Burnt Orange Report

Burnt Orange Report from the Floor

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

Live, from the basement of the SSB, it's Burnt Orange Report from the Floor! Updates rolling on this exciting Student Government coverage in the extended entry as always... Tim Allen is liveblogging as well.

Oh, and if anyone wants to bring me food down here, leave me a comment or IM me at howarddean13.

The mood in the room is a bit chipper today, though it's still a bit empty as many of the appointments havn't been made yet for the Agency and Committee side of the room.

As Tim has already mentioned, Deputy to the President: Dr. Charles Roeckle is here, meaning it's a good time to take a nap, considering I had 2 hours of sleep last night. And by the way, he is soooo going over his 2 minute speaking limit for Open Forum if I remember correctly. (ed. 10 min now, thanks for reminding me Tim) BORFTF continues to wait for Vice President Elizabeth Brummett to entertain a motion to extend his speaking time.

7:30- Now Daily Texan Editor Ben Heath *swoon* is up to give an update about the propsal to remove Texan Editor Elections. I wish there was more to report at this point, but I think the big show would be the actual TSM board meeting where this would be discussed/voted on. Though it's interesting that no one in the Assembly really had questions, issues, stances on this that they want to question Ben about, beyond Director Chris Kennedy.

7:42- VP Brummett-"I'm entertaining and you can motion." You bet you're entertaining Ms. Brummett! You can entertain my motions at any time. Suspend the rules! Move appointments to the next Agenda item! Suspend the rules again! Move AB 1 to the next item! AB 1 is "In Support of Free and Open Source Software Awards" which was written by someone outside of the Assembly, Vlad Codrea, and is totally awesome! How often do you here "Mozilla Firefox Web-browser" in an SG meeting? So in that spirit, go download it (and Thunderbird for an e-mail client).

Just read the bill, it's awesome.

Whereas the use of Free and Open Source Software has already saved money for individuals, private businesses, and governmental agencies such as the cities of Munich, Germany and Bergen, Norway.

Whereas the governments of several third world countries including Brazil are switching from costly Non-Free Proprietary systems to Free and Open Source systems in order to provide disadvantaged children and low-income families with wider access to computers.

Approved by acclamation.

7:51- Henna Tayyeb, last's week's nominee for Internal Financial Director, is back up for a second time aften being rejected last week. Omar's looking on from the Exec table nodding as she notes "so long as Omar keeps bringing me back for appointment...because I know I can do this job". She had a largely pre-written speech answering point by point the charges leveled against her last week. I seriously hope that Reps continue to question her this week, as I personally don't know how much has changed.

Henna Money quote in response to Rep. Jack Waite's question..."No, I personally havn't taken any accounting classes, ...but I love Excel!"

I sense blood in the water though, which should make the actual debate period interesting in my opinion. Whoops, it seems that there will be no debate. Ok, that was really sad, voice vote. (Though Mr. President was certainly smiling.) Well, this should be a fun year. I'll hope for the bet, but I'm already missing the old Exec.

8:11- More appointments. Here is the list, if there is anything exciting, I'll mention it.

Alumni Relations Director – Jennifer McCook
Community Messages – Clayton Falls, Elgene Hernandez

8:20- VP Brummett is being snarky with her speaking power.

Student Forum Agency – John Norton, Amanda Johnson

8:25- John says, "Getting it done, snap, snap, snap." This has to be one of the more entertaining candidates. And Amanda Johnson is of course just awesome. *should be in the Assembly, cough, cough*

Underrepresented Recruitment and Retention Agency – Devin Fletcher, Yvette Garza

8:30- I find it a bit ironic that these people were not here, I daresay, they were 'underrepresented'.

Member Coordination Agency – George Hinchey, Nancy Almanza

8:34- Love Fest time! Approved.

Campus Safety – Elliott Reep, Bethany Huddleston

8:44- Rep. Grant Stannis attempted to amaze us with his Parlimentary skills (or by proxy prove how much larger a penis he has than the rest of the Assembly). He accomplished one of them, he did prove that he was a being a big dick. =) Love ya, Grant.

Bethany was being all "Oh I love Student Government, I'm so excited" like. I give that about two meetings before her soul is crushed.

Oh, the Underrepresented Appointees have now arrived (as has more snarkier commentary on my behalf).

Historical Research – Danny MacDonald

-not here

On and Off Campus Housing Agency – Madhavi Kasbekar, Colton Brugger

8:55- BORFTF Awards tonight for best hairdo/outerwear acessorizing go to Madhavi and Colton.

It should be noted at this time that I have completed my salad and am still quite hungry. I feel that I need more food...

Students with Disabilities – Lee Bagan
Student Services Agency – Steven Hargis, Amanda Surman
Student Services Fee Committee – Grant Stanis

9:27- Now we get to debate Stanis being on the SSFC. If I was president (which I'm very much not) I would not consider appointing conservatives to the most powerful committee in regards to student funds. *sigh* There is a lot of questioning, and it just reminds me how awful a Stanis Presidency would be in SG. I would totally resign.

Thanks to Director Kennedy and Former Arch. Rep. Mary Donaldson for asking Grant about his waltz-out last month, which didn't square with other comments he made. I personally worry that Stanis is going to represent himself, maybe the business school, and not really the rest of the student body when it comes to funding. It's a thing we always worry about in the Hill Country for local office, "personal agendas".

Oooo, it looks like we might move back out into debate after getting "this" close to voting. After some people learned this appointment only needed majority approval, not 2/3, they may have thought it was possibly to kill it. *Thanks to whomever was thinking that*

Grant attempted to appeal the ruling of the VP to send him out of the room during debate of his appointment. It failed. Now he's giving a very long winded speech. Sidenote, why do we seem to keep awarding people who walked out of the Assembly, with appointments? Two of them are on Exec, one of them (Grant) is now up for SSFC.

Time for debate!

11:07- And boy was there debate, there is a very good chance that the Assembly could knock this down. But after a short recess, Grant motioned to move to the next appointment, to allow some of his friends from Business Council to come. So we did, and moved back to allow them to speak. Unfortunatly the first speaker made some very true statements, that also brought up some of the very point why people would vote against Grant, i.e. representing the Business Council sooo well, and is always there for the Business School, and is against Flat rate tuition, and etc. The issue many people have is that as an appointment to a body where he would be representing the entire student body, he would still be only representing himself or the Business Council.

I must say this, I'm a bit startled by, and proud of, the Assembly's willingness to bite into some of these appointments (because we havn't gotten to bills yet so this is all I have to go on). Real debate is a nice change, though I am beginning to miss some of the personalities of the old Assembly. But I think that would happen next year as well.

And the Assembly passed it 19-14-1. I think I may be going home soon. I don't really have much of a reason to stay. I'm not sure if it will be worth it to try to hang out for the Reform Bills for discussion.

Survey Research Agency – Regina Dombkowski
Transportation Agency – Jim Kachelmeyer
External Appointments Director – Lauren Gilstrap
Freshman Leadership Organization – Seth Hayes
Transfer Student Agency – Taryn Dusek, Weston Carls
Outreach Agency – Christie Mechler, Carina Sahni
Faculty Council – Clare Richardson
Texas Student Media Board – Brandon Chicotsky
International Education Fee Scholarship – Lindsay Fitzpatrick
Medical Services Fee Advisory Committee – Sapan Shukla, Nicole Capriles
Student Health Center Advisory Committee – Clay Barnett, Saranya Chinnappan
Study Abroad Committee – Katy Castleberry, Charrisa Grubbs
UTSEES- Katherine Fillmore
VSLC Liaison – Alexandra Baer