SGA grievances mark election

By Bill Shaner, News Staff

Several Student Government Association (SGA) senators sought to impeach and censure – the senate’s way of officially chastising a senator – Vice President for Administration and Public Relations Tim Siclari at their senate meeting Monday after an e-mail showing bias toward Presidential Candidate Amanda Sabia’s campaign was made public.

Siclari, a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity, sent the e-mail to fellow members of Kappa Sigma, asking them to show support for Sabia at the presidential debate last Thursday, moderated by the Northeastern chapters of The National Panhellenic Conference and The North-American Interfraternity Council.

Another aggressive e-mail was sent from the Sabia campaign anonymously earlier this week.

In the e-mail Siclari sent, he referred to President Ryan Fox as “current SGA tyrant,” and made it clear that Sabia was a sorority member.

The e-mail concluded with, “Let’s get a Greek back in office,” referring to Amanda Sabia’s membership to the Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority. Fox is not a fraternity member.

Before anyone in senate moved to address Siclari’s e-mail, he said that the e-mail was private and that he “never, ever worked on any campaign.”

He resigned from his role as Vice Chair of the Senate Nominations and Elections Committee (SNEC), which is prevented from showing campaign bias in the SGA constitution.

He also fired his director of communication, SGA Senator Matt Soleyn, “for failure to comply with the direction of the association and its efforts to stray away from polls and other potentially compromised avenues of public relations.”

For the rest of the meeting, Soleyn was an outspoken opponent of Siclari, moving to censure and impeach him multiple times.

“[Siclari] has committed conduct injurious to the association,” Soleyn said. “He has, in his previous role as vice chair of SNEC, and as vice president of admin and [public relations] chair, which is responsible for handling general elections in a non-partisan way he has expressed that he is indeed a partisan. He indeed supports people voting in one certain direction, that is, voting in favor of Miss Sabia.”

However, every motion to impeach or censure failed when it went to vote. Those who voted to censure Siclari said his actions were unacceptable and should not be condoned by the senate.

One such advocate was Senator Josh Torres.

“All we’re doing is recognizing, as senate, that what Vice President Siclari did was wrong,” he said. “When you guys sit here and ignores things that are going on, that’s what’s wrong with senate.”

Those who opposed a censure attested to the quality of Siclari’s work within the organization and said his resignation from vice chair of SNEC was a fitting punishment for his actions.

“The fact of the matter is, is he has performed admirably in this position the censure is uncalled for,” Senator Lucas Rose said. “As vice chair of SNEC, that’s what occurred not as vice president for administration and [public relations].”

Soleyn received an e-mail from an anonymous source who claimed to be working the Sabia campaign, at midnight after Monday’s meeting.

The e-mail began, in all capital letters, with, “Stop F—ing this campaign up for us,” except the verb was written without dashes.

It went on to say that if Soleyn did not stop speaking out against Tim Siclari or Derek Miller, he “better hope he is transferring away from this school,” because, the writer said, he has “guys who will bring a lot more unless you stop it.”

“I am floored, I am appalled,” Sabia said in an interview with The News last night. “This is not conduct that is becoming of myself, of anything that I promote, of anything part of my vision. I completely am not happy with this e-mail.”

Soleyn provided The News with the e-mail and filed an official grievance within SGA.

Following the grievance hearing, Sabia’s campaign was found innocent.