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