Last night’s Students’ Association meeting began right as several senators were arriving home from Pierre, South Dakota for Students in Higher Education Days. While it started a few minutes late, senators got on with the meeting.

Nominations are still open and Sen. Carter Hunter and Sen. Amanda Husted announced their candidacy for president and vice president for the 2019-20 academic year. They will run against current President Allyson Monson and Sen. Corey Berscheit, who announced their candidacy last week.

Resolution 18-11-R was passed unanimously. This will support the implementation of an on-campus polling location at the Alumni Center for Brookings County.

The Alumni Center offers access to both students and the Brookings community. It fulfills the requirements of being handicap-accessible and providing adequate parking, according to Government Affairs Chair Cole McDougall, who joined the meeting remotely through FaceTime.

Although there has been a polling location on campus before that received little attendance, Government Affairs Chair McDougall believes this time will be different.

“Now that Brookings has open districts, I anticipate that this will be one of the most attended polling locations in the city, ” he said.

The Robotics Club Special Allocation for zero dollars and the Women’s Club Volleyball Special Allocation for $1,600 were approved unanimously as well.

Women’s Club Volleyball only began last November, with 16 members and yet it already received an invitation to their national tournament and has grown its membership to 43 people. Representatives from the club explained that most of their expenses come out-of-pocket and that in order to attend the national tournament, they would need more funds.

“The investment that they are putting forward out of their own pockets is pretty remarkable, which made it easy to allow the full amount on this request, ” Sen. Nick Lorang said.

The Robotics Club special allocation was for $0 because upon further speculation, they discovered that the money was not needed.

Wellness Coordinator Mariah Weber spoke about Safe Ride and how it will work with the upcoming transportation system, which is implemented with the General Activity Fee increase.

Weber stressed that Safe Ride is not only for those intoxicated but for anyone who does not have a ride somewhere.

“We want anyone to be able to feel safe riding the bus,” she said.

Sen. Megan Kellen asked the question of whether or not Safe Ride would be impacted by the new transportation system.

“I don’t think so because they will operate at completely different times,” Weber said.

Weber explained that Safe Ride and the transportation system will most likely share buses and have different hours, with general transportation during the day and Safe Ride at night.

Senior Director for the University Student Union Jennifer Novotny and Assistant Director Keith Skogstad spoke about upcoming renovations, student employment, and a request for more money to combat these updates.

“We really rely upon student employment in this facility to keep things running,” Novotny said.

Due to the Presidents’ Day holiday, SA will not meet next Monday. The next meeting is 7 p.m. Feb. 25 in the Lewis and Clark room of the Student Union.