This from the you can’t make this stuff up file…
The Old Dominion University College Republicans have had a run of strong leadership in their reincarnation on campus over the past four and a half years. The leadership team has had a strong relationship with the student government, receiving praise for their work in the ODU community, including their annual 9/11 memorial tribute by putting flags out for each victim of the attacks on the quad.
Apparently the current student government has decided to damage that relationship.
To explain…
Each year ODU CRs use a portion of their student organizational budget to pay for a number of members to travel to CPAC each year. Last semester in November 2013, the club made the same request to SGA Finance Director Connor Norton, to have money transferred to the spring semester for travel expenses:
“Mr. Norton,
This is Alex with the ODU College Republicans and I wanted to be able to transfer $1,125 from our speaker money budget to the budget for CPAC. (Conservative Political Action Conference) I was wondering if you could to that as soon as possible, thanks. We would greatly appreciate it and just ask if you need anything from our end.”
In response to this request came this reply:
“Dear Alex,
That will be no problem, I’ll have that done before the end of the day.”
The funds were transferred and ODU CRs were all set.
Or so they thought.
This week, on February 19th, ODU CRs received a letter from Norton that the ODU CRs “did not submit an email by January 17, 2014 concerning the use of their budget allocation, that up to half would be taken away and put back into the SGA’s collective pot.”
Again, see above, email from November 2013.
And to ice the cake, we’ll turn to Chicks on the Right (emphasis added):
On February 18th, the day before the College Republicans received that letter from Norton, the SGA Finance Director, the same SGA voted to allocate a bunch of money to the Starving Artists, a campus student production company, so that they could travel to “The International Dublin Gay Theater Festival.” And guess who the president of the Starving Artists club is? Why, it’s none other than Connor Norton. The SGA Finance Director. And he plans to attend the Gay Theater Festival in Dublin.
Yup. The same person in charge of taking away money from the College Republicans, is also in charge of overseeing funds that will pay for his OWN FREAKING TRIP to Dublin. He has sole authority over the funds, and has the discretion to return funds to the College Republicans, but he’s got a Gay Festival to get to, y’all. PRIORITIES.
All is not right in ODU.
I know many of our readers have ties to ODU; Delegate Ron Villanueva is a former member of the Board of Visitors. I’d encourage you all to reach out to the administration.
If you’re interested in supporting getting ODU CRs to CPAC, you can donate directly to them here.
