Multiple positions within Associated Students are up for grabs this semester. A new President, Vice President, Student Trustee, Inter-Club Council Chair and Vice-Chair, and two Senate Chairpeople will be elected.

Associated Students is an organization run entirely by students that influences school policies. They draft and approve bills that are sent to the Board of Trustees for review. These bills can range from influencing the school’s annual budget to requesting that the school declare itself a sanctuary campus, as they did this Winter.

Voting online via the student portal is available until Thursday at noon. To help inform your decision-making, here is a brief overview of the candidates running for President and Vice President this semester.

Carol Martinez and Logan Snyder

Carol Martinez, who is running alongside candidate for Vice President Logan Snyder, has placed the environment at the forefront of her campaign. Martinez, who is majoring in environmental sciences with an emphasis in ecological restoration, said that she wants to make Mt. SAC a more environmentally-friendly campus.

“[I want to] bring in more environmentally-related and sustainability projects and initiatives to the campus,” she said.

Martinez is currently participating in an internship on-campus to develop the school’s Climate Action Plan aimed at reducing the school’s environmental footprint.

She added that she wants to create more opportunities for students to participate in environment-related internships.

Jose Martinez and Lillian Garcia

Jose Martinez said that he is running for Associated Students President to show that the student government can be made up of average students.

“I’d love to represent the student body because, hey, we’re not all traditional college students,” Martinez said. “We come from all walks of life, we all have different majors.”

Martinez, who works in Mt. SAC’s transfer center, said that he would push for an AA-T and AS-T degree in gender and ethnic studies and work to increase the transfer rate out of Mt. SAC. He added that he wants to see students get more out of their student activities fees.

“Myself and other students are tired of paying $10 per [semester], so I’d love to lower the prices,” Martinez said. “I’d love to push for a printer card for every student. We all print, so maybe if we could get a 20-25 page per student printer card.”

Brian Moon and Daniel Garcia

Brian Moon, who is in his fourth year at Mt. SAC, said he is running for Associated Students President in order to bring the community together and promote success. Moon, who is the outgoing Inter-Club Council Chairman, said that he wants AS to become “more involved with school policy.”

Moon said he wants to give students more of a voice in school policy because “everyone will be affected by it.”

Moon’s running mate, Daniel Garcia, who is running for Vice President, said he wants to promote more of a school culture at Mt. SAC, which he said could be aided by bringing back student activities.

“I feel that many of many of the activities have been either forgotten, or just left out,” Garcia said. “The activities have to be different. They have to be high-quality activities so that students will actually be interested.”

Maia Sanchez and Lucky Morales

Maia Sanchez, who is in her second year at Mt. SAC, said that she wants to improve the relationship between Associated Students and the student population.

“AS isn’t very well known on campus, but what we’d want them to know is that we can do a lot for them,” Sanchez said. “We provide with help, such as ‘finals frenzy,’ where you can get additional study time in the library during finals and we give out snacks and drinks.”

Sanchez, who was previously an Athletics Senator, is running alongside Lucky Morales, who is the outgoing ICC Vice-Chairman, and together they hope to drive student participation in AS.

“I studied abroad in Spring of 2016 in Spain, which was life changing and made me realize when coming back that we can get so much more involved in the school,” Morales said.

The candidates for the other offices up for election are listed below:

Student Trustee

Senate Chairperson

ICC Chair and Vice-Chair

The winners of this semester’s elections will take office on July 1.