Commissioner for Student Services David Aguirre is leading a group of students that wish to impeach Associated Students of Cerritos College President Jasmin Ramirez.
The desired impeachment process is a result of alleged failures on behalf of Ramirez’s administration to drop issues such as suicide prevention and her initiative to have more student athletes involved in student government, which Aguirre believes are taking the place of more pressing issues.
The impeachment process is not immediate and is expected to go forward only if the Ramirez administration continues to collectively fail students.
“Our group is going to give this administration a chance to redeem itself. I say ‘we’ because I’m a part of the members that make up the administration also.
“We are going to give them a chance from now until January to pick up on projects, and if students agree that the administration has done enough for them, we won’t have to start the impeachment process,” he said.
Aguirre announced his decision to begin the impeachment during a ASCC cabinet meeting on Monday.
In a letter read before the cabinet, Aguirre expressed concerns about what he called, “Ramirez’s inability to focus on pressing issues to students.”
A segment of the letter said, “I have approached our student body president about this issue but she feels like what she is doing is enough. She feels that “bringing a sense of community to this group” and “raising awareness for suicide prevention” is what makes her feel accomplished as a president.”
Among other complaints, it is felt that Ramirez focuses too heavily on bringing athletes into student government.
Some cabinet members feel that the impeachment is unwarranted. Commissioner of Athletics Brandon Davidson commented on the accusations.
“I think it’s crazy. She’s doing a great job. She is getting a lot of students involved, and she is doing all that he can ask her to do. These accusations are pretty crazy and very uncalled for.” Davidson is also an offensive lineman for the Cerritos College football team.
Commissioner of Internal Affairs Mohammad Abbas feels that this is to motivate the administration to change.
“I don’t think that the impeachment process should go forward. It is more of an ultimatum, but it is not an effective way to do things. “
Ramirez expressed a similar sentiment about the feeling of the ultimatum, saying, “It was definitely like an ultimatum which can be taken like a threat and I don’t necessary know what the intentions were to publicly bring that out.
“I would have felt a lot better had he discussed the problems and issues with me before getting to this point.
“People don’t really know that one of our own students committed suicide, so to me that is an issue and I don’t think that I will ever stop making sure that our students are aware, because that wasn’t just anybody,” she said.
Aguirre and his group are requesting that Ramirez restructure the platform that she ran under during the ASCC presidential elections.
Ramirez feels that she is already doing that and that she has been making positive changes long before these allegations were brought up.
“There are so many things that come up on a daily basis that we have to fix and add to the platform, not just what we have. Budget transparency was not on my platform when I started and with all of the work that I’ve done, I’ve realized that there needs to be budget transparency, and now I have directed my focus to that.
“To be blindsided by this with all of our work up to now, with all of the times that I worked during the weekends, I don’t feel like he gave me that chance to address things. I don’t want it to seem like I am focusing on making changes because he threatened to impeach me.”
Both sides will speak before the student senate on Wednesday at 2 p.m.
