Gunio and Guarino charged with campus posting violations

In what some called a politically motivated move, Kelly Gunio and Nicole Guarino were each found guilty of one charge of violating campus posting policy at a SA supreme court hearing Monday Nov. 12.

The charges filed against Gunio and Guarino were in regard to flyers promoting their campaign for president and vice president of the Student Association. The charges were filed by Kara Wilcox, senior business major and chair of the SA elections committee.

"There are some biased people within the Association that really have nothing better to do with their time than go around campus and find those posters and file charges against us," Gunio said.

Wilcox, who is also business manager for The Leader, said it was her responsibility as elections chair to file the charges after she received an e-mail from Amanda McVay, chair of the Academic Affairs committee, informing her that the flyers were in violation of SA rules.

Gunio and Guarino were accused of violating statute O-5, article 2, letter A, number one of the SA constitution which states that all advertisements sponsored by events of the Student Association shall contain the phrase "sponsored by the Student Association," and another statute generally concerning proper posting guidelines. They were found guilty only of the first charge and were given four hours of community service.

"The posters were for the elections, which shouldn't be considered an event," Gunio said. "And also, we paid for the posters ourselves, so they didn't technically 'sponsor' us at all."

The charges were especially significant for Gunio and Guarino since cracking down on campus posting policy was one of their campaign issues.

"I wasn't the only one who saw a problem," McVay said. "We just felt like that since Kara is chair of the elections committee it was her responsibility to file the charges."

McVay said the reason she did not bring the charges forward herself was because she is part of the Rules Committee and did not want it to look like a political move on behalf of the Committee.

"There is always a political move made just before elections," said SA president Dahn Bull, senior political science and biology major. "It's like the 'October surprise,' only with the Student Association it's the 'two days before the election surprise.'"

-Reporting done by Peter Viglietta, news editor