The Undergraduate Student Government appointed Owen Gorter as the new treasurer in a special meeting last Tuesday, Oct. 15. The previous treasurer stepped down and USG was unable to perform an election in the meeting prior. The usual meeting held on Wednesday was canceled due to fall break.
Ben Conlin, the USG President, said, “Without them we lose expertise, efficiency, and accuracy in the process. They have the most work out of any USG member, logging upwards of 20 hours a week of USG related work.” Every check, receipt, and purchase made by any of the 240-plus RSOs must be reviewed by the USG Treasurer. Conlin continues, “In this function, they’ll write 60-80 checks per week and review hundreds of purchases.”
This election needed to be held to prevent a massive backlog of financial processing for RSOs.
The special meeting was hosted on Zoom at 6:45 p.m. and barely met the quorum by one person. The meeting was very straightforward; the only item on the agenda was the election and there was not much in the way of campaign speeches or debates as Gorter was the only candidate on the ballot.
Gorter told the senate that he was “very excited to take on this role” and the election started. There were some technical difficulties with the anonymous voting, but all the members with difficulties were on campus and were able to vote in person. The meeting only ran slightly over 15 minutes before the vice president announced that the motion had passed. This appointed Gorter as treasurer and ended the special meeting.
