Student government members work on laws

The new student government leaders are looking to change things up.

In the wake of former Associated Student Government President Jason Hosfield’s departure, the new president Mario Gaspar and new vice president Michael Dentoni are looking to make the current bylaws more accessible and understandable for everyone.

“Our number one priority right now is to fix it up (the bylaws), make it available, and to make it clear,” Dentoni said.

Dentoni, who is primarily in charge of the revamping, said that part of the reason for the change has to do with how Hosfield left. When he departed, there was confusion as to how it should be handled.

“When Jason left, we had an issue interpreting the bylaws, because two areas seemed to talk about the same issue,” Dentoni said.

Another issue that Dentoni and Gaspar agreed on, was the inaccessibility of certain bylaws to students when they navigate through the ASG website.

“Most students don’t have access to Articles XVIII or XIX (18 and 19), which has said ‘to be posted’ since before we took office…I don’t even know how long,” Dentoni said.

Most of the the bylaws aren’t necessarily being changed, they both said, but they want to bring greater clarification to them.

“A lot of the wording seemed to be outdated, referring to committees that no longer meet or are no longer a part of the governing structure at Palomar,” Dentoni said.

One of the primary bylaws that has been reworked was Article XVII, which defines how to become a student delegate. Dentoni mentioned that the old wording was set in a way that apparently kept freshman from joining ASG.

“There’s been a misunderstanding for quite a while that freshman senators aren’t allowed; that in your freshman year you can’t even be in ASG,” Dentoni said. “We want to make sure everyone is included.”

“Part of what makes (college) really worth while is being able to connect with students,” Dentoni added.

Their other goal by revising the bylaws and policies was to clearly distinguish bylaws from policies. One policy they are working on is policy number one, which outlines the manner in which a delegate, senator or president resigns. In the last two school years, the voted president has resigned before their second semester, which has caused some issues within the group.

“It seems to be that every single semester presidents change,” Dentoni said.

“So we want to make it absolutely clear what happens, what the protocol is. Because unfortunately, that’s going to be an ASG tradition that lasts a while.”

If you’d like to keep updated on the bylaws and policies, visit ASG’s official website: http://www.palomar.edu/asg/bylaws/.