By
Maya Schechter
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Concern over cost, attendance reasons for cancellation
At one of their longest meetings and the largest audience gathering of the year last night, ASUA senators decided to support President Ben Graff's veto and cancel Fall Ball 2000.
During the Associated Students of the University of Arizona's Senate meeting in the Memorial Student Union's Tucson Room, more than 20 people who attended stayed through for a majority of the two-and-a-half-hour meeting to hear the senators decision about Fall Ball.
The campus-wide formal, which was scheduled to take place Nov. 4, has been a highly debated item within the Senate for nearly two months, when it was proposed by Sen. Matt Bailey.
At an emergency Senate meeting last Friday, Graff used his presidential power to veto the Senate-approved cancellation of "pull the plug," an idea also proposed by Bailey, to terminate Fall Ball if 350 tickets were not sold by last Saturday. Only 53 tickets had been sold as of the meeting.
Graff presented his reasons for the veto to the Senate last night, which then led to a two hour discussion in which every one of the senators and a few students in the audience voiced their opinions.
"I need to first point out the importance of a presidential veto," Graff said. "This is the first one in eight years meaning it concerns only extreme circumstances."
Graff said that the fact that Bailey was the one who proposed the "pull the plug" idea, and was also the one who wanted to cancel it, didn't "make any sense" and "strikes a serious problem."
He also said that he was concerned with spending the students' money when they hadn't shown enough interest in the event.
"The problem isn't that we didn't like the idea, the problem was that we only had one month to plan it," Graff added.
Bailey then had the chance to defend himself and told the senators that having a large debt is impossible because he would never be able to spend money he didn't have.
"The student support is there - we went from selling 12 tickets, to 53, to 105 in less than three days," Bailey said.
Sen. Roby Shapira, Tricia Williams and Kristel Miller all expressed their concerns with the continuation of Fall Ball.
"It's an excellent opportunity for students to feel included, but we did not meet the deadlines we set for ourselves," Shapira said.
Miller agreed and said the only reason why she was comfortable with the Fall Ball plan was because of the chance to "pull the plug" if necessary.
"The Senate's credibility is on the line, it would be irresponsible of us to take it back," she added.
Administrative Vice President Tiffany Podbielski, who acted as a voting member, said although the idea of a formal was wonderful, she didn't think it could be successful if planned in 10 days.
"I don't have a date, I don't have a dress," she said. "If I wasn't in ASUA, I don't know if I would want to go."
However, not all of the senators wanted to cancel Fall Ball.
Sens. Geoff Spencer and Seth Frantzman both said they wanted to see Fall Ball happen and support Bailey despite the amount of sold tickets.
"There are always going to be problems with new events but it shouldn't stop them from happening," Bailey said.
Several students were given the opportunity to address the Senate, and said they appreciated how much ASUA does for the student population.
But two other students, representing UA Young Democrats and Chain Gang Junior Honorary, asked Bailey to keep his promise and pull the plug on Fall Ball.
The long-awaited decision was made just before 9 p.m., when Podbielski and ASUA Vice President Erick Negri joined the nine senators present and voted against overriding Graff's veto.
However, the senators suggested that the idea of Fall Ball should not be thrown out, but would like to see it as a future ASUA-sponsored event.
"I want to thank the Senate for all their support and expect to see Fall Ball sometime in the future," Bailey said.
After the meeting, Graff said that he still felt confident in his decision and knew it was for the best.
