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Senate
fails Forty-Niner Publications
The
Associated Student Senate failed at its
most important job in an emergency meeting
held yesterday: serving the students.
The
Daily Forty-Niner, in the culmination of
a fiscal crisis that will eventually spell
the end of the newspaper, appealed to the
Senate in an attempt to place a referendum
on the ballot of the upcoming ASI elections.
The referendum would have allowed students
to vote on a $7 fee increase to allocate
much-needed funds to the Daily Forty-Niner,
and the Senate voted against it.
It
is important to recognize the fact that
several senators are clearly not doing their
job. The senators are elected by the student
body to fulfill a purpose: to act in the
interest of all CSULB students and allow
them to have a say in what goes on. Monday's
emergency Senate meeting was proof this
is not really the way it works.
The
Daily Forty-Niner offered to work with the
senators last weekend to hammer out the
specifics of the referendum, tweak numbers
and come to a mutually agreeable conclusion.
Out of 21 senators only four showed up.
This
fact contributed to the three-hour long
circular argument that ensued in the Senate
chambers on Monday. Had the majority of
senators done their job and served their
campus by attending the meeting held by
the Daily Forty-Niner for the purpose of
expediting the process, perhaps the filibustering
would have been quashed before it even started.
When
a student-elected Senate doesn't even take
the time to get the facts straight and instead
disregards the meeting completely, entering
the Senate chambers and deciding on an issue
on-the-spot that deserved lengthy prior
deliberation, it is very disheartening.
Senator
Morgan Wheeler, who clearly saw the plight
of the Daily Forty-Niner and took the time
to attend the meeting he, as a senator,
was invited to, deserves acclimation. Wheeler,
who often voices his opinion on issues in
the Senate chambers, is frequently met with
rolling eyes and sighs from not only gallery
members but senators as well. Did the students,
who, elected and hired the senators to serve
them, grant them positions of power so they
could roll their eyes and brush off another
senator as a nuisance? Is the Senate's job
to carefully consider everything and to
give each senator the respect and time they
deserve while deliberating various issues,
or did the students elect them to give them
a good resume-builder?
Senator
Hironai Okahana, who voted no on the referendum,
also deserves acclimation, but for a different
reason. The simple fact that Okahana suggested
to amend the proposal by removing the lines
that would include the Long Beach Union,
K-BEACH and the Goldmine Yearbook in the
allocation of the funds speaks volumes.
He
saw the unfair nature of the referendum
as suggested by Vice-President Erik Jolliff,
and he spoke against it in his suggestion.
It
seems the senators missed the main point
here: do they want to ensure that the Daily
Forty-Niner lives, or are they going to
stand by and watch it die? Finally, in the
grand scheme of things, is $7 really asking
a lot? A tuna sandwich, onion rings and
a medium coke at CSULB's Outpost Grill costs
$7.16. A large latte at Starbucks costs
over $7. An extra $7 a semester comes to
3 cents a day. The students should have
been given the choice to guarantee a long
life to an integral campus publication but
the senate decided to censor that choice.
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