Conversations with the USAC Presidential Candidates

Click on a candidate’s name to jump to their transcribed interview:

Naomi Hammonds

Bryce Busch

Carl King Jr.

Poom Yoodee

Nate Magari

Naomi Hammonds

1. Introduce yourself – where are you from? What’s your major? Favorite song?

“Amazing, thank you all for having me. My name is Naomi Hammond, I use she/her pronouns, I’m a third year psychobiology major with minors in cognitive science and entrepeneurship. I’m originally from Las Vegas, Nevada, it’s always my fun fact I use. My favorite song changes like every hour, but right now it’s Nicki Minaj ‘Moment for Life’”.

2. Give us your 20 second pitch – most compelling reason we should vote for you and your number 1 platform

“Okay, so y’all should vote for me because of one of the quotes I live by. ‘There are three Cs in life: choices, chances, or changes. You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change. Not only do I believe in change happening, but change only happens because of students, so I want to amplify and empower y’alls voices and really even just getting y’all to vote and see what we can do in the office this year, Not only that, but I also have the experience of being in USAC since my freshman year. On top of that, I have experience outside using those transferable skills to bring it [the office] into a position to be more successful.”

3. What are your hobbies?

“Ooo, okay. I do a lot. Honestly, because I have two younger sisters so I’ve really just like…”

“How old are they?”

“They are 10. They are twins. They keep me on my toes, I will definitely say for sure. They recently started getting into gymnastics but originally before they were playing soccer. So, since I used to play soccer, we can keep that as my hobby. I also did basketball in high school, so… I still pick up with that. Besides that, I love building LEGO sets to destress because midterm season is here. Definitely need that. And also I do karaoke. That’s my go to.”

“What’s your go-to song?”

“You know… I can  play some Rihanna. Umbrella, that’s a go to.”

4. In your own words, what does your office do?

“Honestly, what I believe the office should be doing and what it does is to first serve the wants and needs of students. That’s the first priority first and foremost. Next, there are a bunch of committees that the Office of the President supposedly sits on, including the Alumni Association, working with those board of directors. There are other ones, including our… oh my god there are so many. Also serving with other University of California Office of the Presidents to really see if we are sharing similar issues between campuses and how we can address them as a greater body. Besides that, what we primarily do in the role is to run the meetings that happen every Tuesday night. Also, we are supposed to be sending quarterly emails to the student population to really make that connection… Don’t see that happening, maybe it happened once this quarter but we try. And just a lot of other small tasks. In the role, there is still so much work to do.”

5. Why did you decide to run for this position/ what first got you into student gov?

“Yeah. So I’ll start with what first got me into it. So, as I shared on debate night, I received an instagram DM from Elijah Wade, who was a previous general representative. He was an ex-football player, then moved to student government, so I thought it was really interesting. We ended up playing sports at the same high school. My high school didn’t offer any sports, so I had to travel schools to play. And so, he DM’ed me as soon as I got into UCLA, made that announcement post, and he was like ‘You need to join this organization. I’m currently this, this this… We’re doing this work’. I was like, ‘Okay!’. I was involved in student government in high school so I can dig it. Working with a bigger budget, all that. People love to throw around that fun fact. ‘USAC, we have a huge budget.’ But… most of it is already allocated by the time we get there… so…

“Yeah, so I joined because I was already involved in student government. I got here, I sat with President Naomi Riley, I sat with past President Breeze Velasquez. And even being in USAC that time, I was like… ooo, we need to do some more. There are still changes and there are still things we can be doing better. Even observing this year, in an elected position, being the general representative, I still feel like there’s more we can do. And I want to be that change to do it. So, why I’m running for president is really just because I have the experience, and coming to this campus, being a part of our small Black population, I’ve learned that UCLA is really just learning how to jump through hoops. And I want to make that easier for the student body. Being in this role with the platforms that I have, I’m going to do just that. And even if I don’t get the position, I’m still going to be a changemaker on campus. I’m still going to be a TA, which is something I currently do. There is still so much I can do in my other roles. But this role, I believe, will make the most impact on the student body.

“Of course. So throughout the years, I know that’s been the platform of so many offices. But I’m like, okay. So now where’s this information? I feel like year after year, it just disappears. Somebody has sat down, a group of people have sat down, to do the work to  make these resources, and to see them vanish is very disheartening. So, we’re going to be going through the archives. Elliana, our current general representative 3, has been talking to me and we’ve been having conversations about making USAC archives, just because we continue to lose this institutional knowledge. Only specific people… Like reaching out to past presidents, is not going to work all the time, especially when they are moving on in their own lives. We are going to need to collect these resources, so it’s definitely going to be in the works to really compile those and really be able to send that through our quarterly emails. I don’t want things to even be quarterly, I want more emails and that brings us to working with more student media organizations.”

6. One of your platforms is community and in this platform you talk specifically about working with student media groups? I think everyone here at Radio would be interested in this, can you please elaborate on how exactly you want to work with these student media groups? 

“So, highlighting community because I need every student’s voice, and that includes each and every one of you. So, to do that, I really want to partner with student media organizations because I feel like in the past, USAC really hasn’t. We’ve really burnt bridges with some groups, and I really hope to mend those. For example, with UCLA Radio, what I’m hoping to do, it’s gonna be in the works, a lot of my friends even did not know what USAC is. And I feel like that’s very representative of our student population on campus. THey don’t know what we do, and most importantly, who we are. So, I would hope if we could possibly do little interviews kind of like this. Kind of breaking down who is our facilities commissioner, who is our community service commissioner, and the list goes on for the 15 other positions. Even like, I don’t know how long we can, just highlights of some of your past experiences, what you’re hoping to do. Because, we can’t always just use one single platform to really get to the whole student body. We have La Gente, we have NOMMO, we have so many student media organizations. Going through that list, I was like ‘Ah! Okay!’. We have the platforms to reach the broader student population.”

7. Another one of your platforms is rewriting the script. In this, you talk about providing resources to USAC members, as a USAC member myself I have found it very hard in my first few quarters in USAC to really understand what was going on in every office. Could you elaborate on your tangible plan to help provide these resources to USAC members and directors? 

“Exactly. So, when it comes to even getting into the role, last Spring quarter, the only transition material I really received was an Instagram username and password, and an email username and password. So, I spent my Summer really just trying to figure out… Okay, what do I do? And I know that was the case for other members of USAC. We have Teddy, our previous TSR who unfortunately had to step away. And even Thyra coming into that role, it was such a learning curve to even try and figure out, ‘What can I do? What can’t I do? How do I do it?’. What I really want to do is to make sure, with the help of other USAC members and past USAC members, especially with this USAC archive we are trying to create, is also trying to make sure that all the different transition materials are accessible to everybody. I know it’s kind of dependent on the role, but a lot of the things can overlap and help us all succeed. Even if that’s how to make a brand template for your social media, how you want to do those kinds of posts. That was a learning curve for me. I was not really a social media person, like what fonts are accessible to even see? Making it accessible [ID?] in the comments, accessible texts, how to add those descriptions? That should be straight out of the gate what we should have in learning how to do this role. Also, just thinking about that, as President, I really want to be a supporter and a leader that other elected officials can come to if they are facing struggles. 

“One of the big things that we had in USAC this year that was an issue… that was written about in DailyBruin… was funding. Funding for these different organizations was a real struggle because not only was everybody that was in charge of the funding body looking for funding directors, looking for people, looking for students to help, which often goes with the very limited stipend. Asking for that help was just not there. As President, one of the larger Instagram accounts, I have that opportunity to not only reach out to the student population, what we can do with more biweekly emails to the community, asking for that aid in the beginning of Fall quarter. I know y’all probably saw that Winter email we had, where most of were asking for applications and asking for people to fill those roles. Like, we’re already in Winter. At that point, we’re wrapping up. Having that from the get go is what we really need. Really just being there, even if I have to send staff over to help with that funding body, students were low on staff in other elected positions and committees. We really need to be able to delegate those resources and have that all just done. But, there are so many other things that need to go into working with the transition material. That’s my plan as of now.

“Even my freshman year, working under the Office of the President, we made a ‘What is USAC?’ presentation. We gave that presentation quarterly… Like why did that stop? Stuff like that… why did this discontinue? We still need that. Just other transition materials, even for different directors. It’s so sad to see it go when that person graduates. You’re not going to find people that are going to want to help after they graduate. It just doesn’t happen.”

8. What is one thing you like about another candidate’s platforms that you might work to implement in office?

“There are so many things that I want to continue to support. Monetarily, with our student fees. But, it also comes down to the fact that I want to find ways to do without using student fees. Specifically, we have some candidates that want to continue to fund things with student [?]. We have other avenues of generating money, like safer options include our SPARK campaigns every year. I even looked at the application to make my own SPARK campaign for funding. We can do that. Like, there are alumni out there that fund so many different projects on this campus. We need to leverage those connections. By acting as President, we have to sit on that Alumni Association Board of Directors. So I don’t see why we can’t reach out to alumni that have previously been involved not only in USAC but on campus. Be some of the changemakers that we talk about in different meetings. There are so many different things. For instance, I know that Carl’s trying to continue to fund the Women’s Center on this campus. That is definitely a huge goal. I know other candidates are talking about getting a Latinx Student Center, especially as we are moving towards becoming a Hispanic-serving institution. We need that. Bottom line, there are no ifs or buts about it. I’ve been working with, predominantly, the BBRC on this campus, doing different events and providing different academic, mental health services. I would love to see that for other groups on this campus. Like I said, I’ve learned how to jump through hoops. I know it’s very similar for other groups on this campus, especially coming from historically excluded, margnalized backgrounds. We need to help. Finding ways to do that and different avenues aside from ‘student fees’… That’s my big goal. That’s something I really like about what we need to do, but how we go about funding it… That’s what’s different about me.

“I feel like every Spring quarter, that’s the only time people really look at, ‘Oh, what’s USAC?’ on Reddit. It’s so unfortunate because I’ve been doing this since my freshman year. And, it’s like the same… Especially being on South Campus. I was trying to ask people to vote last year and trying to get that going on. People were like, ‘Oh? Who? What does that stand for?’. So, trying to break that down… I really think that’s going to be how we leverage our connections on this campus. Especially because I’ve been in the Learning Assistant program, currently am a Teaching Assistant for some courses. Using the faculty connections I’ve been able to make, I’m really hoping that I can use that in order to reach the broader population. Not only just having humanities students learn more about USAC and what we do, but especially our Suth Campus need to learn about what we do.

“So, I am currently working with Dr. Khankan in 7C. We’re teaching. We have four lectures. We’re teaching about 1,003 students. Even just doing a brief intro in front of those slidedecks for students, which she is all for, just being like ‘Hey! This is an opportunity that students can have’. Our learning assistants were in about 50 courses across South Campus. Having the slide at the beginning not only when I’m introducing myself, ‘Hey! I’m going to be your Learning Assistant this quarter’, but also ‘This is something we want y’all to get involved in. This is an opportunity for y’all so y’all can get more involved in UCLA’s campus’.

“Especially as we are going to be doing our appointments, each year we fill a bunch of appointments. It even took us until Spring quarter to fill some appointments. And how much can you really do at the end of Spring quarter? We want to have an event towards the beginning of the quarter in front of this building to really just advertise what they do in this specific committee, how they can be a voice in reaching out to other organizations. That’s really what I want to do to get more marginalized voices in these committees.”

Bryce Busch

1. Introduce yourself – where are you from? What’s your major? Favorite song?

Yeah, so I’m Bryce Busch. I am a third year history major environmental systems and society minor. I’m from Carson City, Nevada. And my favorite song, I’ve been like, so stressed, because when I think radio, I think oh they’re like the cool indie kids. And I listen to Taylor Swift. 

So I’m gonna say “Hard Feelings” by Lorde. That’s beautiful. From the best album of all time, Melodrama.

2. Give us your 20 second pitch – most compelling reason we should vote for you and your number 1 platform

Yeah, so I’ve spent three years in USAC. And I feel like that whole time there’s been this weird stigma of like, the general student body versus USAC, of not really wanting to be involved, or just like kids that care about a stipend, or like climbing up in the world, which is not a good way to look at it, because students are paying over $1,000 fees over four years. And I want them to know where those fees are going and hold the elected students accountable. So my big platform is transparency, and just making sure USAC knows they’re being paid by the students. And they should be telling the students what they’re doing.

3. Do you have any hobbies?

I am a huge film person. I was gonna say “bro”, but when I hear “film bro” it makes me want to throw up. Because then I think about American Psycho Fight Club, which actually I love Fight Club. But no, I’m a huge film person. All of my extracurriculars at UCLA are film clubs. 

4. In your own words, what does your office do?

The president’s office is mostly like student affairs on campus. But I think what’s really special about the president’s office is it’s kind of like you get to do anything you want to help the students. And you have the platform to do it, which is different than gen rep. Gen reps have their own focus, but they don’t have the platform of meeting with the people that the President does. So it gives them more of a space to talk and more people to talk to about issues they care about. Yeah, so like, when I came to college, the two things I really wanted to do was like a film club and student government. So I remember at the Activities Fair when it was online, unfortunately for us, I went to the EVP, external vice president, for people that don’t know, their booth, and it was me and the person that was running it and that’s it. And then we had like, a very nice three minute conversation. And I was like, ‘okay, I’m going to sign up.’ I’ve been in the EVP office for three years. And what’s special about the EVP office is that it covers like all branches of government. It’s federal, state, local, and then it does a lot on the university level. And I feel like that’s a really good experience for the president’s office, I don’t think it should just be a voice for students on campus. It’s a voice for students everywhere, like Carl being invited to Kamala Harris in DC. That’s how I envision the president’s office running is not just ‘hey, I have an event on campus today. Please go.’ It’s advocating for things like doubling the Pell Grant and working with all the offices on campus.

5. Why did you decide to run for this position/ what first got you into student gov?

It was in high school. I think I’ve like always wanted to go into politics. I was originally a political science major. And then I was like, I hate philosophy. So I’m switching out of this immediately. But as I’ve gone through college, I’ve been moving away from political science and more wanting to pursue film. But I think it’s still like the love of government, and helping students. That advocacy has not left. So I still really am passionate about doing stuff like this.

6. Your first platform is focused on transparency. The word transparency is used a lot as a buzzword in USAC, especially for USAC candidates. What is your tangible plan or ideas to address transparency in USAC since it is such a pivotal issue? 

So transparency, to me, means that everything you’re doing, the student body knows about it. It’s easily accessible, which is what’s missing right now. Well, there’s a few things missing with transparency in USAC. A lot of people aren’t filling out their transparency reports, which, in my eyes,  is unacceptable. Because I know we’re students, and we’re very busy, but at the end of the day, we know what we’re getting into when we run for these positions. Then to not do the duties, which is a very easy duty of just telling people what you’re doing is not excusable. If you’re not letting the students know, the people that elected you, I don’t think you should be able to speak at meetings or do things like that. I think that’s a good way to hold people accountable. If you’re not telling people what you’re doing. There’s not any reason why you should be influencing the school in any more ways. So I think that it’s hard to be enforcing transparency. This is especially when, if you’ve met a lot of you USAC candidates, and a lot of people in USAC, we are very strong headed. Telling someone I don’t think you should be talking on this issue because you haven’t filled out a transparency report is not always going to go down in the best way. But I think it’s just about setting a precedent. 

7. Here at Radio, a lot of our events are centered around live music performances, specifically in Westwood. One of your platforms is to make it easier for live music to be played in Westwood. How exactly do you plan to work with Westwood officials to do this?

This is an issue that I am very passionate about, and I haven’t seen any USAC candidate, in any office, talk about. I have a lot of friends who are musicians, and they get shut down. All their parties get shut down. And then there’s no way for them to apply for permits. To get a permit to perform live music, it is horrible. There are so many steps; they don’t want students to do it, which is very shitty. We are students who are very busy, and we don’t have time to be doing this rigorous paperwork. So, I want to work with the neighborhood council to advocate for student musicians. And I also want to bring the issue to the Chancellor’s. I don’t think they expect to hear about live music from the president of UCLA, but it is an issue that impacts a lot of students. It affects student life on campus. Quality of Life. Music, good music, is good quality of life.

It is great. It’s very, very salient for the people of radio. We have a lot of in-station performances in which we get to feature local musicians. But when we want to reach a wider audience, we want to try and do them in person, but that is difficult.

Exactly, and I don’t think it should be. I think the fact that we can’t perform in Westwood Village — there’s no way to perform if it’s not First Thursdays — I think we should be able to have, even with no alcohol involved. There should really be a performance that’s not like in the Kerckhoff. That’s the only place I’ve seen live music on campus legally.

8. Additionally, as a branch of that, what steps do you plan on taking on bringing businesses back to Westwood to make sure that it is more student friendly? 

We have like one bar in Westwood — it’s Rocco’s. And if you’ve ever gone to Rocco’s, it can be a pain to wait in line, and then you get in and it’s packed, and it’s the same people every single time. Pre COVID-19, there were much more student friendly businesses. They weren’t great. But, recently, they lifted a local ordinance that made it easy easier for businesses to get in to Westwood. So I’d love to work with North Westwood Neighborhood Council. and Westwood neighborhood council overall, which can be very difficult. But I think with the presidential office, it’s easier to get your foot in the door. And to also offer incentives to businesses that want to move here. I think a big thing is if you offer them good locations, or show that there’s so much. If you walk to the Hammer Museum, you see nothing but empty spaces. And those are empty spaces that can go to businesses. So I think if we just offer a little cash because cash speaks volumes, it would improve student life more than anything else, even more than live music. 

9. What is one thing you like about another candidate’s platforms that you might work to implement in office 

Yeah, running against Naomi has been honestly pretty fun. I feel like we have very similar personalities. And hearing her talk about her platform of including minority voices in USAC, and I think that’s something that’s very important. I don’t want to be a representative for minority voices. I want minority voices represented in my office. So I think Naomi, really advocating for that and having that as her number one platform, from what I’ve seen, is admirable. And I think she has a lot of good ideas that I would love to see implemented, even if she’s not elected.

10. If you had to name one goal you have for USAC next year what is it?

My biggest goal is, it’s one of my platforms, and it ties in with everything is just to increase student voter turnout. Right now there is a referendum — the transit referendum. It is $3.30. And if it passes, with a 20% voter turnout, then we get basically free transit. But the biggest problem is not the yes vote. It’s the vote getting out. I think with more transparency, if students see more businesses opening, and if all my platforms get put into effect, I think it would lead to more voter turnout. They would like what USAC is doing and trust that they’re actually doing things.

Carl King Jr.

1. Introduce yourself – where are you from? What’s your major? Favorite song?

“Originally, I’m from Albany, Georgia, which is like the southern part of Georgia.

I’m currently a business economics major looking to change to political science. And I will say I love Brent Faiyez, who has some of my favorite songs.”

2. Give us your 20 second pitch – the most compelling reason we should vote for you and your number 1 platform

“Well, obviously a vote for Carl is a vote for someone who cares. You know, last year, I ran on platforms that were centered around curbing problems at UCLA, but students face [these problems] at the local and national level this year… This year at Bruin Day, as USAC president, I took feedback from a lot of students. And what we did was we created five different platforms, which are: community unity, activating alumni networks, reach, restoring or bringing infrastructure, and experienced leadership in a safe and sustainable campus. And so basically, those are created by the students. 

Our campus needs to be more sustainable. We just bought new property in Ranchos Palos Verdes and San Pedro, and you know, we want to shape that campus the way we want it to be, because students are going to be there saying, ‘Carl, we need jobs. When we graduate, we need to take advantage of having this number one title in our name, we need to reach out to our alumni so that they can help us out.’ 

And also we’re taught to raise a student fee. So we need another way to raise money, which is what we’re going to do we’re going to create a fundraising branch so that students can raise money so that our budget can be limited.”

3. Do you have any hobbies? 

“Honestly, I’ve been trying to pick up a hobby. This is a very busy job. I’m not gonna lie, especially if you want to do it the right way. But I love reading and writing. Recently, I started doing some Bachata dancing. So I’m trying to pick up on that.

But other than that, I always say that I’ve been joking with my Chief of Staff, like, ‘hey, if I don’t win this election, I’m just gonna go join a chess club or something.’ 

Just relax, you know? So I think that’s something I probably like to get into, honestly. But we’ll see how everything plays out.”

4. In your own words, what does your office do?

“Yeah, so the president’s office is the person that gets hated on. But now, I’m joking.

… Every student pays 290 bucks a year and a lot of students don’t know what that goes towards, but they pay it. Students need to get something out of their money. They need to look into, you know, the different things that USAC offers, which is social programs, different events, funding for clubs, and things of that nature. And so I think ultimately, as the USAC President, I have the final veto authority over the budget. I feel like I’m the final person that would have a say so over the budget. 

But, you know, I take into account what students say and what students need and ultimately I’m looking out for the welfare of every student. So at the end of the day, USAC is the organization that collects your student fees, and they’re supposed to take it and give it back to you in some shape, form or fashion.

And it’s supposed to be the subject matter expert in regards to different things on campus – different clubs, different organizations. So that’s what it’s supposed to be, but it’s not always been used that way. 

But as far as I’ve been in office, we’ve done a lot of amazing things for students. We’ve secured over 200,000 plus dollars for the LGBTQ+ center. We’ve secured funding to increase free sessions for uninsured Bruins. And in regards to CAPS sessions, we’ve also increased funding so that you know we can decrease abortion fees or just get rid of abortion fee waivers. So that now students, if they do go through that process, it doesn’t have to pop up on their medical bill, and their parents can stay out of their business, and they can just be in control of the situation that they’re dealing with if they choose to go about it that way. So those are some of the things that we’ve done. Also, we’re working to secure funding for a Women’s center specifically.

5. Why did you decide to re-run for this position/ what first got you into student gov? 

“So I started out in the external vice president’s office as an intern. And I realized that a lot of the work that the students were doing you know, they had good intentions, but they really didn’t have the experience. 

We talked about serving black students, we talked about serving low income students, and transfer students – all these all these different demographics that I’m a part of, and sometimes I look at the way that they were going about policy and I’m like, ‘well, that’s not necessarily the right way to do it.’ 

Or you don’t really have the underground experience in regards to actually being that person. And so I realized that for individuals like myself, I thought it was important to put myself in a position where I could speak on behalf of these different organizations because I have a holistic approach.

I could actually make the right decision because sometimes, people and organizations, whether here at UCLA or just internationally, try to fix problems – but sometimes they make it worse because they don’t really understand how things work within that community. 

I thought that there were better ways that we could serve our student body – just go into the fundamental concepts, which is being friends with them, you know, not just run on a slate and cause fear and make people angry at one another. So that’s why I decided to run for president because I thought it was the best person for the job. 

I decided to rerun for President because there’s a lot of stuff that we were able to get done and as I stated before, we were able to secure $200,000 for the LGBTQ+ center and thousands for mental health and abortion fees. And we were able to reopen Cafe 1919. 

We went to the White House and spoke to Vice President Kamala Harris in regards to an advocacy that we’re doing and asked for some help in regards to mental health for the future, because that’s one of my biggest concerns. 

But there’s so much more that needs to be done and we have a job that needs to be done. And I like to tell a lot of individuals, one thing about being President is, I like to consider your first three months as being a lame duck, because you don’t really know what you’re doing. 

And I promise you, when I was a GM representative, I was very intertwined and wanted to counsel, but I didn’t know what I was doing… so the first three months, you’re you’re the first quarter, you really don’t know what you’re doing.

But after that, you pretty much figured out the administrative and just the social aspect of it. And that’s when you’re able to be a force to be reckoned with. And so, I thought that I should rerun because obviously I already have those things. 

I’m gonna go back into this next term and be ready, and we’re gonna start working immediately on some of the things that I’m running, we’ve already started. So there’s a lot of work to be done. And I decided to rebrand because I want to make sure that that work gets done because it’s going to benefit the student body overall.”

6. You talk about restoring Wooden. What is the first step to this? 

So I think [some of Wooden’s] spacing doesn’t get used as much as the actual gym part. The actual treadmills and weight lifting – so what we want to do… is to decrease the size of [that smaller part] or add some more treadmills, more squat racks, more benches, because there’s a lot of wait times and especially around four or five people and they’re gonna be waiting forever. So we want to make sure that we give the Bruins more time and just a better opportunity to work out.”

7. Can you address the allegations that have recently been made about you?

“So I just wanted to say I mean, it’s completely false.

I think a lot of students who heard these allegations, they’ve come to me and said that the timing is weird. This happened last year, literally like a year to the day. I had a crazy allegation last year. And it all comes back to the individual just trying to slander my name because they feel like they don’t have a chance at winning an election.

And like, as I stated before, it is completely false. I’m taking it very seriously because I always think allegations are very important and students need to be heard.

But I think my work speaks for itself. I think my character speaks for itself. My office is 60% women of color, and I’ve served and we’ve done a lot of amazing work together. If you notice in this interview, I always say.. I’m not the smartest person in the room.

My staffers are – they’re the reason why we’ve done all this amazing work. 

But yeah, it’s just completely false and it’s a shame that our elections have to go through this. I do hope that one day that we can just have an election where people can just get along, and just not be slandering each other and all those things.

8. “What are your thoughts on greek life and its stance on sexual assault? 

“I think, obviously Ali’s doing a pretty good job at addressing this. She’s having those uncomfortable conversations with IFC. She’s having those uncomfort conversations with the administration, and that’s the right way to go. But she definitely needs help. 

We have to make sure that IFC (International Fraternity Council) and just Greek Life in general is on board – taking a hard stance in regards to anything revolving around sexual assault, or anything of that nature. 

I’ve stated before that my office is 60% Women of Color – they’re always striving and talking about these things and making sure that we can go to the Chancellor and we are working with different organizations to address these issues, because it is a very real problem on our campus.

And we have to make sure that we take care of this because 59% of UCLA is women and so, if we’re not taking care of the majority of our campus, then what are we doing here, you know? 

And we’re definitely working to continue to just hold individuals accountable, and make sure that the conversations are still being talked about – just because the allegation doesn’t happen publicly for a year, or for whatever, it doesn’t mean that this stuff has not happened and that’s one of the big things that Ali and I talked about, because a lot of individuals are scared to come forward or anything of that nature. So we’re figuring out ways to address the situation and hold individuals accountable and make sure that it’s a very important topic that continues to be talked about and taken seriously.”

9. What is one thing you like about another candidate’s platforms that you might work to implement in office and if you had to name one goal you have for USAC next year what is it?

“I think Nate who currently works for FSC. 

He talked about the financial transparency aspect of UCLA because he currently works in FSC. And he talked about how we created a council this year. Basically a small committee to audit USAC offices, right?

That’s still coming together – It hasn’t, administratively and socially worked as it’s supposed to, because it’s very new. But I really loved that platform. That’s one of the things that he brought up.

— 

I think the second question you said was something that I’m very excited about. Or just like if you could only pick one goal that you have for you sat next year, what would it be? If I had to pick one goal for USEK? I think he just be working together as friends.

That I think that’s the most important part, you know, because when USAC members don’t get along. You know, nothing gets done, right? When you’re just focused on attacking each other or trying to bring each other down. Nothing gets done. And I’ve seen that happen. I’ve seen that play out. So I just hope that they can just be friends regardless of political views, regardless of if you were on a slate or not, regardless if you believe this way about something or believe another way about it. 

I hope that they can just kind of see that you said at the end of the day, we’re supposed to be a group of friends that are working to help the UCLA student body. At the end of the day, regardless of whether we disagree with each other or not, we all want the same thing, which is a better UCLA for all of our constituents and all the UCLA Bruins.

I just want to say that at end of the day, over the last year, my team has worked very hard for the UCLA student body.” 

Poom Yoodee

1. Introduce yourself – where are you from? What’s your major? Favorite song?

My name is Poom Yoodee. I’m a third year microbiology student from sunny Santa Monica, California. I’m a commuter student and a first generation Asian American. I work at my parents’ Thai restaurant, Poom Thai Cuisine, shameless plug for that. I’d say that my favorite song is “Sweet Georgia Brown.” When I was a kid, I’d go antiquing with my parents a lot, so I’d spend nickels and dimes buying records because that’s what I could buy. The most popular record then was “Sweet Georgia Brown.” It’s been recorded since the 20s, and there are several artists who have done recordings of it. I think it’s great. 

2. Give us your 20 second pitch – most compelling reason we should vote for you and your number 1 platform

The number one reason why I’m running for President right now is because I believe our clubs and our organizations need more support. At UCLA, our clubs and organizations, they’re the ones that do the work out in the community. They are the ones who do the community service. They’re the ones who give students resources. They’re the ones who form communities here. I believe that our clubs and organizations need our support right now in student government, and they also need a voice in student government because how can we reach out to a big demographic of students? [We reach out to large demographics] by reaching out to clubs and organizations and [we accomplish that] by giving them a permanent platform in our student government for them to voice their opinions and be the voice of the student body.

3. As a follow-up question, what tangible ideas or plans do you have to specifically work with those organizations?

I think that we should have a presidential advisory cabinet where we are going to have every SOLE organization have a seat in my cabinet. We need to do that for several reasons. I think that the number one thing is,of course, having students heard, basic fair representation. When Student Government was started at UCLA, we had about 3000 students here. We had about, I think, three to four General Representatives. Now, we have about 35,000 students, and we just admitted our largest class. That number means that we’re going to need more and more ways for students to speak out in student government. So that’s the number one, having student representation in student government through clubs and organizations. I also think that when it comes to USAC, working on the issues such as student houselessness, food insecurity, community service, I have eight core departments in that cabinet. I think that the best way for student government to work in all those areas is to get our clubs and organizations involved. I mean, who better to deal with food insecurity than Swipe Out Hunger? Who better to deal with the student housing issue than Bruin Shelter? That’s a great way to get the clubs involved.

4. How would your presidential advisory cabinet look under USAC’s existing bylaws? Would there be any sort of complications with that?

I don’t think there will be any complications with USAC’s bylaws. We have the Presidential Congressional Advisory Board, which is set up for the mother organizations to communicate with the president’s office. Essentially, we’re bringing the same thing here, and we’re giving students a permanent platform. That’s the key word here also, permanent, because presidents change, and we just want the same issues to be highlighted because there are long-term issues, which will continue to affect the student body. We want to make sure that the President is advised on these long-term issues. [My cabinet] will not affect the bylaws because this is an advisory board that will permanently be there to advise the president.

5. Because there are so many organizations on campus, how are you ensuring that everyone has a say on the board?

With any measure when it comes to student government, I think getting students involved is a big thing. I’ve been in the Internal Vice President’s office for two years now. We work with the student community here on campus, and getting people involved is a big problem. However, I think that by gradually making USAC more accessible – and I think as president that that is part of my job too, to make the president’s office more accessible – we can get students involved. That’s really the main goal here is to get [students involved] first. Once we achieve that, hopefully this presidential advisory cabinet is a way for students to come in and sit down at the table with everyone.

6. In your own words, what does your office do?

The office of the president essentially guides USAC and its actions throughout the quarter and throughout the year. The president leads council meetings and all the offices, but what does that mean? Basically, the president’s office guides the direction that USAC takes… The path I would take USAC down is the path of supporting our student organizations and supporting our students because sometimes we do get mixed up in the big jumble of things, and yes, there are bigger problems going on in the world. I do admit to this. I do think that the best way for USAC to get involved is to support the clubs and organizations that put in the work to deal with the problems going on in the world, the problems going on in our campus, and the problems that are affecting students.

7. What is an organization on campus that you appreciate that you are not a part of?

I’d say that one of the clubs that I appreciate a lot on campus is a club my friend Sahaj is in, Swipe Out Hunger. So if you’re reading this, I appreciate you Sahaj. Swipe Out Hunger, they’re always out there on the hill trying to get people to donate swipes, and they redistribute those swipes. I think that’s a great way to combat food insecurity here on campus. I really appreciate them. They’re one of the core clubs that I was talking about earlier, the clubs that really go out there and do the work here on campus. Student government needs to support them.

8. Do you have any hobbies? 

I like to do film photography. I have my own film camera, and I like to take photos. I like to go out with friends to explore LA. I would take a lot of film photos and I would develop them in my home. The only room where there’s no lighting would be the restroom. I have to close the door and kind of just mess around in there… It’s great to see the photos come out. I use an app to scan the film once it’s developed and everything looks great.

9. What places in LA do you like exploring with your friends and would recommend other UCLA students to check out?

I love our beaches here in LA, and I know that’s a little controversial because, you know, our waters are a little murky… I think our beaches are just fine. I would recommend Malibu, of course. The cliffs of Palos Verdes are also very nice. Also, our state parks down in Orange County are great, great beaches to go to.

10. Why did you decide to run for this position/ what first got you into student gov?

As a Thai American, I am a practicing Buddhist, and I go to Thai temple. The nearest one is in North Hollywood. I remember when I was six or seven, they had a little eye clinic there, run by UCLA, or at least that’s what the banner said. I thought it was really cool that we had people at my Thai temple that were different. They were different from me, they were different from my family, but they were still there, and they were serving my community giving free eye exams. I now know that was the optometry club Vision Project here on campus. I think that we need to support the clubs and organizations here on campus. Because I’m an LA native, I appreciate the work that UCLA does for my community so much, and people ask me, “What are your plans after college?” Well, my plan is to stay in LA. As someone who’s here in LA, UCLA just means so much, and the work students put in is just incredible. In Los Angeles, you either go to UCLA or USC. I prefer UCLA because of the incredible work that our students do. I just want to make sure that there’s someone in student government who has their back because they have the back of my community, it just means the world to me. As to why I got started in student government, I’ve been in the IVP office for two years now. Last year, I was in the Meet Material Needs Committee with the Internal Vice President, Cassandra, and we raised about $30,000 to give to students for housing relief. This year, I’m also in the IVP office’s office of student involvement, working with our clubs and orgs and throwing events to get the community involved. We have an event coming up in May as well, so look out for that. The main reason I wanted to get into Student Government was because I wanted to get involved in student life and take care of the student body. I think that sometimes in USAC, we forget that the main focus of Student Government is focusing on our student body to make sure that they can achieve their dreams, goals, and whatever plans that they have for our community.

11. One of your platforms is focused on improving infrastructure and resources on campus, including decreasing the prices of parking passes. How do you currently plan to accomplish this goal?

I think the issue of parking permits on campus ties into a much bigger problem we see here on campus, and that is students having to subsidize for their education. We pay 240 something dollars for student fees at the start of every year. That amounts to about 9, 8 million dollars, I believe, and, with that being said, why are we still subsidizing for education? I just went to see CAC’s culture night, and they have to spend $30,000 to $40,000 to rent out Royce Hall. That just doesn’t make sense to me. Students have to pay for lab coats and goggles. That doesn’t make sense to me. I have a friend who is a film major and to do her project for her directorship pathway, she has to spend, the school says, $3,000 to produce her own film. It actually costs way more than that to produce your own film. It just doesn’t make sense to me why we have to subsidize for education. When it comes to parking permits, I’m a commuter student myself, and I don’t want to pay close to $300. I believe it’s $291 right now, I could be wrong, but it’s close to $300. That’s just a ridiculous rate to pay for a quarter. My plan to work on this is to look at how our student fees are being spent. USAC releases a report on how fees are spent, but as President, I would say that my main initiative here is to lead USAC to cut our spending and then put more of our spending into our clubs and our organizations because I want a lot of our student fees to go back into the student body. That is my main plan right now. When it comes to who I work with, again, going back to my idea of the presidential advisory cabinet, this is a team effort. I want you people in the student body or clubs or organizations to get involved with us. We have Bruin media, we have the Daily Bruin and we have UCLA Radio out here. I believe the president’s office needs to reach out more. I would utilize our resources and make relationships with these clubs in order to get outreach and to get people to know about the benefits we have and the benefits we offer.

12. Going back to what you said about the $240 in student fees each year, are those just USAC fees that we pay?

Those are student fees that go into various things. They go into running USAC, they go into contingency, surplus funding, they really are supposed to go back to our student body. Now, I know saying supposed is a loaded thing, but what I mean is again, going into USAC. My plan is again to allocate most of that money back into the student body because I believe that student government needs to focus on the student body. Student fees should be spent on the students.

13. Where do you think is the biggest place that you would reallocate the money from?

Right now, we are looking at the data that is released every year, and there are many things that we can cut back on, for example, funding retreats for our student government leaders. I’m in student government myself. I understand that it’s a lot of hard work, but I do think that we can cut spending there when this fund is requested. I will say that because I am not the President, and I don’t have the resources to look into this matter further, that’s something that I promise to dedicate myself to when I’m president.

14. What is one thing you like about another candidate’s platforms that you might work to implement in office?

I want to dedicate a lot of student government funds and a lot of our time and our efforts into reaching out to the community to build community here on campus, so I’m trying to think of one of my opponents and one of their platforms that is similar to that. I think that the most similar candidate I have in that regard is probably Naomi Riley’s platform where she asks, before we have people at the dinner table, what are we having? It’s, again, a lot of planning and it’s a lot of communication. That’s what I hope to do in my platforms as president. When I talk about the student advisory cabinet, that is a very big idea for me, because how do we get fair and equal student representation here in student government? Are we going to set up a Senate House of Representatives? How are we going to get those members elected? Right? How are we going to do that? The best way is to reach out to the clubs and orgs that are the basis for our community here at UCLA. And so that’s what I would do as president, and that platform really resonates with me. I do see it present in some of my opponents, but I do believe that having the cabinet is the most permanent way that we can establish this platform for students to have their voices heard.

15. Would the cabinet be made up of the leadership from student organizations, or would organizations just choose their representative? What would it look like?

The most beautiful thing about that I believe is having the clubs and organizations send their own representatives, so they get to choose who’s going to represent them. I’m not here to confine it specifically to the leadership of clubs and organizations. I will say that I will leave it up to their discretion and the organizations as a whole to choose who to send to represent them because, at the end of the day, it’s about making all those student voices heard here on campus.

16. If you had to name one goal you have for USAC next year what is it?

If I had to name one goal for USAC next year, it will, again, always be to make sure that our students are heard and that our students feel safe here on campus. I think the latter is more important. When I’m trying to talk to clubs and organizations, whether it’s trying to extend CSO escort services or it’s trying to decrease the price of our parking tickets or it’s trying to make it possible to purchase Bruin meal plans here on campus. It ties into making our resources more accessible so students feel more at home. As someone who’s lived at home for all my life taking care of my parents and working at the family business, when you’re at home, you feel safe, and that’s what I intend to do.

17. Are there any final thoughts on what you love about UCLA that you would like to share?

I came here as a commuter student, and the outlook was kind of grim. I commute from home to here to work and back home every day. I had impostor syndrome coming in. It’s not a great feeling. You always think that there’s more you can do. You always think that other people living on the Hill per se are having great fun, and you’re just kind of stuck here in your own little bubble back at home. But I think the beautiful thing about UCLA is the fact that our communities are so diverse, our clubs or organizations. We have a lettuce club here on campus. That’s crazy. We have a lettuce club here on campus, and we have a poker club. We have clubs like ACA, cultural organizations. It’s so diverse that there are so many avenues for you to get involved in student life, so many ways for you to dedicate your passion, your efforts, and see different perspectives on the world and different perspectives in the community. That’s the most beautiful thing about UCLA. That’s how I got involved, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

18. Would you mind plugging the location of your parents’ Thai restaurant?

Yeah, of course. It’s Poom Thai Cuisine. It’s in Santa Monica. You just go straight down Pico, take a left on Lincoln, and it’s right there on Lincoln and Pacific Street. My parents started it up in 2003. The biggest question I get asked is what came first: Poom or the Poom Thai. Well, the story my dad always told me was when he opened up the restaurant, my mom asked him, what are we going to name it? I was about nine months then and he’s sold everything he’s had. He came as a delivery driver. My mom was a waitress, and they sold everything they had. They had nothing left so they’re gonna name it after the most valuable thing in their lives. So they named it Poom Thai.

Nate Magari

1. Introduce yourself – where are you from? What’s your major? Favorite song?

“Yeah, thank you for having me Anna and Lauren. I appreciate you taking the time to interview me. My name is Nate Magari, I’m a candidate for USAC President, and I’m a third year astrophysics and applied mathematics major from New Hampshire. My favorite song is ‘Wish You Were Here’, by Pink Floyd. I learned how to play it on guitar recently.”

2. Give us your 20 second pitch – most compelling reason we should vote for you and your number 1 platform.

“So, my favorite platform is student involvement because I think not enough students are involved in USAC. It can’t be like a passive thing. Like, having USAC meetings open to the public, I think it has to be more active getting students involved. I think you should vote for me because I’m incredibly hardworking and devoted.”

3. Do you have any hobbies? 

“I play guitar, and I have a guitar in my dorm. I haven’t been playing enough recently. But, I do have an Instagram page for music and I try to make some original songs too.

4. In your own words, what does your office do?

“The Office of the President oversees the council and all of its duties. All the various offices like Financial Support, Campus Events, Cultural Fairs, and also helps advocate on a higher level to state and federal government.

“There is a veto power that can be overridden by a two-thirds majority vote by the council.

“I think it’s such a complicated process, and this is what discourages a lot of students from running in the first place.”

5. Why did you decide to re-run for this position/ what first got you into student gov? 

“It was definitely a lot different, since I don’t have much experience with politics. I was on student council in high school, but I’m from New Hampshire and I went to a high school with 600 students. I was the student council president for my junior and senior year, and we don’t really get much of a budget from the school, so we had to do our own fundraisers. I think that was kind of my first introduction to student government. I didn’t really consider joining UCLA student government until this year. My friend Sarah is on the Financial Supports Commission and I’m the Director of Campus Affordability for her office. What prompted me to run for President was what I saw going on this year in her office and all the hard work she’s doing despite the small budget of Financial Supports. I think it’s kind of interesting that the office that is supposed to be supporting students financially has one of the smallest budgets out of all the USAC offices. I think that’s not ideal, and we should try to change that.”

6. One of your platforms is to work with local businesses to secure discounts for students. Do you have any established connections? 
   1. In your platforms, you talk about increasing financial `transparency and auditing USAC. How do you tangibly plan to do this?

“Recently, we got a discount for DipnMix. I think Sarah is still working out the details for that, but on Financial Supports, we’ve been going around to a lot of businesses recently and trying to get them to start promotions for students. Right now there are a lot of businesses that already do it, so we’re trying to compile a list and post it so that students have more knowledge about where they can go for discounts and also I think it will help support local businesses. This past week was National Small Business Week, so I think it’s really important.

“There is something called the USAC Expenditure Viewer, which was started in 2016 I think. But, during COVID, there was some turnover with the accounting department and they stopped reporting the accounting information that was used to post on that website. The Expenditure Viewer basically just shows students where their student fees are going to. It’s not ideal, there are a lot of improvements. Right now, there is no data for the past year and a half. We’re working right now to change that and I think it would also be great to try and get more specific information on what those funds are. A lot of the descriptions aren’t very readable. They just say things like ‘Administrative cost’ or something. You read that as a student and you don’t actually know where your money is going. I think another important thing that Sarah and her office did this year was starting the Financial Review Oversight Board. Their beginning the auditing process to make sure the offices are spending fees responsibly.”

7. What is one thing you like about another candidate’s platforms that you might work to implement in office and if you had to name one goal you have for usac next year what is it?

“I do like Naomi’s platform of bringing people to the table, planning the dinner. I think it goes into what I was saying about getting more active in getting students involved instead of just having anopen invitation for them to join council meetings that aren’t really accessible and for other students to have a voice. I think that’s a great idea.

“If we can get students to appreciate USAC, that would be great. It doesn’t have to be a big appreciation, just any amount of appreciation I feel like would be an accomplishment.”