The 47th Legislature of the Student Government Association (SGA) discussed a proposal to fund repairs to the McDonough Field stage and heard a presentation about Emory Bubble at the first legislative session of the year.
The first bill of the year was a proposal to fund reparations to the stage, presented by Goizueta Business School senior and Student Programming Council (SPC) President Raghvi Anand, College senior and SPC Vice President Graham Brooks and B-School junior Matthew Willis.
The bill stirred some disagreement among legislators at the meeting because of its time-sensitive nature of the bill.
SGA will vote on whether to fund the McDonough Field stage at next week’s meeting.
Performers will be using the stage during Swoop’s Week, formerly known as Homecoming Week, during the week of Sept. 23. The Division of Campus Life has been repairing the stage since damages first appeared because the stage was built using regular plywood instead of marine-grade plywood, which is more suited for Atlanta weather, according to Willis.
The stage has enough damage, such as holes, that it could collapse by the end of the September, according to Anand.
When the stage was first built, there was no organization designated to fund its upkeep, according to Anand. Campus Life cannot allocate funds for a full renovation until Fiscal Year 2015, Willis said.
The bill authors asked SGA to fund half the cost of the repairs, or $7,500, so that it can be fixed in time for Swoop’s Week.
Usually, a bill is first presented to the legislature at a meeting.
Then it goes through a committee before it is ready for an official SGA vote during the following meeting.
In order for a bill to be voted on during the first meeting, the legislature needs 20 votes in favor of suspending this rule.
Confusion arose because the SGA Finance Committee has already reviewed the bill, which is not typical because the bills are usually first presented to the legislature before a committee reviews them.
According to SGA Vice President of Finance and College senior Calvin Lee, the reason the bill had already been assigned to the finance committee before it appeared in front of the legislature is because it is a time-sensitive issue.
Some members of SGA also said they wanted time to understand the details of the bill.
“Shouldn’t we have had a week to look over it before we’re forced to vote on it?” Graduate Goizueta Business School Representative David Kaplan said.
The vote to suspend the rule failed on a 13-12-0 decision, which resulted in the vote moving to next week’s meeting.
In addition, Nir Levy (’13B), managing director of the Emory Bubble, demonstrated how to use the website because it is in its early stages.
The Emory Bubble, which has the support of the University, is a potential LearnLink replacement.
The Bubble Team is not aggressively advertising the website because it may crash if more than 200 people access it at the same time, according to Levy.
He added that the problems should be fixed in a few weeks.
SGA also voted unanimously to establish the position of Office of the Secretary for the SGA, who will perform secretarial duties.
Additionally, two members of SGA have resigned from their positions since last spring: former Co-Chief of Staff and College senior Bart Qian, and former SGA Governance Committee Chair and College junior Levi Lyman Barner.
–By Rupsha Basu
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