General Meeting 1/18/15

Present: Navdeep Singh, Ernesto Falcon, Aparna Agnihotri, Stephen Guichard, Niel Cacali, Lexi Howard, Kate Casey, Megan Donaghey, Dustin Kirby, Chanel Saidi, Christina Godfrey

Ernesto: move to approve agenda, second (Aparna),
All in favor, Aye (10), Nay (0)

November 14th Minutes move to approve (Ernesto), second (Dustin)
All in favor, Aye (10), Nay (0)

Election Code:
For the class cohorts there it is 35% of the ratio; the number is not important but if we get rid of the uniqueness requirement then there is an issue for smaller class sizes; with the ratio there is a heavy standard/burden to get nominated to compensate for the uniqueness requirement; there is room for change in the number(Dustin); I would like to see it uniformly throughout, make it the same number throughout for every position; and maybe make it a “not less than” as well (Neil); also in a small class the percentage makes more sense than the number because we only had 31 in our class today (Christina); I think there should be an announcement to the committee and then the required signatures (Lexi); I am aware that someone was eliminated from the race last year the uniqueness requirement (Megan); if you’re going to throw out the signature requirement like Lexi wants there should be a different requirement because it’s a representative position (Stephen); I worry about the running as a joke issue (Ernesto); but you solve that by having a good faith declaration (Lexi); there should be signatures so that there are people who can vouch for you and your race (Chanel); If the idea is to be fair, I don’t think my election was fair because my class was so small and it didn’t really matter because everyone knows each other and I was there (Christina); if we drop signatures but have a declaration, what do people think (Ernesto); if we do keep signatures I just think it needs to be a ratio (Dustin); with the no uniqueness require it should be easier to get the requisite amount of signatures (Ernesto); at the next meeting let’s have a definite answer (Ernesto); especially for the first years it would be nice to have an idea of what they’re getting into (Christina); There is still a requirement to go to a meeting, a declaration requirement, and a debate, etc (Neil)

Motion to refer our motion notes to the election committee to discuss (Stephen), second (Lexi)
What do people think about having elections meetings before spring break (Ernesto); I would refer to the elections committee on that one (Megan)
Ayes on the motion (10), Nay (0)
Ernesto will write up an email to the elections committee on that

Preference to get rid of distinction between formal and informal election requirements (Ernesto); I would like to get rid of most requirements and have it just be consistent with the student code of conduct (Stephen); there should be no restrictions on where you can post, etc (Stephen); Do we want to lower the spending limits or what (Stephen); I propose that we keep it because there are economic issues with raising the limit (Ernesto); the informal and formal, I’m against that, you should be able to campaign after the election committee meeting because it’s impracticable to limit the communications of each candidate(Chanel); If people want to criticize the SBA blog then they should be able to link to it (Ernesto); there should be no disclaimer of posting things “campaign materials” (Chanel); getting rid of that ambiguity might encourage people to speak out (Lexi); but you don’t want to put words in anyone else’s mouth, including other people’s club pages etc (Kate); although administrators can always delete any posts they don’t endorse (Nav); I don’t want to reach that far into where people want their statements to be heard (Ernesto); If you want to have a post on other people’s pages you must ask the administrator (Chanel); that’s how it is under the elections committee right now (Dustin); My last suggestion is that we lock the election code after the next meeting so that it doesn’t keep changing while people are running (Ernesto); I concur (Kate); we need to decide and confirm things because we pretty much have a whole new board coming in with all of us graduating (Stephen); when we come back to this my objective is to make it as easily accessible for everyone (Ernesto); before spring break elections would be responsible and it would allow people to come and ease into the SBA process (Chanel)

Devina Douglass, CrimLaw Society, Student Practitioner Mixer
We’ve sent out invitations to a number of practitioners who will be coming; These are the type of professionals that might be able to guide us CrimLaw folks and would be able to answer our questions; our first mixer was in March of last year and it was sort of a disaster as far as getting the practitioners there; with the formal invitations none of the practitioners knew of the mixer; we are poor, I just got our last statement and we have $10 0 or so and we’ve been paying for our orientation week stuff out of pocket; We pay for food for our meetings out of pocket; all of our events are open to every student; because we are reaching out to such a large amount of practitioners and with the catering costs we are looking at $315 in costs that we don’t have(Devina); how much is for alcohol (Neil); the bartender fees are $285, the food is…this is way off, it’s about $536.45; So what is your funding other than SBA (Kate); we are working with CDO and the Career Development Committee for a little bit (Devina); Pezone’s class came last year, which was cool (Dustin); you’re only getting funding from one source, from the Committee (Neil); There is actually another mixer happening with the CDO on that night so you might want to just go talk to them and the worst they can say is no funding (Kate); there were about 45 last year who came (Devina); first years don’t know this is happening but we don’t have class next week so I’ll tell people about it, especially Legal Professions (Christina); I can make an announcement before our class (Chanel); the exact cost of the event is $536 (Neil); we already used up all of our starting funds (Devina); I will say that the CrimLaw society has been productive an active (Ernesto); How many members do you have and did you have member dues this year (Kate); about 30 (Devina); What would happen if you didn’t get funding from SBA (Christina); I don’t know (Devina); to let you know just for administrative issues it will be at least 2-3 weeks before you have the money in your account (Neil); Since invites have gone out to practicing attorneys who could possibly create jobs we should keep that in mind (Chanel); we’ve sent invites to Sac, Yolo, San Joaquin…(Devina); is there a line item for a thank you gift (Stephen); no, we are too poor (Devina)

Discussion:
I have to abstain as a dues paying member (Dustin); how soon are groups supposed to come before funding (Christina); four weeks out and they did but it was over winter break and we have to get them a number two weeks out (Ernesto); this just seems really irresponsible to have invited practitioners without the money to put on the event (Christina); a huge chunk is for alcohol and assuming that the committee is tied to the same SBA policies… (Neil); It’s in our funding policy (Ernesto/Neil); It would be $285 with the bartender and $185 without, it’s on their line item agenda, if they didn’t serve alcohol they could have more for mocktails and soda…(Megan); If they cut out the bartender I think it’s just weird to have a bucket with sodas (Chanel); Is that 100 included in the labor for food (Kate ); it’s a separate fee with the food (Nav); We are in a pickle that we shouldn’t be in but that we should help our students out with so what if we have them come back with a request for the invitations (Christina); So should the committee number be removed from the total that we give and the committee is under our umbrella so they can’t fund the alcohol (Neil/Dustin)

I move that we fund the request at $350 which is the maximum that we can give them without the alcohol (Ernesto), second (Chanel)
I would like us to table this until they come back with an amendment so that we know what we are approving (Neil); They are only eligible for what we can give them according to our bylaws (Ernesto)
Ayes (7), Nay (1 Kate), Abstention (2)
Motion approved

Paolo, IPSA event, IP week
Four Day IP week coming up the last week of this month; there is a cancelled event on Monday; a day in the life event on Tuesday with practitioners in the Bay or in Sacramento; the practitioners will be talking about how to get a job in IP; Wednesday has a lunch event with a head hunter Kate Patterson and she places people in IP positions; last year Kate came and it was one of the better events that we had, she works with about 6 schools in the Bay; Thursday is our main event; at the request of Dean Mattison we are doing it on Thursday and we are hosting it with Sac County Bar; A year in review event; we are bringing a practitioner from Sacramento to talk about issues and case law in IP; it is an MCLE event which increases participation; we had two hours last year and we are on course this year to get two or three hours this year; we had about 30-40 practitioners last year and our costs are based on last year; the only issue that I have is the Thursday event time because if we have more practitioners and more first years we will not have enough money to cover it; from speaking about this to first years it looks like a lot of them are really interested and planning on coming; total request for the whole week is $1034.20 (Paolo); last year we had the practitioners eat the appetizers so we would like to have enough there to keep everyone there for a couple hours (Paolo); you have about $700 something in your bank account right now, what is that (Neil); that is carry over from last year and we would like to have another event in the bay this year like we did last year (Paolo); what time and where is your event on Thursday (Kate); 615-915 in the SC on Thursday (Paolo); what percentage of practitioners do you have coming (Megan); its probably about the same as last year which was about 40, maybe more (Paolo); if you have MCLE credits and beer and wine available, practitioners will come (Ernesto); I think Thursday will increase the number of practitioners coming (Paolo); for the practitioners coming, are you charging for the MCLE (Megan); it’s a free event for practitioners (Paolo); it’s a free event, and since a lot of these are old partners and young associates getting out in the community, this is a good event for anyone who wants to be a civil practitioner or work in IP (Paolo)

Discussion:
Related, we don’t have i/3 here to vote on over $1000 (Ernesto); so looking at the raw numbers and if they spend $500 of their own money then we can fund $500 (Stephen); I would rather spend money on an event like this that is very well planned and supports a lot of practitioners and students (Kate); The total funding of the event and week is $900 something and an update on the McGeorge budget is that we have $62,000 something so that’s my take on funding it in full (Neil); I agree with Neil (Aparna); there are a lot of people coming who are not necessarily alumni and we are paying for attorneys to get their MCLE credits (Megan); on that regard, IPSA will be paying for the attorneys alcohol (Neil); there was one alumni per 8 students at the dine with alumni event and this event seems like a better way to get the opportunity to speak with and network with more practitioners (Christina); networking is not the purpose of this event but it would be great if they did network, if we fund 40 student at $15 per student it would be $600 (Megan)

Motion for $700 (Neil), second (Kate)
Discussion: if we fund just the Thursday for $600 and fully fund the Tuesday and Wednesday that would be $840 (Christina); Monday’s was cancelled so it’s less than that, it’s about $700
Vote: Ayes (8), Nays (0), Abstain (0) (Lexi and Nav left)
Approved for $700

Chanel Instagram:
I created an Instagram account for SBA Pacific McGeorge and so far with the hashtag it will help recruit better than the current McGeorge account which is not of our campus (Chanel); how will we control the content (Ernesto); we can pull from the hashtag and we can pull from our own account (Chanel); I will pull content from everyone else’s hashtag to #pacificmcgeorge or #mcgeorgelife
I move to make Chanel in charge of the McGeorge Insta (Ernesto), second (Dustin)
Ayes (6), Nay (0), abstain (2 Neil and Chanel)

Nominations for Student Representatives for Contract Renewal Committee:
Mathew John for Professor Proske and Rebecca Caporale for Professor Nordhal (Ernesto), second (Aparna)
Motion to approve the two students as representatives (Ernesto), second (Dustin)
Ayes (8), Nays (0), Abstain (0)

Bar passage:
I’ve been working with Dean Landsberg for bar passage (Ernesto); events that I would like to fund- have bottom 25% passers come and speak, the meeting this Thursday,…flat fund for events to put on events (Ernesto); the school is contributing $400 to these events (Ernesto); Is this a carry over to next year (Christina); yes, it will be a rinse wash repeat (Ernesto); first time bar takers was 67% and McGeorge was around %60 (Ernesto); I have an actual problem with this because the scope of the SBA fees is for the student population and it should not be SBA’s responsibility to hold up the school and I don’t want to fund something that the school should be funding (Neil); I do think it’s pretty core and central to help my classmates do everything possible to pass the bar (Ernesto); so this task force is like the PPLW to build skills to…is this for the entire student body or just one class (Stephen); this will be mainly for the graduating class but it will be carry over to help with other classes in the future (Ernesto); PPLW’s book says that the single most reason why McGeorge had the highest bar passage rate is the requirement that every student take every bar subject class (Ernesto); this directly benefits me because the graduates this year will be the ones that are there to help me get a job when I graduate (Christina); My idea is to have the task force and then the alumni panel and a panel to give the information to the rest of the school (Ernesto); I just think that the people who will take part in this will take part in it and they don’t need incentives like this and we shouldn’t be using student funds on this (Chanel); so is it that we do nothing? (Ernesto)
Motion: $400 for the working group this Thursday and subsequent meetings (Ernesto); second (Christina)
Aye (3), Opposed (5- Dustin, Aparna, Chanel, Stephen, and Neil)

Barristers Ball
On 31st of this month; 96 or 97 people attending right now on Facebook; we cannot go over 280; tickets are being printed this week; Arman did or tickets and posters; Vince from last year will be doing photography and we will comp him and Arman; music is good to go; security- Ernesto is the point person; we cordoned off a portion of the location as a VIP room for the afterparty; backup plan is Social as opposed to Park; the decorations are on and they look good; our budget right now depends on the ticket sales (Aparna); our class sections have a lot of questions so my suggestion is to come to our Legal Professions class (Chanel); I posted to my Facebook page (Christina); I will be the sober person (Kate); there was only one person our of 31 people who said they were going (Christina); I can come to the class and talk to them (Aparna); GLS is meeting with the two groups together this week so that might be a good time to catch us all together (Christina); Public transit access, how is that going (Ernesto); if we can text an uber code or a taxi company (Ernesto/Chanel)

Campus-wide Proposal
A lot of first years have been going off campus to eat because they don’t like Bon Appetite and/or they don’t know about the secret menu (Neil); February will be covered because of Multicultural week (Ernesto); I was thinking of going through Bon Appetite (Neil); so we’re looking at March and April has the end of year barbecue (Ernesto); can they advertise the better or healthier options (Chanel); I don’t get the point, it is to give away free food or to advertise for Bon Appetite (Kate); it’s our duty to keep people on campus (Chanel); I don’t think this is our responsibility to advertise for Bon Appetite but maybe this should be a partnership (Megan); I have heard that people want more free food and this could be a way to build community (Neil); Let’s make sure that we get the evening class in on this free food (Christina); and each class has $200 to spend on their classes (Chanel/Neil)

Motion to adjourn (Ernesto), second (Dustin)
Aye (8), Nay (0), Abstain (0)