The only fully-bearded ticket in the 2006 race, the Have Your SAy presidential and vice-presidential hopefuls thought the largest problem facing SA is its image and a lack of connection to the students.

“It seems that SA’s kind of lost the students’ trust in recent years,” said presidential candidate Ryan “Moss” Yaeger, referring to last year’s election bribery scandal and the financial misappropriation investigations of the year before. If elected, Yaeger planned to gain the students’ trust by utilizing online polls to gauge student opinion on what they’d like their SA to be fighting for.

Charles Wiff, the Have Your SAy vice presidential candidate, echoed Yaeger’s concerns about the students’ image of their government, saying the scandals of the past “breed an environment of distrust,” and that he would work to “re-establish the idea that the Student Association is for students.” He also espoused a need for easier means by which the students could contact SA officers, adding that separate email addresses for complaints to the executive board and more prominent comment boxes would be a step in the right direction.

Have Your SAy wanted to restructure the SA concerts, with smaller acts coming to UB at various times throughout the year and combining the Spring and Fall Fest concerts into one large, day-long festival. They also stressed a desire to stop printing Visions, the SA newsletter, and convert it to an online format.

“Visions is a prime example of wasteful spending at SA,” said Yaeger. “The $35,000 they spend on production could very easily be used to bolster the already underfunded clubs,” giving the students “the clubs they want rather than a publication they don’t read.

Neither candidate had experience in SA or student government in general, but Yaeger is involved in both Pep Band and Marching Band and Wiff is the literary editor of Generation. Yaeger stressed that he has studied the SA constitution extensively and that being an outsider would allow him to come to the job with a “non-political” mind.

When asked how they would overcome their ignorance of the everyday operations of SA, both candidates acknowledged that there would be difficulties, but they believe they can overcome any initial hiccups.

“There’s nothing you can do to avoid those problems,” Yaeger said, “Except to stay as informed as possible and just cross the hurdles as they come.” Both he and Wiff noted that if elected they would have until May 1 (when the newly elected SA e-board assumes power) to shadow the current administration in order to get a feel for the job, with additional time spent over the summer getting acquainted.