CORSAIR
volume 107 issue 6 • April 2, 2014 • santa monica college
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Juan Lopez Corsair The Santa Monica College Associated Students board’s nearly unanimous vote on further discussion of Director of Activities Matthew Nicholson’s alleged misappropriation of funds during their weekly meeting in the Cayton Center on Monday, March 31.
Free pizza leads to possible impeachment Henry Crumblish Editor-In-Chief It all started with a pizza party on the quad. A pizza party that ended in one student facing alleged campaign violations, non-representation, misappropriation, disqualification, impeachment and even accusations of “money laundering.” Disqualification The motivation and intentions behind the Feed the Students event on the quad on Tuesday March 25, have been heavily contested. The contention stems from Matthew Nicholson’s conflicting duties and responsibilities as the Associated Students director of activities and as a candidate in the 2014 AS election. There is also an ongoing debate over the alleged misuse of funds. Despite the pizza giveaway being an AS sponsored event, the Elections Committee held a meeting and voted unanimously on Thursday to disqualify him from the election for his involvement in the Feed the Students event. Nicholson claims he was never notified of the meeting and was not present during the decision making process. “Making a ruling without me being there, I don’t care what the election code says, it’s not right in a moral sense,” he said. ”I feel that I was unjustly and maliciously disqualified from the election.” According to the Chair of the Election Committee, Jasmine Jafari, the committee is not required to notify candidates of when there’s an infraction against them. Once they make a decision, in this case to disqualify Nicholson, the action is effective immediately. On Monday that decision was upheld at
an Election Committee appeals hearing. Nicholson allegedly failed to represent and promote the AS by wearing an Alumni Association t-shirt at the event instead of an AS t-shirt. In addition there were no promotional materials (banners, pins) present to make it clear that Feed the Students was an AS event. The ambiguous nature of the intent behind the free pizza is what forced the Election Committee to disqualify Nicholson as well as the fact that the table for the free pizza was located around campaign stakes. “We had a candidate who was also a director, who wasn’t being completely transparent about the source and use of funding for an AS event,” Jafari said. Since Nicholson was handing out pizzas, items with inherent value, he violated the election code. “Candidates can’t give anything with added value, he was giving away slices of pizza,” Jafari said. “The rules for giving away those slices of pizza was that it would be clearly marked as an AS event. Since it wasn’t, it counts as campaigning.” Funding Another major allegation against Nicholson is his alleged misuse and misappropriation of AS funds. However, Nicholson said that he did not misuse any funds because he claims Tuesday’s Feed the Students event did not use any AS funding. “I’ve had such trouble with the board,” Nicholson said. “What I’ve been doing is going around to places and businesses that I have a previous relationship with and getting donations.” Reasoning that the event wasn’t funded by the AS, Nicholson claims he was not obligated to promote the AS. Nicholson however, receives a weekly allotment of $1,000 to fund Feed the
Juan Lopez Corsair A Santa Monica College student hands out pizza while wearing a Proud to be SMC t-shirt during the “Feed the Students” event on the SMC quad on Tuesday, March 25.
Students as well as other events on campus. The director of activities is the only position on the board to receive an allotment. Why Nicholson chose to fund Tuesday’s Feed the Students activity with donations as opposed to his allotment funds is unclear. At Monday’s AS meeting the board voted to remove his allotment and stripped him of his ability to put on any future Feed the Students events.
Per fiscal policy, if Nicholson received donations he is required to fill out forms and paperwork for the sake of transparency. Nicholson faces impeachment from his seat as director of activities at the next AS meeting unless he can provide a record of where the funding came from. Nicholson claims that a stipulation of the donations Continued on page 3
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