ASUCD Wish List

This page will help in the ASUCD Perestroika. Please list what changes you would like to see, ideas for new units, ideas for units that should be cut, ideas for saving money, ideas for increasing accountability, ideas, ideas, ideas...

Changes to Units

• Pathfinder: This unit's members are mostly effective only supplementing the Student Recruitment and Retention Center (SRRC). Cutting this unit can save much needed cash. Use part of the savings as a grant for the SRRC in order to ensure that no productivity is lost.
• Campus Copies/Classical Notes: Collapse this unit into Creative Media. Start taking orders for the unit's other services (web/graphics design and now computer repair) downstairs with the copies. Save a ton of money by not paying people to just sit there and wait for random orders or to do a print job.The people down there could be working on a web project or a broken computer and can step away for a second in case someone has a question or needs to purchase classical notes. It will also give Creative Media a store front by which it can better advertise itself.

Accountability

• Unit Structure with Controller
• The current system of nearly 30 units being controlled by one person fundamentally fails the basic tests of administrative theory. Simply, the office has outgrown it's ability to function in all the capacities it is asked to function. Divide all 30 units into 3 groups: Advocacy, Student Services, and Commercial units. Then have these units report to executive directors that oversee their functions. This effectively reduces the controller's requirements to oversight of these three super-directors and the budget (still no simple task). That allows these people to be much more thourough in not only putting out fires, but ensuring that they dont pop up in the first place (as seen now with the loss of archives for ASPAPERs and the total implosion of El Rodeo). Paired with this, give these Executive Directors hire and fire abilities to facilitate better management that doesn't require the senate to have to oversee every little problem with each director. Should Executive Directors abuse this power, they can always be the ones that are called into the senate to justify their actions.
• Remove the Student Court. ASUCD is meant to be a business above all, built to serve the students- not as a mini-government playground to amuse certain students who choose to use it as such. If the senate and the executive makes a mistake, they should be the ones to fix it. If they don't, the public can hold them accountable in the next election or start a recall. The Court lacks a real purpose for the most part. Some would argue that it is important for elections. I say that the Elections Committee can handle it- the senate can always oversee the Elections Committee. What other purpose does it serve? Any action would be to merely dig up technicalities concerning past actions. ASUCD is not the same as the federal government, so we should all stop drawing the parallels. Fundamentally, we are not dealing with anything on the scale of people's civil rights and liberties. Other ASUC's in the UC system for the most part don't pretend to have a "Supreme Court." Others, such as ASUCLA, give their legislative branch the ability to override their judicial council (with a 3/4 vote). At a minimum, the senate should have a similar check on our judicial committee. Here are two examples why:
• Rulings such as the most recent ASUCD case #31 were blatantly inspired by biased members of the committee. Members such as Fricke and Harney were very involved in the situation that they were put in a place to make a "supreme" ruling upon. We now know that these members were involved in private negotiations without the presence of a recorder that occurred in the ASUCD Conference room when the senate was in its closed session across the hall (described in detail with Senator Kristen Birdsall's intro to the "open closed session" following the event). Cases such as this one provide dangerous precedent. In this particular case, the court is trying to give itself the ultimate say after a closed session has occurred whether or not the closed session minutes should be released (more specifically after they have the opportunity to edit out whatever they see fit). This has effectively destroyed the purpose of closed sessions. Senators can no longer have an open dialoge about sensitive issues in a legitimate setting. This will simply lead to violations of the Brown Act- with senators carrying on those conversations in the senate office before the meeting- except without the recorder that would normally be recording the closed session. Such violations of public trust are being committed by a group of individuals that are not as responsive to the student body as the elected officers are, leaving little effective ability for those who have been entrusted by the students to be the ones who run ASUCD to keep in check the court's aspirations of giving themselves more power.
• In a controversial decision, the student court met to discuss the Fall 05 elections scandal without quorum. The whole proceding was therefore unconstitutional. The problem was that half of the court had already heard the case and had come up with a pseudo ruling. The court then gave the senate an ultimatum: accept our ruling or else. The problem was that accepting their ruling would mean the senate would violate the constitution. The bigger problem was that the senate couldn't send the issue back to the court after appointing more members because the existing members were now all biased having already given a fake ruling. The saddest part was that the whole thing was due to a technicality that could have been (and ultimately was) corrected by the senate. Further, the drama was being carried on for so long due primarily to the behavior of one of the members of the court (who was also the plaintiff in the case)! This further prevented ASUCD from serving the students. Not having a court would have resulted in the same outcome- just a whole lot more efficiently. If people insist on keeping the court, and the senate is given its much needed override with a 3/4 vote, the result would have again been the same, and again it would have been quicker than what transpired (though not as quick as the previous alternative of not having the court as a problem in the first place).
• I think one sticking issue was the the changing of the rules after the election had occurred. When the Fall 2004 Controversy was occuring, the Senate did not retroactively make it legal for candidates to campaign in the dorms, they simply decided to work to allow it in the future and let the relevant candidates suffer the consequences. That was the correct decision, and the Senate should have followed that precedent in the Fall 2005 Scandal. Instead they rewrote the rules and I would argue denied Jenny Yu and Katie Webber their rightful positions on the Senate. Thomas, I think we can both agree that the most efficient solution would have been for the two relevant candidates to resign their positions when the scandal first broke out, but that did not happen and the resulting solution put forth by the Senate did raise some legal and moral questions that have yet to be answered. In fact, I think that the passage of Senate Bill #36 in Winter 2006 was far worse for ASUCD than any of the known/discussed alleged crimes that the two relevant candidates committed. It's a difference of opinion in how an organization such as ASUCD should work, and to fulfill your vision of making ASUCD a business, I would argue that you should remove elections and instead hire personnel the same way an actual business such as Microsoft hires personnel. If we are to continue elections, I will argue that we need to treat it as a government. - Paul Amnuaypayoat
• Elections Committee
• I would like to see an attempt to ensure that all of the current Elections Committee members do not remain there for next year, and in fact I would like to see some sort of attempt to either remove them through a closed Senate session or a set of forced resignations. All of them are responsible for the mishaps of all of the 2004-2005 elections, and blaming the leader would be insufficient. We need to replace them with people who are fair, unbiased, and who know and understand the rules. - Paul Amnuaypayoat
• They should have a meeting with the university legal counsel before the election season begins, titled, "How not to commit crimes against democracy."

Senate Meetings

• Deferments
• Eliminate deferments as a way of jumping ahead in the speakers list. Senate meetings get boggled down in this freakish recursive chain of XX on the speaker's list deferred to YY who got a question from ZZ and nobody remembers what the hell people were supposed to be talking about. I don't know how to fix this but it's broken. - TravisGrathwell
• You forgot that person QQ can then make a point of order. But seriously, having any kind of discussion at all would be impossible without deferments. - BrentLaabs
• This really still a problem? I know it was, but since time limits and having a better presiding officer, this has gotten a lot better. It's ultimately up to the VP to make sure that deferments are not being abused.
• Pedro Hernandez suggested that ASUCD Senate meetings follow Robert's Rules of Order.
• ASUCD could make decisions based on the consensus process.

Campus Environmental Center

Campus Center for the Environment It was created!!!

Random Ideas

• Aggie Pack -Make them a SPAC group so they have to struggle through CFC funding like the rest of us clubs
• Note: Aggie Pack is not a unit nor controlled by ASUCD. It is a program in the athletic department that is only supplemented in funding by ASUCD. ASUCD's budget includes an on-going grant to the program as a means of providing the program with a "stable" source of revenue.
• Student Police Relations Committee: Aggie editorial
• Note: this was incorrectly listed as a unit and belongs down here.
• I would like to see grass roots organizing classes at the Experimental College. They would not be politically bias, but simply training on how to run grass roots level groups.
• RevChad and I are teaching a class at EC during spring quarter titled "Propaganda: How to Make It and How to Spot It." We should have a lot of good ideas there for everyone. - BrentLaabs
• Extensive and thorough training for Exec Office, Senate, Commission Chairs and Unit Directors on budgets, how to run meetings, rules and conduct. Not just the day or afternoon before the first senate meeting and handing us a binder, expecting us to just know EVERYTHING.
• The Court is supposed to have such training as well (its in the bylaws). It never happens. Court members have been unsuccessfully attempting for the last year or so to bring about this training (and have been left feeling unsatisfied and confused?).
• ASUCD stickers: I know, what a useless, wasteful idea. But wait, ASUCD's image problem could be helped a little if students only knew what they were getting out of the organization. Unitrans buses, the new staplers, and everything else should be plastered with "Brought to you by your friends in ASUCD".
• Pimp out the 24 Hour Reading Room — There's no clock, every sound made echos for all eternity, and the decor is a bit lacking. Adam Barr made an effort to fix it up a bit, but it wasn't just a pet project, it would actually make the room much more usable at a low cost. Some LEAD people also suggested brightening the Griffin Lounge, but then where would we go for naps?
• As far as I understand, they can't put anything of value in the 24 Hour Reading Room because everything gets stolen or defaced. There is no clock because it consistently got stolen. There can't be pictures or murals (as I believe was Adam's goal) because there is no surveillance and it would probably be destroyed. This is what I've been told. —KristenBirdsall
• More chairs and tables at the Coffee House. The senate has been promising this for years.
• Where would they go? There isn't any space.
• Coho Cash is about to hit the scene, finally. Now it's time to kick Sodexho out of the Silo, remove the fast food chains, and bring in some student-run, Coho-style eateries. Fast food sucks, and it's more expensive than the good stuff.
• YES! Kick Sodexho out of the Silo!
• I emailed the Larry Vanderhoef about this about a month ago, and my email was forwarded to Judy Sakaki. I am going to try and see how fesible it is to kick Sodexho out of the Silo. —PhilipNeustrom
• before you go kicking Sodexho anywhere, I suggest you talk to people at UC Santa Cruz. They accomplished such a lofty goal, and then watched in sheer indescribable terror as food prices increased 300 to 400% across the board. -KrisFricke
• They got them out of their Dining Commons. The Silo is different.
• ASUCLA runs their entire union's food part, including the fast food restaurants. I don't see why it couldn't be the same here. Besides, in fast food restaurants, you have to buy your stuff from the franchise anyway. We could just treat the workers better and perhaps unionize. I <3 unions. - BrentLaabs
• ASUCD should take over the silo and kick out the fast food joints, especially since there are plans to build a second quad (the silo quad) there by 2015.
• An idea I've had for a long time is to require Sodexho to no longer have exclusive meal swipes at the dining commons, and instead make them just charge cash/gold plus money/whatever from a Freshman's account. That way if DC food sucks the Freshmen can go on campus and eat that day without really losing anything. There's a reason only freshmen tend to eat at the DC, and there's a reason they complain about it a lot - they're not competing with any of the other on campus meals, because they've got an exclusive contract. I see no reason why we should have to give them one - why can't we give them the privelege of selling at the dining commons in exchange for them doing so in cash, come next contract-negotiation session? If they're unwilling to do it there are plenty of other prison/DC food companies to bring in. This desire to have them compete with on campus places like the Coffeehouse may be why the GoldPlus option was introduced in the first place. - ScottRitchie
• Improve Tipsy Taxi service. How many people are really going to hold for half an hour, drunk, at 1:30 in the morning? This is inviting stupidity, e.g. driving home, or walking 3 & 1/2 miles alone, drunk, in the rain, at 3:30 in the morning, wearing a revealing halloween costume...
• Better Tipsy Taxi would mean more vans and more drivers/phone answerers/dispatchers. Not every driver wants to be driving around their drunk friends all the time, and they do the best they can. It's not an easy solution without hiring more drivers (which Unitrans is trying to do), paying more money to intice workers, and buying more vans in which to do it. Plus, the city of Davis doesn't like the Tipsy Taxi service and has tried to stop it- maybe we shouldn't push it. —ChristyMarsden
• Require that good willed distributed computing projects such as Folding at Home be run on every ASUCD operated desktop computer. ASUCD owns many machines (30+ at The California Aggie, many on the third floor of the Memorial Union, and computers in offices in a bunch of places. It's doubtful that most of these machines are even turned off. At The Aggie, for instance, every computer is always left on. Let these machines at least do something while consuming power.
• Point of clarification: The Aggie owns all of its computers and equipment, as ASUCD doesn't provide it any funds. Creative Media, however, does do its networking, because The Aggie pays for it.

2005-02-26 21:25:37   I would like to see some more chairs in the Wellman study lounge, it's always full even at 6:00 at night. —ScottRitchie

2005-02-27 10:00:55   Yeah the Wellman Study lounge could be made a lot more useful with the addition of a few chairs and desks —JamesSchwab

2005-02-28 20:02:01   The Aggie sold students out with that editorial. "Hold defiant students more accountable"??? What kind of crap is that? Yeah those defiant people of color driving around being pulled over 4 times in one day need to be held accountable. There are appropriate ways to interact with the police, and its called exercising your civil rights. The Aggie editorial is a load of bull, but what do you expect from a paper at a school with no journalism major only an "emphasis". —JamesSchwab

2005-02-28 20:18:56   Yes, a journalism or media department would be nice, especially given the verve we're pursuing AGTV with. It would also be nice if students weren't constantly told from the day they get here that the cops are out to get them — plenty of us have some time being put in our place by a cop here, but when we have the sense not to throw bottles, things go smoothly. This is Davis, not L.A., not Birmingham. ASUCD needs to commit itself to better communication with the city, not through creating more unfocused committees, but by using what's already established. External Affairs is gathering dust already. —EricTalevich

2005-02-28 21:02:08   From what I was told, Health and Well being has NO budget, so you wouldn't be cutting funds. As for merging GASC and HWBC, I think that they cover entirely different realms and HWBC just needs some direction right now. No one came to GASC and asked them their opinion on the matter. —JenndelaVega

2005-02-28 21:15:08   The job of a police officer is to find criminals, arrest them and gather evidence against them. They have no reason to be your friend or help you out. However I also believe that if you commit a crime you should be prepared to do the time-throw a bottle be prepared to go to jail. Unfortunately, those who do not commit crimes are often harassed and injured by the police. Racial profiling is a not just a big city thing, it happens quite often in the city of Davis. Furthermore, the Davis police have recently equipped themselves with new weapons that Amnesty International have described "grave threats to human rights". The city of Oakland has banned the use of such weapons citing the threat of civil rights violations. My fear, along with many others is that these weapons, which can be lethal will be used improperly during a crowd control situation and result in a students death. This has already happened in Boston, Sacramento, LA, and Miami. The Aggie should do some real investing on the issue of police misconduct and racial profiling before it writes an opinion. The new committee is all volunteer (no cost), which a specific goal to discuss student concerns with police officials. How the Aggie could be against a FREE dialogue, that is set to sunset in a year any ways, is beyond me. Basically the Aggie needs to think beyond the "double-secret probation" mentality and address the needs of the people of color grievances have been silenced by the safe party discussions. This is what the committee hopes to address.—JamesSchwab

2005-03-01 00:03:21   At one point HWBC did have funds; at least I was told they did. I thought we asked you Jenn if you would be interested in taking on the some of the role of HWBC. But I guess you don't remember. HWBC is dead weight and it can be better served by programs in Cowell Student Health Center than from ASUCD. However, I'd say sexual diseases are the primary concern for college students, and even drinking is related to sexuality (sadly). Besides, having a little more focus on health makes GASC less open to attack from conservatives. Also, I'd like to increase the GASC budget by 50% (which is still less than a fire truck). Consider this an invitation to discuss more. —BrentLaabs