Are you ready for Storelli? No.
I wanted to share with you why I plan to abstain from voting in the entire Associated Students Inc. voting spectacle. First off, I am no Alex Kaplan sympathizer. He represents that truly anyone can get into politics. But more importantly, no one really knows what ASI does. We know it has colorful and fun posters up in the University Union and its employees wear maroon shirts unless they are wearing bright ones to advertise an event. But beyond that, ASI is a mysterious black hole.
Kelly Griggs won the presidency last year, and I have no idea what she brought to the table. Do I feel that Poly was better run this year? Perhaps, but I can’t relate my experience back to her being ASI president. I do know that she didn’t put up a fight with the SLO city council when they proposed and passed numerous pieces of legislation targeting Cal Poly students. I do know that she signed a letter in support of throwing out a lawsuit brought against the CSU by students to lower tuition. The person apparently representing us, the students, sided with administrators and lobbied for an increase in tuition.
But my abstention from this voting process goes beyond a single person. The inner-workings of ASI are still arcane and inefficient. The Epicenter, depending on who you talk to, gives vastly different answers. E-plans only recently became electronic (If you are unfamiliar with E-plans think of it this way: If ASI were in charge of e-mail, it would not be until this year that E-mail was actually not hand-delivered by the post office but came to your computer).
Other schools’ student-bodies work to bring together factions of campus that might not normally come together. With budget cuts and our education on the line ASI responded by allowing us to write our thoughts down on giant posters in the UU.
ASI is a farce and needs to be invaded, liberated, completely rebuilt and made into an organization that advocates for students. An organization that provides meaningful services to a larger demographic on campus.An organization that connects individuals with others to create cross-campus entities. An orgnaization that unites.
Storelli and Kaplan have only brought to the surface a problem that has plagued ASI for years. We are now faced with voting for one candidate; a candidate who came to my club and openly bashed her opponent when she could have let his stupidity speak for himself.
I urge all students who do choose to vote to not vote for Storelli. If we can get more than 50 percent of students who do vote to leave the president spot blank then that is sending a mandate that those who do vote don’t want her. So please join me in sending ASI and Storelli a message that just because she has no opponent doesn’t mean she is being welcomed with open arms.
David Hansen is a biological sciences senior and Mustang Daily guest columnist.