[HSU-CoordBoardInternal] FundCom stipends - voting

[da11 at hampshire.edu]

Hey Coordboard,

I have just finished talking to a member of FundCom, and I feel that I  
need to reach out to you about some of the points of our discussion.

We were talking about the proposal, the voting and coordboard's  
discussion and email. The main point of the discussion was that  
nowhere in any proposal or endeavor of the HSU has it ever been stated  
that there needed to be a 60% majority for a proposal to pass, which  
is why this proposal is going back to town meeting. However, people  
-including all members of fundcom and anyone who was not involved with  
the HSU implementation process in the academic year of 2012/2013- were  
under the assumption that since there was no clear passing measures,  
and no specific reference to either 60% or 51%, that the passing  
percentage was 51%. Which is the popular understanding of the term  
"majority"; 51% is the majority.

I talked to them about our discussion, and about the understanding  
that we were using the documents written on January 2013. Their  
counter argument was that these documents have not been approved by  
either the students, nor the administration, nor the Board of  
Trustees. And since it was not specified anywhere, and that was not  
understood by the community, that that is not valid. Therefore, the  
passing majority would be the simple majority, which is 51%.

Therefore, their understanding of the proposal and the voting  
measures, is that the proposal did pass yesterday, and the email was  
not relevant.

Thank you,
Dina