The Associated Students met for an emergency meeting on Thursday Oct. 20 to discuss the United Nations Day event, billed as Multicultural Day on campus, on Monday Oct. 24. This meeting was formed to release funding for food for students during the festivities and convened at the last minute since the actual celebration was before the board would meet again. While the timing was questioned at the meeting, the precedent set allowing clubs to hold an emergency meeting was the point of contention among the members.

The meeting itself had a rocky start with quorum, the requirement for half of the voting members, barely obtained, and in retrospect done illegally. “The only people who can sit on the council and vote are officers or designated representatives of the club(s). Any average member can’t vote,” said Tony LaRosa, a 31-year-old political science student.

The clubs themselves weren’t notified in the proper manner either, with emails being sent out only to the board and select clubs.

“I was unable to send out the emails myself and had Maryam Labib (director of activities for the AS) send them off,” said Maryam Rahim, vice president of the AS.

“I don’t have everyone’s emails, so I sent them out to the people I know and posted them on the windows of the Student Center,” said Labib.

Without the clubs’ notification, the council was eager to find any member of the club to represent them. This led to a problem when a student named Guy walked into a room stating his membership to the Media Club. He was told that he wasn’t a member and that he wasn’t seen at meetings.

“I’ve never been to any of these meetings, I’ve never been to any KJCC (radio station) meetings, I’ve never been to any of my MECHA meetings,” Guy said. He was asked to leave after this and an attending member was able to stand in for the Media Club. While the issue at hand, the United Nations Day, was not being debated or disputed, “we all want this event to go well,” said Mike Casas, 42-year-old political science major and AS president.

By pushing this meeting through and approving the money they allow any club to do the same as long as the event involves a majority of the student body.

“You are opening up the floodgates for any club to have one of these meetings if they haven’t followed procedure,” said Karrawinds Salters, 35-year-old social and behavioral sciences major and Region 4 representative for San Jose City College.

“These new policies will create a tremendous amount of work for all of us,” said Salters about the new procedure.

“We will see how it goes and change if we need to,” said Casas. “It shouldn’t be too bad.”