The Undergraduate Student Government unanimously approved a resolution for the creation of a new bus route at its weekly Senate meeting on Oct. 24.
After the Bus Route Resolution failed to gain approval during the previous Senate meeting on Oct.17, USG President Adil Hussain sent it to the Senate’s Legislative Review committee to be reviewed on Monday, Oct. 21. The committee tried to clarify the resolution by expanding the reference to nightlife to include “movies, karaoke, shopping, etc.”
Hussain said the proposed bus route “is not a USG owned route. We are not funding this as if USG is making a bus route.”
Hussain continued, saying USG is “just in discussion about a potential route” and that this recent resolution is only a sign of the Senate’s support for the plan.
The actual resolution proposes that the new bus route would travel from Stony Brook University to Port Jefferson and the AMC Movie Theater to “reduce potential of students engaging in risky behavior.”
Some pieces of legislation suffered the same kind of fate as the bus route resolution did on Oct. 17.
Currently, USG issues passes to anyone who requests one for USG sponsored events. These passes are usually distributed by Vice President of Student Life Garry Lachhar and Vice President of Communications and Public Relations Mario Ferone.
“Basically, [it] is used to clarify a law already in place…We are trying to say that members of SAB are guaranteed a pass and anyone else who wants one has to submit a proposal,” Ferone said.
The decision to change the current law came after several experiences with a breakdown of the all-access pass system including at the recent Mac Miller concert and last spring’s Ludacris concert.
The new system is based off the SUNY University of Buffalo credential system. The University at Buffalo has a $1.1million entertainment budget, according to USG Administrative Director Christopher Muller. Buffalo also has its own department for entertainment.
Lachhar proposed an amendment to change the credential revocation policy so that either the director of the SAB, the USG administrative director or the Vice President of Student Life could be present to revoke passes. The amendment was successfully adopted with a vote of 15 for and two against.
But after several debates over the wording of this piece of legislation, however, a vote to send the bill back to the Legislative Review Committee was approved with 16 senators supporting the move.
The meeting’s agenda also included two votes on acknowledging the Cantonese Club and the To Write Love on her Arms (TWLOHA) organization.
The Cantonese Club’s acknowledgment was tabled for a future meeting due to the question over the USG’s funding of language and cultural clubs.
Several senators raised the question of how wise a precedent of accepting countless culture-linked clubs would be since the USG budget is limited and depends on the Student Activity Fee, which is currently $99.50. Hussain noted that USG would eventually hit a “debt ceiling” if it continued funding every cultural organization.
However, a unanimous vote officially recognized TWLOHA, which works towards “presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide,” according to its mission statement.
Debate centered around whether or not TWLOHA’s mission is the same as Stony Brook’s Counseling and Psychological Services, which works “to provide the psychological and psychiatric services that many students need in order to be able to join the university community and flourish academically and socially,” according to its website.
The Senate, along with these decisions, decided to table the approval process of Justices Ryan Heslin and Ali Syed for future meetings.