The Associated Student Government allocated more than $14,000 at its Friday meeting, following its recent violation of the Brown Act, which voided all fund allocations made in the past two weeks.
The senate took very little time to debate before allocating money to ASG events, approving $7,000 for the ASG mixer in six minutes.
“I think it’s ridiculous that they’d spend $1,300 on shirts,” said student Jimmy Zhan in reference to the $3,000 approved for a dodgeball event hosted by the senate.
“I think everybody’s in a state of chaos,” said senate President Alexandra Montes De Oca. “ It’s that time of the semester, all of our brains are everywhere else. I’m gonna be honest we are very spaced out, but we’re still trying to move forward as a governing body.”
This allocation comes only a week after the last senate meeting was interrupted by the ASG’s violation of the Brown act.
The Brown Act is an open meeting law that ensures government actions are accessible to the public. The Brown Act requires government agencies to post a physical copy of every meeting’s agenda in a location that is freely accessible to members of the public at least 72 hours before a meeting.
The senate failed to post a physical agenda for its previous two meetings. This prompted the senate to hold a special meeting before its regular meeting Friday, where it discussed how to form a public response to the incident.
“It did disrupt a lot,” said De Oca in reference to how the incident affected its proceedings. “It disrupted our flow and a lot of the things we’ve been questioning about how we act as a governing body.”
Some of the points the senate aims to include in its statement are an apology to the clubs, an apology to the student body and an admission of the mistake.
Vice President of External Affairs Lucas Perry attempted to have one of his absences rescinded from the record, after refusing to participate in last week’s meeting in protest of the senate’s Brown Act violation. The motion was denied.
The senate spent much of its regular meeting time debating policies over how forms are submitted when approving club formations. These issues caused the Analog Camera Club and the Leadership Club’s approval for formation to be postponed.
Almost half of the total money approved for spending was allocated to the senate mixer, as well as custom-made pop-up tents up with the ASG logo on them. Over $1,600 was approved for the tents.
Amongst some of the money approved for spending was $100 for campus-wide Narcan training, $1,800 for the ASL outstanding student ceremony, and $400 each for the Latin Dance Club and the Spanish Club.
The senate will reconvene March 13 for its next regular meeting.
