We endorse Avi Oved for internal vice president because he has concrete plans to improve the office’s efficiency and relevance.
Oved’s experience as chief of staff of the IVP office has no doubt prepared him for the position he is seeking. Oved’s platforms are well-developed and do a good job of targeting necessary improvements. He needs to conduct more research in a few cases, such as his goal for a mobile panic button application, and should reassess the feasibility of some platforms, but overall he is a strong candidate.
Lana Habib El-Farra, current external vice president, has not done the research necessary to actually complete her platforms as internal vice president. Some of her ideas are good, but are not well thought out. Her tenure as external vice president this year, while commendable, has taken her away from campus and from understanding the duties of the IVP.
Oved wants to create a marketing/design team within Associated Students UCLA to help student groups market themselves without cost. He also plans to put on a weeklong event in the spring for student groups to publicize themselves and recruit new members. These new platforms are especially useful for new student groups trying to establish themselves on campus, and he has met with the appropriate campus representatives to ensure their feasibility.
Oved also has plans for increasing USAC’s transparency. He wants to enforce a hard 5 p.m. Friday deadline on USAC agenda items, which would allow ample time for students to comment online before the Tuesday meetings in his new section. His plan to release a midyear report detailing what the $4.1 million in student fees funds is a commendable one, but will likely prove too difficult. We encourage him to limit the scope of this platform to account for just USAC fees.
El-Farra mentioned the need for agendas to be posted in time for students to read them, but did not specify how she would achieve this.
The detail that Oved has put into his platforms shows that he is well-prepared for the position of internal vice president.
