H 32°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°The Badger Herald article “Student Council Fails to Keep Quorum” (March 4) fails to realize the true nature of the “walkout” and misrepresents my reasons for leaving the meeting. The article states that I left the meeting for “personal reasons,” and while the statement is factually true it fails to fully encompass my reasons for abruptly leaving the meeting. By the time I left, the topics being discussed and acted on by the Student Council had strayed far from the stated purpose of convening the special meeting, creating the appearance of collusion by the ASM leadership to kill legislation with a minimum of Student Council Representatives present.
Chair Tyler Junger informed Student Council of his intent to call two special meetings in a Feb. 25 post to the ASMSC mailing list. In this notification (subject: Union Naming) Junger stated additional meetings were needed to pass legislation authorizing an all student referendum on the naming of the new south campus union building. The first of these meetings was scheduled for Mar. 3 with the stated intent of “[Introducing] Union Naming legislation [and] second votes on the initiatives [voted on at the previous Student Council meeting].” The chair further stated, “We’ll only vote on these things and introduce other legislation for vote at the March 10 meeting.”
With complete indifference to his original statement, Junger released an agenda on Mar. 3 that included not only the time sensitive Constitutional Amendments, Union Naming Referendum and Bylaw changes, but also the contentious Intern Project Omnibus Legislation and [ASM Committee Chair] Written Responsibility Act. The change was made without explanation so I cannot comment on the actual intent of the chair. However the consequence of the chair’s actions was conspicuously evident: Representatives were led to believe that only non-controversial legislation, likely to pass unanimously, was to be discussed and therefore didn’t alter their busy schedules to accommodate the meeting and a minimum number of representatives were left to discuss and vote on contentious legislation. In fact the deception is worse than it appears since the stated purpose of the meeting, “Introduction of Union Naming legislation,” does not even require quorum.
I take my responsibilities of attending these meetings very seriously. Even though I had a very good reason not to attend this meeting (caring for my 4-day-old daughter), I decided to show up since the absolutely necessary actions of the Council could be accomplished in a short amount of time. However, when I attempted to postpone the deceptively added contentious issues to the next meeting I encountered extreme opposition headed by ASM leadership. The intent is unknown, but the apparent intent is obvious; and appearance is everything — especially for an organization fighting for legitimacy.
I could not participate in such an apparent fa�ade; so I left! Fortunately, Representatives Max Love and Theo Sharpe had the resolve to leave as well, preventing any action on the remaining legislation. My only request is that the chair gives more attention to the scheduling of agenda items to ensure smooth, efficient meetings.
Colin Ingram
ASM Student Council Representative (Graduate School)
IP hash: ef2e27cb
Based on the text of Junger’s email to the council prior to scheduling the special meeting, it appears that either the email contained an oversight in not mentioning that items introduced the meeting before would continue on the agenda or an oversight by including carry-over items when not intending to. Since he did not indicate that carry-over items would be dealt with on the March 10 meeting, he probably reasoned that like any other meeting the left-over stuff would be not at the subsequent meeting.
I have pasted the text of that email below.
Dear Council,
I’m writing to inform you of our upcoming schedule for meetings. Because of the restrictions put in place by our bylaws, we must hold three meetings before March 22nd in order to approve a ballot initiative authorizing ASM to ask students to vote on a name for the new union building. Seeing this, our schedule moving forward will be as follows:
March 3: Introduction of Union Naming legislation; second votes on the initiatives we put on last night (our bylaws require that we vote on them by 2/3 at two consecutive meetings). Because of the necessarily brief nature of this meeting (we’ll have to start around 9:15) we’ll only vote on these things and introduce other legislation for vote at the March 10 meeting. March 10: Regular meeting: first vote on Union Naming legislation, along with other items introduced on March 3. March 17: Second special meeting; second vote on Union Naming legislation and other items requiring two votes. Another meeting mainly for this specific subject and introductions.
I ask for your cooperation moving forward; we need to have quorum at each of these meetings. If you are unable to attend any of these, please respond to this email as soon as possible so I can adjust this process if necessary.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
Best, Tyler
IP hash: a60ba5d2
I absolutely disagree that this was an oversight the email specifically states what will be discussed that the meeting.
“we�ll only vote on these things and introduce other legislation for vote at the March 10 meeting”
I don’t know what that means to you but to me it is clear. We all have busy schedules and the scheduling of meetings has been absolutely atrocious. The fist meeting of the year is 2 hours long then the next meeting is scheduled on kick off day so we only have 3 hours to discuss a huge agenda, then a 3 hour special meeting is scheduled to continue the discussion. (Not enough time at all). Then we have this series of special meetings.
I felt a personally attack my members of council. I made it very clear that I needed to be home that night. We should have taken care of the busy we needed to take care of and gone home. As the email specified. I don’t like been pressured to remain at a meeting to maintain a quorum. This is the second time this session that this has occurred regrettably.
Look the ASM Chair gets to set the agenda. He has to do a better job of managing and scheduling these meetings. It is his primary job he has to make time for it.
IP hash: 0532ba75
I usually refrain from commenting on things written about me, but in this case, I think it’s necessary.
In this particular situation, I’m reminded of Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
I’m not manipulating agendas. I forgot that there were things on the Feb 24 meeting that weren’t bylaw changes. The reason we didn’t vote on the intern project legislation at the meeting on the 24th is because they - that is, item X(f) on our agenda - weren’t in the copied (and therefore physically posted) version of our agenda, even though they were on electronic versions sent out by the vice chair. We could have broken state law and voted on them, but I decided that it wasn’t necessary. Further, if I was trying to push off a vote on the intern legislation, how was I to know that Chair Zinn (the Academic Affairs Chair whose intern project was debated and then postponed) wouldn’t be present at a meeting on the 3rd, when he told me the night of the 2nd that he wouldn’t be there.
Was my email unclear? Yes. Did I intend to deceive the council that elected me? Absolutely not.
Further, Colin, there’s no way I blame you for needing to leave a meeting to see your newborn baby. Hell, if I was in your position there’s absolutely no way I’d be at a Student Council meeting. I commonly take the view that ASM reps are ‘students first,’ in that class generally supersedes ASM obligations, but there’s a corollary to that: family first. You’re a dad. If you can’t be there Wednesday, let me know, and you’ll be excused without question. This is something I’ve done with other council reps when family obligations came up and I think it’s the only humane thing to do.
If anyone wants to discuss this further, feel free to contact me.
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