New First draft

The Student Senate met on Sept 11th in Student Activity Center in the East Wing to vote on action items, such as getting purified water for the Student Center to getting a budget going for office supplies for both the Aptos campus and the Scotts Valley campus and voting for a new Senator for one open spot in the senate. The Student Senate are made up of certain individuals on Campus, elected into office by the Student body to help budget the college’s money, events for the college and come up with regulations for the Campus and the students to follow. The Senate governed by President Rebeca Villafana, Vice-President Lupe Ortiz, and Student Trustee Gary Meyer with Legislative Representative Anthony Garza along with a series of student Senators, and the ICC chair, M..G Sample. They are currently seeking Watsonville campus and Scotts Valley representatives for the Senate, so if you are interested in this position, contact Advisor Gabe Guierrez. The senate address issues involving the college and issues going on, on campus and anything involving Cabrillo. They spent $15,000 for textbooks on reserve in the library, $5,000 for textbook loans so students can receive their books in time for the beginning of school. They are also responsible for the free parking for the first week of classes at the beginning of each semester.

They hold conference every other Thursday at 3 p.m on the dot in the Student Activities Center (SAC) East. At each meeting, after roll call and going through notes on last meeting, they go through current action items that require votes for the motion to pass, information items that are facts that are brought to the senate’s attention and official reports from the treasurer about the college budget and the president. Everyone and anyone is invited and encouraged to come speak their opinions and ideas to the Senate as “public comments” towards the beginning of each meeting.

The dark blue and green chairs are filled around a wooden table by the members of the Senate as they began the meeting after going through roll call and looking over last meeting notes for errors and unnecessary statements. They started with the first item on their agenda: voting for a new senator to the opening in the Senate. They were faced with two potential members, both speaking out on their behalf: Amanda Martinez and Ruben Witis. Through a secret vote, Martinez was awarded the opening. But recently, Martinez has withdrawn from the senate, “My main focus is my classes, and the Senate seems like a big commitment,” she says, “it's not right for me at this point.
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Because the Student Senate is made up with students of Cabrillo, they take the time out of each meeting for public comments from anyone who needs the time or the attention from the Senate for anything from bringing attention to certain items on campus and to request funding for events. Phil Rodriquez, a candidate for the College Broad of Education proposed if he could campaign on Campus for his campaign. Jessica Davies, an acupuncturist, proposed the idea of using acupuncture and massage on Campus to help relieve the stress of the students during the Semester and all she required from the senate was support, volunteers and the commitment needed to keep the project going. The Library director, Johanna Bowen, spoke about the cost of increasing an over-due textbook for the “book-on-reserve” program. Anyone and everyone are welcome to come speak about any issues regarding on anything on campus.

The Senate brings up current important action items for the college that they got through each item, on by, one to vote to either pass the motion or vito it. One important issue was the $34,000 to help maintain the 900 Building on campus, to keep it for the students, “I’ve been there when they first started to ‘axe’ things out of the building,” says Barbour, “we need to get something in writing about it, keep it for the students.” After a quick discussion about it with the senate, many stating that they need protection to make sure the building doesn’t get taken away from “us”, speaking as a whole, it was voted on and the motion passed to get something in writing for the motion and for the amount of $34,000 to keep the SAC building mantained and for the 'students.'

Another item on the list was to provide and 700 dollars for the Wellness and Health Fair which is being held on Sept. 25th, “it’s an active place for students to go,” says Barbour, speaking highly about the Fair and believing it was more of a culture event. Two other items were for money for office supplies for the Aptos campus, $500 for staplers and colored paper and other office supplies and for the Scotts Valley campus, $130 for Office supplies for student support. The Senate carefully and professional handled items that involved the Campus money budget and spoke about certain informational items that needed to be addressed from Free Speech to creating an Eligibility Center for distributing 10,000 dollars in Scholarships for students. There was also a matter of taking a set amount of money, $1,000 to bring over Dr. Bruno Pisaro from Italy for a lecture on Greek Culture of Northern Italy. Pisaro was brought to Cabrillo last year for a lecture on Pompeii. “There was literally no room around the doors, it was that packed!” says Fortune, who speaks about attending the lecture last year and about how successful it was. It seems like Cabrillo are in for some fascinating changes this fall by the slightly unorthodox, but very passion group of individuals that make up the Student Senate, more high-quality changes are to come down the road and the students will not be disappointed with the plans in store.

(Again more to edit, but it's looking a lot better.)