SUNY Plattsburgh’s independent student newspaper since 1997
FRIDAY, OCT. 9, 2020
VOLUME 103 - ISSUE 6
CARDINALPOINTSONLINE.COM
AUDREY LAPINSKI/Cardinal Points
Drag queen Etta Belle walks with a print dress and rainbow boa in Plattsburgh’s fifth annual Pride Parade last Saturday. The Adirondack North Country Gender Alliance worked with the Clinton County Health Department and Plattsburgh Police Department in order to hold a parade safely during the pandemic.
Pride Parade celebrates fifth year
BY FERNANDO ALBA Editor in Chief
Pride doesn’t die in a pandemic. If anything, it gets stronger. The Adirondack North Country Gender Alliance proved that last Saturday when it held its fifth annual Pride Parade, which it holds every October to celebrate the beginning of LGBTQ+ History Month. So much of this year’s celebration was changed. It wasn’t held at Trinity Park like in previous years. Instead, the parade shifted to a rolling parade, where participants met at the Durkee Street parking lot and fitted their cars with all sorts of pride decorations
before hitting the parade route that ended at the U.S. Oval. Executive Director Kelly Metzgar said that leading up to its fifth parade, the ANCGA felt it had the planning process down pat, and that it would do something different for its fifth celebration, but the COVID-19 pandemic presented all sorts of new obstacles for it to navigate. “I always said for our fifth year that we should do something special,” Metzgar said. “But I never planned on this. This is different.” When in-person events were being canceled en masse back in March, the ANCGA kept the parade tentatively scheduled for October like usual, hoping
that the virus would be under control by the fall. But it wasn’t, so it needed alternatives. Keene, New York, residents held their own rolling parade back in June earlier this year to celebrate Pride Month. ANCGA members were also there and that’s when Metzgar thought the car parade would be a possible alternative. “Why can’t we do this in Plattsburgh?” Metzgar said. “We knew we couldn’t hold a traditional event, so this was the best next idea.” Once plans were in place, it took all of two weeks to get the parade approved by the Clinton County Health Department and the Plattsburgh Police Department, Metzgar said.
“Whatever they told us to do, we did.” Metzgar said. In order to get the parade approved, regulations like social distancing, wearing masks and staying in or by cars once participants reached the Oval as well as following all traffic laws would have to be in place, Metzgar said. It was worth jumping through all the hoops to put together this year’s parade because it underscores the reason the ANCGA was started, Metzgar said. Before the ANCGA, there wasn’t an organized LGBTQ+ organization in the North Country doing events like the Pride Parade in the Adirondacks. Events like the Pride Parade show LGBTQ+
members that there is a welcoming community here for them. That was the case for senior psychology and gender women studies major Antonia Mattiaccio when she first transferred to SUNY Plattsburgh after her freshman year. “It’s been really nice. There has been surprisingly a community here up north, which I wasn’t sure about at first,” Mattiaccio said about the last three Pride Parades. “It’s a place to feel accepted. Often it’s not visible, people of different genders and sexualities, so it’s really important to have a space to be seen.” PRIDE l A2
Students’ money used to pay SA members Budget
projects decline in funds
Student Association fees to pay $15,363 for senators, executive council members’ stipends BY DREW WEMPLE Staff Writer
For the first time since the Student Association was founded at SUNY Plattsburgh, the SA will now be administering stipends to its senators and executive council officers. With the introduction of Student Bill 16 Sept. 17 at the SA senate meeting came the new SA compensation model. The bill will compensate two groups of SA positions, the senators and executive council officers. The nine executive council officers will be paid $826 for the entire
semester, and the 16 senate members will be paid $495.60 for their full semester. This is a reflection of the differing roles these positions fill. “Executive officers have more working hours,” said Erick Yusufu, the SA’s senator for finance. “Everything runs through the executive council members.” The stipend money is coming from the SA budget. Each SA budget is calculated for an entire academic year, both fall and spring semesters, and it comes from the SA fee students pay at the beginning of each semester.
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BY EMMA VALLELUNGA News Editor
SUNY Plattsburgh’s fiscal projections have been declining since last year due to lack of enrollment, spring semester refunds and the coronavirus pandemic, but there are still many unknowns for where, when and how money will circulate through the college.
STATE BUDGET Vice President of Administration and Finance Josee Larochelle gave a presentation on Zoom to faculty Sept. 30.
STIPENDS l A2
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