Sabrina Dias, outgoing Housing Day director and Outreach Assembly speaker, has filed a suit against ASUCD President Adam Thongsavat for improper hiring practices.

Dias’ complaint is in regard to the hiring of the City and County Affairs director. Proper ASUCD hiring techniques are outlined by the ASUCD constitution, which states that only the president and the outgoing unit director (or next highest available officer) need be present for the interviews to take place.

The court will hear opening oral statements May 18 in the Mee Room at 9 p.m. Thongsavat does not plan on attending and will instead issue a statement in writing for the court.

Because the most recent City and County Affairs director was removed from his position, Thongsavat chose Kevin Pascual, outgoing City and County Affairs assistant director for policy, to accompany him for interviews.

Pascual and Thongsavat were not able to coordinate their schedules to set up times for all three candidates’ interviews. Dias was left to interview with the president alone, while the other two candidates met with both interviewers.

“My schedule is very impacted,” Thongsavat said. “As is Kevin’s. It’s true he was not there for Dias’ interview, but I did consult him prior to the interview.”

According to Thongsavat, it was well known within ASUCD that Dias was interested in the position, and he believes she is taking him to court largely due to bitterness.

But Dias said that Thongsavat should have found time for a proper interview.

“There was clearly no rush since the director for the unit was not confirmed until a week and a half after the interviews,” Dias said in an e-mail interview. “The interviews could have gone on one extra day to ensure the bylaws were followed.”

The case will be heard by the ASUCD court, which is presided over by Chief Justice Rudy Ornelas. Ornelas could not make any comment about the current case until there is a ruling.

“The sad thing is that most of the time, bylaws and constitutional articles go ignored and are violated,” Ornelas said in an e-mail interview. “However, the court cannot do anything without a formal complaint.”

Instead of Dias, Thongsavat chose Jeanna Gindi, outgoing City and County affairs director of policy, for the director position.

“Both Gindi and Dias were qualified for the position, but in the end we went with Gindi,” Thongsavat said. “If the court rules that we have to do the hiring process over again, I’m going to choose the same person.”

Thongsavat insisted that this lawsuit is only a bump in the road in what has been a very successful start to his term as president. He plans to do whatever is best for ASUCD.

“I have the utmost respect for our president,” Dias said. With that said he, on the day he became president, swore to uphold the ASUCD bylaws and constitution. Therefore, he should have followed them. No one in our association is above our bylaws and constitution.?”

ANDY VERDEROSA can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

A student group called the Flatland Food Collective is attempting to bring locally-grown, organic food to campus.

Flatland Food Collective is one of many student groups nationwide that is striving to bring food cooperatives to college campuses, said Kase Wheatley, co-founder of Flatland Food Collective and sophomore sustainable agriculture and food systems major.

Currently, there are food co-ops at Auburn University and George Washington University, and the UC Davis group is hoping to be just as successful.

“[UC Davis] is in a good position: we’re close to farmers, have access to local food, and we’re in a sustainability research area,” Wheatley said. “There’s an incredible amount of support from the community.”

Flatland Food Collective is sponsored by Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (CoFed), a national nonprofit organization that provides resources for groups on college campuses to start food co-ops. Currently, UC Santa Barbara; Humboldt State University; University of Washington; Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo; and City College of San Francisco also have student groups sponsored by CoFed.

CoFed was founded after students at UC Berkeley prevented the administration from bringing a Panda Express into the César E. Chávez Student Center, said Willee Roberts, senior international relations major and intern for CoFed. The students decided to offer a food cooperative as an alternative, and CoFed was founded to provide other college campuses with the resources to start up their own co-ops.

Initially, the UC Davis student group will run a peddle-powered seasonal smoothie cart that they hope to start up in Fall 2011. Local farmers will donate the fruit for the smoothies.

Because CoFed sponsors it, the group is exempt from paying for its start-up business costs out of its own pocket, Roberts said. They can essentially start up the smoothie cart with no costs.

“CoFed is our nonprofit fiscal sponsor, and we have the ability to jump through every loophole possible because we’re both a nonprofit and a student group,” he said. “All of the start up costs for a normal business are taken care of for us. We can get things donated to us tax deductible, we can get our catering permit for free and we can get our EHS [Environmental Health and Safety] inspections for free.”

After generating enough revenue, the team is looking to bring the café directly on campus, at which point they will no longer be a nonprofit. While they have not spoken closely with anyone in the administration, Wheatley said they are looking into a location at the Old Cowell Student Health Center, the Memorial Union, the student farms or the Domes 2.0 – if it gets built.

Brett Burns, executive director of auxiliary enterprises, said in an e-mail interview that he would welcome a discussion with the student group to see if this program could be viable at UC Davis.

The café would also serve as a music venue and feature art from the art department.

Ultimately, the group’s long-term goal is to have its own market garden. It also would like to have local home brewers sell their beer at the café.

Wheatley noted that the community-based factor is just as important as the sustainability and food quality. Also, the café will have clear distinctions from the ASUCD Coffee House, he said.

“The reason why the CoHo isn’t what we’re striving for is – sure they serve food at a decent price – but we’re really trying to aim for real food, food that’s socially equitable, economically viable and environmentally friendly,” he said. “The CoHo only sources 21 to 22 percent of real food as defined by the Real Food Challenge.”

Flatland Food Collective pays CoFed $500 annually in exchange for their sponsorship, Roberts said. CoFed also provides board of consultant cabinets that includes lawyers and people with MBAs, particularly those who have worked in cooperative business. The board has weekly office hours to provide tips, help with troubleshooting and to discuss a business model.

Currently, all of the volunteers are getting units for their work through the Education for Sustainable Living Program (ESLP). The team is hoping to start a class on how to run a cooperative.

Ultimately, the student group hopes to support CoFed so that more food cooperatives will be present on campuses nationwide, Wheatley said.

“It’s very important to get this started in Davis, but it’s also important to spread this across the nation,” he said. “We just had a fundraiser and donated half of the money to CoFed … When I leave here, I want to be able to visit some of the other cooperatives that are getting started.”

Wheatley said that there is a design contest for the logo for Flatland Food Collective, which lasts until June 1. All submissions should be sent to enlara@ucdavis.edu.

MARTHA GEORGIS can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

Correction – May 19, 2011: In the above article, multiple incorrect statements were made. It states
that there are student food co-ops at Auburn and George Washington University.
Actually, the food co-op at George Washington is starting, but it hasn’t been
established yet. It also states that all the Flatland Food Collective
volunteers are getting units through the Education for a Sustainable Living
Program. Actually, only the students currently working on the pedal-powered
smoothie cart are getting units. Willee Roberts, intern for CoFed, is quoted saying
that the Collective is exempt from paying for its start-up costs out of its own
pocket. Roberts also said the Collective is currently a nonprofit. According to
CoFed Northern California Director Enosh Baker, Roberts was misinformed. Baker
said the students are not exempt from paying startup costs and that the
Collective is not a non-profit itself. Rather, it is under CoFed’s non-profit
umbrella. Baker also said the group of students have spoken with administrators on campus. The Aggie regrets these errors.

Editor’s Note: The Environmental Planning and Policy Commission (EPPC) is an ASUCD commission that works to create a more environmentally sustainable campus.

What’s greener: paper or plastic?

Here at EPPC, we encourage you to use a stylish reusable bag to satisfy your shopping bag needs. However, even the greenest of tree people find themselves caught without an eco-tote once in awhile. Those awkward moments often result in the lose-lose situation of paper vs. plastic (as opposed to forfeiting your groceries at the check-out aisle, in which case, you are a better eco-warrior than myself). So, knee-jerk reaction: plastic is bad, and paper is made of trees … so paper is a better option, right? Not exactly. In terms of the entire lifespan of a paper bag, production, transportation, and decomposition, a paper bag will end up emitting 70 percent more greenhouse gasses than its plastic counterpart. Furthermore, trees take a major hit for our luxury of single-use paper bags: 14 million trees are chopped down every year for paper bag production. However, don’t jump on the plastic bandwagon just yet: Polyethylene is made from fossil fuels, and they pretty much refuse to return to their organic state (read: they don’t break down). American shoppers use over 100 billion plastic bags annually, equating to 12 million barrels of oil. The costs (monetary, environmental and moral) associated with the extraction of fossil fuels are constantly increasing, as the proverbial “low-hanging fruit” has long since been harvested. So, dear reader, which is the lesser of the two evils? Bottom line: they both suck. The purest type of recycling is plain-old re-use. However, if you do happen to be caught at the check-out aisle without a bag option, it’s up to you to weigh the pros and cons of each. Happy shopping!

Send your questions for EPPC to margaret.link@gmail.com.

On March 8, UC Davis police found the body of Alexander Goldschneider in his dorm room. That death has since been ruled a suicide.

Yolo County Chief Deputy Coroner Robert LaBrash told The Davis Enterprise on Monday that Goldschneider died from an overdose of ibuprofen and diphenhydramine, the main ingredient in allergy medication.

Goldschneider was a 21-year-old transfer student from Auburn, Calif. majoring in human development. Police found his body after Goldschneider’s parents reported concern over not hearing from him for three to four days.

– Janelle Bitker

The celebration has begun. On April 29, the ceremonial groundbreaking for the Veterinary Medicine Research Facility 3B commenced at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. The purpose of the building will be to improve the health of animals, humans and the environment, focusing on a wide spectrum of related issues.

“The new building will bring the faculty into closer association with our teaching hospital and help facilitate our future research studies on clinical case material,” said Bennie Osburn, dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine.

The four-story, 76,000 square foot research building will be located northeast of the William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.

The building is one of seven other buildings of the first phase of a $354 million project by the veterinary school.

In 1998, the school was initially put on limited accreditation by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) due to the location of its instructional facilities and because Haring Hall had become outdated for contemporary research, Osburn said.

At the time, the core veterinary teaching programs were housed in Haring Hall and a collection of temporary buildings on central campus. Meanwhile, clinical services and other research facilities were located at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital and Tupper Hall, both of which are on the west side of campus.

The motivation to improve poor location and outdated facilities, as well as regain accreditation, bolstered and gave way to the $354 million campaign.

After the building is finished, 50 faculty members and their graduate students will be moving and reuniting with the rest of the faculty.

“Moving is a lot of work, but in this case, everyone welcomes the move. Haring Hall is obsolete and is in need of major renovations,” said Isaac Pessah, professor of the department of molecular biosciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine.

The $354 million project consists of two phases: Phase 1 is the construction of new facilities, including the Veterinary Medicine Research Facility 3B, and Phase 2 will focus on the needs of an updated veterinary hospital.

“The hospital we are in was originally constructed for 3,000 patients a year, and we actually have about 35,000 patients a year – we don’t have adequate facilities to address our caseload,” Osburn said.

The funding for the new Vet 3B building has come from the state and campus, as well as private donors. The state and campus will fund about $50.8 million to help construct the building. Approximately $12 million has come from private donors, with $7.7 million allotted for the building and $4.3 million to be spent on equipment and furnishing.

The new building will be completed and operational by December 2012.

“We will probably have some of the best facilities in the U.S. for conducting [veterinary] research,” Osburn said.

AMIR BEGOVIC can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

“The executive office creates a proposed budget and for three days senators will look at the proposed budget and vote on it,” said Don Ho, ASUCD controller. “The budget will dictate how much money will go to each unit.”

This year there is a proposed $10.9 million operating budget.

In the proposed budget, both AS Papers and the ASUCD Book Exchange are being cut due to lack of revenue.

“Book Exchange has way too much competition between the on-campus bookstore, off-campus bookstores and even just things like Amazon,” said Eli Yani, ASUCD senator. “I think the advent of the internet made it really difficult for the Book Exchange to keep a functioning and operational model.” 

The salaries of the president, controller and senators are also raised in the president’s proposed budget. If passed, they would each receive $7 per week raises. The commission chairs’ salaries also have a proposed pay raise of $3 per week.

“One thing that particularly irks me is the fact that the president, controller, senators’ and commissioner pay raises have been hiked. I think it’s really inappropriate. Generally [a proposed pay raise] is not supposed to come from the controller and the president,” Yani said.

However, ASUCD President Adam Thongsavat said these wage increases will not take affect until the next round of officials take over.

According to Ho, the budget for Entertainment Council may also be a highly discussed subject due to its recent budget issues and newly granted $100,000 reserve fund.

Yani is also concerned with the way that the proposed budget was put together. Originally, the budget actuals were not provided and there was no coversheet for each unit. 

“For me, it was disheartening that the tools I needed to make an informed decision about the budget were not provided to me as they were supposed to have been,” Yani said. 

Budget hearing season is a time for UC Davis members to voice their opinions, and Ho encourages everyone who is interested to come and share their ideas.

“Budget hearings is a time where we want members of the public to give their input because those are the people we’re serving,” he said.

Budget hearings are scheduled to begin Friday at 5 p.m. and go through Sunday night until the budget is completed. The meetings will take place in the Activities and Recreation Center ballrooms.

HANNAH STRUMWASSER can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

Correction – May 12, 2011: It is stated that the meetings will take place in the Activities and Recreation Center ballrooms. This is incorrect. The hearings take place in the Activities and Recreation Center meeting rooms. The Aggie regrets this error.