While Monday’s USG meeting ran shorter than most others held this semester, it did not fall short in terms of eventfulness. 

An open floor was held for senators and students to voice opinions or to make motions. Senator Bryce Hayzlett called for the impeachment of Senator Mathew Johnson. After Vice President Alexa Lake affirmed that a motion for impeachment had to be sent in with an official letter, Senator Hayzlett suggested everyone look at their emails, where he had sent the notice of impeachment. 

In the notice, Hayzlett alleges that Senator Johnson breached the USG Code of Ethics by forging the signatures of unknowing students on the club application for Turning Point USA, a student organization that was previously rejected by USG. The announcement was made that the impeachment trial would be held at next week’s meeting. While The Globe does not publish in print next week, coverage of this event will be available online at ppuglobe.com. 

While this week’s meeting did not include the impeachment trial, a censure trial was held against Vice President Lake. Lake was accused of violating Article 2 Section 2 subsection E of the USG constitution, which states that the Vice President must post a tentative agenda in a public place 24 hours prior to the next USG meeting. Lake, finding herself unfit to oversee the matter, excused herself from the podium so the trial could be chaired by the President Pro-Tempore Grace Tyler Frank-Rempel.

When Lake was given five minutes to defend herself, she pulled a ukulele out from behind the podium and sang a rendition of “Wanna-Be Angel” by Foxy Shazam. At the end of her performance, the legislative body applauded. 

Frank-Rempel commended her performance and then asked if there were any more comments, Parliamentarian Jess Wrzosek mentioned that while sending out the agenda was originally a job for the Vice President, in recent years, the sending of the agenda has fallen into the duties of the position of the Communications Director. 

Senator Dennis McDermott asked Vice President Lake if anyone had come forward to talk to her directly on this issue before bringing it to censure. When Lake answered that they did not, Senator McDermott likened this with activity from last year, in which senators would censure others without trying to resolve the problem in person first. McDermott said that the entire censure was “extremely petty.”

President Jake Berlin shared similar sentiments regarding the issue. 

“If you are in this organization so you can run around with a magnifying glass waiting for a ‘gotcha’ moment to censure someone, you are here for the wrong reasons,” Berlin said. “We had a censure earlier this semester because somebody felt violated. We have an impeachment on the floor because somebody feels violated. That is much different than you receiving the agenda a day before back in September and waiting until December to bring it up. It’s pathetic.”

He went on to say that whoever had called in the censure should be ashamed of themselves for wasting everybody’s time. He also acknowledged that if it hadn’t been for Lake’s ukulele performance, everyone in the legislative body would be more angry about the matter. 

Senator Jade Steele spoke in defense of Vice President Lake, saying that she was sure that Lake sent the agenda to Communications Director Dettorre well before the 24 hour mark from her own personal experience with wanting to add something to the agenda, where Lake had stated that this was not possible as she already sent it to Dettorre. 

Communications Director Dettorre spoke up, noting that the problem was not with Lake but with herself. She acknowledged that she had problems with keeping track of time and apologized to anyone that may have been inconvenienced by the agenda not being released 24 hours in advance. Dettorre also added that if it were an issue, it wasn’t brought to her attention either. 

The censure trial was then brought to a secret ballot vote. Once counted, the motion to censure Vice President Lake had 1 aye, 20 no’s and zero abstentions. Needless to say, the motion failed. 

At the end of the meeting, Vice President Alexa Lake addressed the legislative body first by congratulating them on doing so much for the school this semester. She reminded them that the next meeting would be the last meeting of the year, and that it would also be her last meeting as chair, because after this semester, she would no longer be attending Point Park University. 

“To my Colleagues and Constituents: Farewell in the treachery. I will miss it, and I will not miss it,” Vice President Lake said. The meeting was then adjourned.