Actions within IRHA in the last two weeks have been said to have not represented the needs and opinions of the residence hall students.

That is false.

I am, of course, referring to the bill that will ban smoking in the residence hall as of Fall 2002, and the bill on parking that lists suggestions on how to improve parking for residence hall students and staff.

The smoking ban was passed Thursday, Oct. 18, by a vote of 15-4-3. Ordinarily, bills are meant to be voted on one week after they are submitted and presented to IRHA parliament.

Yet, because of the controversial nature of this bill, IRHA decided that it wouldn’t be prudent to vote on it until all the facts and figures were gathered. Thus, IRHA delayed the vote on this bill another week so its members could assimilate this information and listen further to the opinions of residence hall students.

Therefore, when IRHA voted on Oct. 26, its members were better informed, educated, and could represent their constituents responsibly and effectively.

There is no doubt the vote reflected the will of residence hall students.

As for the parking bill once again, claims have been made that IRHA doesn’t represent its constituents. And once again, this is false. The Parking Committee was given four weeks to research and gather ideas for ideas presented in the bill. I can vouch that its members did a lot of hard work in those four weeks.

Tackling an issue like this couldn’t be easy. Rooting out parking problems and finding potential solutions in all of the residence halls must have been tedious. And then the committee had to compile all of this information from surveys conducted and suggestions from constituents, find out what the key issues were and then write up a report. And yet they only came up with suggestions.

Nothing concrete, but suggestions for the IRHA parliament to discuss and think about. Some of these ideas may get passed. Others may get cut. This is all done so that IRHA can serve and represent the residence hall students effectively.

IRHA cares.

I had a person complain to me about the parking bill, yet in our discussion I found out he didn’t even read the bill at all. He only read what the Iowa State Daily had printed.

Yet all he had to do was to come to our Web site (http://irha.stuorg.iastate.edu) and click on “legislation,” or type in the link found in Monday’s Daily in the article about the parking issue.

I encourage residence hall students to go to the IRHA Web site so that they make informed decisions regarding issues in IRHA. If they are informed, IRHA is informed. Thus, true representation of the residence halls is achieved.

Stanley Bill Perdios

Senior

Business

IRHA at-large representative, RCA