So Gestina needs to embezzle $20,000?

Ummm…. ok? UWM not only passed a sedition act, but also has their former finance person being charged for fraud. I am glad ASM does not look like that.

Who the hell are you? Deputy speaker, are you kidding me? Your self-importance knows no bounds.

We only directly control 12% of the seg fee budget and in fact made some major changes to that spending. Money was cut from the GSSF budgets and some of this money was put into “event grants.” These grants give the campus the best bang for the buck. So less money is going for staff and more money going for events that any student can participate in.

The problem with Seg Fees on this campus is that students do not control the majority of the budget. If non-allocable fees were handled with the same scrutiny that allocable fees are, I know there would be major cuts to seg fees.

One major source of spending is to the Wisconsin Union. Each student this year contributed $294 to the Unions through Seg Fees. Do you feel like that is a good use of your money?

Lets look at where some of the other funding went: Bus Pass: ~ $80/year ASM: ~ $16/year GSSF: ~ $66/year

So the Union costs alone were twice as much as all allocable fee spending that goes through student government. To get the Student Union Initiative passed last year, the Union promised not to decrease staff pay or layoff workers. That cost is going to go directly on students next year.

When you add the $292/year for UHS to the $294/year for the Unions, you’ll see that most seg fees go to just 2 programs. UHS and the Union budgets need more scrutiny and need to take less of our money.

Don’t blame UHS…$292/year is ridiculously cheap for health care.

As a former UWM student i can tell you that any copying of their tactics will lead to a Dow Chemical style riot…Embezzlement, censorship of the students papers along with threats to cut funding if they continue investigating the corruption of student government, the student government president is also chief justice of the judiciary, The president hooking up with a leading student legislator and carrying on a relationship while both in office…If UW wants that they should close ASM right now…

Its articles like this that makes one appreciate ASM.

Here’s the problem A.J., when you accused the UWM Post of manufacturing stories, you offered no evidence of this. The story you refer to is when you got caught abusing seg fees by using a printer for political campaign purposes (kind of a stupid rule, but whatever). In your letter to the UWM Post, you didn’t deny that you did it, you only used it as a pulpit for your upcoming organization, SRG. In fact, I think this is rather responsible journalism.

I thought UWM was Wisconsin State University? - Germain E. Stemme

I thought Germain E. Stemme was brilliantly incisive with accessible yet humorous gadflyism? Oh yeah, I’m right. Loooordy, my Stemme kin, you are ON FIRE! - Germain Q. Stemme

Deputy Plenipotentiary of The Sacred Internets

Here’s the obvious question: What is a UW-Milwaukee “deputy speaker of the senate” (puhlease) doing writing op-eds in UW-Madison’s paper? Not only are you attempting to interfere with another school’s government, but you’re also suggesting the students here need your voice to interact with their own government. Students vote in April, how about you let the ballot decide, pal?

I can personally vouch for the UWM Post’s manufacturing of stories. As someone with multiple friends in both SA and the “UWM Post”, I understand all too well the situation at UWM.

There is a common misconception out there that the so-called “Sedition Act” was meant to prevent entities, especially the press, from criticizing from criticizing their student government (as is, rightfully so, their constitutional right). This notion is a fallacy. If you read the hard legislation, you should discover that it was intended to protect the rights of UWM SA officials from slander and libel - which they, in fact, have protection from. I can give you numerous accounts of times where the “UWM Post” dreadfully misquoted statements (i.e. giving them entirely different meaning from their intent) and manufactured facts. In fact, my weekly routine includes highlighting the errors, as I see them. Fortunately, I have a near endless supply of highlighters…

Was the Sedition Act wrong? I believe so. But, I would like everyone in Madison to take notice something - regardless of how you compare our respective student governments - BE THANKFUL FOR THE FINE JOURNALISTIC ENTITIES YOU HAVE ON YOUR CAMPUS. We at UWM, most unfortunately, have one campus news-media outlet, and that outlet is poor at best. For not only has the “UWM Post” been guilty time after time of possessing poor journalistic ethics - but it has also missed many other opportunities to write about events in student government (good and bad) that the students have a right to know.

Ultimately, I think SA DID have good intentions with their Legislation - although, most unfortunately, these intentions led to the Sedition Act. You must remember, at the end of the day, it isn’t the Student Association who is being cheated by the “UWM Post”. It is the students of UWM who are suffering from these circumstances.

Best wishes to Madison,

Ted Reilly UWM Student

P.s. It is not a former “SA Finance Person” being charged with fraud - it is a former President of SA! He has been cleared of all charges, however, because of the WI Supreme Court decision in BAUM V. SA. What he did was quite obviously un-ethical, but, in reality, he didn’t break any laws.

I think, if you just take a cursory glance at the Government this year, you’ll find that the President we elected this year, Rob Grover, and his team have cleaned up the SA and restored ethics.

So, “Mr. Anonymous”, just remember: your beloved ASM could just as easily elect a corrupt leader. It happens (although in a perfect world it wouldn’t). You must, instead, measure who the voting public brings in in the aftermath, and the job that they do in cleaning up the mess. The ruling party has done just that - and, in a fashion that would be hard to beat.

You people are blind to what your administration is doing. I used to be involved in the UWM student association, and yes there were problems. But at least we can say we’re accomplishing a lot of things, and without any help from the administration. It’s sad that you focus on issues of the past that hardly reflect the current members of the association. If you agree 100% with your administration, you are not doing your job while they are more than exceeding at theirs.

And as far as the UWM Post goes. They are unbelievable. It’s not that they necessarily manufacture stories, it’s that they simply cannot write a decent story. Bad press doesn’t worry me, it’s ignorant press that does. So think about what you’re saying before you tell AJ he’s completely in the wrong.

Something else that should be noted that Mr. Piwarun has since attacked a fellow student with libel and slander in an editorial in the UWM Post. The current government campaigned on a slogan of cutting student costs. Might I mention that they have 14 paid secretaries in the Executive Branch staff. The Executive Branch costs the SA $215,000 a year just in salaries, including those 14 secretaries.

“The Executive Branch costs the SA $215,000 a year just in salaries, including those 14 secretaries.”

That’s a great scam, really. After the disasterous reign of the RAVE party, I didn’t think that it was possible to get any worse. But each successive regime has promised reform, only to be more venal and self-serving than the rest.

Student turn-out to vote in the UWM SA elections is only about 5 percent. Whoever controls Sandberg Hall controls the SA. It’s no wonder that the Lord of the Flies culture has taken root there.

The real coup was to allow the President to make members of the Senate part of the Executive staff. Thus, the President has enough votes in the Senate ram through whatever he/she wants. Robert Mugabe probablt would envy the brazen accumulation of unrestricted power.