Rapp vetoes bowling alley legislation in senate meeting

By Jocelyn Fowler
Reporter

What’s done in the dark will come to the light.

Or not, according to the policies of the Student Senate.

During their exclusive executive session, senators discussed a new policy which would change the current grading system to include minuses as well as pluses.
Student Body President Kelly Rapp vetoed the Building a Better Bowling Alley legislation that passed last week.

According to Houston senior Brian Kim, all conversations that occur while the senate is in executive session are confidential and cannot be discussed outside of the session.

The Student Senate meeting began as usual: the gavel of senate president Brian Kim struck the desk at a little past 5 p.m., calling the meeting to order; chaplain Meagan Rowell delivered a few words of encouragement and prayed for benevolent attitudes among senators; next a motion to move into executive session was called and anyone who was not a senator was asked to stand outside in the hallway for the next hour or so.

However, Rapp said he believed the restrictive nature of executive session was unnecessary for the minor issues that triggered his veto of the bowling alley bill.
“The original bill was written asking administration and the athletics department to help build a bowling alley that was NCAA approved, but I didn’t think that it was the best thing if we were to request administration to build a bowling alley that was NCAA approved if we didn’t know the costs that were associated with it,” Rapp said. Once senators closed their executive session, things moved rapidly.
Four court justices were confirmed, as were a court clerk and an assistant court clerk.

The funds requested in the Fish Fry 2012 bill were easily given with little protest from the senators present.

Colorado Springs, Colo., sophomore Meagan Rowell supported the bill and cited an enjoyable experience at last year’s event as reason to approve it.

With more organizations on board this year, the bill’s authors, sophomores Dominic Edwards, Will Jones and Dallena Nguyen, hope the event will be even better.

“The Fish Fry will feature an array of activities including a bounce house, a dunk tank, a monster obstacle course, as well as a food frying contest,” reads the Fish Fry 2012 legislation.
“Overall it’s a great event,” Edwards said. “It’s something we like to see in senate. We like to see collaborative events.”