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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.