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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 8, 2004)
EDITOR'S NOTE The Emerald's 2004 ASUO elec tions coverage will run on the back page of today's, Wednesday's and Thursday's papers. Because the ASUO Elections Board did not release its candidate list until March 31, the Emerald had no choice but to trun cate its coverage in order to inform readers before the primary election, which takes place April 12 through April 14. Therefore, only interviews from candidates for ASUO Executive and the ASUO Programs Finance Committee will be published prior to the primary election. Nikia Gutman Gutman plans to resign immediately if elected Nathan Trotta — running under the name Nikia Gutman— is a junior sociology major. He is running for ASUO president. Emerald: Quickly summarize your priorities. Gutman: If I am elected, the first thing I will do is resign. I have ab solutely no policy, and I have no priorities. Emerald: How will you succeed where other administrations have failed in keeping campaign promises? Gutman: I can't see myself suc ceeding because the first thing I will do is resign if 1 am elected, so I don't know how to answer that question. I will succeed in being elected and then, as I said, 1 will resign promptly and immediately. I feel sad that this will actually go in the paper. I feel it's very possible that I could be elected considering the amount of people who vote for these type of things. I couldn't even tell you who the president of the U of O is; I have no idea. Emerald: My next question, 1 guess, will be redundant, but how will you maintain an open govern ment that keeps students informed about the ASUO and allows ade quate media access? Gutman: Resigning is the first thing I would do, promptly, therefore I Turn to GUTMAN, page 3 Popenuk and Giannetti want to increase general student involvement inASUO Nick Popenuk, a sophomore planning public policy and man agement major, is running for ASUO president. Joseph Giannetti, a junior history major, is running for ASUO vice president. Emerald: Quickly summarize your priorities. Popenuk: Our major priorities are going to be to get the students involved — in general the entire student body. As it is right now, the ASUO is not very well known by the student body — there's not a lot of effort to make the students re alize what the ASUO does for them. We feel that our biggest pri ority is making sure the students have a voice. Emerald: How will you succeed in keeping your campaign promis es where other administrations have failed? Popenuk: We've looked at the ASUO Constitution and we realize 1 m i k i Nick Popenuk that we have limited power, and so during our campaign, we're not making bunches of promises that are beyond our jurisdiction. There's a lot of things that would be great to have happen for the students. If we could get better housing stan dards, if we could have lower tu ition, (but) that's not within our di rect powers. And so certainly if we have a forum where next year as president I could advocate for these sort of things to happen ... then yeah, we would definitely express that point of view. Emerald: How will you main tain an open government that keeps students informed about the ASUO and allows adequate media access? Popenuk: Well, that's one of the things we are promising for me and Joe is that we want it to be an open government, we want people to feel that the ASUO is there working for them, listening to their concerns. We're going to go to as many meetings as we can, lis ten to as many students as we can, and see what issues they're con cerned about and how we can help them out. And as far as for providing adequate media cover age, we absolutely have no prob lem with speaking to representa tives of the media and giving them as much information as possible. Emerald: What's your fiscal phi losophy in regard to the student in cidental fee? Popenuk: I haven't actually looked at the budget. I understand there's a lot of clubs that need fund ing, and that's what all the money goes to ... certainly if there's any way Turn to POPENUK, page 4 Hendryx wants to ensure all budgets are considered equally Jeff Hendryx, a junior history major, is running for Programs Fi nance Committee, At-large posi tion, two-year term. Emerald: Quickly summarize your priorities. Hendryx: First and foremost, to make sure that all budgets are equally fair. I don't want to see any single budget looked at in a way that's going to put it above any oth er — they're all equally important. Second, just to make sure that stu dent incidental fees, especially with the 12 percent increase that we're looking at next year in tuition, that the incidental fee is going to be used in a way that's not going to Jeff Hendryx abuse the students. Emerald: What's your fiscal phi losophy in regard to the incidental fee? Hendryx: The incidental fee is paid by the students, so I think it should be there for use by the stu dents, that's just cut and dry, they should be the ones that get the ben efit out of it. I have no problem with it going to benefit other things in the community, but I really think that first and foremost it should be for the students. Emerald: Where do you stand on spending money for off-cam pus purposes, such as the United States Student Association, the Oregon Student Association and OSPIRG? Hendryx: That's the kind of thing you need to take on a case by-case basis. If it actually does something to benefit the students, like an OSPIRG campaign to low er the price of textbooks, I think that's a good thing. But if we're spending money that isn't directly benefiting the students, I don't Turn to HENDRYX, page 3 Strawn, Aguilar want to improve campus safety, housing standards Ben Strawn, a junior economics major and current ASUO Student Senate president, is running for ASUO president. Diana Aguilar, a junior political science major, is run ning for ASUO vice president. Emerald: Quickly summarize your priorities. Aguilar: The first has to do with (Eugene Police Department) and (Department of Public Safety). We want to promote a more positive im pact on campus and in the commu nity by working closely with them. And, also, with that we want to focus on campus safety. And working with the housing standards — if we don't finish that up this year we want to finish that up next year. Another one is more unity around campus. I know we're all in separate areas with the group programs, the ASUO, the residence halls, the greeks... and the more we work together we can use more resources that way. Strawn: The other issues would be next year will be a legislative year and will be a good time to impact costs on campus, whether that will be tuition or more directly here on campus dealing with student fees and working with the administra tion and student leaders on the fees, fines and penalties set by the ad ministration. Aguilar: The last one is the more understandable part of our platform. We want to expand library hours, (Student Recreation and Fitness Cen ter) hours and (University Health Center) hours, and in that way we can be accessible to both undergrad uates and graduate students. Emerald: How will you succeed where other administrations have failed in keeping campaign promises? Strawn: I think you should make sure you're not promising too much, obviously, and both Diana and I have done a lot of leg work on the front end of campaigning, contacting administrators to find out what cer tain ideas cost — what the ramifica tions are. A lot of these are things that have been considered already and various administrators have a good idea of all the implications. Third, you meet with them so you know what you're getting into beforehand and make sure that it's something you definitely could accomplish. We've got tangible things that can be accomplished. Ben Strawn and Diana Aguilar Emerald: How will you maintain an open government that keeps stu dents informed about the ASUO and allows adequate media access? Aguilar: I think that in the past, and in the current administration, there has been a lot of difficulty in getting the right information and talking to the right people. And next year, what we want is to have an open administration. If the press, the me dia, needed to talk to someone, I think it's right for them to talk to the source of the issues. I don't necessari ly think they should always have to go through a person. In some cases that might be necessary, but, all in all, in the end, they should have access, at the front line, to whomever is the person that needs to be talked to. Strawn: Two, you need to take a veiy proactive approach to getting the information out to who you want to. You can't expect people on the various publications on campus to always know exactly what you're talk ing about if you threw out catch phrases or rules terminology. We need to be very careful to educate people you're talking to as well as try ing to explain it. Emerald: What's your fiscal phi losophy in regard to the incidental fee? Strawn: I think what you need to do is frontload the process more than it is right now. You need to fo cus really on benchmarks, on decid ing how much you want the fee to increase. That's when that decision is really made, and that's something that gets glossed over a lot of times. To work early on to make sure the (ASUO Student Senators) and Pro grams Finance Committee mem bers, the EMU Board, the Athletic Department Finance Committee members are all aware of how much you want the fee to grow. How much you want to keep it in Turn to STRAWN, page 3 PART 3 OF 3 Tuesday: ASUO Executive and PFC seat 2 candidates Wednesday: ASUO Executive, PFC seat 1 and PFC at-large one-year term candidates Today: ASUO Executive and PFC at large two-year term candidates Mason Quiroz Quiroz wants to make sure fees are allocated fairly Mason Quiroz, a senior math ma jor, is running for ASUO Programs Fi nance Committee, At-large position, two-year term. Emerald: Quickly summarize your priorities. Quiroz: My priorities are just to make sure the process of allocating fees to student programs is done fairly and with integrity and respect that represents the entire University and entire student body. Emerald: What's your fiscal philos ophy in regard to the incidental fee? Quiroz: I take it very seriously. That's money we all put out every term, so I think it should be done within the best interests of all stu dents, or how I feel all students would like their money to be spent, respon sibly, with good decisions and have a positive effect on the student pro grams that it funds. Emerald: Where do you stand on spending money for off-campus pur poses, such as the United States Stu dent Association, the Oregon Student Association and OSPIRG? Quiroz: I would say that before I al locate money to them I understand a little more about the group and what they actually do with the money off campus. I want to make sure that they're not doing anything that's con trary to the ideas of the University, anything that's even too controversial or too radical. Not that I'm conserva tive, but I don't want them to just go out there and blow a bunch of money on stuff that's just not going to have a positive effect or reflect good on the University. Emerald: How will you work to en sure a viewpoint-neutral PFC process? Quiroz: Well, I know because I'm a part of MEChA, I would say that just for them alone I would have to abstain from voting for or against, just because it would seem biased. Since that's the only group that I'm a part of, I think that I'd be able to participate and be able to vote yes or no on what money's going to be allocated to them. Emerald: What's your favorite reali ty television show, and how does it re late to your campaign? Quiroz: How does it relate to my campaign? Wow. My favorite reality TV show — I would have to say The Garden of Eden. I think it's just called Eden. It's on Fox. And I guess the one way it would deal with our campaign is that, what we're trying to bring at tention to is what is the way — how can I say this the best way — our pres ent student government isn't always what it seems, just like the show. Eden seems like it's this wonderful system, process or wonderful place to be, and Turn to QUIROZ, page 3
