2008 Woodie Awards
Candidates receive 'strike' for using wrong type of tape
CANDIDATE ASKS ABOUT PROPER MOTION FOR 'BS'
Dan Sealana
Issue date: 4/24/06 Section: News
Sunday, May 14, 2006; Posted: 7:52 p.m. PDT
The DASB election committee issued a strike against a presidential candidate for using the wrong type of tape Thursday in a meeting that was not run in accordance with parliamentary procedure.
The committee voted unanimously to strike Matt Egan and running mate Lucia Cytrynowicz after the pair said they would not contest a strike.
Egan and Cytrynowicz had used masking tape, but the election code requires candidates to use blue painters tape.
During the meeting, the committee conducted business despite not always having quorum, said committee member Jordan Eldridge. Without having quorum, or half of all committee members present, a public committee is not legally allowed to conduct business. Additionally, parliamentary procedure and the Brown Act were not being followed during the meeting, Eldridge said.
"When the discussion was ended and the vote was taken, [discussion] kept going for a long time," said Eldridge.
According to parliamentary procedure, discussion cannot continue after a vote has been taken.
"My problem is that the election committee [needs] to follow the rules, and that includes parliamentary procedures and the Brown Act, which the committee has failed to do so far," said Eldridge.
DASB advisor John Cognetta advised the committee that not following parliamentary procedure could open them up to legal action and possibly jeopardize the legality of the election, according to Egan.
After striking the pair, the committee voted 3-1 to publicize the strikes. Various members of the committee had reservations about publicizing the strikes.
"The code itself is very ambiguous," said committee member Helen Chung.
"I'm fine with publicizing the strikes, but I just feel we should have discussed it before," said Chung, who voted for publicizing the strike.
Committee chair Anna Callahan disagreed.
"The strike system handout distributed during the orientation clearly states that strikes will be publicly posted," said committee chair Callahan in an e-mail to La Voz.
The DASB election committee issued a strike against a presidential candidate for using the wrong type of tape Thursday in a meeting that was not run in accordance with parliamentary procedure.
The committee voted unanimously to strike Matt Egan and running mate Lucia Cytrynowicz after the pair said they would not contest a strike.
Egan and Cytrynowicz had used masking tape, but the election code requires candidates to use blue painters tape.
During the meeting, the committee conducted business despite not always having quorum, said committee member Jordan Eldridge. Without having quorum, or half of all committee members present, a public committee is not legally allowed to conduct business. Additionally, parliamentary procedure and the Brown Act were not being followed during the meeting, Eldridge said.
"When the discussion was ended and the vote was taken, [discussion] kept going for a long time," said Eldridge.
According to parliamentary procedure, discussion cannot continue after a vote has been taken.
"My problem is that the election committee [needs] to follow the rules, and that includes parliamentary procedures and the Brown Act, which the committee has failed to do so far," said Eldridge.
DASB advisor John Cognetta advised the committee that not following parliamentary procedure could open them up to legal action and possibly jeopardize the legality of the election, according to Egan.
After striking the pair, the committee voted 3-1 to publicize the strikes. Various members of the committee had reservations about publicizing the strikes.
"The code itself is very ambiguous," said committee member Helen Chung.
"I'm fine with publicizing the strikes, but I just feel we should have discussed it before," said Chung, who voted for publicizing the strike.
Committee chair Anna Callahan disagreed.
"The strike system handout distributed during the orientation clearly states that strikes will be publicly posted," said committee chair Callahan in an e-mail to La Voz.
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