Esteban Ramirez
Sports Editor
At its weekly board meeting on May 8, Associated Students Inc. addressed the allegations that Ricardo Perez, vice president of external affairs, is facing.
In response to a May 6 article in The Runner, which detailed alleged misconduct such as tardiness and missing meetings, and as well as marijuana drug use, ASI discussed those allegations with the rest of the board.
Executive Vice President Mike Kwon started the discussion by asking Perez why he did not discuss his concerns over those allegations with the board.
Perez did not comment on that during the meeting and chose not to comment after the meeting.
Mercedes Macias, director of legislative affairs, responded to Kwon’s question by asking why Kwon hadn’t discussed anything with the board either. “There has to be some discussion,” Macias said during the meeting. “You guys can’t hide behind ‘oh there’s confidentiality.’ If he’s doing something that is so terrible, I think the board has a right to know. Not only the board but his constituents as well, who have voted him in.
“You guys are taking measures against him, yet you haven’t told us why these actions are (taking) place. We don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think anybody really knows what’s going on. I don’t think that’s fair, and I don’t think it’s ethical. There’s politics then there’s principles, and really there’s more politics than principles in this board.”
ASI president Derek Stotler explained to the board the timeline of the allegations and their outcomes.
Stotler said that a letter of removal was sent to Perez on April 2 and an executive meeting was held on April 14 from 10 p.m-12:30 a.m., where all of the allegations were heard. They determined there would be a contract between Ricardo and the executive board, and they decided not to take it to the next step of removal. Then on April 24 they discussed the terms of the contract. At the end of the meeting they had a consensus of what was going to be a part of that contract.
After discussing the timeline, the board brought up questions regarding the allegations and the contract: Why did only certain directors on the board know? Why was the word “board” used in the contract when not everyone on the board knew about it? What were the terms of the contract? Did Perez agree to the contract? Was the contract ever violated? If the contract is not followed, how will they keep him accountable?
Stotler said that the reason why some directors knew about the allegations is because some information was being leaked out to certain board members, but he didn’t know how. He added that for the majority, there was no or very little discussion with the board members.
He said the reason why the language of the board was utilized was because some board members were bringing up the allegations, but he added that that didn’t mean the entire board and said it was his fault if he misrepresented that.
With the terms of the contract, Stotler said he is going to keep it confidential and added that Perez is not going to be removed. According to Stotler, the contract was just verbally agreed to and not signed. Then he said that they will have to discuss how to keep him accountable if the contract is not followed.
Later in the meeting, Jennifer Sanchez, vice president of university affairs, said that she didn’t appreciate Perez emailing his removal letter and didn’t appreciate that he said that ASI leaked the contract in order to allegedly smear his campaign.
“To me, that is set up,” Sanchez said. “That looks set up. It makes it look like it is set up to make one of the candidates look like a victim. I don’t think that’s fair… The contract and the terms of the contract were discussed two weeks ago and I know it took almost a week to get it to you, but we are almost at the end of the quarter. There should be some follow through with this contract.”
Kwon said after the meeting that he was pleased with the questions brought up by the board and that the discussion showed the members what was going on within ASI.
“This meeting was important because it showed what kind of steps we took, so that his side was being communicated on both sides,” Kwon said. “We did try to reach out our hand and try to provide communication with him, but he didn’t and he released it so I don’t know how to proceed from here on out.”
Stotler said it was important to have the discussion for everyone to be on the same page.
“At the end of the day, we’re student government,” he said. “Our job is not to stay on issues or not be concerned with rumors that are spreading but rather representing the student body. This was a minor hiccup in our year. We’ve done some incredible things this year.”
ASI meets every Friday at 3:15 p.m. in the Business Development Center in room 155B.
