At the last St. John’s Senate (SJS) meeting of the year, Emily Reznecheck and Emily Masters of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) aired their complaints with senate leadership over late expense approvals.
“We’ve had a lot of hurdles to jump,” Reznecheck said.
Reznecheck, the president of SIFE, spoke of problems her club has had with approval of their expense requests. SIFE won its regional competition in March and is now looking to book hotel rooms in Minneapolis for its next competition. Reznecheck said it took two and a half weeks for its expense request to be approved by its auditor. By that time, the hotel block was gone and the club must now pay more than it would have when it first requested the funds.
“The senate is here to help students, not hinder them,” Reznecheck said. “We’re not here asking for money. I just think it’s an issue that should be brought to your attention.”
SJS President Emmanuel McDonald apologized on behalf of the senate.
“We’re going to have an exec board meeting where we can discuss this and possibly bring an ethics violation against the senator.”
Sen. Brian Kohout is SIFE’s auditor.
Ethics complaint
Before it looked at the night’s motions, the SJS heard an apology from Sen. Joe Gair for an ethics violation. Gair was charged with nonfeasance regarding his position. Gair expounded on his shortcomings as the public relations representative, saying he had not sent out senate e-mails in a timely manner, had not updated the website and had not always responded to personal e-mails.
“I would like to apologize to the entire student body first and foremost,” Gair said. “When I came into the senate, I had these ideas about how the senate doesn’t do anything for me and now look.”
Gair also apologized to the chair of his board, Sen. John Gervais, to Jessey Niyongabo for not helping with this year’s three special elections and to McDonald for not helping him lead the senate.
Gair also addressed next year’s senators.
“Don’t think that your personal things are more important than this obligation,” Gair said. “You’ve taken up the highest elected office on this campus. You have tremendous leadership next year — seize it.”
Three motions passed
The SJS passed three motions in its final meeting. The first allocated $540 to Phi Beta Kappa to pay for chapter dues and membership fees. It gave 20 Johnnie T-shirts to Fiesta Mexicana!, a program that will be on campus this weekend for disadvantaged Hispanic youth in St. Cloud. It also passed an altered version of a motion to allocate $280 to the Housing Policy Taskforce to buy gift cards as prizes for the SJS housing survey. The SJS deemed the original amount to be too much and passed a version instead giving $100 to buy one $50 gift card to the bookstore, one $25 gift card to Chipotle and one $25 gift card to Best Buy. The housing survey is to be sent out no later than today.
Motion to adjourn
In its final motion of the night, the motion to adjourn, several senators objected. This prompted a roll-call vote. In the end, the motion passed 16-0-1 and the senate adjourned.