Last Wednesday the UC Davis Student Liaison Commission met in the Community Chambers of City Hall. This is where the city comes together with UC Davis students to discuss the Davis experience.
The commission began with an idea from Adam Thongsavat, student and ASUCD senator, and Unitrans manager, Geoff Straw, to improve this year’s Causeway Classic. Both said they would like to have downtown Davis turned into a huge Aggie football party the day of the event.
“We want to get the community involved by having Saturday be football day,” Thongsavat said.
Unitrans would be involved in the project by using their buses to transport football fans to and from Aggie Stadium. Thongsavat said he wants to get other downtown businesses involved, so that the university and downtown can support the team together.
The commission, however, brought up their concerns.
“Can we be insured that Picnic Day-type problems can be avoided?” said Stacy Winton, staff liaison with the city management.
The commission expressed concern about the possibility of alcohol-related problems during the Causeway Classic. Thongsavat said that those in control of the event would do everything possible to make sure that did not happen. They would even hire an outside security team to make sure that the bus trips were completed smoothly, Thongsavat said.
Later, the commission introduced two new members. Janna Buccieri and Maria Tebbutt were both appointed on Oct. 5 and are members of Public-at-Large. Public-at-Large is a grassroots organization that focuses on local communication, identification and education.
Previn Witana, ASUCD vice president was named chairperson and Dylan Schaefer, ASUCD city-county affairs director was named vice-chair position.
With administrative items out of the way, the commission moved to communication between the city of Davis and UC Davis students.
The city of Davis has, in some respects, limited capabilities with communicating with the UC Davis student community, Winton said. The city has no Facebook or Twitter that can inform the students of events or important information.
The members said that the university needs to let the city have more access to students. Winton said that the city could focus on talking to smaller groups on campus to promote specific information and have word spread about the city through the student community.
“The open discussions with the city and UC Davis staff and students helps keep the lines of communication open. It is a very effective communication tool to get information out to the students regarding topics they are interested in,” said Winton.
BRIAN A. BROWN can be reached at city@theaggie.org.
Oh silly Aggie. “Public-at-Large” simply means members who do not represent particular groups and are just members of the public. In the case of this commission-which I chaired as a student–includes representatives of ASUCD, the greek community, the administration and others, in addition to having three “Public-at-Large” members who do not represent any particular group.
Additionally, the commission’s name is the “City-UCD Student Liaison Commission”.
I mean this in the nicest way, but come on Aggie you can at least get the simplest things right.