At least three student members of the Veishea task force disagreed with the group’s report and asked for changes to be made to the document at the group’s final meeting Thursday.

All members of the 2004 Task Force on Assuring Successful Veishea and Other Student/Community Celebrations were asked to review the report and sign off in general agreement with its recommendations. But Drew Miller, task force member and member of the Daily editorial board, said one of the recommendations included in the document made him decide not to sign.

In a written statement of items to discuss at Thursday’s meeting, Miller wrote, “I have not signed the final report yet, and may not if I feel that it does not adequately address the issues I have raised.”

Miller said he was concerned about increasing alcohol penalties without giving students an alternative venue for drinking.

Ames Police Chief Loras Jaeger said businesses are permitted to stay open past 2 a.m. for “after hours” parties, as long as they are not serving alcohol. The task force made an additional recommendation, asking the city and Iowa State to encourage local establishments to stay open and hold additional late-night activities on campus.

During the all-day meeting, Miller said he believed other members of the group were also against portions of the report. Even with some of the changes, he said, he was unsure if he would sign the report.

Tony Borich, a member of the task force who was not in attendance, wrote to the group stating that he did not support the current report.

“I think we have avoided and abdicated our responsibility to address and conduct necessary dialogue on critical controversial issues,” Borich wrote. “In particular, this Task Force is not serious about addressing and reducing the frequency and magnitude of gatherings of 500 or more persons at off-campus parties, which everyone agrees have preceded previous riots and could reasonably be considered a prerequisite to possible future disturbances.”

In addition, task force member Abby LaCombe said she was not certain she would sign the report.

“I don’t feel it fully addresses the issues that need to be addressed,” LaCombe said.

Task force chairwoman Catherine Woteki, dean of the College of Agriculture, said the final report and a letter to ISU President Gregory Geoffroy, Government of the Student Body President Sophia Magill and Ames Mayor Ted Tedesco will make note of how many task force members signed off.

“I think they need to look through the final report and consider the discussion we had through this meeting,” Woteki said. She said members of the task force should sign because they are in general agreement and do not need to agree with every portion of the final report to sign it.

The goal of Thursday’s meeting was to critique the final report and discuss a few of the recommendations.

The group has been working for about six months to complete a report with recommendations for changing or canceling Veishea. The recommendations are outlined in three sections of the report: general recommendations to reduce the probability of disturbances occurring; changing Veishea; and discontinuing Veishea.

Although most of the changes made to the final report were editorial and grammatical changes, certain portions of discussion brought up disagreements among members.

The report’s introduction notes the riot was “marked by confusion and anger,” a point that Miller contested.

Miller — who said he was probably the only person on the task force in the middle of the riot — said those were not the dominant emotions in the crowd. The riot was a celebratory riot, he said.

“The riot was not marked by anger and confusion,” Miller said. “There were elements of anger and confusion marked by a celebratory nature, excitement. This makes it sound like most of the people were upset or angry. I don’t think that’s an accurate representation at all.”

Other members of the task force disagreed with Miller and said there was no event to celebrate.

Dean of Students Pete Englin said rioters were “celebrating the destruction of property.” Englin said video footage showed the crowd started cheering when a light pole was knocked down. The task force voted to keep the term “marked by confusion and anger” in the report.

Woteki said the next draft of the report will be given to task force members Friday afternoon, and the final report will be given to Geoffroy, Magill and Tedesco by Nov. 30. The task force was not charged with recommending the future of Veishea — it came up with recommendations for if Veishea is continued or if it is canceled. The decision about the future of Veishea is left up to Geoffroy, Magill and Tedesco.