Vance refutes ‘absurd’ claims

This past week, controversy swarmed the campus as a student accused Public Safety Director Ken Vance of pressuring students not to register for the upcoming election.

The complaint was filed with GC&SU by J.D. Easley, a political science major and campaign manager for Zach Johnson, Vance’s main competitor for the upcoming Milledgeville City Council election.

In the grievance, Easley accused Vance of warning students around the residence halls that if they were to register to vote in Baldwin County, they would risk losing financial aid and insurance privileges.

“We have been having people come up to us for weeks and tell us about it, but we debated about bringing this to the public,” Easley said.

Suzanne Pittman, director of Financial Aid and assistant vice president for Enrollment Management, said that students should feel free to register to vote.

“They will not lose eligibility for financial aid,” Pittman said. “It will not affect their federal financial aid at all.”

Vance called Easley’s accusation “totally ludicrous.”

“I care deeply about these students,” Vance said. “They become part of Ken Vance’s family when they come to GC&SU. The last thing that I am ever going to try and do is intimidate a student. That’s absurd, totally absurd.”

Johnson said that Easley made the complaint separate from the campaign as a concerned student.

The timing of Easley’s accusation seemed questionable to Vance.

“For it to come out in the paper the day before the last day to register is just lowdown smearing politics. Personality smearing politics,” Vance said.

Easley denied that the timing of the complaint was orchestrated as part of any kind of campaign.

“It did come out right before the last day to register, but at least that allowed students the opportunity to vote,” Easley said. “We really don’t want to keep pushing the issue. This is not a political move. We just wanted the students and the residents of Milledgeville to know their rights. This is not part of a smear campaign.”

Vance believes Easley’s accusations stemmed from a conversation he and Johnson had a few weeks before qualifying. Both candidates met at the downtown Waffle House for a friendly conversation and breakfast. During the meal, the topic of student registration came up.
“Some people had asked me about college students registering, and I told (Johnson) in the form of a question that I did not know the answers to this and if it will it affect them. And we talked about that for almost two hours,” Vance said. “I said that I did not know if it would (affect students) or not.”

Johnson remembers the conversation a little differently.

“I was the first one to hear this happen. He told me face to face that I should quit because of students’ financial aid,” Johnson said. “He told me it was going to ruin my future if I won and that I could not handle the job. What he does not understand is that the students will be heard. The students will rise up.”

Vance said that he has no problem with students voting. In fact, he thinks they have it better than anyone.

“A college student can register to vote in Milledgeville and vote in that election, and the day afterward, they can change their registration to their hometown. And if there is an election after that, they can vote in that one,” Vance said. “They have it great. I have no problem whatsoever with college students voting.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 14 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry