The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 3 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 3 NEWS BRIEFS WASHINGTON Clinton: Israel undermining U.S. peacekeeping efforts Secretary of State Hillary Rod- ham Clinton accused Israel of undermining U.S. credibility as a Mideast peacemaker yesterday on the eve of critical talks between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel recently announced new housing plans for east Jerusa- lem, an expansion that the Obama administration has strongly criti- cized. Clinton renewed that disap- proval, telling a pro-Israel audience that provocative Israeli land poli- cies in areas claimed by the Pales- tinians are not in Israel's long-term interests. Nonetheless, Netanyahu planned to take a firm stand regarding Jeru- salem, stressing in a speech last night that the city is Israel's capi- tal, "not a settlement," government spokesman Mark Regev said. CHICAGO Court overturns injunction request for Asian Carp The U.S. Supreme Court yes- terday refused to order the emer- gency closure of Chicago-area shipping locks to prevent vora- cious Asian carp from slipping into the Great Lakes, leaving dis- appointed environmentalists and state officials vowing to continue their fight. In a one-line ruling, the nation's highest court for the second time rejected a request by Michigan and several other Great Lakes states to issue a preliminary injunction shutting the locks in the increas- ingly desperate battle against the invasive fish, which have migrated up the Mississippi and Illinois riv- ers toward the lakes after escap- ing from fish farms in the South decades ago. Asian carp often leap high out of the water when boats are near. They can weigh 100 pounds and consume up to 40 percent of their body weight daily in plank- ton, the base of the food chain for Great Lakes fish. Many fear that if they reach the lakes, the invad- ers could lay waste to a $7 billion fishing industry by starving out competitors such as salmon and walleye. LANSING Granholm praises state employees for concession contract Gov. Jennifer Granholm has praised a union representing 17,000 Michigan employees for ratifying a concessionary contract designed to save the state $15.9 million this year. United Auto Workers Local 6000 says the agreement extends the current contract to the end of 2011. Under the deal, workers hired starting April 1 will have higher deductibles and copays for their health insurance. The union says the contract also replaces previously announced furlough days with a banked leave program. It says employees will lose one hour's pay a week for six months, with the time going into a leave bank for future use. Granholm says Local 6000 members came up with their share of the $50 million in concessions she needs to help balance the bud- get. PARIS Civil servants begin strike in France A strike today in France is expected to disrupt trains, trans- port, postal services and schools as unions aim a new blow at Presi- dent Nicolas Sarkozy following his party's drubbing in regional elections. Train workers launched their action yesterday evening. The strike was expected to cancel about a third of France's TGV fast trains, the SNCF rail network said. Euro- star trains to Britain and Thalys trains to Belgium and the Nether- lands would not be affected, the rail network said. Unions say Sarkozy's conser- vative government hasn't offered satisfactory plans on jobs, salaries, purchasing power and working conditions - and they hope to ham- mer home that message in the wake of Sunday's runoff elections. -Compiled from Daily wire reports dents and accomplish the goals that DEBATE MSA needs to do," he said. "MSA From Page 1 and student organizations need to collaborate." over the past three years of MSA," Presidential candidates came Raymond told the audience. "My next, starting with Chris Arm- goal is to make MSA the center of strong, current LSA junior and student advocacy." chair of MSA's LGBT Committee. Raymond said MSA's attempts Armstrong said MSA currently to solve issues like tuition hikes, "lacks a sense of leadership and dorm life and the drop in minor- responsibility." MForward, he said, ity enrollment has "lacked a sense wants to "make sure that there is a of advocacy," adding that increas- community that is represented, that ing advocacy is the main focus of is connected to student issues on MForward, a party founded by Ray- campus." mond and Armstrong. Ian Margolis, the presidential Raymond said that currently, the candidate from MVP, countered funding process confuses student Armstrong by saying that MSA organizations. If elected, Raymond needs more than advocacy to said he and Armstrong want to improve efficacy. implement workshopsto help facili- "We need to provide tangible tate the fundingprocess. things for students," he said. "We During the debate, Raymond shouldn't limit ourselves to student called the current funding process advocacy." "broken." MVP vice presidential Margolis said that there's a lack candidate Tom Stuckey retorted of communication between MSA that the funding process is not bro- and the rest of the student body. ken, but just needs to be revised. He said he wants students to know Stuckey used his rebuttal time to what the $7.19 they give to MSA is mention the universal funding being spent on, and that students application that will be accessible to can see the results. student organizations if he is elect- "The student body is going to fol- ed as vice president. low us along, but they don't know This universal funding applica- who we are or what we do," he said. tion, he said, will allow students to In regards to Margolis'comment, only apply once for the school year, Armstrong said it is an "inherent whereas now student organizations contradiction" to attempt to pro- must apply each semester. Stuckey vide students with tangible results, said after a student organization but not stress advocacy. applies for funding, the application "To say that pushing for student would be forwarded to the funding issues isn't enough is like saying we bodies of all student governments don't care," he said. on campus. Right now, organiza- Stenvig agreed, saying that advo- tions must apply for money from cacy projects are a "question of stu- each body separately. dent power." Stuckey is a sophomore and cur- Stenvig centered her debate on rent MSA Business School repre- defending student accessibility to sentative. He is the vice chair of the public education and making the Campus Governance Committee. University an "open forum" for dis- Sofia Bolanos, the DAAP vice cussion among students. presidential candidate said her The newly proposed Students for main concern, if elected, would be Progressive Governance Constitu- ensuring the rights of minority stu- tion was a much-discussed topic. dents. This all-campus constitution will "I want to improve campus cli- take affect if approvedby a majority mate here at this school because of voters in this week's election. it affects everyone," she said. "We Stenvig was the only candidate have the most power to make big that voiced opposition to the pro- changes here." posed student constitution, describ- When Singh asked whether MSA ing it as "elite" and "bureaucratic." should support the University's "The new constitution gives the Dearborn campus student govern- president a right to veto actions of ment resolution to divest funds MSA," Stenvig said. "The new con- from Israel, all of the candidates stitution will institutionalize the agreed that MSA should work on kind of anti-democratic measures campus life before they grapple that we have seen in MSA over the with broader, international issues. pastyear." In response, Raymond discussed Margolis disagreed, saying that his support for the Good Samaritan under the newly proposed constitu- Law, which he said would improve tion, the president will be held even student life. The law, which is still more accountable. awaiting a vote from the state Sen- "Under my presidency, the ate, would mean that no student separation of power will allow for could get a Minor In Possession a more effective student govern- charge after calling an ambulance ment," Margolis said. "The power for an intoxicated friend. of veto will allow for the power of "We need to lead MSA to listen to impeachment." the students, to provide to the stu- According to Margolis, the chief nal matters - we can have a better LSA-SG external government as well," he From Page 1 said. Benson said one area he hopes LSA-SG, said LSA-SG's small budget to work on is keeping support for forces the student government to be resolutions alive once they have efficient in spending money, but that been proposed or passed at meet- representatives could improve their ings, noting that once a resolution budget allocation. passes, representatives often "hit a "We just need to be a little bit brick wall." more resourceful on how we give "We show our support, and then out money and what we do on gov- they fizzle out a little bit," he said. ernment," Benson said. To combat this and increase Benson added that student gov- accountability, Benson said he and ernment could do more to help stu- Goldberg plan to meet with the rep- dents trust their representatives resentatives who draft resolutions more. after the resolutions are passed so "We throw these buzzwords out they can formulate concrete time- in student government, like trans- lines to carry out propositions. parency, accountability and con- "If you have someone to be there stituency," Benson said. "But let's be to give you some sort of support and real, I don't think we really do that tell you whattto do and help you out, to the best of our ability." then there's a higher chance that But Benson said there are "easy" there will be consistency and every- ways for LSA-SG to improve on thing is goingto carry over," Benson these issues, and he plans to imple- said. ment those solutions. Goldberg, the current chair of the "If we have a better internal gov- LSA-SG appointments committee, ernment - if we improve our inter- said the quality of LSA-SG's projects Blazey first began swerving a little BUS bit in the right lane, he and Brockner From Page 1 repeatedly asked Blazey to pull over the bus. "They came home safely," Rose Stark said Blazey eventually said. "All isgood now." pulled over and steppedoff the bus LSA sophomore Lucas Brockner, to check the tire pressure. When he president of ZBT, said Blazey acted steppedback onthe bus, he stumbled strangely throughout the bus ride, a couple oftimes and had trouble get- though his driving did not become ting up the stairs. scary until after crossing the border Brockner said that shortly before into Canada. becoming unresponsive, Blazey told "He was doing a lot of kooky stuff," him there was a problem, making it Brockner said. "When someone difficult to switch the gears on the called him'sir' he said, 'Sir is my dad's bus. However, at that point, Brockner name.I'm Gerry, Ilike to party."' said he pointed out that the bus was Brockner, who said he sat at the automatic. front of the bus, said he observed Blazey then began swerving more strange behavior from Blazey across the highway, Stark said, throughout the ride, like when drifting to the left, then to the right. the driver requested that passen- Blazey then went from the rightlane gers turn off the lights because he all the way across to the highway couldn't see despite the fact that no before coming back to the right lane, lights were on. Stark said. Brockner alsosaid whenthegroup Brockner said Blazey hit the stopped to get food before crossing guardrail to the left of the highway a the border into Canada, Blazey drove couple of times as he swerved. away for about 20 minutes without "In the last five minutes, it was telling anyone where he was going, the scariest," Brockner said. "I was leaving all passengers at the stop.. directing him for a little bit because Business sophomore Chad Stark, he said he couldn't see." social chair for ZBT, said when Stark said that other drivers on programming officer of MSA - a position that will be instated with the adoption of the proposed con- stitution - will work to allow stu- dent organizations to collaborate with MSA and other student groups to build programmingcohesion. Armstrong said that the pro- posed constitution will "build a sense of connectedness." He said that the proposed constitution would help create a more diverse student assembly. The recent $9,000 expenditure on a thrown-away MSA website was another central topic for the MSA candidates. They all agreed that if elected, they would rely on student skills to create an efficient website that does not require such an exorbitantbill. "We need to make a website that's more open and available to students," Stenvig said. "We need to do more to make sure student groups know that they know how to obtain those resources." Margolis suggested a more con- crete budget for all MSA actions in the future. "I was appalled about what hap- pened to that website," Margolis said. "We should have a set budget for every action that MSA pays for." In agreement with Margo- lis, Armstrong said, "Although the president was able to spear the ini- tiative, there was no accountabil- ity." "MSA needs to make sure that whatever initiative is going on, that every body of the assembly is aware," he said. The candidates ended by responding to a question that asked them to tell the auditorium why they are really running for presi- dent of the central student govern- ment - without using government terms like accountability, commu- nication, transparency, efficiency, democracy, advocacy, or website. Margolis said that he thinks that students' apathy regarding student government motivates him to run for president. "Students are fed up and they don't know where their money is going," Margolis said. "I am con- fident that my party understands what students want. That's why we are in this: to take students vision and make it a collective vision." Stenvig said that her reason for running is her hope that the assem- bly could be a prominent influence on the University as a whole. "We can achieve great things," she said. "We can play a leading role in defending public education." Armstrong said that his involve- ment in the LGBT community has inspired his desire to run. "I am running for president because the University of Michi- gan is the greatest place I have ever been," he said. "I love the people at this University." should emphasized over quantity. "We do have a good amount of projects, but oftentimes it's the same people taking then on," Goldberg said. "We think it would be more effective to spread out the leader- ship and take advantage of everyone who is there." But Benson said the team's main goal is to make University students more involved in student govern- ment, adding that detached LSA- SG representatives are part of the reason why students are apathetic towards student government. "We are a perfect match to bring government to the next level," Benson said. "(LSA-SG) doesn't reach out to (our constituents) well enough." In order to reach their constitu- ents, Benson said he and Goldberg will rely on the University's Direct Constituency e-mails, which are mass e-mails sent to students. LSA-SG is awarded six DC e-mails per year, but according to Goldberg, the current LSA-SG board only uses a few of them. the highway honked and tried to get Blazey's attention for him to pull over. "Everyone on the bus was kind of freaked out because we were swerv- ing; cars were honking at us," Stark said. "We tried to get him to pull over, but he wasn't responding." Stark said that after a few minutes of swerving through all three lanes, Blazey pulled the bus to a halt. "Eventually, he stopped the bus," Stark said. "He didn't even pull over; he juststopped on the highway." Police were at the scene shortly after the bus stopped. When police asked Blazey questions, he would not respond, Starksaid. Canadian police reported that Blazey had vicodin in his system at the time he was arrested, according to an article in the Toronto Star yes- terday. After Blazey was taken into cus- tody, police called a city bus to take the 34 passengers the rest of the way to Toronto, Brockner said. Rose, the dispatcher, said the company sent another bus driver to Toronto to bring the students back to Ann Arbor on Saturday, adding that as far as he knows Blazey is still in custody. HEALTH CARE From Page 1 health insurance policies until they reach their 26th birthday." Dingell said the reform will reduce costs for students, among other benefits. Dingell said many provisions of the bill, which he described as "enormously complex," will hope- fully take effect by 2014. General Surgery Prof. John Birkmeyer wrote in an e-mail interview that despite the com- plexity of the bill, he felt "relief" at the announcement that it passed. "The Senate bill (approved by the House Sunday night) has plen- ty of warts, but the status quo - SO million uninsured and unsustain- able growth in health care costs - is much worse," Birkmeyer wrote. Brendan Campbell, chair of the University's chapter of College Democrats, echoed Birkmeyer's sentiments, saying he was "ecstat- ic" that the bill passed. "I'm proud to say that we've accomplished some of the best and most aggressive legislation in the past three years for a great soci- ety and we've improved the lives of billions and billions of Ameri- cans," Campbell said. Campbell added that the bill will benefit students in other ways besides offering them increased coverage. "The best part of this bill is not the cost savings that will go into student aid, but.rather that these savings will be reinvested into students through Pell Grants," he said. Charles Bogren, chairman of the University's chapter of College Republicans, wrote in an e-mail interview that he was displeased the legislation passed and that he staunchly opposes it. "My immediate reaction to the SACUA From Page 1 central administration. Like Goldman, the second newly elected member to SACUA, Kearfott, is also from the School of Engineering. Kearfott cited her interest in academic freedom and faculty governance as reasons she would make a good SACUA mem- ber. She recalled watching her grandfather lose tenure for teach- ing evolution in a religion class and said the experience was one of the reasons she wanted to join the committee. Kearfott said she has served on many committees and believes that she will be effective in nego- tiating strategies on SACUA. She added that she believes the job of SACUA is to listen and repre- sent faculty effectively, but also to balance contemporary needs with the tradition of the organi- zation. "I view the SACUA job as one of addressing those modern con- cerns while continuing to stick with the principals of my grand- father," Kearfott told Senate Ass- sembly members. The final new member to join SACUA this spring will be Barald who has been with the University for 28 years. She has experience with faculty governance, hav- ing served on the committee that helped to ensure written rules were in place at all University departments and schools for ten- ure in 1995. Barald also cited her experi- ence with mentoring students from ranging in experience the undergraduate level all the way through to post-doctoral fellows, saying she was "very dedicated" to mentoring. In her speech, Barald also said she believed that SACUA's role was to fairly repre- sent the concerns of all faculty members. "I think the voice of SACUA is essentially the voice of all the fac- ulty, not any one school college or group," Barald said. SLOTTOW DISCUSSES BUSINESS OF HIS OFFICE After the voting finished at yesterday's meeting, Tim Slot- tow, the University's executive vice president and chief financial officer, presented information to Senate Assembly members about his office. Slottow said that the Univer- sity of Michigan is one of three Universities, including Univer- passing of the Senate bill was that it was shameful and disgraceful," Bogren wrote. "This bill will do far more harm than good; it will drive premiums up, decrease con- sumer choices in their medical professionals as well as treatment options, and place yet another millstone around the neck of the American taxpayer." Bogren wrote that he doesn't think the bill will help students because it will create debt that they will have to deal with in the future. "Conservative estimates are that this will run up the deficit by another half a trillion dollars" he wrote. "Our generation should not be forced to pay for the sins of our fathers." "Itwillbe manyyears before we see any increased coverage for the average American, but in the next fiscal year increased tax rates will be immediate," Bogren added. Other students expressed sup- port for the legislation. School of Art & Design senior Amariah Stepter said that though she is unsure of how other stu- dents are reacting to the legisla- tion, she is in support of it. "I thought it was a good move and think it will be a positive move for our country," she said. LSA senior Coertney Vander- hill said she's also in support of the bill. "I think we're the only indus- trialized country that doesn't have (national health care) yet, and for me that doesn't make sense that we don't," she said. LSA junior Kunal Varna said though the bill could have nega- tive consequences he is in support of it overall. "Initially I think it's going to be hard to adjust," he said. "There might be some negative implica- tions, but in the long run it should help the nation as a whole." sity of Texas and the University of Virginia, that have a AAA credit rating. He also told the Senate Assembly that the total net assets of the University are valued at about $8.7 billion. "That's one of the reasons that even in the difficult financial economy we find ourselves in, we are still in a relatively strong position, because so many of our assets and our net assets and our liabilities are relatively small," Slottow said at the meeting. Slottow also discussed the 40 to 50 groups that work under the office of Business and Finance to provide services to faculty and students across campus. Some of these entities that are well known around campus include Plant Operations, Planet Blue and Uni- versity of Michigan Parking and Transportation Services, Slottow said. However, Slottow also stressed the importance of other, less well- known groups, including the University's Upholstery Shop and Furniture Repair and the Univer- sity of Michigan Interior Design Service. Slottow discussed at length the operating measures of these smaller entities under his depart- ment and the Business and Finan- cial Office's commitment to customer service, saying the bi- annual survey given to faculty and students is one of the most effec- tive ways of measuring the quality of service. Slottow also briefly discussed the condition of University Rec- reational Sports facilities, say- ing they are in the worst shape in terms of facilities compared to that of other recreational sports facilities at schools around the country. In addition to discussing the University's recreational facili- ties, Slottow also talked about the North Campus Research Complex. He said a transporta- tion technology forum was held to allow companies to highlight their ideas for new transportation to and from the NCRC. Slottow said that while no deci- sions have been made, some sug- gestions at the forum included aerial gondolas, buses that look and feel like light rail and smaller, three to four person transporta- tion methods. He said the decision willbe made as a part of the University's "inte- grated master planning" and will involve reconsidering how North Campus will look in the future in terms of housing and other compo- nents of North Campus. WANT TO JOIN THE DAILY'S NEWS SECTION? SEND AN E-MAIL TO BERMAN@MICHIGANDAILY.COM TO GET STARTED.