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The Outreach Assembly Ballot Measure will be decided by the UC Davis voters in the Winter 2007 ASUCD election.

Yes Campaign Executive: Kevin Powers

Statement:

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No Campaign Executive: Steve Ostrowski

Statement:

Fellow Students,

I am submitting this statement so that you may make an informed decision when it comes to the Outreach Assembly. I am going to provide reasons which will hopefully convince you to vote no on the Outreach Assembly.

The Outreach Assembly has the realistic potential for corruption and one slate dominance that will ultimately destroy competitive elections and end democracy in ASUCD as we know it. The Outreach Assembly will be composed of 12 appointed positions and a Speaker who will command the 12.

The Outreach Assembly Speaker will be appointed by the ASUCD President, ASUCD Vice President, ASUCD Senate President Pro Tempore, Director of Campus Outreach and Organizing Office, and the Chair of the Internal Affairs Commission. All of these positions without exception are under the control of LEAD. Thus it can realistically be assumed that the Speaker will be a LEAD affiliate.

The remaining 12 appointed Outreach Assembly members will be hired by the same committee and will also be LEAD affiliates. In this way the Outreach Assembly will be under the control of one slate.

The mission of the Outreach Assembly is to outreach to various areas of UC Davis society. There are 12 appointees for twelve different sections of society whether it be ethnic, religious, environmental, fraternity, charity, etc groups on the campus. However, LEAD will use these paid position appointees to campaign all year long to all groups on the campus.

In other words LEAD will use money from your student fees to appoint 12 cronies to campaign year long the politics of LEAD in order to achieve donations, political influence, endorsements, and ultimately votes. By doing so LEAD hopes to further its control over the campus and eliminate political competition.

If this plan is put into place then other competing parties will not have the ability to compete with LEAD’s $1500 slate machine as well as 13 paid LEAD officials outreaching to clubs on the campus. Competition will die, people will stop voting, and students will lose faith in ASUCD. This is simply a power grab on the part of those who authored this legislation.

I have seen this same trend in the commissions and it will occur in the Outreach Assembly. Officials are more likely to pick their friends then those who are truly qualified. It would be equally unfortunate if another slate came into power and manipulated the Outreach Assembly towards their aims.

Furthermore the Outreach Assembly’s original purpose was not to outreach at all but to make the arrogant assumption that the 13 appointees would “represent” every section of society. In other words ASUCD would appoint people to represent you without you voting them into office.

Its purpose was also to spend a considerable amount of money to give out money to particular groups not unlike the Senate. With LEAD in control of the Outreach Assembly they hoped to use the Assembly to buy off support by funding groups most aligned to them. They had hoped to dissolve Club Finance Council, the LEAD campaign manager James Schwab who is the Director of the Campus Outreach Office wanted to dissolve the Club Finance Council and replace it with this Assembly.

Thus instead of a non-biased board overseeing the Club Finance Council the politically strong and well connected would always get the funding. This was their plan until saner members of various commissions stop them.

The same people who came up with this ideas are also the very same that were in charge of the Campus Outreach Office, which by the Director’s omission was a failure. The reason for this Outreach Assembly is also personal. ASUCD members are embarrassed that there is such low voter turnout and they think this program will give them more legitimacy. It’s all about personal pride and their willing to disturb the perfect balance within ASUCD to do it.

Now, there is an alternative and it’s called an ASUCD Congress. This Congress would have club presidents becoming congressional representatives and would allow representatives to vote on ASUCD issues. It would essentially give clubs on campus a way to affect change in ASUCD with their votes. This was the idea of Spencer Higgins and Jonathon Sanders before they voted against a seriously flawed Outreach Assembly.

Before we can begin to create the ASUCD Congress we need to have this Constitutional Amendment defeated. We need to send a message to ASUCD that we will not allow our fees to be used in such a way that it funds that of political campaigns.

Vote No on Outreach Assembly

See: ASUCD Constitutional Amendment 16

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2007-02-05 02:38:19   Steve, just because you got fired does not mean their is a campus-wide conspiracy against you. —JamesSchwab 2007-02-05 02:50:01   Not a conspiracy, all reality. —SteveOstrowski

Lets apply the razor, which is more likely, a coordinated effort with n people working in a relatively organized fashion in order to somehow make your life difficult/defame you/et cetera, or a near n number of individuals who are reacting to in such a way to you or something you do or say. Given the universal trend to chaos, the latter is more likely, unless I missed some meetings somewhere, however Steve, this is not a bad thing, this means there is an identifiable source of these problems, and hence these problems can be prevented and perhaps your situation reversed. People don't hate you, they are just annoyed with you. ~Dave

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2007-02-05 13:26:17   This Constitutional Amendment has nothing to do with me personally. —SteveOstrowski