Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 12, 2004)
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Suite 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com Online: www.dailyemerald.com Monday, April 12, 2004 Oregon Daily Emerald COMMENTARY Editor in Chief: Brad Schmidt Managing Editor: Jan Tobias Montry Editorial Editor: Travis Willse EDITORIAL ASUO EXECUTIVE ENDORSEMENT Fiscal wisdom makes Gilmore proper choice for presidency Throughout the years that members of this Editorial Board have witnessed ASUO elections politics, empty promises have often taken great precedence in the often contentious Executive races. Be it the candidates' failure to realize the limits of their power in an ASUO leader ship position or simply unfounded optimism about their management abilities, competent leadership is all too often sacrificed for unreasonable and ultimately un attainable goals. Eor this reason, the Editorial Board's motto for this year's ASUO Executive endorsement is "steady leadership over empty promises." Both the Ben Strawn/Diana Aguilar and Adam Petkun/Mena Ravassipour tickets bring strong leadership experience and a willingness to give ASUO back to the stu dents. We specifically like Strawn's idea of focusing on funding benchmarks early to preempt surprise later when the incidental fee grows. Likewise, Petkun's experience and passion for lowering tuition and working on legislative is sues is certainly important. But we question other promises and problems pro posed by both campaigns, such as Aguilar's idea of ex panding library and University Health Center hours, which we feel would not be affordable in this time of funding crisis (expanding library hours just during Finals Week costs about $5,000). And we don't agree with Ravassipour's assertion that the Health Center is "kind of hidden" and needs to be more accessible to students; af ter all, the center is just across the street from Carson Dining Hall and Oregon Hall, where many students eat and get their money. In the middle of these two campaigns is our pick, the candidate who we believe will better focus on fixing cur rent problems in student government rather than making new guarantees: Adrian T. Gilmore. First, Gilmore, when acting as chairman of the Programs Finance Committee this year, delivered a well-rounded PFC budget and headed up one of the more organized budget ing sessions in memory. He has also stated his dedication to protecting the incidental fee from cuts while steadfastly following the rules of proper budgeting, so nobody can question whether funds are being misappropriated. In short, Gilmore is fiscally responsible and has demon strated his ability to treat budgets fairly and objectively, even when greater forces in student government might at tempt to corrupt the process. Gilmore is also fighting for more openness and repre sentation in ASUO. His question: Why should students be turned away from questioning their own leaders? He has stated his willingness to allow any student to share his or her feelings with staff members in the ASUO office, though we should mention that he shares this sentiment with nearly every other Executive candidate. Perhaps that's a sign that something desperately needs to be changed. Gilmore is able to bring a refreshing and well-educated perspective, which the Executive office hasn't seen in many, many years. He is a law student — a bloc of students grossly underrepresented in student government — and a member of the Student Senate. For an office that has stale mated on promising increased diversity, a greater voice for students and a housing code year after year after year, we believe a new face will change the office for the better. On that note, Gilmore is not making grand promises for his campaign, instead choosing to adopt a platform of competent leadership and bringing some semblance of openness and accountability back to ASUO. Gilmore told the Emerald his main priority is "ensur ing all students are represented because I don't believe right now that that's being done," adding that he won't let petty bickering or Executive bias close the office from its constituents. For all the reasons outlined above, the Emerald Editori al Board wholeheartedly urges students to ignore decep tive and irrational campaign promises, and instead vote Adrian T. Gilmore for ASUO president. To vote, simply log onto DuckWeb today, Tuesday and Wednesday. ALRIGHT, KNOCK rr OFF OR WE'LL PUT HIM RIGHT SACK WHERE WE FOUND HIM! Eric Layton Illustrator OREGON DAILY EMERALD PRIMARY ENDORSEMENTS These endorsements mpresentthe opinions of the Emerald editortal board - Brad Schmidt, editor in chief: Jan Tobias Montry, managing editor. freelance editor; and Ayisha Yahya, news editor. ASUO Executive President Adrian T. Gilmore ASUO Programs Finance Committee Seat 1: Eden Cortez Seat 2; Koushs Sunder AMarge, one^earterm: None At-large, two-year term: Jeff Hendryx RFC ENDORSEMENTS Emerald endorses ‘fiscally responsible' Cortez Eden Cortez is running unopposed for the ASUO Programs Finance Committee, Seat 1. Cortez's standard of judging whether groups that send money off campus should get money is refreshing; he says the group in question should benefit "every aspect of the (University) community." As long as Cortez demonstrates that kind of fiscally responsible thinking, we urge students to vote for him. Sunder wants to keep student money on campus Koushi Sunder would be a fresh voice on the ASUO Programs Finance Commit tee Not only has she never been associated with ASUO, but she vehemently expressed her goal of keeping students in the loop with the budgeting of incidental fees. We believe that the fewer ASUO and general student-group affiliations a PFC member has, the better. Why? Such candi dates can often better avoid the specter of potential biases and petty loyalties, letting them focus just on the numbers. That, and only that, should be the PFC's job. Sunder also appears more critical of send ing student money off-campus than her op ponent, Khanh Le. She said funds should only be used for off-campus purposes if "students feel (the program) is something that they need or that affects them greatly." For these reasons, we urge students to vote Koushi Sunder for PFC, Seat 2. Emerald cannot endorse one-year PFC candidate Unfortunately, the Editorial Board could not endorse either of the two candi dates for the ASUO Programs Finance Committee one-year At-large position. The first candidate, Leslie Ankney, re ferred to Project Saferide as a program "used by a lot of women on campus and is valuable to them." But Project Saferide doesn't exist anymore. It merged last year with Night Ride after the women-only service was ruled discriminatory, and the two joined programs now comprise the "Assault Prevention Shuttle." Hector Miramontes, on the other hand, has a clouded view of off-campus spending. He demonstrated awkward thinking when he said "I believe they do really good things" in reference to the United States Student As sociation, the Oregon Student Association and OSP1RG — not exactly a viewpoint neutral stance. Miramontes goes further to say that sending student money off campus is worth it if "... the students believe they're going to come back with some good leader ship skills, good cultural experiences and bring that back to the University..." But some random student spending our money to learn more about a culture or leadership at some random conference is not what we call fiscally responsible What, exactly, does the student body as a whole get out of it? Hendryx would bring more neutral viewpoint to PFC The Editorial Board had a little trouble with the ASUO Programs Finance Com mittee two-year At-large position. Both candidates, Jeff Hendryx and Mason Quiroz, have similar ideas and levels of competence. However, one element of Quiroz's plat form troubled us. When responding about where he stands on sending money off campus for environmental and student advocacy groups, Quiroz said, "I want to make sure that they're not doing anything that's contrary to the ideas of the Universi ty, anything that's even too controversial or too radical. Not that I'm conservative, but 1 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." We believe that a PFC member should not think of funding in terms of whether it will "reflect good on the University," but instead whether student money is being used in a fiscally responsible way. Also, a PFC member should not express himself or herself as liberal, moderate or conserva tive, but instead step outside political la bels and simply focus on the numbers. For these reasons we strongly urge stu dents to vote Jeff Hendryx for PFC At-large, two-year term. Hendryx will better main tain a viewpoint-neutral funding process. EDITOR'S NOTE The Emerald has prominently placed its 2004 ASUO primary endorsements on page 2, the space usually reserved for an Emerald column and edi torial. The Monday column by Marissa Jones can be found on page 3. Online poll results, which are typically published on Monday, will be printed Tuesday at the bottom of page 2. Regular com mentary coverage also will resume Tuesday.
