Presidential candidates from the five parties running for Student Senate debated Wednesday night.
Five candidates for Ohio University Student Senate president explained their platforms to students Wednesday night during the first debate of election season.
The debate began with opening statements from each ticket — BARE, TIME, SOS, Student Nation and Phoenix.
“We are students, we are not stuffy government representatives,” said Ryant Taylor, presidential candidate for the BARE ticket and former Post columnist.
BARE is an acronym for “Bobcats for affordability, responsibility and empowerment.” The ticket aims to hold the OU administration accountable while continuing to work on many concerns raised by the current Student Senate, including college affordability and cultural competency courses, Taylor said.
“My friends and I ran on the Restart ticket last year and we were the ones that did basically all of the work that happened in senate this year,” he said. “I can say that Gabby Bacha and her friends that were on the One ticket barely put forth any resolutions. They didn’t do really any of the work that happened this year.”
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Current senate President Megan Marzec and Vice President Caitlyn McDaniel ran on the Restart ticket during last year’s election.
BARE’s candidate for treasurer, DJ Amireh, was announced Tuesday night, more than a day after the other candidates. A background check on Amireh by the Board of Elections delayed Student Senate from announcing his intent to run, Amireh said.
Amireh was cited for persistent disorderly conduct in January 2015 when he, along with Marzec and Kyle Tussing, the senate arts and sciences senator, participated in a protest on Court Street.
All three were given a suspended 30-day jail sentence with the possibility to avoid jail time given they perform 30 hours of community service within 60 days, pay court costs and remain upstanding citizens, according to a previous Post report.
The election’s 5th ticket, TIME, was simultaneously announced with Amireh’s candidacy Tuesday.
According to Omar Kurdi, co-chair of senate’s Board of Elections, TIME’s ticket announcement was delayed after its presidential candidate was disqualified for campaigning without submitting a party declaration form and for campaigning before March 31.
Keith Wilbur, senior student trustee, confirmed to The Post that he was originally poised to run as a presidential candidate in this year’s election, but would not confirm if he was affiliated with TIME.
He also confirmed that he was disqualified from the race, but said he did not think the Board’s decision was valid.
“The Board has mistreated me,” Wilbur said in regard to his disqualification.
The TIME ticket is running on a platform that focuses on the representation of minority voices on campus.
“Representation leads to accountability which then leads to change and I think that’s important to understand,” said Marquis Maines, the ticket’s presidential candidate. “All of us are minorities in one way or another.”
For unknown reasons, TIME’s vice presidential candidate as well as its other positions have not yet been disclosed.
TIME’s other executive candidate is Lorne Owens, who is running for treasurer.
Maines is president of the fraternity Epsilon Nu Tau and Owens is currently the Senate Appropriations Commissioner for Student Senate.
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The SOS ticket, led by presidential candidate Bacha, is running on a platform that looks to represent student interests regardless of their own personal opinions. The acronym SOS stands for “serving our students.”
“We want to ask you what you want, not tell you what you need,” Bacha said.
Student Nation presidential candidate Ben Mathes, a former Post reporter, listed increased state funding, adequate use of university funds and improved relationships with both the OU Police Department and Athens Police Department among its top priorities.
The Phoenix ticket plans to “rise from the ashes” and rebuild senate from the ground up, said Tony Piccioni, presidential candidate for Phoenix.
The ticket’s main goals include safety on campus and support for students.
“It’s more than a simple issue of putting up more blue lights on campus, we have to attack rape culture at it’s source,” Piccioni said.
The election’s executive debate will take place April 9th at 7 p.m. in Walter Hall 135.
@mayganbeeler
