Guests to pay fee at spring Lawnparties

Easop, who took over from two-term USG president Michael Yaroshefsky ’12 earlier this month, began the meeting by discussing the free breakfast the USG offered on the opening day of the semester.

The project planning committee then outlined changes to the way that USG projects are organized, including increasing public access to USG project information and strengthening documentation of project details.

Easop also discussed changes to the format of USG meetings.

“There seemed to be a lack of information flow between [the Executive Committee] and the senate,” he said, referring to the small group that decides the content of USG meeting agendas.

Easop also mentioned that students didn’t have sufficient access to meeting content.

Among the changes proposed by Easop to the meeting format is a 10-minute discussion period at the end of meetings to set the agenda for the following week’s meeting. Senate members debated whether to make the contents of this agenda setting open to the public in the minutes and whether to allow public access to the agenda-setting session.

About half of the meeting was dedicated to a discussion of Lawnparties funding. Social chair Benedict Wagstaff ’14 discussed possible funding sources, including a guest charge and funds from the Alcohol Initiative. Lawnparties costs depend partially on whether there will be an opening act.

Members debated both whether guests should be charged and how much each should pay. The revenue from the charge would be used to fund the opening act. Guests are not currently required to pay a fee to attend Lawnparties but are required to preregister for the concert.

On a motion to charge guests a fee in order to fund the opening act — and to cover extra costs if not enough guests showed up — the senate voted 13 to 8 in favor, with one abstention. The senate did not decide the exact amount guests would be charged.

The senate concluded by privately discussing USG appointees.

Correction: Due to a reporting error, a previous version of this article misstated the vote count for the Lawnparties fee motion. The vote was 13 in favor, 8 against and 1 abstention.