Editor,
This letter is to inform graduate and professional students about a petition to recall the GPSA President Joseph Garcia and the rationale behind it. First, I would like to state that this is not a personal attack on Garcia. As GPSA president, he is responsible to the electorate. Also, the recall mode was chosen over impeachment so all graduate and professional students' voices could be heard through a vote for or against the recall of this GPSA president.
As to the points of recall, they are as follows:
First is fiscal mismanagement, including failure to manage the GPSA grant process and oversee the timely dispersal of SRAC and ST awards. This president has failed to account to the council on the status of the grant processes and failed to ensure the timely distribution of GPSA grant funds. The SRAC award letters were 10 days late, and the ST award letters have not, to my knowledge, been sent yet.
Students depend on these grants in order to secure travel arrangements and depend on award letters being distributed within the six-week time limit as stated on the GPSA Web site. In the past six years, these grant award letters have gone out within the stated time limit.
The second reason is Garcia's willful disregard of GPSA Council directives, including failure to hire office personnel as voted by the council three times. Garcia has repeatedly stated that he has not followed through on these directives because he personally does not agree with them. Ignoring previous directives from the council because someone personally does not agree with them is unconstitutional. The directives from the council are binding and should be acted upon by the president.
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Third is misappropriation of GPSA funds, including unauthorized hiring and expenditures and the failure to present a full office operating budget six months into term. This is clearly a lack of financial accountability or transparency. As of Nov. 9, the Student Government Accounting Office reported that Garcia has yet to account for three line items in the general operating budget, including salaries, stipends and the president's expense account. This amount totals $39,000 for the 2007-08 fiscal year.
These are the reasons that have been provided to graduate and professional students when asked to sign the recall petition, although students, while signing the petition, have offered other reasons that are personal to them.
Graduate and professional students are here to get their degrees which includes, among other things, attending conferences and traveling to research sites. GPSA grant funding is an important component of this process. However, Isaac Padilla, the finance chairman, in his letter published in the Daily Lobo on Nov. 14, seems to think that these grants are trivial. Grants may seem trivial to Padilla, but not to students who need the financial support to complete degree requirements.
If you would like to sign the recall petition, please ask your GPSA representative to supply one.
Jason Thomas
GPSA Council representative
