Why is it that Raquel Saxe (USAC AAC) is leading an effort to gain corporate sponsors when none of the initiatives from her office require these kind of sponsors? Why does DB continuously outreach to certain USAC members (Bocarsly and Saxe mostly) when a situation is happening? Honestly, I would like to see more representation from other USAC members when discussing these key issues. Throughout this article, Saxe was talking about gaining corporate sponsors for big USAC events like Bruin Bash, Jazz Reggae, and Textbook Scholarships but the reader did not hear anything from those officers that are initiating these programs…Kinnery Shah (USAC CAC) or Andrea Hester (USAC FSC). Why are we only hearing from certain council members? It’s a little annoying and it’s terrible investigative reporting DB. :(

Couldn’t USAC just not put on such huge events? JazzReggae charges people to get in so I’m assuming its somewhat self-sustaining. But, maybe we don’t need all this other huge stuff coming from student government. There are alot of other issues going on in the university that can be addressed by USAC other than concerts or carnivals. Plus, I’ve had friends who got the textbook scholarship and couldn’t even use it because it took away other financial aid that they got. …. maybe they can just do less expensive events.

I wonder where USAC came up with such a great idea! Can’t the Daily Bruin and USAC at least acknowledge that the Pediatric AIDS Coalition and Dance Marathon spent months successfully working towards their corporate sponsorship?

Student groups have already been reaching out to corporate sponsership due to the lack of USAC funding. Groups such as Dance Marathon had to internally and without the help of USAC seek funding. Maybe USAC should learn to better manage its budget so that events that thousands of students attend ( 3000 at DM) recieve funding while the unending plethora of workshops on Bruin Walk merely prevent students from arrviving to class on time.

With the only successful thing coming out of USAC this year being a flash mob, the members of USAC need to be more realistic with their goals and expectations. They think they have the manpower equivalent to other large groups on campus. USAC can hardly pull off a successful event in bruin plaza, let alone a corporate sponsorship. They should focus on revamping their current programs and initiatives.

LOL… to fund programs for “the rest of the student population”? I’m pretty sure by that USAC means to fund their own pointless events that no one ever attends. While the offices of USAC spend their budgets consisting of tens of thousands of dollars, other student groups are left to battle it out for funding. It is good to hear from the other comments that other student groups are at least managing to find funding on their own without the help of student government.

Mallory, where did you get the budget of $10,000? I know that some offices have large funds to sponsor student groups, but to my knowledge only SWC, CEC, and CSC have their own operational funds. Also, events put on my USAC tend to target the entire student population, I don’t remember being invited to any events hosted in CPO (which receive a lot of funding from USAC as well). Also, everyone else, do you guys really not like Bruin Bash? Are you really trying to compare Dance Marathon to Bruin Bash, too? There are so many reasons that people find to complain, but hardly ever do people come up with reasonable solutions. If USAC is looking for external support, we should commend them! They are looking for ways to make sure that the student groups at our school have more opportunities to receive funding, why are you guys complaining!?

Doesn’t CPO get over a third of USAC’s Budget? I heard they get 1.8 million? I have never been invited to their events or seen an account of where that money goes?

How about the fact that Emily Resnick took 20k from USAC surplus to throw a Homecoming Carnival! Over 2,000 students took a poll on THIS website that said it was pointless! My student group struggled to access funding for our programs because of USAC. We’re tired of this BS, no matter who gets elected. USAC is a JOKE, especially the idiots sitting at the table this year.

It was a pleasure stepping on your bubble-wrap on Bruinwalk.

Sry but USAC doesn’t put on events that target the entire student population. That really depends on what you mean by “entire” student body. No matter what, people will not be represented in their events. It’s just inherent when you have a student body of over 20,000 students. Some people don’t like what USAC is doing, others do. I’m tired of people trying to say that they represent everyone. The fact is no one represents everyone…that’s how life goes

I definitely agree with Concerned USAC Follower. I don’t see much diversity in outreach to USAC council members, and it does get annoying when we only hear from certain members. And I too was surprised that Saxe was asked to speak for the council on corporate sponsorship when I would’ve appreciated and thought it more appropriate to hear from other members.

It seems like we have someone on the DM committee commenting too. It is unfortunate that such a great event like DM was not able to access funding this year. From my understanding, nothing in the rules changed – rather, USAC decided to be responsible this year and not overlook that that there are rules concerning allocating funding for events that raise money. I do agree that USAC can learn from DM.

I thought that all offices except for the Gen Reps had operational funds. Some more than other, but I think all of them do.

In terms of CPO, it has to do with a referendum that was passed a few years back. I’m not sure about the details of it all, but that referendum also benefited the Daily Bruin and other entities too.

I think USAC needs to reduce the number of the programs that it hosts and work together more. Each office has so many items on their agenda. Why not work together to put on a few great programs than many not-so-strong programs?

The problem with USAC is that most students don’t know WHAT you do or WHY we should give a crap. Seriously, what has USAC done for any of us students this year? All I know is I am paying for your existence and only get shitty things like Homecoming to show for it. At least Ms. Hill didn’t waste money so extravagantly.

That’s what you voted for, students!

First of all, let me clarify the CPO does NOT get 1.8 million dollars from USAC. To be exact, the CPO only gets 238, 634. The rest of their budget comes from past student referendums. Secondly, I must add that although most USAC does not get $10,000 in base budgets they do get SGOF funds (similar to SOOF but ALWAYS given to USAC Council members). To further aggregate, USAC has the PRIVILEGE of saying they represent students and are more likely to be able to attain outside funding sources by this mere virtue. Also, lets be REAL USAC aren’t you all the groups that continuously apply to USAC funds to pay for your lavish retreat facilities for your directors and staff. As for Bruin Bash, we should also question: “why is it that frats and sororities get reserved seating?” A mere 3,000 contribution relative to USAC’s total $80K surplus allocation does not constitute a prioritization of Panhellenics.

Now words of advice…

USAC stop worrying about election season. We all know some of you are going to run again. If you win, please do us all a favor and shut up and do the work that pertains to your office.

Daily Bruin stop talking about USAC. If you are going to get involved with USAC drama, try to make your editorials more bi partisan. STOP getting the SAME opinions from David Bocarsly and Raquel Saxe. If I see an endorsement from the DB to either Mr. Bocarsly or Ms. Saxe it will only confirm your underlying biases.