Editor,
I’m glad the Daily Lobo is covering GPSA meetings, even the oh-so-boring and technical Constitutional Convention we held this past Saturday. A special thanks should go out to the 16 GPSA Representatives, and President Lissa Knudsen, who attended and seriously contributed to our efforts to improve our student government.
Unfortunately the Lobo headline, “GPSA set to open council meetings,” gives the impression that open meetings are something GPSA is considering for the first time. In addition, the content of the article blurs several intertwined discussions about cyber meetings and broadcasting meetings into one.
GPSA Council meetings have always been open to the public. What we were discussing, in terms of open meetings, was simply when to pass the GPSA Open Meetings Act Resolution: at the first or the
second meeting of the semester.
This year, the GPSA Council had to meet on the first week of school because our constitution requires that we meet every month and school started on the last full week of August. This got some people thinking that maybe it was unfair to have new representatives vote on something so important with only a couple of days notice – especially since our constitution already covers most open meetings requirements and the recommendations coming out of the convention strengthen those requirements.
As to the discussion reported about audio and video conferencing, it was really two intermingled discussions that were confused together both at the meeting as well as (understandably) in the Daily Lobo article.
The primary discussion had to do with allowing GPSA subcommittees to meet virtually. With the way the language was written, that means conference calls, which would exclude the public from participating. Right now anyone can attend both the GPSA Council meetings as well as subcommittee meetings. If subcommittees were to be able to meet via conference calls, only those in the know would be able to “attend.” That’s just plain wrong – which is why I cast the tie-breaking vote against allowing subcommittees to meet virtually.
There was never a serious discussion of the whole GPSA Council being able to meet virtually. In fact, the Constitutional Convention specifically recommended that members will have to be physically present to achieve quorum.
The side discussion, which was not on the agenda because it did not pertain to proposed changes to the GPSA Constitution, was about broadcasting GPSA Council meetings. This issue has come up before and previous administrations decided that GPSA can’t afford to broadcast its meetings. If someone could come up with a cost-free way to do so, I would jump at the opportunity, but right now we can’t afford the equipment or the camera operators.
In the meantime, giving prompt, adequate notice and keeping physical meetings open to everyone will serve our public well.
Danny Hernandez
GPSA council chair
