Tropolitan Editorial Board
Concerning the news article on Page One about Taylor Holt’s campaign practices for an executive position in Troy’s Student Government Association, the office of the Tropolitan feels that the SGA is not performing its purpose to an appropriate extent.
Holt, a member of Phi Mu, after campaigning at a separate table across from Phi Mu’s Founders’ Day tent, eventually moved her campaign under Phi Mu’s tent under the supposed threat of “severe weather.”
During this time, her campaign and the Founders’ Day event were indistinguishable from one another.
In the video she posted to Facebook on the day of the runoff election under Phi Mu’s Founders’ Day tent asking students to come vote for her using Phi Mu’s PA system, the weather appeared mild.
After asking students to come vote for her, in her very next breath, she invited students to come enjoy Founders’ Day, free beverages and snacks. Her competitor in the election, Zack Anglin, wafted the smell in the air that day and caught the scent of scandal.
In a formal complaint for conduct during the runoff election, Anglin wrote a letter to the SGA executive board alleging inappropriate campaign practices and suggesting action be taken in response to the conduct violations that took place that day.
In one of Holt’s pledges as a contender for the director of representation, she said, “My first and most important priority/goal is better communication to y’all (the student body).”
For someone whose chief campaign promise is communication and whose present office responsibility is to be a representative of the students, this violation seems like something intended to be swept under the rug.
If it was not for a reliable source tipping off the office of the Tropolitan and providing a copy of the formal complaint, which the SGA office withheld, the student body would have remained uninformed.
In fact, student senators were altogether unaware of the incident or the succeeding contest based on rules violations and not involved in the SGA’s decision to allow Holt to keep the position she obtained under questionable pretenses.
The Tropolitan’s complaint is this: The student newspaper and the SGA share a purpose, which is to serve the student body. We must be able to communicate and work together in order to effectively fulfill the responsibility entrusted to us by the student body.
Regarding this matter, it seems the SGA, as well as some of its members, is more concerned with saving its reputation rather than living up to its responsibilities.
It is the Tropolitan’s ordained duty to serve the truth, and as a freely elected governing body, we believe SGA’s new regime should find a place for truth and transparency as well.
See SGA, page 1, for the full story.
