The AS Senate is a group of elected student representatives which serves as the policy-making body of Associated Students. Every Wednesday at 6:30 PM, the AS Senate convenes to pass bills and resolutions, hear reports from Boards, Committees, and Units (BCUs), and hold public forum.
KCSB’s Tatiana Jacquez brings you a recap of their latest meeting on January 7, 2026.
Senators vote to allocate money from the Senate Unallocated Fund to AS Living History Project.
On the Deltopia Noise Ordinance and More from the EVPLA!:
- EJ Raad individually met with every Santa Barbara County Supervisor to discuss their thoughts on the proposed ordinance, and the conditions necessary for the Supervisors to vote against it.
- Supervisor Bob Nelson voiced concerns regarding the financial burden Deltopia has on the County, with an estimated $300,000-400,000 dollars a year for overtime of law enforcement, emergency, and medical service workers, and various clean-up costs.
- Senators considered a motion to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to allocate $200,000 to Santa Barbara County under the stipulation that the noise ordinance not be implemented.
- Some Senators justified signing a MoU as necessary for protecting student interests, and would only make up about 1% of the Associated Students’ $21 million budget.
- Senators also discussed a proposed sanctioned event by IVCSD, should Deltopia be cancelled, and what a “mid-term” solution would look like for sanctioning an event in the future.
- The EVPLA and Senators also coordinated rides to the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, January 13th, for students and members of the Association to give public comment.
- NOTE: During the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors meeting, AS Senators asserted the Senate‘s commitment to pledging $140,000 dollars to the County to cover approximately half of Deltopia’s total annual cost to Santa Barbara County. This includes impacted emergency and medical services, as well as overtime for law enforcement.
- Updates from the A.S. President: Le Anh Metzger announced a week of immigration-related trainings and events, including rapid response trainings, legal workshops, teach-ins, and, of course, free food.
- The search for a new UCPD Chief of Police continues with four finalists remaining. President Metzger noted that the EVPLA will be hosting a panel for the finalists to connect with students and hear from the community.
- President Metzger also noted her continued food security initiatives and is currently working with BCUs to coordinate more opportunities, on top of supporting the UnDocuFresh program.
- Updates from AS Senate Projects:
- In collaboration with Generation Conscious, the Outreach Committee is implementing package-free, free, and liquidless laundry detergent sheets to all University-owned Undergraduate housing, and is currently awaiting the processing of the invoice by the Associated Students. The project will roll out within the next few weeks.
- Allocations by the Senate this meeting include:
- $1,400 from Senate Unallocated for an AS Merch Project in collaboration with the EVLPA and IVP offices to hand out free merch to students at the Cal Poly v. UCSB basketball game on January 22nd. The project is in partnership with Island View Outfitters and would produce 100 shirts at $13.48 each.
- Passed in a 12-2-1 vote.
- $9,209.19 from Senate Unallocated to the AS Living History Project. This money would fund new equipment for their projects, covering the Save Deltopia efforts, digitizing physical archive, and collaborating with the Gaucho Global Commission on various collections. The Living History Project’s budget reflects the organization’s efforts to rebrand and fully revamp its efforts to cover UCSB history.
- Passed the motion in a 14-0-1 vote.
- $10,759 from the United States Students Association (USSA) Fund for a Speech Forensics tournament in Athens, and an additional $4,781.68 from the USSA Fund for a Voices of the Valley Tournament in Los Angeles.
- Senator Hepburn abstained from both votes to prevent a potential conflict of interest, as he will likely participate in the Speech Forensics tournaments.
- The first motion passed in a 10-0-5 vote, while the latter passed in a 9-1-5 vote.
The Senate passed the following pieces of legislation:
- A Bill to Modernize Honoraria (Sussman – Jones): This bill will create a new and updated Honoraria system, digitizing the honoraria system for students and staff within the Association to get paid.
- In the last meeting of the Fall Quarter, controversy and conflict over the messaging behind the bill arose from Senators, delaying voting on the bill.
- On December 11th, an attempted email vote failed to reach quorum, as Senators wanted more time to read through the bill and to come to Senate with amendments.
- The Senators opened the bill on the Senate floor to strike out “only under extenuating circumstances” and other verbiage that would make check distribution difficult unless an Association member was under said “extenuating circumstances”.
- Fall Quarterly Omnibus Bill (Than – Wahidullah): This bill updates and amends parts of the Legal Codes for several BCUs, including the Commission on Disability Equity (CODE), the Environmental Justice Alliance (EJA), the AS Living Living History Project, the AS Food Bank, and the AS Trans & Queer Commission.
- $1,400 from Senate Unallocated for an AS Merch Project in collaboration with the EVLPA and IVP offices to hand out free merch to students at the Cal Poly v. UCSB basketball game on January 22nd. The project is in partnership with Island View Outfitters and would produce 100 shirts at $13.48 each.
