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KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 2010 / NEWS /
Mia Iverson/KANSAN
Student Senators discuss fee changes for the next academic year. Student Body President Mason Heilman decided to back down from his stance about funding for The University Daily Kansan that is dispersed by Student Senate. Funding for The Kansan will remain the same.
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abstaining, in favor of legislation that didn't include a cut.
This year, the $4 campus media fee went through the Student Media Board, which then allocated the funds to The Kansan, KUH-TV, KJHK, Kiosk and KU Filmworks.
strated a conflict of interest between The Kansan and Senate.
Student Senator Tom Cox proposed an amendment to the original bill, Cox, a graduate student from Shawnee, proposed to remove the $1.70 allocated to The Kansan from the $4 campus media fee and place it under the newspaper readership fee as a separate Kansan subscription fee.
"I think that by putting the subscription fee under newspaper readership then there isn't a board determining what the fee is going to be," Cox said. "I believe this creates less oversight and less conflict of interest. We need to keep this fee under the review of Student Senate, but we need to keep ourselves as separated as we can from it."
Student Body President Mason Heilman opened the media fee discussion by standing by his proposal to eliminate the financial relationship between The Kansan and Senate. He said The Kansan's coverage and editorial commentary of his proposal had contained several misconceptions.
The bill also includes a $4 increase to the student health fee, which goes to Watkins Memorial Health Center; a $2.25 increase to transportation operations; and a $0.35 increase to SafeRide and SafeBus.
"Now after a full month of being railed on by a media outlet, which has a near monopoly on coverage of events at this University, I have a chance to publicly give background and clarify some pervasive misconceptions that have been relentlessly promulgated by The Kansan," Heilman said.
However, he backed down from his original stance pledging to veto any legislation that continued to contain student fee funding to The Kansan.
He maintained that they oversight by the Student Media Board demon-
"This is an issue that needs to be resolved by the Student Senate here tonight, and I will respect and abide by the decision you all make," he said.
Stephen Montemayor. The Kansan's editor in chief, said he was pleased with Senate's decision.
"We will continue to provide readers the content and quality they have come to expect, and we can continue to be able to provide our staff with the professional experience members of a student organization should reasonably expect," he said, "labeling the fee a subscription fee is consistent with what we have maintained it to have been all along."
Edited by Sarah Bluvas
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it never thought it would get the money for it. She said she had worked with many departments on campus to make the project possible including design and construction management and facilities operations.
The money that Senate approved Wednesday evening will be added to $50,000 already provided by the chancellor's office and $17,000 in alumni donations.
"I'm not going to stop smiling tonight," Allen said. "I'm just so excited because it's been such a collaborative effort."
Siler said the lake wouldn't have to be dredged for another 100 years as long as the University follows through on its plans to invest $200,000 in new reservoir basins along Memorial Drive. The basins would collect about 99 percent of sediment from flowing down the hill and into the lake, which caused most of the sediment buildup, he said.
"It was time. We had the money, and it was supported unanimously," Siler said.
Edited by Ashley Montgomery
STUDENT SENATE
The official Student Senate ballot was released Wednesday with Envision candidates Ross Ringer and Devon Cantwell on it, although they were disqualified. They will stay on the ballot pending their appeal to University Governance.
Envision candidates on ballot pending appeal hearing
Ringer, a sophomore from Prairie Village, and Cantwell, a sophomore from Topeka, turned their petition in late and were disqualified for it on March 25 after an elections commission ruling.
Courtney Brax, hearing board chair, and Lewicki filed the commission's response to the appeal last week. In it, Lewicki and Brax wrote, "Failure to meet the deadline alone was enough in itself to disqualify the candidates."
Elections Commissioner Jessica Lewicki said at the time of the ruling that the hearing was called only to address the late signatures, but later, when the commission started to look at the signatures, members noticed discrepancies and decided that Envision had committed a bigger offense.
Envision's appeal cited the candidates' behavior as a minor offense according to election code.
"Given that the code defines failure to meet a deadline as a minor offense and thus the lowest possible level of offense, it is unreasonable and unsupported that it would warrant the harshest possible punishment," stated the Envision appeal.
Ringer said he was still waiting to hear about a date for the appeal hearing.
- Annie Vangsnes
See Envision's appeal and the response at kansan.com/documents.