Council Clippings Senate and House

The Graduate Student Senate held a lengthy meeting Tuesday, passing five bills after extensive discussion.

The largest bill passed by the graduates was an allocation of $20,000 to the Student Center Programs Council to help cover Sting Break artist fees. According to organization representatives, this year's Sting Break will be accompanied by charity events, and this charity affiliation has allowed for a significant increase in artist cachet.

Despite the organization's expectation to get a substantial discount on artist fees thanks to the charity involvement, more funds are still needed to secure the presence of an artist. The $20,000 request will go towards paying that fee.

Kasi David, graduate student body president, spoke out in support of the bill.

While nearly all of the other senators supported the bill, several of them also expressed concerns about the event.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Senator Pelham Norville spoke at length about his past experience with organizing concerts, delineating his numerous issues with hosting the event outdoors in Yellow Jacket Park. He expressed his belief that it would have been more affordable to host the concert at an indoor facility due to lower staging, security and other costs.

Despite this concern, however, he said he supports the bill and requested that his suggestions be considered next year.

After the prolonged discussion period, the bill passed by a wide margin.

The senators also addressed two bills that were tabled last week.

The first of the two bills, a joint allocation to the Freshman Activities Board and Culture Tech to run Cultural Extravaganza (an event set to run concurrently with Culture Tech's food fair), was tabled last week because it requested a significant sum of money and did not enumerate the items on which it would be spent.

The bill was rewritten to address those failures and resubmitted at a new total of $423. The details revealed, however, that several of the organizations requested funds for food, a violation of Joint Finance Committee (JFC) policy. The senators removed the food items from the bill, trimming the total to $360, and proceeded to pass it.

The other tabled bill from last week did not share the same fate, however. The bill, requesting money for a March 7 Culture Tech performance at the Ferst Center, failed to pass in its second attempt.

SGA has an agreement with the Ferst Center that stipulates rental costs for the facility will be covered automatically for any student organization hosting an event that is expected to draw over 500 students.

The organizers of the Culture Tech performance expected only approximately 100 attendees for their event, falling far short of the 500-student mark.

Senators felt that though there may have been some miscommunication between the organization and Ferst Center staff regarding the funding requirements, SGA should not be responsible for picking up the bill.

"The Ferst Center is welcome to try to make amends," said Brandon Yarbrough, a Computer Science senator.

The organization did seek to find a different place to hold its event, but failed to locate another available auditorium by the time of the GSS meeting. The senators reaffirmed their recommendation of an alternate venue before failing the bill by a wide margin.

Since the meeting, Culture Tech followed the Senate's advice and has found a location for the event-it will be held in the LeCraw Auditorium.

The next two bills dealt with requests from the Mars Society at Georgia Tech. The organization focuses on the exploration and study of the planet, as well as public awareness of progress in the field.

The club asked for money to fund a planned trip for a team of researchers to the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. The two-week trip will cost the club approximately $14,000: they asked for $1,400 in one bill and $1,073.40 in another to defray some of the expenses.

According to organization representative John Christian, the team will be the first group composed entirely of students from one university to perform research at the station.

The organization has done a significant amount of fundraising for the trip. Additionally, members will be paying for many of the associated expenses out of their own pockets.

Several senators spoke out in support of the Mars Society's trip, pointing to the group's extensive efforts to minimize the funds they needed to request from SGA as worthwhile reasons to pass their bills. The rest of the Senate agreed and passed both bills, one of them unanimously.

The next bill, moved from new to old business and passed by the senators, was a request for $750 by several clubs to buy broadcast rights for the India-Pakistan Cricket Series, running March 4 through April 9. The bill saw little discussion prior to its passage.