This edition of Council Clippings covers the UHR and GSS meetings from Jan. 27, 2009.
Bike Rental Program
Last week’s bill to provide Students Organizing for Sustainability (SOS) with funds to start a bike rental program was postponed over concerns about safety and student demand.
This week Carly Queen, president of SOS, explained that liability issues will be covered by ORGT’s current liability policies.
She also explained that SOS has gotten positive responses for attempting to setup the program. GTRI has expressed interest in renting several bikes for their employees to use around Tech’s campus.
Last week the GSS passed the bill. This week, the UHR passed the bill 31-1-0.
SCUBA trip to Cozumel
The SCUBA Tech student organization asked for $4428 to help pay for travel costs and diving expenses for a 12-person diving trip to Cozumel, Mexico.
The bill hit a few walls of criticism around the overall cost, location and lack of obvious educational benefits.
Several members of both the UHR and the GSS asked the organizational representatives to explain why the SGA was not just funding a vacation. They wanted to know the specific educational opportunities being provided.
The organizational representatives explained that the trip would be an opportunity to teach their members advanced techniques like drift diving and ocean diving.
They also explained that the decision to travel to Cozumel was made because the quality of the dives would be much greater than other locations.
In the GSS, the removed the $1,068 used to pay for travel costs and passed the bill 14-12-1. Aaron Fowler, graduate student body president, later vetoed the bill.
The UHR passed the bill 19-11-2, without any changes. The bill will be sent to conference committee to find a consensus between the UHR and the GSS decisions.
Van Rentals
Student Hospital Connections, a program that lets students volunteer at local hospitals, asked for $1215 to pay for rental vans that would take the volunteers to and from the hospitals.
They explained that the rental polices for Tech vans had changed, and they now needed to go to an outside provider.
SGA finance policy does not allow them to pay for travel that is less than 150 miles from campus. Since the volunteers went to Grady Hospital and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, they did not qualify for the funding.
The UHR and the GSS decided to waive the finance policy. The GSS passed the bill 13-11-2. The UHR passed the bill 27-3-1.
Next Week’s Business
The SGA asked their members to inform their constituents about a resolution condemning the Athletic Association for not renewing their contract with WREK radio and a resolution supporting the end of the Fixed for Four tuition guarantee program.
There was a lot of emphasis made by Kaitlyn Frazier, undergraduate vice president, on making sure the representatives properly educated their constituents about these decisions coming down the SGA pipeline.