 "Photo: Michael Trias")
Facing sweeping cuts in funding, last year's ASUCR senate removed $3,000 in finances from the campus LGBT Resource Center. The move failed to be communicated to the center and to many members of the then incoming, now current, student senate.
That the finances, which were used in the past to send a number of students to the annual Western Regional Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer, Intersex and Allies (LGBTQIA) College Conference, were gone did not come to light until late in the fall quarter.
In an interview Sunday, Vice President of Finance Johnny Ren, who was involved with the finance committee last year, spoke about the process of adjusting this year's budget to accommodate for massive financial cuts to ASUCR's budget-the result of a decrease in revenue and an increase in the Highlander Union Building rent, saying that all groups received massive cuts.
A series of emails acquired from the LGBT center suggest that some ASUCR members, however, were not aware of the lack of funding until Nov. 1, when Tiffany Lau, the Vice President of External Affairs, sent an email to the director of the LGBT Resource Center, Nancy Jean Tubbs.
"Our budget spreadsheet does not show that we have money for the LGBTQ UC meetings and conferences," said the brief email from Lau, "I will check and see if we can make room for that."
Even though by month's end it was concluded that funding would not be distributed for the conference, Laurie Sinclair, Executive Director of ASUCR, provided suggestions in the emails released from the LGBT resource center. One such suggestion was that the LGBT Resource Center seek assistance from the Queer Alliance's fundraising funds.
Sinclair's email cited that "Other UC External offices do not have regular funding for this event, either."
The tension culminated when a number of LGBT students and their allies arrived at Tuesday's meeting, many of them displeased with the senate's decision.
Initially, the decision to cease funding for the conference was interpreted by some as being, at worst, homophobic, or, as the opening remarks from Horace Buenrostro, a fourth year English major, described it, as a "slap in the face" to the LGBT community on campus.
Later in the week, however, a number of students, including Buenrostro, said that the comments made during the meeting diverged from the main focus, saying that the lack of communication between ASUCR and the students it represents was their concern.
"If they're taking away this much money, ASUCR needs to communicate," said Jean Carlos Lopez, a fifth year Political Science major, who went on to compare UC Riverside's student senate to that of the University of Kent, which he became acquainted with while studying abroad, saying that the infrastructure there is stronger and thus better able to communicate with the campus it is elected to represent.
"This is a systematic issue," said Lopez, who suggested that ASUCR develop stronger ties with campus groups as well.
In defense, Ren stated in Sunday's interview that he agreed that ASUCR had done a poor job in communication. However, he also stated that the LGBT should have tried to open communication with more senators as well.
He also defended ASUCR against allegations of homophobia during Tuesday's meeting, saying, "I don't think any of us are homophobic. You're making presumptions of us based on the budget. We took it [the finances] out based on the fact of how we could conserve or save money. All those other conferences were funded far more and they were scaled back tremendously."
Later in the meeting Kevin Kuet, the Elections chair of ASUCR, attempted to resolve the issue, saying that he himself would bring up the issue at the next meeting.
"The problem I think right now is that we just keep arguing and we're not resolving anything. We're looking to our past at what we've done wrong, but we're not looking towards our future. I feel like we keep going over the same topic," said Kuet. "I myself will bring it up at the next meeting. We want to help you guys."
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