Some things have been going on during the last couple of months.

1. University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere released a white paper outlining his idea for a restructure of University funding and management. The proposal includes a $1.6 billion endowment for the university, a portion of which would be financed by state bonds. The legislature is not pleased, but it certainly has folks talking.

2. The UO got grilled hard by the Oregon Senate Business and Transportation Committee about the $227 million arena project, the process for which did not involve an open bidding process, as would most large scale university projects. The committee also tapped into the Bellotti Buyout. The essence of the Willamette Week article linked to above:

“The university does not inspire confidence,” says committee chairman Sen. Rick Metsger (D-Welches). “What you get from this project is either they don’t know what they’re doing or they don’t want the public to know. Neither is good.”

The process for building the arena is actually pretty convoluted and complicated, and many people are displeased with the progress.

3. The State of Oregon has a pretty unsustainable budget, to the tune of $563 million that will come in across the board cuts to all state entities. Including a $4.7 million cut to the University of Oregon.

4. The University Senate confirmed large-scale campus speech policy changes, with the addition of a Freedom of Inquiry Policy and Facilities Use Policy. This is a real victory for administrators, who wanted to deal with the Pacifica Forum issue but not be seen as only promoting certain kinds of speech or, y’know, violating the First Amendment. The new facilities use policy dictates that only university recognized groups — not individuals — can access space for free. “Non-university entities” can still have space, but they have to pay for it. You can read the Register-Guard’s opinion here.

5. The UO created an Office of Public Records to deal with public records requests as Lariviere tries to deal with the aftermath of the Mike Bellotti deal and an athletic program on the fringes of his reach. They’re hiring a public records officer, if you’re looking for a job.

6. Tuition is going up again. No, seriously.

7. Phil Knight’s private company, Phit LLC, wants to construct additional football facilities to the Len Casanova Athletic Center. But they want to do it in a way that sidesteps the public bidding process by having this private company lease the land from the university, construct on it, and then donate the finished project back to the University of Oregon. The state approves.

8. Jeremiah Masoli got kicked off the UO football team for getting pulled over with a suspended license and marijuana in his car after rolling a stop sign. Masoli was a good quarterback. He just keeps getting himself into trouble.

9. Colorado joined the Pac-10. Texas said no. People are concerned with the implications of where the university’s priorities lay. I just like the math and the excitement of it all. GO DUCKS!

And that brings us to today. Those were some things that happened.

Last night, the ASUO Student Senate held a special meeting with the purpose of electing a Summer Senate Chair and Vice Chair. Unfortunately, senate meetings never turn out to be as short as we would hope them to be, especially when nobody knows what the hell is going on. But hey, it’s the ASUO Senate. What was I expecting?

The Senate made two monumentally stupid funding decisions last night. The first of which was to allow ASUO fee-funded group Dance Oregon to move their remaining funds into a line item called “Student Dance Concert and Research.” Dance Oregon uses this line item to grant students money to go to summer dance classes and conferences around the world. Dance students can apply to Dance Oregon to receive a grant, and they can essentially use that money to pay for whatever they want for their trip.

This is ridiculous for a number of reasons. First of all, the justification for allowing the group to move money into this line item was that the line item existed in the first place. “Student Dance Concert and Research” is a pretty vague name for a line item, and when PFC approves budgets, they don’t always go line by line. Something like “Scholarships” or “Going on a trip on the student dime” would have been more appropriate.

Second of all, YOU’RE GIVING MONEY TO STUDENTS FOR SCHOLARSHIPS! These students can use the funds for whatever “workshop” or “seminar” or WHATEVER they intend to go on! There is no ASUO oversight there, there is no accountability at all. For a bunch of people who claim themselves to be fiscally responsible, that’s not very responsible.

The other funding decision was definitely the more egregious of the two: the ASUO Senate voted, for the first time in a long time, to give themselves stipends over the summer. That’s right. Senate evaded the stipend model to give themselves money for a job that hasn’t been paid in at least the last five years, potentially longer.

In order to work around the “inconvenience” of a fiscal year that ends on June 30th, Senate approved a surplus request (FOR THEMSELVES, might I add) for $600, even though the total amount to pay the Summer Senate will be $1800 ($50/person/month, $75/person/month for chair and vice-chair). The Summer Senate will then have to allocate themselves money over the summer to pay their stipends.

Just to clarify, Summer Senate does not have the same luxuries as the full body does the rest of the year. They don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to allocate — they have $5000 for the whole summer. That money is supposed to be used for emergencies, if a student group is in desperate need of money for a summer event or some other cost incurred. If Summer Senate does in fact allocate themselves the remaining $1200 for stipends, they will be sucking up almost a quarter of those summer funds. And that money will go right into their pockets.

The rest of the meeting was as good as it could be, with everyone rushing to get things done so they could get out of there. The body lost quorum a couple of times, which was thoroughly entertaining. Sen. Kaitlyn Lange (5 – EMU Board) was elected as Summer Senate Chair and Sen. Zachary Stark-MacMillan (16 – General Science) was elected as Summer Senate Vice Chair. Apparently Sen. Jeremy Blanchard (10 – DFC) has a long list of rules changes he wants to pound out over the summer. And the whole Summer Senate wants to work on projects outside of funding, because, y’know, the ASUO Executive gets to.

Speaking of the Executive, they did get through a number of their appointments before Senate adjourned early. Each of the appointments was thoroughly coached by President Rousseau and Political Director Robert D’Andrea, as indicated by the number of times “fiscal responsibility” and “viewpoint neutrality” came up unprovoked. From what I’ve seen so far, Robert’s tactic is just to coach people on how to avoid answering a question. Amelie certainly does it, but more on that later. Senate confirmed appointments to the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee, EMU Board, and also confirmed an Elections Coordinator, William Price. He had a well-rehearsed speech, he apparently has had no involvement in the ASUO thus far, and will probably make a pretty good Elections Coordinator. I mean, as good as an Elections Coordinator can be. Especially with D’Andrea breathing down his neck creepily all the time.

So, that’s the last Senate meeting of Spring 2010. I’ll be covering the sure-to-be-sneaky activities over the summer as well, so stay tuned to the OC for your weekly entertainment.

Last week I stumbled across a gathering of Tea-Baggers on the streets of Eugene.

I didn’t bother to stay too long, but here is some quick photo coverage of the event.

Melinda Grier the attorney in the middle of the Mike Bellotti pay out scandal is on her way out, and she is not leaving for ESPN. The controversy started when Bellotti resigned from the Athletic Director position after nine months on the job to become a college football analyst for ESPN. When Bellotti left he received a very healthy compensation package of $2.3 million or around $255,555 for each month as Athletic Director.

The outcry over a public institution paying millions of dollars in what is being called a “handshake deal” has become a source of controversy for the University of Oregon.  The deal was negotiated orally but never formally, written down or signed, similar to wagers one would make  a golf course only a million times more money. The UO is claiming that the compensation will come from the Athletic Department’s well endowed private donors.

Now the UO has a interm Athletic Director, no head basketball coach for it’s  new $200 million dollar arena and no general counsel. What a year to become president Mr. Lariviere!

Bored over this summer, the Oregon Commentator decided to have a little fun in preparation for a terrible, soul-crushing elections season. We decided that the most logical choice of action was to register the name “Student Insurgent” as a non-profit magazine in Lane county through the Oregon Secretary of State’s Corporation Division.

We’ve had it posted on craigslist in the barter section for quite some time, but have yet to receive any e-mails in response. We decided we’d put it here and get a little interest going.

As the ad says, we are open to trades or cash for the naming rights to a magazine called the “Student Insurgent” in Lane county.

What’s your best offer?

In a recent press release to the Elections Committee and general student body, Tony Mecum announced the creation of the Students for Responsible Government. SRG, according to Mecum, is “a watchdog group to monitor campaign promises and rules by creating awareness about this year’s student government elections.”

Mecum, who resigned today from the EMU board, declares that he is tired of the elections being a “giant circus show” and that “for too long have special interest groups poisoned the democratic free allocation process.” He plans to wage this ASUO war with “every constitutional power granted to free paying members of this association.” The group is “nothing short of excited” and has received support from leaders across campus, according to Mecum. SRG is looking forward to the coming weeks, and is already analyzing wire tips.

Well all I can say is that it’s hight time that the UO finally has a group to keep an eye on the ASUO. Despite their stunning effectiveness as a governing body, you never know when the ASUO might misallocate hundreds of thousands of dollars to some kind of shady lobbyist group, or potentially break constitutional law. It’s great that we have upstanding men people in our student body willing to speak out against these abuses. I can rest easy tonight knowing that though ASUO elections loom on the horizon, Mecum and his group “are committed to this cause. Justice will be served.”

May the ASUO fear this face.

According to a Tomcat article published in the Emerald on Friday, the ASUO Elections board — the same that threatened the Commentator with punishment for Cpt. Peter Freedom Lesiak’s poster – decided against doing so late last Thursday night “unless a student formally files a complaint against him.”

Of course, any student filing a complaint against Lesiak would have to take into consideration that all of the other presidential candidates have had posters on this website as well. Twice. Since Lesiak did not post his flyers under his own volition, filing a complaint against Lesiak would require filing a complaint against all the other candidates as well.

Of course, the real lesson here is that the ASUO Elections Rules have some pretty asinine provisions. Coupled with vague language, the rules that punish candidates for separate entities actions is fucking stupid. Glad to hear the ASUO Elections Board came to their senses.

A new issue of the Oregon Quarterly is out, most notably with an article by Managing Editor Ross West about the Oregon Commentator’s By the Barrel: 25 Years of the Oregon Commentator.

There’s some great quotes in there, and overall the article is pretty positive. You can check out the digital issue of the Oregon Quarterly here or pick it up in person at the Duckstore.

I should take this time to remind you that By the Barrel: 25 Years of the Oregon Commentator is still only $10.

I read a really terrible letter to the editor this morning from a pro-OSPIRG supporter. Anne Ward is the author of the letter, and tries to refute the claims that “saving the world” isn’t a good use of student tax money.

“Why can’t $1.90 go to “saving the world,” if that’s what a significant portion of students desire?”

Of course, no one has shown any proof that paying that $1.90 is something that a majority of students desire. You could even argue (although methodologically it may be subject to questioning) that the majority of students are against OSPIRG based on the votes of their elected representatives in the ASUO.

In the “significant portion of students” I am sure that Ward is referencing the petition signatures that OSPIRG has gathered in the last few months. Of course, such signatures are subject to scrutiny, as Sen. Demic Tipitino remarked at the last ACFC meeting for OSPIRG, “I watched one of your petition gatherers one day. I saw her fill up an entire side of a sheet of signatures without once turning it over to the other side so that the people signing it could read what they were signing.”

Ward goes on to “inform” students of the changes OSPIRG has made in their lives.

The accomplishments OSPIRG has been able to achieve for students are incredible. They’ve signed over 2,000 faculty across the country to commit to open source textbooks, and have been lauded by congressmen as leaders in reforming the textbook market.

What Ward didn’t tell the dear students is that only one UO professor has signed up for open source textbooks. But the number “1″ looks pretty shitty compared to “2000 across the country.” Here’s where OSPIRG’s arguments get difficult. With all the of the factors, nationally, that go into making textbook prices rise or fall, it’s impossible for OSPIRG to say that they directly influenced it in a manner that is an efficient return on student money. The statement is overly broad and does not take into account the hundreds upon thousands of factors nationally and worldwide that effect such things.

Ward ends her argument saying she’d gladly pay the extra $1.90 for such “good” things to happen. Of course, Ward isn’t pledging her money, but asking 20,000 students to pledge theirs. And here’s where I see the color of many OSPIRG supporters. They want your money. And they want a lot of it. They can’t work with some smaller amount and alter their model at all — they just want the whole thing. That’s the kind of inflexibility — really, the inflexibility of vision — that made it possible for the ACFC to tell OSPIRG “No.” So why not an attitude of “anything can help” or “we will work with what we’ve got”? For that, I only have one answer in the form of an example.

At the first ACFC meeting for OSPIRG back in February, a fiery CJ Ciaramella asked a rather pointed question to the all-OSPIRG crowd, “So OSPIRG does all these great things right? They’re saving the world? And they don’t have any funding, right? So how many of you here today have donated, privately, to OSPIRG?” With a crowd of about 35 pro-OSPIRG people, only 3 people raised their hand–two OSPIRG employees and a Lane student.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” said Ciaramella.

In what was a meeting that could have put any insomniac to sleep, the ASUO was able to get through more actual business than they have in recent weeks. 

• UO Forensics received funding for their end of the year tournaments. 
• HKSA received funding for their upcoming Hong Kong Appreciation night event. The menu looks fantastic by the way, I will be attending based on that fact alone. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the ASUO ticketing office. 
• The Take Back The Tap resolution was passed and will be voted on by the rules committee next senate meeting. 
• The EMU board came in to to have it’s budget passed. It will cost 4.8 million dollars next year of the ASUO’s budget to maintain the EMU this is up $225,000 from last year’s budget. 
• Included in the EMU’s budget will be the Bike Loan Program which will receive permanent funding for the first time ever. If you are unfamiliar with the Bike Loan Program it is a program that allows students to rent bikes for a small fee, I believe it is a $60 deposit. Pretty much it’s a free bike for the term if you do not break it or lose it. Great program overall, if you don’t have bike next year I strongly urge you to take part in this program. 
• PFC came in to present their spending model which was approved. The ASUO lowered the total budgets of the 110 programs by .81%. Fiscal conservatives rejoice! That means they will not have to have repeat PFC sessions to reevaluate budgets, AKA we still have a stripper pole line item. Which will be used in our eventual long term goal of sending a OC member to the Olympics. 

Overall it was a tame meeting. No out bursts, one silly hat, and a great job the PFC.

There was a letter to the editor in Monday’s Emerald signed by members of the Climate Justice League (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Heart!) denouncing the ACFC’s recent decision not to fund OSPIRG. In part, the letter said:

“Although OSPIRG provided all of the materials and information the committee asked for, ACFC never clearly articulated a reason to not fund OSPIRG, except a vague sense of uncertainty.”

Of course, those who have read anything about the ACFC’s decision understand that the ACFC clearly outlined why they decided not to fund OSPIRG. Even more surprising is that many of the signers of the letter — including Sen. Jeremy Blanchard — attended the meeting and heard the ACFC’s reasons in person. A response was printed yesterday, signed by ASUO Senate President Nick Gower and Sen. Demic Tipitino (in addition to many others, including myself) that said:

“The problems with OSPIRG were clearly articulated, and they have been for years. OSPIRG sends student money off campus to pay non-students to lobby for issues that have little relation to the University of Oregon campus. Additionally, OSPIRG’s system is structured in a manner that partial funding would make the organization ineffective and an even greater waste of student dollars.”

Do the Planeteers need this outlined again? Let’s go “bulletpoints” on this one, shall we?

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Ryan McCarrell shows the ACFC just what a complete, condescending prick he is.

Last night’s ACFC meeting was another long, boring 3 hour affair in which an all pro-OSPIRG attendance–save for myself and Sen. Demic Tipitino–tried once again to get the ACFC to fund OSPIRG as a contracted group.

The night began with a slip-up by OSPIRG member Tara Celentano. Celentano was trying to answer a question regarding student involvement with OSPIRG when she said, “I joined a month ago and I’ve already met 30 people. When I’m down in the Survival Center, I meet new people from OSPIRG every day.”

ACFC Chair Alexander McCafferty responded with, “I don’t want to be nit picky, but it was my understanding that OSPIRG no longer was allowed to do business in the Survival Center.” Celentano stuttered that she still hung out there, obviously recognizing her mistake. At that point in time, Sen. Tipitino choked on his Fire n’ Spice from laughing.

Things got sticky during public testimony, as Ryan McCarrell (above) got all fireside chatty with the ACFC and pulled his chair right up to the ACFC’s table. The meeting was held in Fenton 110, a classroom that seats probably about 100 people. McCarrell made a complete ass of himself, and in my opinion, was incredibly condescending to the ACFC. McCarrell was eventually told to move back from the table by ACFC Chair McCafferty.

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Just got a new batch of Sudsy Tees in. They come in Black, Kelly Green and Royal Blue. Sizes are Med-XL. Price of a tee is just $10!

I’m going to put a button on the website here in the next few days so you can use your Mastercard or Visa  (or Paypal) to buy one. In the meantime, if you want to order one, please send an e-mail to us at:

ocomment@uoregon.edu

Members of the ACFC listen to presenters during OSPIRG’s hearing.

Yesterday night OSPIRG went in front of the ASUO’s Athletics and Contracts Committee. OSPIRG’s members went through a presentation talking about all the “wonderful, amazing and good-hearted” things OSPIRG does. There were some particularly ridiculous moments. One Lane Community College OSPIRG member (I have no idea why they were there) said during public testimony, “If there was no OSPIRG, there’d be dead whales all over the ocean.” Immediately to my right, CJ Ciaramella had to give him a knock.

Of the people who spoke during the public testimony portion, only three of them were against funding OSPIRG’s current request–Me, Lyzi Diamond and CJ Ciaramella. In part, Diamond’s testimony quoted from a Matt Petryni opinion column that appeared in the Daily Emerald in 2008, “More than two-thirds of its ASUO stipend goes not to campus work, but to staffers in Portland, Ore.”

I also highlighted the point that the issue at hand, as it always has been with OSPIRG, is not whether they do good things. It is merely the proper use of student funding. Further, OSPIRG’s budget accounts for $103,000 to paid employees, $70,047 on non-student, non-campus employees alone. I noted that over 60% of their budget directly says that it does not go to students, and that responsible fiscal oversight by the ASUO was not possible with OSPIRG’s current funding model.

One awkward moment happened immediately after I spoke, as I saw CJ Ciaramella outside, and motioned to him. He didn’t see me, so I walked to the door to go get him. A man, probably in his 50s, stopped my as I walked by. His name is Paul Tanner and he is a student at LCC. He asked me, “Are you leaving?” To which I replied no, I was merely going to get CJ. He then told me that, “Because if you get up there and make a statement like that, you damn well better sit here and listen to what others have to say.”

At that point, I removed his hand from my shoulder and told him, “Don’t ever fucking talk to me like that again.” I got CJ, came back inside, and stopped by Tanner to reiterate how he was to speak to me. By the way, the meeting lasted about 3 hours. After about hour 2, I could no longer find Paul Tanner in the room, and he was indeed gone before the meeting ended. Thanks for staying, Paul.

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