The Spectrum's official endorsement

After a meeting with all the Student Association candidates, asking them the tough questions on what is best for students, The Spectrum's editorial board voted by paper ballot to endorse the Student Alliance party for the positions of president, vice president and treasurer for this week's upcoming Student Association elections.
Leading the ticket for the Student Alliance party are Nischal Vasant for president and Shervin Stoney for vice president, as well as treasurer Antonio Roman.
As for the SUNY delegate positions, Amanda Horn from the Student Alliance party joins ONE Party candidates Jennifer Harb, Amanda Jonas and Yazan Alsaadeh.
However, Yanco Escano, an independent SUNY delegate candidate, was tied with Alsaadeh for the fourth and final delegate post. The tie was broken after a runoff vote by the editorial board.
ONE Party delegate hopeful Amanda Jonas was the only candidate to win unanimous support of the paper's editorial board. As a SUNY delegate this year, Jonas brings a tremendous amount of seniority and experience to SUNY's ever-changing relationship with the state government of New York.
Vasant and Stoney represent not only the experience necessary to close the gap between SA and the student body, but also innovative and creative ideas to make campus a better place.
As stated in their platform, they seek to continue the transparency of SA to the student body and make themselves more available to the student body as well. They will accomplish this by allowing greater access to SA's operating budget, along with greater detail so students understand exactly where their mandatory student activity fee is going.
The Student Alliance party will also mandate SA clubs to have more table hours in the Student Union and provide incentives for clubs to reach out to the student population on South Campus. Both Vasant and Stoney plan to practice what they preach in having their own tabling hours in the Student Union. Furthermore, they wish to create a new fundraising and community service database for all SA clubs to use.
The pair also supports the UBreathe Free policy to designate smoking areas on campus. As for making UB more green, they plan to reuse the printing cover sheets for SA and club printing.
Potential treasurer Antonio Roman of the Student Alliance party hopes to seek even greater financial transparency of SA if elected. For next year's budget, Roman would like to include greater descriptive lines in the budget.
Roman also intends to inspect the current SA budget for unneeded spending, so students' funds will be used rather than going to waste. In addition, he is already in talks with campus officials to allow credit card and debit card use on campus.
As for the SA delegates, Jonas, Harb, Horn and Alsaadeh are competent, diverse and incredibly enthusiastic about their respective causes. Harb seeks to solve parking and transportation issues here on campus.
Jonas plans to continue advocating against SUNY budget cuts by New York as well as increases of tuition. Alsaadeh is promoting greater involvement of international students within the SUNY system.
Horn, the only Student Alliance delegate, will champion environmental issues facing all of SUNY. Horn plans to encourage other campuses within the SUNY system to adopt UB's climate neutral plan.
All these delegates must prepare themselves and work together to take on New York State legislators. Effective change can only come through hard work and dedication.
There is no doubt about how far SA has come in a year. All these candidates seek to continue the current trend of repairing the relationship with the student body. Each party has big, ambitious plans. But only the end results matter.
Regardless of personal preference for the candidates, all of them seek to better UB at every level. The only difference is their vision of how to accomplish this. These endorsements are only recommendations to the student body.
In spite of of personal preference, the key is to join the process and go vote.