GSB to introduce smaller bills

Rebecca Carton

Wednesday night’s Government of the Student Body Senate meeting will focus on resolutions for small bills while looking forward in preparation for funding much larger projects.

One bill that will be resolved includes the Cyclone Amateur Radio Club’s request to purchase a new antenna. Ryan Myers, GSB finance director and graduate student in accounting, said the cost of the antenna is currently $729.69 because most of the money to purchase the antenna was initially provided by a different GSB account.

“They originally asked for $2,805.34,” he said. “They got $2,075.65 from the [GSB] depreciation account.”

Another bill set to be resolved involves funding a game server for the student group Game Renegades. The server would cost $1,332.49. Brian Phillips, GSB president and senior in political science, said Game Renegades had asked GSB to fund a game server once before, but this initial request was denied.

“[GSB] postponed the bill indefinitely because the group hadn’t been in existence for very long,” Phillips said.

Now that the group has been in existence for a full year, the bill has been taken up again in the Senate. Myers said organizations asking for large-capital items must be established in order for their requests to be approved.

“That prevents them from being a new group, getting a large item and then falling apart,” he said.

Myers also said insurance for the ISU Ski and Snowboard Club’s Rail Jam on March 1 in Campustown will be resolved by the Senate. The cost of the insurance is $2,000.

In addition to these resolutions, Phillips said other bills with great potential impacts on students will be read for the first time. Two of the bills pertain to the Underground in the Memorial Union and another involves the Campustown Court Project.

Phillips said the city of Ames has allocated $25,000 to renovate Campustown Court, but the student designs that were approved need additional funding to be carried out. The bill would allocate the funds needed to finish the project. Phillips estimated $15,000 to $20,000 needs to be allotted for the project.

The first of the two bills concerning the Union’s Underground calls for approximately $17,000 to buy televisions for the recreation center. The second would provide $7,000 for the repair of the ball-return system in the bowling alley.

“They’ve [the bowling balls] been scratched and dinged, and people don’t want to bring their professional balls to that bowling alley,” Phillips said.

The bills concerning the Underground and Campustown Court will only receive their first reads on Wednesday.

Phillips said the Campustown Court bill will be especially important in the upcoming weeks.

“Between this and what’s happening in the Underground, those are the big-ticket items that have been on the to-do list for a while,” he said.