the telescope Palomar College, San Marcos, Calif. Monday, Sept. 26, 2011 Vol 65, No. 4
VICTORY
EVELYN LUCERO
1.5% TURN OUT TO ELECT NEW STUDENT GOV’T PRESIDENT ALBERTO NUNEZ
EVELYN LUCERO
49%
51% Iniative spokesman Nestor Venegas speaks to a group of club members after a June 2011 Governing Board meeting. (FILE PHOTO)
Clean Break
TOTAL VOTES: 448 david leonard The Telescope
Evelyn Lucero won the race for student government president by a razor-thin margin of six votes on Friday. Lucero, formerly Associated Student Government vice president, bested Alberto Nunez, who served as a nonvoting delegate last semester. Students cast 448 ballots in the weeklong election; 227 went to Lucero and 221 went to Nunez. “It was very shocking at the beginning … I couldn’t believe it,” Lucero said. “I’m very happy I’m going to be able to represent the students one more year.” The ASG is tasked with representing the student body on various campus governance committees and wields a large
budget. Its president oversees board meetings and sets the organization’s legislative agenda. Lucero said she will focus on educating new ASG representatives and helping the board connect with students. “Most of the members are new, so I need to get them on track with what the ASG is about and what we do,” Lucero said. “My goal is to get the ASG members actually around campus and talking to students and figuring out what the student concerns are.”
Low turnout Just 1.5 percent of students participated in this election, a slight increase over a less-than1-percent turnout in Spring 2010. turn to ELECTION, PAGE 10
Campus activists want student gov’t to break ties with administration david leonard The Telescope
Campus activists have asked the student government to break ties with the Palomar administration. A group of social activist club members want the Associated Student Government to incorporate and become a fully independent organization. They are also demanding ASG be given the right to select its own adviser and want student senators to be elected by a campuswide vote. ASG is currently advised by
PROPOSITION FOR STUDENT CONTROL OF STUDENT GOV’T PROVISIONS: 1. ASG must take steps to seperate itself from Palomar administration 2. ASG would have the right to choose its own adviser 3. Senators would be popularly elected ONLINE: http://tsne.ws/asgnews
the director of the Office of Student Affairs, a position that is filled by the college administration. The activists contend that OSA Director Sherry Titus has too much power over ASG deliberations and policy making. Titus said the activists, led by Encuentros United Spokesman
NestorVenegas, had not tried to work within ASG to reform the organization. “The people who are constantly criticizing the OSA and ASG are not engaged,” Titus said. “This is not something you come in and randomly decide you want to do.” Venegas said his group of MECHa and Encuentros United club members felt the student government is too flawed to be fixed from the inside and need a total overhaul. “You lose interest in the organization, so it pushes you to do something different, something completely out of the norm,” Venegas said. “If something like this is the way to get that change, then it’s something you have to do.” Venegas co-wrote the Proposition for Student Control of turn to INITIATIVE, PAGE 10