USF Sarasota-Manatee Student Government Association Legislative Branch 4/12/17 Legislative Branch Members in Attendance: Ricardo Centeno, Edward Becht, Andre Obradovich, Barry Callahan, Jaime Hernandez, Sami Araboghli, Jeanie Ziven, Anthony Alibro, Gustavo Delgado Student Services Members in Attendance: N/A Guest(s): Michael Klene, Judicial Branch Applicant Call to Order: Ricardo calls the meeting to order on April 12th, 2017 at 12:01 PM. Amendments to the Meeting Agenda: o Jeanie moves to approve the agenda o Andre seconds o The motion passes and the agenda for April 12th, 2017 has now been approved Amendments to the Meeting Minutes: o N/A Senate President Updates: The MOU for the Tutoring Budget was created It is a two year contract which will transition SGA out of paying for tutoring Ricardo stresses Committee Transitioning The Budget shall be reviewed next week, April 19th Old Business: o N/A New Business: Michael Klene Interview Michael is sent outside so the Senate can review the questions Chase motions to amend Question 1 to read as How do you plan on creating a barrier between personal and professional business in the workplace? Sami seconds Discussion Jeanie doesn t think those two questions mean the same thing, and instead they could just add onto the question instead of changing it Andre doesn t feel like there s a point in asking the question Anthony suggests using this as a follow up question, since they re related but not the same Sami doesn t think that the questions are related at all The motion is denied, 5-2 Anthony motions to add How do you plan on creating a barrier between personal and professional business in the workplace? as a follow up question to Question 1. Andre seconds The motion passes and the statement How do you plan on creating a
barrier between personal and professional business in the workplace? has been added as a follow up question Jeanie asks if they need to make motions for grammatical issues Andre moves to approve the Judicial Branch questions as amended Jaime seconds Discussion Barry thinks they should get rid of question 5 because it is redundant to Question 4 Sami asks how long the question period will be to ask Michael questions Ricardo says there will be time The motion passes, 5-2. The questions have now been approved as amended Michael is back in for the Interview Q) What is your strategy to remain impartial in dealing with people you know? My strategy to remain impartial is one that I ve kinda built over a long time because I ve been scouting my entire life for leadership positions there. Um, in my time in scouting I ve also served on a lot of boards of discipline- which a board of discipline is when someone does something wrong they will take a few members from the troupe and bring them in and they will be like a board similar to this and kind of interview and talk to the person about what they did and how they feel about it. Um, so my strategy to remain impartial is- is just look at things from a logical level-headed perspective when I m thinking about what happened and really looking at the laws and the by-laws that are in our student government- and judging based on that and how I feel. Because even if I feel differently I can t go against what is written down. Q) Great! And I have a follow up question to that: How do you plan on creating a barrier between personal and professional business in the workplace? A barrier between personal and professional business in the workplace I think for me comes down to um, really having a different persona. So I feel that I can have a professional persona that is very rule oriented and functions based off of that, instead of my crazy self out there playing Smash. Cause I get a little intense out there and I think that I can bring myself down to earth and be level headed when it comes to that. Q) How would you go about resolving conflict without escalating the situation? Without escalating the situation, um As to how? Would this be a conflict that came in as a grievance or an everyday conflict in SGA? Q) Let s just talk about an everyday conflict. So an everyday conflict, I would really deal with it like I had to deal with some in the past, is that I would talk to both parties involved and try to find a common ground between the two, rather than taking and just going with one person. By having that common ground it makes both parties think that they ve been heard and listened to. So I feel like to resolve that conflict there needs to be common ground between the two of them. Q) Have you ever been in a situation when you had to deal with dissatisfied people? If so, what did you do to pacify the situation and what was the outcome? I have been in the situation where I ve had to deal with people who are very very upset and conflict resolution is a skill that I feel like I ve
honed through the years, um, I ve become very good at. It ended up working well- there was a situation between two different members that felt like there was one way to run something and the other felt the exact opposite way to run something. And in order to get that, like I said before, just came down to making sure that they had been heard and finding a common ground between both of their arguments, and really trying to make the most of it- even if one was not necessarily more correct than the other, but even if one had a better strategy to make more people feel included in the organization. Q) Why do you think the Judicial Branch is the best fit for you within Student Government? I think the Judicial Branch is the best fit for me within Student Government because I have the ability to look at things with a level clear headed perspective and really analyze -and I do a lot of it myself- is I will analyze and look at myself and go: Okay. Is this okay? Should I be doing this? And I feel that ability to even look in on it myself will translate well to other members when dealing with other conflicts and trying to impartially judge. So I feel that having that ability makes me best suited for Judicial rather than the any other branches. Q) Why are you interested in being considered for a position within the Judicial Branch, and how will the experience benefit you if you are selected? (What do you hope to get out of this experience?) I m interested in becoming a Justice because I really see that even when you talk to people inside of this Student Government office or even in the Student Commons is- well, you see a lot of people going: The Judicial Branch? They only handle parking tickets. They really don t do much. I don t believe that s true. I believe the Judicial Branch has the capacity to do a lot of things. They can provide Judicial review, for example. They can take a look at the by-laws and make sure that everything is going well in Student Government. And I really wanna be a part of Judicial so I can take and work with the incoming Solicitor General and the incoming Attorney General and then really strengthen Judicial s position in dealing with more than just impeachment and Parking tickets. Because Judicial can deal with conflicts and provide ruling over these different conflicts that arise, instead of just impeaching someone. They can provide a form of not necessarily punishment but a form of people being held accountable for their actions. So that s really why I want to become a Justice. Q) If there was a trial in which the removal of a Student Government member would be the best course of action not only for SG, but for the entire student body as a whole, would you vote for removal of said member if there was insufficient evidence to do so? I don t think I would. Um, actually I definitely wouldn t because if there was not enough evidence to go by, even if I felt that they were not suited for the position, if I did not have any proof that go in accordance with the rules that we have set in place. It wouldn t be right, it would just come down to he doesn t like this person, she doesn t like this person. I don t think that s right, I think you should be going based on what the rules say. Q) How has your past experiences prepared you for the position you are applying for? My past experiences have prepared me in a lot of ways because even though this is a lower level role in student government, as an Associate Justice would be, it still requires some leadership
experience. I need to be experienced in dealing with people and understanding where they re coming from and really looking over the things they have to say as opposed to the things that someone else has to say. So I feel that the leadership qualities that I ve amassed over the years and also my skills in conflict resolution and things like that. I feel like they are almost the perfect sum of all of the qualities that a Justice should be. Chase: Why did you choose the Justice Branch over any other department? I chose the Justice branch because I think I can make the most difference- and while I am good at looking over legislation and I want to learn how to do that better than I currently have, I do think that currently my skillset is more suited to Judicial over any other branches. Chase: Follow up to that is, under question three where you answered, what challenges do you think you ll experience in this position? you listed being able to utilize other members of SGA- what are some examples of you bringing other members in and getting something done using the Judicial branch? As in other members of Student Government? Yeah or just in general or things you wanna do to revitalize the Judicial branch Things I wanna do to revitalize the Judicial Branch like I said earlier is implementing things like Judicial Review. So if there s any dispute over the titles or the bylaws, so I can look over it with the other Justices and really looking at it and going yeah this is what it s saying. I also want to work very closely with the Attorney General and the Solicitor General so we can really make sure all the branches are accountable. Cause I feel like that s the most important part- where nothing is being done in the way that it shouldn t and everything is going as it should. Sami: What are your thoughts on creating a joint USF system Supreme Court? That never occurred to me. Um, I think a joint USF Supreme Court I can see good and bad to that, because the campuses relationship with Tampa hasn t been the greatest. And I can see Tampa really taking advantage of that, and putting more of their members on it than members of St Pete and Sarasota, so I can see that being taken advantage of from Tampa s perspective. But I can also see that being a very good way to seeing the campuses working more together. I think that it could be a good idea but it has to be implemented correctly. Ricardo: Any final thoughts? Anything you wanna say before you leave? I hope that the information I said came across correctly and I made my points and ideas clear that I really wanna help the Judicial Branch to help the overall Student Government as a whole. I wanna increase accountability I wanna make sure things are done correctly. I wanna make the Judicial Branch better in the scale of what it could be doing versus what it is doing. I hope that I have given you the information you need to make a decision. And I wanna thank all of you guys for your time. Deliberation Anthony thinks Michael killed it and is more than qualified Andre agrees Chase is curious about why he wants to join now, instead of next term Ricardo can t speak for Michael about why Sami thinks Michael is perfect for the position, however he s concerned about
the process of hiring for Judicial. He knows someone else who applied a long time ago and hasn t heard anything back. Ricardo thinks not notifying applicants is ridiculous and unprofessional. However, this is a conversation for another time, since it isn t too relevant to the interview process of Michael Klene. Andre motions for a rollcall vote Jaime seconds The motion passes and rollcall begins Edward Becht, aye Andre Obradovich, aye Jaime Hernandez, aye Sami Araboghli, aye Chase Connin, aye Jeanie Ziven, aye Anthony Alibro, aye Gustavo Delgado, aye Michael Klene has been confirmed for Associate Justice. Open forum Chase reiterates to look over the Budget o The Budget Committee agrees Anthony doesn t wanna be in a Senate meeting for 8 hours Sami informs Committee Chairs to hold themselves accountable Meeting Adjourned: Meeting adjourned at 12:41 PM.