the meeting, not speaking in it. It’s the nature of the beast and there’s not much you can do to fix that.

Hughes : Have had a lot of discussion about how to reach out to others. That’s not really the point. It’s nice to read the bylaws, but this is an incredibly intricate process and what effects it might have on this committee.

Manes: F50 serves as a template for what we can and cannot fund. It’ll come in quite handy and only a few people will be familiar and say we can’t do that. Also familiar with G20, the governing document.

Lizotte: I’d like to point out that this is clearly a leading question. Most of my experience comes from the other side in working with contract status. So that’s where most of my experience comes from.

Alvarez asks a question on MCSC’s policy violation, done through a partner and Manes vote to sanction. Pretty soon I’m going to need to make a decision between rough transcriptions and listening.

CJ Darby asks a question about their familiarity with appeals.

Manes: Not much experience with actually defending an appeal.

Debate:

Smathers – I’ll be voting Manes due to experience being more important than an outside perspective.

Nichols – Y ou have to have a thorough understanding of what you’re working for. The diversity we have on here and the places were going is very exciting. You have to outreach to student groups. It’s not mainly the chair’s responsibility to outreach. Sometimes when you’re dealing with money, you make people angry. To me, it’s more important to have a thorough understanding of system policy and know what is going on. For that reason I’d support Rep. Manes.

Plamann: We should not consider experience with the committee (or lack thereof) as a bar. Lizotte shouldn’t be barred for that reason. Talked with Manes, he took a lot of suggestions I made and incorporated them in his plans, he does a good job of listening. Have to think about how I vote.

Debate is closed.

Vote is secret.

10-2-1 – Manes is chair.

Recess for five minutes.

7:41 – Resuming meeting.

Election of the VC.

Romenesko and Plamann

Candidate statements:

Romenesko: Served as VC of the Student Services Finance Committee – Twitter account, has updated the GSSF calendar – promote those. Bus Advisory Committee, would hopefully end with favorable results. Running meetings in the chair’s absence. Has a list of things he’d like to work on – alternative funding packet for denied GSSF groups. Examining criteria to determine if it should be developed. Would like to have more social mixers, go to the meetings.

Plamann – Law school rep for ASM. Extensive work with CWC looking at their bylaws. Worked with their strengths and weaknesses. Explaining that in a clear and cogent way. I would like to see the role as a liaison between GSSF groups and Manes. I could explain and help groups through the funding process. Explain the process clearly. Talked with chair Manes of where we want to go with SSFC. I would definitely cede transportation authority to Romenesko, to keep consistency. Currently sit on the ASM rules committee. One thing I really liked was the idea of having some accountability auditing position. Make sure their numbers are accurate. Fiscal responsibility means making sure that GSSF groups are using their money that would impact the most students on campus.

Q and A.

Nichols: Speak to what your ability to lead this meeting in the absence of the chair.

Plamann: There is going to be options for training over the summer. That being said, I also gained a decent amount of knowledge. Can help the legal counsel with any suits against SSFC.

Romenesko: Big difference between seeing Robert’s Rules and putting it into practice. I hope that I have expanded much further and gained a rather firm grasp of Robert’s Rules.

Nichols: Engaging in debate is something the chair can’t do, VC can. How does each candidate feel they’ll be able to make the split between those two roles if taking over the meeting.

Romenesko: You maintain the order, not bias the conversation.

Plamann: I can sit on my hands if I have to.

End Q and A.

Romenesko wins.

Secretary Vote:

Nichols – special leadership?

Alvarez- I’m a junior, so that can’t really happen. I’d like to, but it’s not a good possibility.

Smathers: I need to do a thesis and went about that the wrong way, so I’m here for awhile. I would keep that in mind.

Lizotte: Transparency?

(I’ll fill this in later. Debate is going on.)

Debate

Plamann: I’d like to speak to Smathers’ ability. He has a good ability in writing, open records requests.

Lizotte: I’d like to have someone in leadership that has a role in a GSSF group to provide some extra perspective.

Nichols: I see the benefit of having someone from a Puerto Rican background, but also someone who has a critique. One of the main points for me is having someone who is in a hopping point. The future success of boards. I’m glad we’re debating, because those are two of the things that we’re working between.

Lizotte: I’d like to speak on making our choices based on soley who will be around next year. There will be members of SSFC who will be around next year and leadership in the vicinity to help out. We should take into account both of their merits.

Plamann: Call the Question.

4-6-2 – Smathers is secretary.

Report of the Chair – Took a bit longer than expected.

Vice Chair – Bus Advisory Committee will have an update over the summer.

Student Council report – We have all leadership for SC now.

Summer Schedule  - June 12, July 17, Aug. 23 – Saturdays

Last year, we had SSFC meetings on Sundays. Summer meetings don’t count toward absences.

VPN training will be had near the end of summer.

VC Romenesko – Motion to adopt schedule.

Motion to adopt regular schedule – Monday and Thursdays at 6:30. Adopted.

We’re adjourned.

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