Chair Brandon Williams introduces ASM

http://http://vimeo.com/14762087

Vice chair Adam Johnson introduces ASM

http://http://vimeo.com/14762034

Chair Sam Polstein introduces ASM’s Legislative Affairs committee

The student body government continued working Monday toward providing students amnesty in situations when they or their friends need medical help after a night out drinking.

The Associated Students of Madison’s Legislative Affairs Committee Intern Hannah Somers said she will be meeting with a student and a University Health Services official to discuss implementing medical amnesty on campus.

Medical amnesty would allow students to call for help when they or a friend are in danger because of the effects of alcohol, Legislative Affairs Chair Sam Polstein said.

Somers said right now she is working on researching other schools that already have medical amnesty in place before they bring the idea to the university. She said they then hope to go through the university to talk with the University of Wisconsin Police Department to hear their ideas and concerns.

Dean of Students Lori Berquam expressed interest in the idea when it was brought before her by ASM officials, Polstein said.

“Crafting a university policy with this campaign is going to be a big issue this semester and also moving into next semester,” Polstein added.

The Legislative Affairs Committee also continued their campaign for new leasing legislation that would push back the date landlords could show properties until February instead of the current fall date.

Polstein said the committees will be sending a survey out to students tomorrow to get their opinions on the legislation, adding he met with people from both sides of the housing leasing issue in the past week.

Polstein said he spoke with Ald. Bridget Maniaci, District 2, who originally introduced the legislation, and she will be meeting with several other alders this week to rework the legislation.

He also met with Madison Property Management President Jim Stopple and other representatives from the company to discuss the managers’ concerns with pushing the leasing season back.

Polstein said Stopple told him their properties are sold in waves with the high demand apartments going first, like Grand Central, and then lesser demand properties, like the sophomore slum area, and finally single houses and other properties at the end of the fall semester into the spring semester, with 80 percent of their properties rented by Feb. 1.

Polstein said Stopple added if the legislation was pushed back it would condense all of these waves and their customer service would suffer.

Committee member Neil Chandok questioned if it would really affect their customer service, since he was not impressed with their service when he rented from MPM this fall.

Polstein also added another tenured worker from MPM said it was his experience that tenants who rented later in the rental season were more likely not to take care of their properties.

Polstein said this does not seem right to him and is counter-intuitive to what you would expect.

Committee Member Tim Schaefer said he signed his lease in February of last year.

“Freshman year I signed in February and managed to get a place that was a crap hole and there was nothing nice to take care of,” Schaefer said.