Accusations of absent ASM council members’ self-interest and political motivation passed the lips of both council members and students who were present at last night’s ASM meeting, which adjourned because quorum was not met.

Only 13 of the council’s 30 members were present at the meeting, three members short of the majority needed for the meeting to proceed.

The consensus of many in attendance at the meeting was that the missing council members intentionally boycotted the meeting so important legislation could not be passed.

On the agenda for the evening were the MEChA eligibility hearing, shared governance appointments and the Homecoming event grant.

“I think it was a very strategic move by at least 90 percent of the Badger Party to basically stop the whole process,” Darrell Balderrama, co-chair of MEChA said. “I can understand if people have tests, but today was just ridiculous. It was very obvious what was going on.”

“I don’t know what [the absent council members] have done to represent students,” Pabitra Benjamin, a UW junior in attendance at the meeting, said. “We wanted a healthy dialogue to happen. It seems like they were self-interested. As council members, they are supposed to represent students.”

However, those not present told a different story. Council member Charles Sieb had an accounting exam and was unable to attend the meeting.

“I just couldn’t make it to the meeting tonight,” he said. “I know, at least from my point of view, there wasn’t any other reason [for not attending].”

Steve Weiss, another council member, supported Sieb’s claim. He said he was unable to attend due to an important exam review session.

“It’s midterm week,” he said. “They shouldn’t be passing very important legislation.”

Like Weiss and Sieb, all but three absent council members had excused absences, providing prior warning that they would not be attending the meeting. The three with unexcused absences — Nicholas Lankford, Joe Moschella, and Adam Walsh — were unavailable for comment.

While no one was willing to give reasons for their absence unrelated to school or travel, Dan Dogs, another council member, spoke up at the meeting. He tried to give perspective to angry students and council members as to why the members didn’t attend the meeting.

Dogs admitted he had been approached by some of the absent council members, who wanted him to boycott the meeting. He said they might have had objections to the Shared Governance Committee’s appointment choices, to be approved at the meeting.

“There was a feeling by some that some of the new SSFC members didn’t have much experience with what they’d be representing,” he said. “They felt that the people who were appointed weren’t sincere in wanting to serve on their committee — they just wanted to be on SSFC.”
“It’s a very strong act of division,” Dogs told the room full of people. “We need to do something to bring this together.”