corruption scandals, great and small

the daily hampshire gazette has a series of stories by tom marshall in this weekend's edition about umass reporting deceptive figures to the attorney-general's office last year, while the office was investigating what it alleged were umass's violations of public bidding laws. the figure presented by the administration last october was $982,926. according to documents obtained by the gazette under public records law, the actual figure was $1,874,290. but even before this document was revealed, the attorney-general's office had found instances of corruption in the process, and had voided one contract between the university and garland construction co. of chicopee, because the company had failed to disclose a family relationship between company a project manager and a university project manager. afterwards, umass went and contracted with garland again, despite the voiding of the previous contract. according to marshall's article, "lawyers familiar with the state's procurement laws say the university subverted the basic purposes of those laws".

to observers of the umass scene, none of this will come as a surprise - except the fact that the gazette was able to obtain documents from the university under public records law. it has been almost a year since the secretary of state's office ordered the university to provide diversity figures to then-president of the SGA eddie bustamante. other requests for public records have been denied since then, including requests for the transcripts of the diversity commission meetings, where it was resolved to recommend the firing of the michael gargano, the vice chancellor for student affairs.

the GSS has been probing possible university corruption for years, including the case of the peoplesoft contract which, with apparent cost overruns in the hundreds of millions of dollars, makes the painting scandal look like chump change by comparison. when the grad voice goes online on the gss website (hopefully in the next few weeks), many articles on this scandal will become accessible. i urge everyone to check it out (i'll announce it on this list when the paper goes online).

going to board of trustees meeting

i'll be going to the board of trustees meetings in boston on august 23 and 24 to try to persuade them to enforce their own policies and put the kibosh on the most offensive part of lombardi's anti-diversity plan, which also happens to be the most transparent violation of trustee policy - the seizure of the offices of ALANA affairs and commuter services. i'll be addressing the trustees, as will SGA president pavel payano and GEO political organizer (and former president) jen turner.

if you are in boston or can make it there, please try to come. it's important for the trustees to see members of the umass community actively defending these agencies. it looks very much like gargano's next step is to try to seize control of the student activities trust fund, where funds generated by the student activity fee are placed. if successful, this would amount to the complete destruction of an independent SGA. if you think umass is a shitty place now, wait until student government is gone and all programming is controlled by the nimrod and his lackeys. it's important to put up as fierce a fight as possible right now.

the message below gives the details of the trustee meetings. please spread it around.

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Hello All,

We have a summer request for help: We need you to go to the UMass Board of Trustees meeting in Boston on Tuesday and Wednesday, August 23 and 24th to save the Office of ALANA Affairs and Commuter Services!

Last spring we shut down UMass in order to secure a contract for GEO and to protest Chancellor Lombardi's proposed reorganization of student organizations, support services and advocacy changes. While the A21 boycott secured a contract for GEO (yeah!) Lombardi and Gargano have been sneakily implementing their proposed reorganization while most of the campus has been on summer break. Most notably, the Office of ALANA Affairs and Commuter Services - both student-run agencies that have been essential to UMass's history of activism and student advocacy - are being usurped by the brand new "Center for Student Development" (CSD).

BUT - we have one last opportunity to keep these agencies in students' hands: Valerie Louis, our new student trustee, is putting a motion onto the agenda for the big, upcoming Board of Trustees' meeting. This motion calls for these agencies to remain in students' hands, and to reaffirm the 30 year tradition of student run advocacy agencies.

WE NEED TO SHOW THAT THERE IS POPULAR, STUDENT SUPPORT FOR THESE AGENCIES.
This is our last significant and strategic opportunity to keep the OAA and Commuter Service out of Mike Gargano's hands.

SAVE THE DATE - ask for time off work NOW, and please help us pass out information outside the trustee meetings. Note that WE WILL NOT GO TO THESE MEETINGS IF WE CANNOT GATHER at least 15 PEOPLE TO STAND OUTSIDE the meetings to PASS OUT infromation about the effects of Lombardi's actions for students at UMass.

Save the date!
"Student affairs meeting" - Tuesday, 8/23 at 11:30am @ UMass Boston (if you can only go to one, go to this one)
"Meeting of the whole" - Wednesday, 8/24 at 9:15am @ UMass-Boston

Email contact@takebackumass.com or Mishy at mleiblum@hotmail.com if you can make it to one or both of these meetings. You can also call me for more info, 413.695.4868 - Mishy

***Please forward this to friends and sympathetic list-serves***

grad lounge to reopen

good news. after being shut down for a couple of years, the grad lounge will reopen this fall. for those of you who haven't been here for long, the grad lounge was a space across from the blue wall mostly used by grad students as a hangout. besides some of the blue wall fare, it served wine and beer. the details are not all set for the reopening, but one definite feature will be rao's coffee. it will be a space where graduate students can socialize, get a coffee, read a newspaper, play a board game or write a paper. and it has a nice courtyard area that can be used when the weather is nice.

here's a pretty good campus watch group

and here's a pretty awful campus watch group.