Key Council Records Missing

Just when you thought the race for Undergraduate Council president couldn't get any more confusing, council officials said yesterday that most of the records documenting the last two years of council activity are missing from the council activity are missing from the council office.

These documents are the only official source for determining this semester's three presidential candidates' track-records for passing council legislation.

In addition, the absence of these documents constitutes a violation of the council's constitution and by-laws because the public is supposed to have access to these papers.

According to Article VI, Section One of the council's constitution: "Any of the council's constitution: "Any document or record produced by the council or any department shall be a matter of public record."

"It's disturbing that given out constitutional that mandate for public proceedings that certain council agendas and minutes aren't to be found," said council President David L. Hanselman '94-'95.

"This is the fault of no one person or administration, but a combination of moving out offices and a revolving door at the office of the secretary which is the council's primary administrative position," Hanselman added.

But despite incomplete records from 1992, 1993 and the spring of 1994, current secretary Jonathan P. Feeney '97 said he can produce a complete set of minutes and agendas for the fall of 1994, his term as the council's recordkeeper.

Those papers are available to the public in the council office and will soon be available "on-line" in their entirely.

Though both presidential candidate Randall A. Fine '96 were secretaries under administrations for which documents have been misplaced, both denied any involvement in the loss of agendas or minutes.

The minutes from my term as secretary have been sitting in the office so people may have taken them and not returned them," Gregoire said.

"I have no idea what happened to them," Fine said of his records. "I suspect that someone wanted to read the minutes, took the book, and forgot to bring it back."

"The minutes may also have disappeared at some point in the move to our new office," Fine added.

Hanselman has also stressed that past secretaries are probably blameless in the misplacement of the agendas and minutes.

But Gregoire has intimated that others have been less blameless than himself.

"Randy said his minutes were on a disk and the disk was lost or demagnetized," he said.

Gregoire added that Cynthia D. Johnson '96, council secretary in the fall of 1993, failed to deliver to the council office a copy of the minutes she kept during her tenure.

Fine vehemently denied any failure to produce documents from his term as secretary and called Gregoire's accusation "unfortunate."