:: Kerckhoff Journal ::

:: 3.14.2002 ::

Election Board Approved; Andy Gets Blowback


The Undergraduate Students Association Council formerly approved the Election Board Chair and Directors at this week's meeting on Tuesday. The Director is Matthew Kaczermak, formerly of the On Campus Housing Council, and big time pal (as we mentioned earlier) of USAC President Karren Lane. Matt is basically just an appendage of Karren's desire to have a election done her way. No one says that there will be indescrepancies, but Kaczermak told his suboridantes he does not expect any run-offs or initatives on the ballots. Also pressed into service was Kelly Wynn, a cohort of Kaczermak from the Student Fee Advisory Committee last year. Next was Sheila Gallagher, who happens to be a resident assistant in Rieber Hall along with Kaczermak this year. Finally Janelle Tillotson is friends with Matt as well, but also happens to be this year's winner of the Martin Luther King Jr. Oratorical contest. Noticing a pattern? The last is Benjamin Kong, who knows Matthew from OCHC as well. The disconnect is that Lyle Timmerman, the adminstration's representative, attempted to ask each of the designates if they had any affiliation to campus groups. In particular, any groups that would be giving an endorsement this year. Kaczermak obviously has a party affiliation, but he is not tied to any student recognized groups. As for Kelly Wynn, it would appear that she has connections to the African Student Union from obvious reasons, but apparently, either she or Janelle is an officer in a black SAG. When asked if the group was giving an endorsement, Lyle was told that "they were not sure". Lyle is a veteran of campus politics, but strangely a member of the UCLA Outlist. Often he is portrayed as the white oppressor by guys like Elias Enciso and that is all but impossible if you know him. Tillotson is a card-carrying member of the African Student Union, but apparently not an officer. Gallagher apparently is not involved in an SAGs, and Ben, even though he is an Asian man has closest ties to the Jewish groups on campus. Ben is the odd man out in that he sought out the job, whereas the others were recruited by you know who.


Of course, the scandal, if there is any is that President Karren Lane tried to smooth over the appointments without getting Lyle sufficiently interested in matters. Obviously Karren (who was the previous Chairwoman of the African Student Union) is trying to prevent tampering charges. The curious thing is that overall, it is hard to figure just who is going to run out of the Union this year. The Chairman this year is Robert Battles, a 5th student in African American Studies. Robbi Clark, a 3rd year student, maybe waiting in the wings to do something, but otherwise, I have a feeling that the Student Empowerment! slate merely just wants to make sure ASU has the E-Board covered. The other little earthquake was that Matthew Kaczermak alleged that he could not participate in "online voting" because since he had only been appointed in February, there was not enough time to set up a vote online. The curious thing is that Alex Kaplan, Liz Houston's appointed E-Board Chairman made the same argument as to why the Council had to use an online method previously, that in fact online voting is quicker and cheaper. But Student Empowerment! fears online voting because they recongize that other groups forming slates (say the Greeks?) could utilize it to gain greater turnout. Assuming the turnout is high enough, you can expect that the Party will be the one turned out.


And just a little update on the further adventures of Andy Jones. It turns out his editors at the Bruin are less than happy about his appearance on The O'Reilly Factor. Unbelievable, another conservative columnist, Ben Shapiro, apparently is the darling of such libertarians as Larry Elder and sensing this, has tried to go into syndication. Added to the fact that I join the paper's pages as a columnist come April 1, this should be very interesting.


:: Thomas 01:48 [+] ::
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Daily Bruin Lashes Out at OCHC

About five years ago, there was a rift that opened between the Daily Bruin and the On Campus Housing Council. The External Vice President of Rieber Hall, Stefanie Wong, had a responsibility at the paper and allowed a negative article about the Council to be published. Great tumult ensued, and Stefanie ultimately resigned from her post. Ever since that day, OCHC and Kerckhoff 118 have been at odds with each other, either conspiciously or not. However, as mentioned over a month ago...Editor in Chief Timothy Kudo is very, very afraid. I already mentioned that the real reason for the paper's attrition has everything to do with its quality, but this is a new low for Kudo.

Instead of commending the Council for allowing the residents to decide in a referendum, Kudo wants the measure voted down. And if you read through his double-talk, you can understand why he thinks problems will abound. Kudo likes his monopoly on advertising, even though he does not have one. He purports to think that advertising firms targetting college-age people could only use the Daily Bruin for marketing. But alas, this is not the whole story. The Los Angeles Times and New York Times sell subscriptions to students on campus both for on and off campus residents. OCHC merely is allowing the student body to choose if they want to add a newspaper subscription to the cost of each student's housing fees. Strangely though, the student newspaper has never come out against the hawkers that use their space in ASUCLA property and elsewhere. Is this a case of monopoly on ads, or on the tribute paid by publishers to come and sell their papers? Something is definitely missing here, since Kudo fails to mention that OCHC is only providing these newspapers for its residents and not the whole UCLA population.
:: Thomas 22:04 [+] ::
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