Lawrence Committee – November 19 Meeting Minutes

The minutes from the November 19, 2008 committee have been posted. The next meeting is scheduled for December 10, 2008 at 8:30pm.

Minutes for November 19, 2008 Meeting:

1. Attendance:
   • Ben Schmidt
   • Jamie Kreiner
   • Madeline Chen
   • Maja Klosinska
   • Denise Kassab
   • Sam Mukherji
   • Alex Kaidan Berry
   • Olivia
   • Kim Tu
   • Katie – Proxy Tamas
   • Vijay Krishnamurthy
   • Sevil Cakir Kilincoglu
   • Steven Bergsieker
   • Hilary Bergsieker
   • Karin McDonald
   • Rob Cooper
   • Phil Wood – Proxy Melanie Wood
   • Chris Shannon
   • Keren Leiby
   • Christina Hultholm
   • Aurelien Fraisse
   • Charles Lu
2. Before the vote to approve the constitution took place, Ben Schmidt, one of the orignial writer of the constitution objected to some of the changes made by the committee. Specifically he objected to putting any type of requirement for people to run. This include the 2-meeting attendance requirement for all positions and 1 year requirement for the position of the president. The following 2 amendments were put to a vote by the current committee.
   1. Removing 2 meeting requirement to run for any of the position (except President). Yay: 0 Nay: 7
   2. Removing the 1 year prior service commitment to run for President. Yay: 1 Nay: 6
   3. Finally, a vote was called to approve the constitution. Yay: 6 Nay: 1
3. A Election Committee was formed after the vote. The committee is in charge of conduction the election. The following 3 people volunteered to be on the committee: Katie Stoltzfus-Dueck, Kim Tu, Chris Shannon. The committee promised to notify the Lawrence community regarding the time, data,place for the election.
4. Kim announced that the student organization orientation meeting on 11/20/08 4:30PM at Frist. Madeline Chen volunteered to attend.
5. Keren, who attended the Housing Policy meeting informed the group that no final decisions regarding the housing perk. A possible final decision will be reached around 12/12/08.
6. Olivia gave updates on various issues since the last meeting. Briefly:
   1. Maja mentioned the lack of space on bike rack, the university has already installed bike racks and don’t plan to install new ones until the space becomes a persistent issue.
   2. Housing plan to replace some of the picnic tables and grills around the Lawrence apartments. They have examined all the existing grills/tables so far but have not started replacing any yet.
   3. In response to residents’ need for shopping carts, Housing has purchased 2 shopping carts and 2 dollys
   4. There has been talk of additional emergency phone being installed in the Lawrence parking lot. The Housing office has decided to take a inventory of all existing emergency phones before installing any new ones.
   5. Regarding request for additional light in the parking lot, Housing has decided to examine and replace any broken light bulbs. However, no new street lights will be installed at this time.
   6. Some residents have requested that trash pickup schedule be adjusted to be less disruptive. However, Housing has let it known that such change is unlikely to happen.
   7. Housing office has agreed to install all framed pictures in the hallway of Lawrence Apartments. However, the residents need to pay to have the pictures framed. An email will be sent out to encourage residents to submit any pictures they would like to see displayed in the Lawrence hallways.
   8. Some residents have complained that PODS (portable storage) are taking up too much parking space. Currently Housing has no formal policy to deal with this problem. Stay tuned.
7. Some residents feel that the Lawrence committee needs to improve its communiation to the residents. Currently there are two main types of communication to the residents (email and website). The committee agrees to be more proactive in dissemination of information such as meeting or other important policy changes via both sources.
8. The next meeting will be on 12/10/08 at 8:30PM in the community room at 14 Lawrence Drive.