Senate cancels meeting
Yesterday, ASPSU Vice President Joe Johnson decided to cancel the senate meeting, after discussing various possible violations holding the meeting might have incurred.
According to Johnson, the meeting agenda was only posted on the senate listserv, which is available to anyone online at www.lists.pdx.edu/aspsu_senate/current/ and is sent to anyone registered to receive messages posted to the listserv via e-mail.
More than enough senators showed up to meet quorum and hold an official meeting, but Johnson and other members of ASPSU were concerned that the listserv agenda posting did not adequately provide enough public notice and that holding a meeting would create violation-related problems down the road.
The agenda was posted well in advance, last Thursday, May 22. The ASPSU constitution only requires 48-hour notice, although that posting must include the time and location of the meeting, as well as the meetings agenda.
ASPSU President Amara Marino urged Johnson to just cancel the meeting.
Some senators were upset that the meeting was cancelled.
Former senator Michael-Sean Kelley felt that there could have been reasonable argumentation in favor of a meeting because the ASPSU constitution does not specify where the agenda should be posted.
Sen. Matt Wallace was “displeased” with the decision.
Johnson’s decision ultimately to cancel the senate meeting was preceded by another cautious move.
At last week’s meeting, the senate voted to suspend the rules and approved several appointments to the senate and to the Evaluation and Constitutional Review Committee.
However, in an e-mail sent to the senate listserv, Johnson stated, “There seems to be some ambiguity with the suspension of the rules from the meeting, and I want to cover all of our bases, so we will be re-confirming people at this meeting as old business. I just want to be sure that we do not have to go back and redo these things months from now, undoing everything in the meantime.”
Those appointments were still on the agenda for yesterday’s meeting.
The senate plans to hold it’s regularly scheduled meeting next Wednesday afternoon.
