AS Senate Recap – 3/5/25
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 Joyce Chi brings you a recap of their latest meeting on March 5, 2025.
Supervisor Laura Capps (L) and District Representative Eleanor Gartner.
Making a guest appearance at the last Senate meeting of the quarter was Supervisor Laura Capps. She, alongside Eleanor Gartner, her district representative for Isla Vista, discussed how some of the money from a housing settlement between Santa Barbara County and UCSB will be used. $600k of the $3.7 million settlement will go towards rental property inspections in Isla Vista this summer.
The inspections will allow the county to assess living conditions in all 900 of IV’s rental units. Supervisor Capps said the goal was to pressure landlords into making repairs before the county’s inspectors arrive. “We want to make a lot of noise, so that’s why we’re here,” she said.
Concerns were raised by Isla Vista Tenants Union Chair Mikaela Wilson over whether the inspections could potentially displace people living in garages and other non-residential spaces. Capps said conducting the inspections in the summer would hopefully mitigate that, and there was an agreement in place with UCSB to help find them housing.
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Questions over one event’s funding stretched into an hour-long debate. It was already nearing 1 AM when some Senators sought and eventually failed to reject approval for the March 4th meeting minutes of the Isla Vista Community Relations Committee (IVCRC). The IVCRC had approved over $32k for the Mega Shabbat hosted by Chabad, a synagogue in Isla Vista.
Mega Shabbat is an annual event that invites the wider community – not just Jewish students – to partake in Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest. It’s called “Mega” for a reason – Chabad is expecting at least 1,200 attendees this year to share a meal and prayers. Senator Jasmine Amin said that Mega Shabbat was a major factor in her and her friends’ decision to attend UCSB.
Chabad had requested about $65k from the Finance Committee, in addition to the $32k from the IVCRC. Both of these requests were approved.
Senator Caroline Lankarani, who made the original motion but later apologized for the move, told us by email that initially, “from an unassuming perspective, almost $100,000 for an event is a lot of money.” They said that they, like other Senators, had run for office to do something about rising costs of basic needs, “so this amount definitely struck a nerve.”
In an email to KCSB News, Internal Vice President Açúcar Pinto acknowledged Mega Shabbat is “imperative” for “allow[ing] communities to interact about faith and spread joy,” but they said they raised concerns over transparency.
Specifically, they questioned why the Finance Committee’s minutes did not note an exception for spending limits on food, and why there was no record of the specific line items Chabad wanted to spend the money on.
Senator Aryaman Singh, who chairs the Finance Committee, said his committee “drilled” Chabad on all line items. Regarding the spending limits, Singh said that because Chabad presented this with an AS entity (in this case, AS Program Board), there was no need to request an exception. He further explained that not including strict guidelines on how much money could be spent for each line item allowed for greater flexibility.
Pinto additionally noted “a lack of involvement” by the AS Jewish Commission (JComm) in funding this event, which signified to them “inactivity” that prompted their office to offer JComm support. We reached out to JComm Chair Ephraim Shalunov multiple times, but haven’t heard back.
The motion to reject the IVCRC’s minutes faced pushback on two grounds.
First, the Senate does have a role in approving minutes and reviewing financial matters. But Senators Taylor Iden and Mingjun Zha argued that the Senate would be overstepping here. They’d not only be rejecting a funding decision based on substance rather than procedural errors, but also questioning the delegated authority of campus entities and their chairs.
Senator Singh called the potential motion “completely unprecedented,” and maintained that the Finance Committee’s members decided to approve the funding together based on “all the facts that this Senate does not have right now.”
(The Chair of the IVCRC is David Jr. Sim, who’s also the Associated Students’ Chief Compliance Officer [CCO]. In other words, his job as CCO is to make sure decisions, including financial ones, are all up to par.)
Second, Senators Amin and Leah Khorsandi argued that rejecting funding of an event primarily serving Jewish students could be perceived as anti-Semitic. They said the Senate approved similarly large sums of funding for Gaucho Racing, and questioned the focus on Mega Shabbat. IVP Pinto responded that they would raise transparency concerns regardless of which organization was involved.
Senator Lankarani, who made the motion, said that “it was never my intention to make Jewish students or Senators to feel like I was specifically targeting them.” Lankarani called Chabad and Mega Shabbat “great examples of bringing together our Jewish and non-Jewish students” and said “it is not solely my place to decide” what funding they need. Lankarani explained they “did not want to disappoint” Pinto and another Senator who asked them to bring the motion forward. (Lankarani declined to name this other Senator in order to protect them from any backlash.)
The motion eventually was rescinded by Senator Amna Chaudhry, the second on the motion. Thus, the IVCRC’s minutes were approved, and the funding for Mega Shabbat will go through.
Chabad and Senator Chaudhry did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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What the Senate passed:
A Resolution to Include a Lock-in Fee for the Grammarly For Education Subscription On Ballot (Zha – Siddiqui – Singh)
- The Strategic Operations Office is requesting a lock in fee ($4.34 for Fall/Winter/Spring and $1.99 for Summer) to fund Grammarly For Education. This is essentially a version of Grammarly Pro that’s offered to schools at a discounted rate. Students would pay $13 each year for Grammarly For Education, as opposed to $144 for Grammarly Pro. Any unused funds from the lock-in fee would go towards the Senate Unallocated account for “general assignment.”
- Senator Zha argued for the benefits of Grammarly for international students especially: “I have a lot of ideas, but to present them properly in a paper is a challenge.”
- Senator Nadine Malhis said she preferred programs that educated students on their mistakes rather than just fixing them. Zha responded that in his own experience, he’s tried to understand what mistakes he may have made.
A Resolution to Propose an Increase to the Lock-in Fee for KCSB-FM 91.9 (Lankarani – Kadah)
- Well, as you might imagine, I feel a certain way about this ballot initiative, but let me give you the facts. This increased lock-in fee (to a total of $4.88 for F/W/S and $4.45 for Summer) would support KCSB’s operations budget, most of which goes towards paying staff salaries (including mine…). The station does not have lock-in rollover.
- Senator Dalia Gerson asked if KCSB could seek funding from alternative sources, like the Senate Unallocated fund or the Finance Committee. Senator and Finance Chair Arayaman Singh said his committee does not cover operation costs, only events. The Senate Unallocated fund, he added, has just $115k left, while KCSB General Manager Naila Irfan said the station needed a sum closer to $90k in order to cover spending deficits.
- That spending deficit comes from a cell site account which would not be replenished quickly enough to cover the station’s needs, Irfan said. The cell site account covers building upkeep for Storke Tower.
A Resolution to Propose an Increase to the Lock-in Fee for A.S Food Bank (Ganesh – Suuck – Wahidullah)
- The Food Bank is requesting a lock-in fee increase (to a total of $13 for F/W/S/S) in order to keep up with growing student needs and increasing food costs (they said they’ll also be impacted by President Donald Trump’s tariff threats).
- The Senate was unanimous in voting this onto the Spring ballot. Senator Sandy Ganesh said the Food Bank “feed[s] people. They need to continue to feed more people.” Senator Caroline Lankarani said the Food Bank helps students with “such grace, such kindness, such dignity.”
A Resolution to Introduce a Referenda Section for the Spring General Election (Iden – Lala)
- After the Senate rejected including referenda on a potential bowling alley and billiards hall, Research Associate Noah Luken in the Office of the Attorney General and Federal Policy Analyst Neo Harter of the Senate Outreach Committee presented a slate of new referenda intended to poll the student body on a wider range of topics. These include questions on basic needs like housing and on-campus food availability, as well as projects like artistic spaces, campus beautification, and technology rentals and repair.
A Resolution to Update Article X of the Associated Students’ Constitution (Khorsandi – Gerson)
- If you’re reading this far down, then you probably know that this initiative, intended to allow for extensions to the Spring General Election for things like religious holidays and natural disasters, was originally introduced onto the Winter Special Election ballot. But because that election did not reach a high enough voter turnout for its results to be validated, Senator Leah Khorsandi brought it back for the Spring election.
A Resolution to Update Article IX of the Associated Students’ Constitution (Siddiqui – Zha)
- This proposed constitutional amendment seeks to promote “student involvement in the personnel and operations of AS.” (Read a further explanation in last week’s Senate Recap.)
Active Allocation Act (Iden – Ganesh)
- Another ballot initiative! This resolution addresses “excessive carryforward funds” (aka, rollover), which the authors argue causes the funds’ value to be lost to inflation as well as a perception of “financial mismanagement” or “governmental inefficiency.” If students approve the initiative, then the AS Constitution will be amended to include a section stating that rollover can be used for “capital projects” or “enhancing existing student services at the discretion of the Senate.”
- Senator Iden said the goal of passing this now, well in advance of the Spring General Election, was to allow for enough time to consult with campus organizations who could be affected. Iden also explained that more specifics (like what percentage of rollover the Senate could use) would be expanded on in the AS Legal Code.
A Bill to Amend AS Lobby Corps By-Laws (McClintock – Suuck)
- This bill would make changes requested by Lobby Corps to the parts of Legal Code that relates to their organization. (Read more here.)
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What the Senate rejected:
A Resolution to Propose an Increase to the Lock-in Fee for A.S Trans and Queer Commission (Ganesh – Suuck)
- The Trans and Queer Commission (TQCOMM) requested a lock-in fee increase (to a total of $1.66 for F/W/S and $1.49 for Summer) to support their advocacy and programming for LGBTQIA+ students. Their lock-in fee hasn’t changed in a decade, and they’ve added a new position this quarter too. The Senate ultimately did not put this on the Spring ballot, because they wanted to see TQCOMM spend down their rollover first.
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What the Senate tabled:
A Bill to Improve Internal AS Operations (Siddiqui – Zha)
- Senator Dan Siddiqui said he temporarily tabled this bill, which encourages more student involvement within hiring for AS and clarifies the chain of authority stemming from the UC Regents, in order to meet and discuss it with a few more people. (Read more here.)
- The Food Bank’s proposal is to use the funds of an inactive campus group (the Commission on Culture, Arts, and Joy Justice [CCAJJ]) to support its snack stations around campus. In order to assess how much of CCAJJ’s budget to assign to the Food Bank, which we just discussed is going up for an increase in its lock-in fee and could potentially secure more funding that way, the Senate is tabling this proposal until Spring Quarter.
You can see last week’s AS Senate agenda here. Meetings are typically held each week at the Flying A Room of the University Center (Main Floor) throughout the quarter, aside from Week 10. You can also watch live and past meetings on Facebook here.