ICC Elects new leaders after casual council committee
After the hour-long, final Inter-Club Council (ICC) meeting of the school year, the ICC kept with tradition and elected their leadership positions for the 2016-2017 school year on Thursday. The three ICC leaders for next year are Anna Eyfer of Chabad Jewish Student club as Communications Officer, Diego Marquez of the Ecosexual Club as Vice Chair, and Daniel Kaitel as Chair. Kaitel will be returning as Chair after coming into the position earlier in the 2016 Spring semester due to all three of these leadership positions being vacated over the course of the Winter semester. None of the positions were contested by opponents and there was some confusion during the often disorganized, but lighthearted and casual committee meeting as to how voting should take place.
After a quick approval for the Future of Fashion Coalition, SMC Pan-African Student Union, SMC Hiking Club, and Swedish Club for ICC recognition and 33 percent funding, Kaitel handed the meeting over to Vice Chair and Associated Students Director of Budget Management Elect Orlando Gonzalez Gudino-Guizar.
Gudino-Guizar took over the meeting and spoke of the success of the recent Intergalactic themed Club Row, which he had directed. After thinking his time on stage was over, Gudino-Guizar had to be reminded by Kaitel that he was to speak about the ICC Social on May 19th. After encouraging the group to come out to the social gathering Gudino-Guizar again thought he was finished and again had to be reminded to carry out the election process.
"Hold your horses Orlando," said Kaitel as most in the room laughed at Gudino-Guizar's eagerness to move on. "Moving on to action items - elections. I'm going to hand this over to Orlando."
This casual tone continued on to the rest of the meeting, as Gudino-Guizar explained to the gathered delegates what the positions up for nomination were and the ICC heads encouraged others in the room to run for the positions. After there were no apparent takers to run for the position of chair, Daniel Kaitel nominated himself for the position again.
"Hi guys, I'm Daniel, I'm the current ICC chair. I didn't really prepare a speech, we kind of had a crazy semester so I'll keep it brief. I know no one wants to be here right now. So that's about it," said Kaitel as the rest of the ICC laughed.
Gudino-Guizar then opened the nomination process up for his current position of Vice Chair, to general silence from the ICC members. Associated Students President Jesse Randel, who had entered into the room at this point, then gave a speech to encourage the remaining ICC delegates to run after no one nominated themselves or others for the position of ICC Vice Chair. His speech was followed by more words of encouragement from ICC Communications Officer Kate Liang.
Marquez then nominated himself for the position and introduced himself to the ICC board, giving a brief explanation of what the ecosexual club was. Eyfer was nominated by another member of her club, Chabad, though she seemed eager to participate and gave a fuller campaign-style speech to the council where she promised to assist club members with their transcripts and bemoaned the lack of mixing between the various clubs on campus.
"We want more involvement on campus. Because our school is very diverse, but it's not diverse in a way where everyone comes together as a community. People are keeping with their own territory, which is not what we want on campus. We want people to meet other people from other cultures and other countries so we can learn," said Eyfer.
After explaining to the ICC what the role of ICC Communications Officer entailed, no one else was nominated. Gudino-Guizar then proceeded with a "no-objection" vote, and upon hearing that there was no objection initially, congratulated the three nominees upon their victories.
Though there was an initial applause and approval, Samuel Ross, the AS Director of Budget Management, objected to these results. Ross brought up the point that this wasn't the proper process by which AS elections are held.
"It has to be an anonymous ballot. It's an election. That's what the ICC Constitution says," said Ross. There was an audible sigh of frustration by the ICC delegates at this point.
Soon there were pieces of paper handed out to all of the attending committee members and Terrance Ware, AS President-elect, went around collecting them in his hat. As there were no other nominees for the positions, the same trio of Kaitel, Eyfer, and Marquez won their seats on the AS board for next year and the meeting continued as previously scheduled with announcements and club reports.
Speaking to the Corsair after the end of the meeting about her newly elected role, Eyfer said,"I'm there to help, not just really to have the title. It's all about just helping the community, helping the school. Even though the ICC Communication [Officer] doesn't seem like a lot, I want to put in the extra step to make sure that people do communicate at the school."
The now repeat ICC Chair Kaitel — who has spoken about his fastidiousness to the Corsair before — talked about how he always planned to run and about his vision for where he could take the ICC. Said Kaitel, "The ICC over the years has been less and less power, and I want to bring it back to its former glory. It's kind of a joke now, I mean, you see these meetings. I want to bring it back to what it used to be — a respectful organization."