Student Association President Eric Evangelista will appear in front of SA’s Judicial Review Board on Monday for a JRB investigation stemming from Evangelista’s appointment of an SA cabinet member.

At SA’s assembly meeting on Jan. 23, arguments shut down Evangelista’s plan to confirm a nominee to the position of public relations co-chair without opening application to the student body. Evangelista’s attempt to bypass the application process has put him under investigation by SA’s Judicial Review Board for an alleged violation of SA’s constitution. He will appear in front of the JRB at 1 p.m. on Monday, hours before SA’s next assembly meeting.

Obi Afriyie, SA’s parliamentarian who opposed the confirmation at the Jan. 23 meeting, said the point of the JRB review is “not to punish” Evangelista.

“It’s to hold each member of SA accountable and make sure we’re all following the SA constitution,” he said.

According to a violation notice obtained by The Daily Orange, Evangelista allegedly violated the SA constitution by failing to act on the assembly’s request to send a campus-wide email calling for PR co-chair and community engagement co-chair applicants. SA has since opened applications for those two cabinet positions, as Evangelista sent an email to the student body on Thursday calling for applications.

At the SA meeting on Jan. 23, Evangelista urged the assembly to confirm Nicole Sherwood, a senior public relations major who has previously held the PR co-chair position. Evangelista said the president typically fills vacant cabinet positions and the process of reviewing applications and interviewing potential candidates would take time away from SA’s other initiatives.

After assembly and cabinet members voiced their disapproval of the nomination, they unanimously voted to table the confirmation until a campus-wide call for applicants could be sent to the student body.

Afriyie said he was aware of Evangelista’s busy schedule and understood why Evangelista nominated Sherwood for the PR co-chair position.

Still, he said it was irresponsible for Evangelista to “try to cut corners” and that he welcomed the judicial review. He added that the review would help SA work within its constitutional boundaries.

Ashley Summers, SA’s other PR co-chair, said the co-chair position was traditionally opened to student applications when the position was vacant over the summer and in the spring. Cabinet positions have also been left unfilled when cabinet members graduated or left to study abroad.

Evangelista said in a statement to The Daily Orange on Friday that he was looking forward to meeting with the board and serving the SU community in the future.

Evangelista said he hoped the assembly will confirm the new cabinet members at the SA meeting on Feb. 6 after applications can be reviewed. He said the temporary PR co-chair vacancy would not have an effect on current PR work because Summers is already in office.

Evangelista added that he had already received interest from the student body and would work within parliamentary procedures to review applications in the coming weeks.

Joyce LaLonde, SA vice president, said the application reviews and cabinet confirmations would not delay SA’s other initiatives, like the sanctuary campus bill. SA is expected to vote on the sanctuary campus bill at Monday’s after repeatedly tabling the vote since December.

Published on January 29, 2017 at 6:37 pm

Contact Jordan: jmulle01@syr.edu | @jordanmuller18