ASG challenges Leg. leadership

By Brook Stalling.
At Tuesday’s ASG Board of Directors meeting, ASG President Amanda Alva and other board members challenged ASG Director of Legislative Affairs Vanessa Pantley at length regarding her leadership and the direction of the ASG Legislative Committee. The Legislative Committee is the lobbying organization for BCC students in Olympia, and has $21,800 allocated to it by the ASG for 2008-2009. Alva’s and other ASG Board member’s concerns included the committee’s organizational structure, independence of the committee from the Washington Student Lobby (WSL), and the level of effort made by the committee to reach out to BCC students and gather their opinions. The questioning followed Pantley’s committee report, and took up 30 minutes of a 45-minute meeting. The report was the only item of business on the agenda. Pantley gave the Legislative Committee report, explaining the agendas of the ASG Legislative Committee and the Washington Student Lobby (WSL) are intertwined but separate. She named tolls on the 520 bridge as an issue the committee had been working on separately from the WSL. The Legislative Committee has been working with the WSL on other issues, such as retaining a 10 percent cap on annual increases in student fees, creating and funding a unified student access portal for college students on the Internet, and tuition increases.