2 students decline to approve final report on Veishea

Jessica Anderson

The final report of the 2004 Task Force on Assuring Successful Veishea and Other Student/Community Celebrations will not contain the signatures of two of the group’s student members.

Abby LaCombe, task force member, and Drew Miller, task force member and member of the Daily editorial board, have said they will not sign the report, which outlines recommendations for changing or canceling Veishea.

“I feel that the task force report doesn’t take student’s reports and opinions as seriously as students deserve,” Miller said. He said the issues of alcohol restrictions and police response to large off-campus parties weren’t adequately addressed.

“For both, we sort of passed on responsibility to the future when I felt like we should have done more,” Miller said.

“For the parties, we talked a little bit about the need for socializing and the effects of alcohol restrictions. We continually watered down our alcohol suggestions. In my mind, they were almost meaningless. For the police response, all we said was ‘convene a summit of some sort.'”

According to The Associated Press, LaCombe said she also didn’t think a number of issues between students and police were addressed in the report.

“How the police were perceived by the students that night is far more critical to what is going to play out in future meetings,” LaCombe said.

The final report will be submitted to ISU President Gregory Geoffroy, Government of the Student Body President Sophia Magill and Ames Mayor Ted Tedesco on Tuesday.

At the final task force meeting on Nov. 19, task force Chairwoman Catherine Woteki, dean of the College of Agriculture, said the final report will make note of how many task force members approved it.