SA attempts to spend student fees off-campus

A job fair was held Saturday, April 18 at the Sunrise Event Center in Rancho Cordova. Because of the current unemployment rate, a job fair might be the best way for an ARC student to find a job. The only problem with this particular job fair is that if you are an ARC student, you probably never heard about it. There's one more problem. ARC almost spent $5500 to fund this job fair but Phil Sanders, faculty advisor for the ARC SA, alleges the meetings that took place to fund the job fair were illegal. According to Sanders, his absence from the meetings makes the vote to fund the job fair void.

Sanders said, "The meeting itself was not in the legal realm because there was no advisor present. He added, "Holding a meeting without notifying the advisor is really inappropriate behavior." The SA itself is split on the matter. Yuriy Popko says the meetings, the vote, and the choice to fund the job fair did not violate any SA bi-laws. Jacob Johnson said the choice to fund the job fair is "ridiculous" and Maunee Desai called the debacle "totally ludicrous."

Dr. Pam Walker, Vice President Student Affairs agrees with Popko that the meetings did not violate any bi-laws and told the Current, "The bi-laws don't state an advisor needs to be there…but they couldn't get any money for anything unless there was an administrator signing off."

Sanders, speaking just outside the SA office said, "I'm not signing it."

When asked what he believed the SA's agenda was in funding the job fair he did not want to answer the question on the record.

Dr. Walker would only speak of the SA's agenda regarding the funding off the record. The meetings and vote took place during spring break. Sanders says the SA knew he was not going to be on campus.

Because the meetings and vote took place during spring break, there was little time to publicize the April 18 job fair to ARC students. Documents provided by the SA reveal $5000 for the purpose of "sponsorship" as well as $500 for the purpose of "advertisement."

Bill S 09-15 states, "…if possible, the SA will take out an ad in the Current to publicize the event."

According to the document, the bill passed April 9, but according to the Current's advertising department, no attempt was made by the SA to take out an advertisement.

Volume 60, Edition 14 of the Current was published and made available to the campus April 16.

A three-day search of the ARC campus revealed no publicity for the job fair.

SA member Alex Malash says that the $500 was used to print about 100 flyers to advertise the job fair, which were distributed to "a couple" people.

He also says that there were no other attempts at publicity, and acknowledged that this calculates the cost of each flyer to be $5.

Career Center employees were completely unaware of an ARC sponsored job fair.

ARC was listed as a sponsor of the off-campus job fair in the April 3 edition of The Anons newspaper, a publication for "Northern California Russian -Speaking Community." The funding for the job fair was not voted and approved by the SA until April 9. Commenting on this, Dr. Walker said, "That's bad…you don't want to add somebody's name just thinking they're going to give you money." ARC Black Student Union President Akilah Parks attended the meetings in question and was curious about the funding, so she called the Black Chamber of Commerce to ask them their opinion.

She was told by a BCC spokesperson that typically, no money is required for general participation in a job fair. ARC student David Fisher calls the action of the SA a "dereliction of duty" and added, "But I'm not surprised; this has got to stop." The money trail ends with Russian American Media, the organizers of the job fair, and recipients of the funding in question.

Paul Recean, marketing manager for Russian American Media, was on campus April 16, and he said that ARC students would know about the job fair from the flyers.

He did not have any of the flyers in question, but says that more flyers were available.

Recean says that there is an ad in The Anons; this paper is not printed in English.

He says that ARC was listed as a sponsor in his newspaper before the funding had been approved because, "I was hoping I would get the money."

When asked why ARC was listed in the April 3 edition of his newspaper, even though the funding had not been approved as of that date he said, "I was hoping I would get the money." April 17, Recean told the Current there was "A lot" of Internet publicity for the job fair. The advertisement on The Anons website for the April 18 event did not list ARC as a sponsor.

A Google search including keywords ARC and job fair April 18 revealed nothing. When told of the Google search Recean said, "Why would I trust you?" ARC student Chuck Stevens, when asked for his feelings regarding the job fair said, "They ripped the students off and should be held accountable."

The job fair guide lists booth 30 as being "ARC Student Council." There were no ARC student council members in the booth, but there was a stack of The Anons newspaper on the table.

The newspaper contains an article titled "Breaking News ARC." The article details the current SA's position, agenda, and information regarding the candidates they favor in the upcoming campus election.

Yuriy Popko's email address and phone number are listed as well, in the event a reader would like to assist in the upcoming election. The guide lists table 14 as "American River College." A banner reading "ARC Diesel/Clean Technology adorned the table, as well as a stack of The Anons next to ARC bio-diesel course fliers.

One of the men behind the table did not speak English; the other, a man identifying himself as ARC student Nick Kalman, says that the job fair was well attended, but acknowledged that he did not see many ARC students there.

He said, "This is a good representation for the Russian people to find a job." Russian American Media marketing manager Angelica Strijaous said that booth 30 was indeed intended for the ARC Student Council, saying that they had contacted her associates that morning.

When asked why the booth was empty and the table had copies of The Anons and no ARC related material, Strijaous said, "That doesn't make any sense." Kindra Pring, an ARC student that makes her presence known at most SA meetings feels as though it's "business as usual" for the current SA.

Regarding the funding, she said, "They (SA) are ready to drop on-campus, multi-cultural events, but funded this job fair. It shows they're really up there for their own agenda, not for the good of the students." After Dr. Walker agreed to go back on the record she said, "…We need to go back and define what the SA is, and what we want the SA to be involved with."

Dr. Walker contacted the Current on April 20 to say that the SA has rescinded their request to fund the job fair.

She could provide very few details regarding the SA's decision, but thanked the Current for bringing the matter to her attention.