Western Front - 1986 April 22

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The Western Front
VOL. 78, NO. 22 WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, BELLINGHAM, WA TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1986
Accusations fly
as motions tossed
Ward accused of
creating schisms
By Paul Swortz
staff reporter
Accusations of being "damned
militant" and trying to create a
"schism" were directed at
Yvonne Ward, Associated Stu­dents
legislative liaison, during
an outburst by an administrator
on the University Services
Council.
Ann Heaps, of the counseling
office, made the accusations
against fellow USC member
Ward during the council's meet­ing
Friday, following some con­fusion
about procedure and state
law.
"I get a gut ache every time I
eome into--these- meetings,"
Heaps said. "You're trying to
make the USC into a schism.
You come into here armed for
battle and we just want do what's
best for students. You're so
damned militant sometimes, and
we just want to do what's best for
this blankety-blank university."
The controversy arose when
the council was discussing the
membership of a committee that
would make proposals concern­ing
the use of services and activi­ties
fees and currently is called
the S & A Fee-Split Committee.
• In a USC meet- mmmmmmm
ingearly last quar­ter,
the council
decided to put the
charge, member­ship
and other as­pects
of the com­mittee
into writing
to be more specific
about its duties.
The proposal at
Friday's meeting
was put together by Ward be­cause
"No one else was doing it."
Four students, selected by the
AS Board of Directors, would sit
on the committee in concurrence
with state law that requires any
S & A committee to have a stu­dent
government-selected
majority.
These student positions
became the source of the confu­sion
which followed later in the
meeting.
Heaps asked if it would be
possible to allow some students
from other areas to serve on the
committee, since groups such as
housing and dining and Depart-mentally
Related Activities
Council (DRAC) depend on
these funds for support.
Ward informed the council
doing so would,violate state law
since all the students on the
committee must be chosen by the
AS Board.
News
tuition increase
Ward said the reason for this
statement in state law was to
insure the students serving on the
committee would be accountable
to the students of the university,
since the members of the AS
have been elected by their
constituents.
The council discussed the
accountability question for some
time, and Todd Isakson,
director-at-large for university
residences, said he felt the coun­cil
was assuming the AS repre­sentatives
would not be con­cerned
with the other areas
receiving S & A funds.
Heaps then made a motion to
have DRAC and housing and
dining nominate students from
their departments to serve on the
committee, a motion Ward
announced was against thelaw.
Ward made a substitute
motion to have Wendy Bohlke,
Western's assistant attorney gen­eral,
examine the previous
motion for legality and report
back to the council.
A vote was taken to accept the
substitute motion, and it passed
unanimously. After a brief dis­cussion,
the council passed the
s u b s t i t u t e motion, again
unanimously.
Some confusion surfaced
when Heaps moved to have her
original motion accepted again,
even though it
had been replaced
by the substitute
motion.
A vote was
taken, and this
motion passed 8
to 1, with Ward
casting the only
dissenting vote.
Ward told the
council a proced-ural
blunder had been made,
since the original motion could
no longer be dealt with because it
had been replaced by her substi­tute
motion.
"Maybe we need a parlimen-tarian,"
one council member
said.
The council continued the
meeting for another 40 minutes,
but made relatively minor
changes to the proposal.
In an interview after the meet­ing,
Ward said each aspect of her
proposal was written "to give
students control of their money
and that's reflected in the mem­b
e r s h i p , procedures and
guidelines.
"(Heaps) doesn't trust the stu­dents'
ability, then she turns
around and says she has our best
interests in mind. It's just a typi­cal
administrative, paternalistic
attitude and why should 1 be criti­cized
for defending students'
rights?"
A hot performance in VBBS BMWVMMiZM
Minutes, missing memos
confuse legislative council
By Monica White
staff reporter
Improper and unethical
methods were- used to get the
Associated Students Legislative
Agenda endorsed by the Legisla­tive
and Community Affairs
Council, some council members
claim.
"I don't know about legally,
but ethically (AS Vice President
for External Affairs DeAnn Pul-lar,
the council's chair) was out
of line by excluding two (LCAC)
members in order to get her
views passed," said Yvonne
Ward, council member and AS
legislative liaison.
Pullar saw it differently.
"Just because a group makes a
decision on something doesn't
mean they can't look at it later
on," she said. "I didn't feel we
discussed it adequately at the
meeting before."
The confusion started at a
Nov. 12 meeting of the LCAC,
the AS council responsible for
forming policies and positions of
the AS relating to legislative
activities, community govern­ance
and relations, national
affairs and external matters.
At that meeting, the AS-pool
secretary had to leave early, the
majority in attendance said, and
Pullar took the rest of the min­utes.
The council concluded by
approving, the majority in
attendance said, a recommended
AS legislative agenda, with a few
wording changes. Only three of
the five members were present.
The agenda included a
recommendation to establish
and fund an ethnic-minorities
program, to deregulate day care,
to find ways to end family vio­lence
and took stances on
women's issues, supporting
comparable worth, sterilization
and state funding of abortion. It
was this agenda, with a few word­ing
changes, the AS Board gave
final approval Jan. 22.
Motion 'misunderstood'
When the Nov. 12 LCAC min­utes
came out, it read the
approved motion was "to adopt
the legislative changes," and not
"to adopt the legislative package
with the above legislative
changes," as committee member
Robert Chamblee said he
remembers making it.
Pullar said she is unclear as to
exactly what the motion said,
since LCAC's meetings are not
tape recorded, and whether she
was taking the minutes.
"Evidently DeAnn misunder­stood
the motion and recorded it
incorrectly, or she changed it,"
Chamblee said. "I assume she
misunderstood."
Jack Smith, the council's
adviser, said it would have been
illogical for just the legislative
changes to have been approved.
"The changes by themselves
wouldn't really mean anything,"
he said. "And they had to be at­tached
to something.
At the Nov. 13 AS Board
meeting, however, the board
approved the agenda without the
women's-issues section. That
section was to be addressed later.
Controversial meeting
Pullar called a meeting to
rediscuss the agenda, and the
LCAC met Jan. 7. After a
member of the opposition made
a motion to reconsider support­ing
the complete agenda, the
council voted two to one to
retract its support of the
women's-issue section. Pullar
took the minutes.
Much of the controversy
occurred at that meeting.
Ward said she was not notified
about the meeting until just a few
hours before it. This, she said, is
against the rules of the LCAC,
which requires its members be
given 24-hour notice. She was
sick and unable to attend.
Ward said she believes Pullar
excluded her and council
member Kris Skewis, who had a
scheduling conflict, because their
views were opposed to hers. She
also said she did not know the
agenda would be reconsidered.
"If 1 knew the LCAC was
going to reconsider the agenda,"
she said. "1 would have made
every effort to attend."
'Railroaded it through'
"The agenda passed disagreed
with DeAnn's views, so DeAnn
• See PULLAR, p. 2