Pictured Above: A Student Government yard sign advertising the opening of applications for the interim special elections outside of the SLC.
Trevor Martindale | The Crow’s Nest
By Trevor Martindale
Student Government will hold its second special election of the semester after failing to fill any of the nine St. Petersburg Campus Council seats.
The election will be conducted online Oct. 27-28. Candidate applications are now available and will be due Oct. 16.
All nine seats on the St. Petersburg Campus Council and two seats on the Sarasota-Manatee Campus Council will be on the ballot in the interim special election.
Although St. Petersburg failed to fill one Senate seat in the first special election last month, the interim special election will only serve to elect Campus Council representatives. That leaves the last St. Petersburg Senate seat vacant until the next legislative election in March.
In the first special election, only three St. Petersburg candidates qualified for the ballot. Since it took just one vote to be elected, all three became senators despite a dismal turnout of 30 voters.
Deputy Supervisor of Elections Savannah Carr said that the St. Petersburg campus will be revamping its promotion for the interim special election to try to increase student involvement.
“We are promoting the election even harder this time across all SG social media platforms as well as on campus with flyers, yard signs and images on the BullsEye,” Carr said in an email to The Crow’s Nest.
Carr noted the importance of Student Government and the perks of being involved in student life.
“Students interested, yet unsure, in running for Campus Council should know that this position is very important for our campus to run smoothly during budget season, which will be very important this year,” Carr said. “Students who get involved help boost their resumes for applying for further education and future jobs or internships. Even more than that, getting involved in SG teaches team building, leadership and networking skills – all important for future endeavors.”
The primary job of the newly formed Campus Councils is overseeing the “interim funding” process to make budgetary recommendations for campus organizations to the Activities and Services Recommendation Committee (ASRC), a system-wide committee of 13 students who serve in the Senate and executive branch.
Since the entire St. Petersburg Campus Council is empty, the interim funding process is void, meaning activity and service fee (A&S) allocation is being handled by the ASRC without local recommendations.
