Senate passes ‘ADA Act’

With a full house in the Native American Room of the Memorial Union, ASOSU passed the “Resolution to Complete a Comprehensive Assessment and Transition Plan in Order to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.” A wait, that was nearly as long as the act’s name, is coming to an end.

Representative Saul Boulanger, a co-sponsor of the bill who has been working on it since October 2012, thanked the Senate enthusiastically once it passed.

After complaints of the resolutions complexity in the last meetings of fall term, Senator Lubna Kahn and the student government committee set out to clarify the resolution and brought it forth Tuesday night for its second reading.

Senator Dylan Hinrichs reiterated the importance of the resolution and how it “definitely needed to happen.” He went on to say that as student representatives, they are to act in the best interests of the students and “the best interests [of students] is that OSU does comply and fix the campus.”

However, the “ADA Act” still faced a series of complications in last night’s meetings. Questions arose about the timeline requested by the resolution, which asks for an internal assessment of campus and the completion of a transition plan by June 30, 2014. Other questions were brought up by Senator Terra Setzler regarding a presentation by the university to ASOSU, asking if there was any support or interest to include this aspect into the resolution. The floor was yielded to Boulanger, who addressed the thoughts of expanding the resolution.

“What we did [with this version of the “ADA Act”] was simplify it with a clear, concise purpose,” Boulanger said. “The whole point is to get the ball rolling.”

Discussions were broken up with two failed attempts by Hinrichs to end discussion. Hinrichs sought clarification on rules for majority vote divisions of voice votes requiring a roll call voter person by person, and an off subject amendment by Senator Madison Parker clearing up language in the resolution.

Luck was found by Senator Hinrichs’ third attempt to end discussion and the bill went up for vote, passing 11-0-1. This will not be the end of the road yet for HR 04.01. The House and the Senate passed two different versions of the bill, due to the changes made once moved to the student government committee.

So the long life will continue to a co-committee between the House and the Senate to clarify the discrepancies between the two versions and then sign the resolution in.

Aside from the passing of the ADA act, a few announcements were made regarding future events that will be happening in the next week, and William Peachrock was sworn in as a proxy.

Before the resolution was discussed, Setzler announced the times and location had been locked down for the student town hall meeting that was discussed at last week’s meetings. The town hall will be held Jan. 22 as planned in the Native American Long House from 5-7 p.m.

Vice President Dan Cushing also announced a meeting that will be happening regarding the “Wear the Square” campaign t from 5:30-7:30 p.m. in the Native American Longhouse.

Ricky Zipp, news reporter
news@dailybarometer.com