NEWS
SSFC fails to post agenda, cancels meeting
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by Taniquelle Thurner
Monday, October 22, 2001
The Student Services Financial Committee cancelled their Monday night budget hearings and decisions because they failed to post an agenda one day in advance, as required by state law.
“Meetings are [public] open records and you need to have public notice at least 24 hours in advance,” SSFC member Matt Modell said.
SSFC chair Lamont Smith said he forgot to post the agenda.
The groups scheduled to have budget hearings were the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Campus Center; Polygon; and the Rape Crisis Center.
The College of Agricultural Life Sciences Student Council, the Campus Women’s Center and Sex Out Loud were all on the agenda to have budget decisions at the Monday meeting. However, these decisions, as well as the hearings for the other groups, were postponed.
The groups scheduled for hearings and decisions were told about the cancellation late in the afternoon, but before the meeting.
“I got a phone call at about 4:30 p.m. telling me the meeting was cancelled, but they didn’t give me a reason,” said Vicki Bomben of the Campus Women’s Center.
Several SSFC members said they were similarly uninformed about the meeting’s cancellation and still showed up.
“We were never informed that the meeting was cancelled,” Matt Modell said. “It was the job of [SSFC chair] Lamont Smith to post this agenda, and it was very irresponsible of him not to do so. He has very few duties to attend to before each meeting, and he failed even the simplest of these duties.”
SSFC chair Lamont Smith refuted Modell’s claims.
“Matt Modell was contacted by [SSFC member] Scott Specter via voice mail,” Smith said. “It was an unfortunate occurrence that the meeting was cancelled, but I did make a valiant attempt to contact everyone. For several of the parties involved, this actually worked out better. Sometimes these things happen.”
Smith said the hearings and decisions for these groups have been very tentatively rescheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 31.
—Michelle Orris contributed to this report.
