ASUCI Senate Minutes
Tuesday, February 17, 2015

 

ASUCI Legislative Council Minutes

February 17th, 2015


  • Called to Order by Sanaa Khan at 5:03PM

  • Attendance

    • Nikki left early at 5:11PM

    • John Salazar arrived at 5:35PM

    • Barnoy arrived at 5:41PM

    • Guevara arrived at 5:44PM

  • Approval of Minutes

    • Motion: Tsai / Second: Salazar

  • Approval of Agenda

    • Motion: Thomsen / Second: Hong

  • Guest List

    • Dan Dooros (Student Affairs)

    • Sonali (AGS President)

  • Public Comment

    • Nikki (Academic VP): this week is social ecology week, heard that it went really well today. tomorrow is UROP research presentation, thursday is lunch w/ professors. ellen degeneres boothing happening this week, please let people know. feel free to come sign more cards, we have a cutout of ellen as well for social media. applications to be a mentor for amp were due on friday, received 243 applications and will be interviewing and selecting for next year. application for visions is now available. event tmrw night @ sh 174 - student debate on social media, whether its a necessary evil. next week hip hop run uci art lab, few professors and dance crews performing. free food! week 9 - boba addiction event, facebook event will be out after tmrw. just released fb event for jenna marbles, only have 250 spots available, RSVP SOON.

    • Sonali (AGS President): hi everyone, I’m sonali the AGS president. just wanted to come in and introduce myself and talk about the programs that AGS is up to this quarter. two main programs that we have coming up in march are all professional related. one is a career conference on feb 27th, having people come in and discuss their stories ranging from government people to people who work within NGOs. please come on by! networking mixer will be happening at the end of the day to be able to chat with alumni. great networking opportunity. ags symposium coming up, expecting 80-90 grad students to come out and talk about their presentations, come chat with grad students maybe talk about grad school. will be march 6th in student center. other updates, i currently serve as chair of SFAC - oversees student services fees, meeting at UCLA this coming weekend. if you all are interested in what we do and want to know more (SFAC is a campus representation body, also UC systemwide), please come talk to me.

  • Old Business

    • B50-09

      • Pull to Pull from Finance - Phan/Tsai

      • Open Discussion for 5 minutes - Phan/Tsai

      • Louie: passed it 4-0 in finance, we just adjusted the money for pizza just in case if more is needed

      • Tsai call to question, Lima seconds

      • resolution passes 11-0-0

  • New Business

    • R50-54

      • Pull to Floor - Hong/Tsai

      • motion to open discussion for 10 minutes - phan/tsai

        • parshan (member of public): wanted to talk about one thing, was a little confused about what it means for us to pass this at this point because a year ago (and also two years ago), we passed resolutions calling for the identity to call it SWANA. to pass it as MENA would undermine the efforts of people in the past. being middle eastern myself, while i had my conflicts of the time, i feel MENA is inadequate. Middle East is huge, i want to see folks to have a discussion around what it means to be accepting MENA as a norm. people in the past who have had critical dialogues believe that SWANA is a more appropriate term.

        • hong: as i understood it, the MENA classification is just sort of a broad regional term. similar to API (Asian pacific islander), lot of races fall under that umbrella. for me, i believe the first step was to have it out there, i believe that the people of the middle east and of this region are not benefitting by being under the “caucasian/white” classification.

        • parshan: i appreciate the fact that this is presented, i feel that it is necessary for the identity for those from the Middle East. I appreciate that, but what needs to be added is a clause that is while we fully support the idea of more representation, we recognize that what needs to be put out there is SWANA instead of MENA. if someone could motion to add that clause there, I would be more comfortable

        • Sidney: I agree with Parshan , I would be more comfortable seeing SWANA there as well. I feel MENA is a broad category but it also is a misnamed category, that could be as problematic as not including these people as well because you’re not getting to the root of the problem as to why this misnaming is occurring. i agree with parshan’s suggestion for amendments as well.

        • Sidney motion for 5 minute recess @ 5:18PM

        • Sidney makes amendment to rename MENA to SWANA in legislation

        • Tsai: what is the purpose of the sky is green phrase

        • Hong: to see if students actually read legislation

        • Tsai: i appreciate your effort, but i feel like this would discredit the legislative branch and hurt our public image

        • Hong: what would you suggest i do?

        • Tsai: i would recommend this for something along the lines such as our open house bill, as serious as this legislation is i would like this line to be removed for profesionallism

        • parshan: i understand the point that we are trying to engage the public, but this is a critical dialogue, so folks who are reading the legislation language, if i wasnt in ASUCI and i didnt know that was the purpose, i could miscontrue it as something else. i would appreciate if you took it out completely

        • Sidney: i know a lot of people are wondering why there is a big deal being made over categorization on the US census, as far as dealing with MENA. if anyone is interested in knowing why naming or the process of naming is important, it is because it is critical, if anyone wants to know more i highly suggest talking to humanities professors such as asian american studies

        • Hong amendment to strike line from legislation

        • Fatahi: The difference between MENA and SWANA is not that huge. It is called southwest asia because of historical reasons. I identify as iranian first, I don’t identify as southwest asian, i prefer MENA.

        • Thomsen: point of information, was amendment made to change it?

        • Khan: yes

        • Thomsen: so now the legislation talks about SWANA

        • Khan: yes

        • Hong straw poll for MENA, Swana, abstain (1-2-10)

        • parshan: i encourage that we table this legislation for a week so councilmembers can become more informed regarding the situation. we can discuss this outside so we can all be better informed. suggest that we bring in a professor to potentially talk about this.

        • Phan motion to table for a week

          • Thomsen seconds

    • R50-55

      • Pull to Floor - Salazar / Lima

      • Salazar motion 10 minute discussion

        • phan seconds

      • Salazar amendment to add “hosted by Kababayan” to a let it be resolved clause

      • Phan motion to vote via acclamation

        • Deleon seconds

        • resolution passes 11-0-0

    • R50-56

      • Pull to Floor - Phan/Tsai

      • Khan motion to fix typographical errors within legislation - author accepts

      • Phan: what was the conclusion of your meeting

      • Khan: our conclusion was that we need to meet again

      • Hong motion to vote via acclamation

        • Tsai seconds

        • resolution passes 11-0-0

    • R50-58

      • Pull to Floor - Lima/Phan

      • Lima motion to open discussion for 10 minutes

        • Tsai seconds

      • Lima: I’m not the primary author, Naty is the primary author but if you have any questions please feel free to ask me or her.

      • Hong: do you know why they increased the fee/money for the pension

      • Lima: some offices don’t have enough money to pay for everyone retired, they are taking retirement money of people currently working to pay retirement for those who are retired

      • Hong: i am not supporting this resolution because if that’s the fact, that would be what would have to happen because of the way how are social security benefits work. the more people that retire, the more money is required to sustain all of that. although what the UC is doing is unfair, it is necessary. i can not support this legislation.

      • Thomsen: as somebody who will hopefully be working this field in the future, i did a fair amount of research - i definitely agree with you there is an issue with how we’re paying retirees. but the bigger issue is that over 90% of doctors are agreeing to have this strike, a lot of reasons that will make this credible. the thing that stuck out to me, the negotiations themselves are flawed. lot of unions requests are not being negotiated in good faith. not necessarily a fairness issue, more of a disclosure issue. if you can explain why the pension increase is occurring, then thats fine but if you don’t thats where you get into trouble

      • Sidney: legislation reminds me of the one we did last year regarding the AFSCME workers. makes a brief mention of their conditions and contract needs being met last year. ASUCI supported that last year, weird for us not to support this one, following along the same guidelines.

      • Hong: want to play devil’s advocate to that line to keep up previous ideas. i am against the idea that we should keep something that its’ old. i just wanted you all to be aware that times are always changing. just beause we said yes in the past doesnt mean we cant say no now

      • Sidney: that AFSCME legislation was 8 months old, just happened the other day. fresh in a lot of people’s minds, still an issue being talked today. what im trying to say, those who were here last year, this legislation is asking for the same things. just to clarify any confusion over the matter. i do feel like this legislation is valid, just asking us to support their needs of having a fair contract. doesn’t talk too much in details, just wanting a fair conversation.

      • Hong: wanted to clarify my point, lot of respect for those who being on council

      • delshadi clall to question

    • R50-59

      • lima motion to table to thursday

        • tsai seconds

  • Executive Officer Reports

    • Josh: canceled president’s round table that was supposed to be happening tomorrow, advanced movie screening tonight. hot tub time machine 2, head over to edwards theaters @ 7:30. working on wayzgoose

      • Hong: when will you have president’s roundtable again

      • Josh: sometime during the spring

    • Sanaa: continuing with the carry that weight series, talking about healthy relationships. also have an open mic coming up. highly encourage you all to come. we are also working on getting our delegations ready for conferences (student lobby conference), probably will be taking a full bus (50-60 people) to SLC

    • John: as i mentioned before all my events are full, anteater in action events are fully booked unable to accommodate more people, we will try to anticipate this in the future. working on language for My ASUCI fee initiative, will have more details next week to ensure the ballot language is passable and ensure that ASUCI will have enough funds to run its services from now till long term into the future.

    • Sanaa: elections packet hopefully coming out tonight. deadline for declaring candidacy is the end of week 10.

    • John: we cleaned the storage unit in ASUCI as well, it is now more usable as well. in addition, our legal clinic team should be finalized by the end of this week. team of students who will be conducting research on how to provide free/supplemental legal aide to students. something we had in the past but something we want to bring back thanks to increased asuci resources.


  • Special Committee Reports

    • Constitutional Revision Committee, Phan: draft hopefully coming out this thursday

  • Committees - Lima motion for 20 minutes, Tsai seconds

    • Rules

      • we are working on the student center booking issue, have talked to parham

    • Public Info

      • making flyer for open house, please come at 4 pm next tuesday for open house if you can so we can help appeal to the public.

    • Finance

      • Passed B50-10 4-0-0

    • Advocacy

      • working on various legislations and collaborating with committees.

  • School Breakouts - Tsai motion for 5 minutes

  • Announcements

    • John: I’m also on committee for ASUCI ED selection, last week we received a list of applicants after the paper cut. we ranked the 14 applicants and decided to select 6 for an interview. all applicants are local and highly qualified. we will update you with more information as the process goes along.

    • Tsai: one of my constitu-orgs is having a bio sci gala, if you know any bio sci or pre-med majors, the event will host brand new internships that the organization has gone out and asked doctors to have internships to offer to students. free clinic project and hoag will be there as well, encourage everyone to come

  • Next Meeting: February 19th, 2015

  • Guevara Motion Adjourn Meeting at 6:30PM

    • Carlson Second