‘Messiah’ heads tidy admimstration

Few people were quite sure what to
make of the candidate for SGA prisi-
dent, David Kramer. He claimed to be
the f‘Messianic David” and his plat-
form called {or morphine for the
masses.

For many, Kramer held out the pro
mise of a “different" kind of SGA ad-
ministration; many hoped for an ad-
ministration as humorous and light as
was‘ the Kramer campaign.

.But in this regard Kramer has been
surprising. Indeed in many ways his

' admimstr ion is the_ most efficient
SGA administration' in recent years.

This is due to SEVeraliactors: SGA
Vice President George 't;urnhull has
proved an extremely competent assis—

tarit; Irresident George Drake has
shown a real interest 1n listening to

_ student concerns; Joint Board hal't
presidents are more interested in
serious work and less interested' in ego
tripping than they were in the past;
Student Coordinator Melissa Hopp has
brought valuable expertise and talent
to, her job,

lt;would be unfair, however, to not

place much of the credit for Joint
Board’s effectiveness on David
Kramer himself. When talking to him,
one has to get the feeling that Kramer
knows What he’s talking about. And
contary to his messianic pretensions,

Kramer is not using the job as one ex- ‘

tended effort in self-gratification.

But what about the disparity bet-
ween last year’s campaign and this
year's administration? Kramer ex-
plains that “my campaign was,
basically, to win the election. i wanted
to win to see things done in the proper
way. The campaigning was tun...but
nobody could have taken it seriously:

i couldn’t just liquidate the endow-
ment to give morphine to the student
body,"

Kramer feels that this year's ad
ministration has worked well together.
One reason for this, he says, is that
the cabinet works out problems
beforehand. The cabinet, he adds,

works well together.

“There s very little discord among
the cabinet members. We discuss
things loudly~but that’s natural . .I'd
say we work togcmer pretty
democratically," he says

SGA, he feels has also worked well
with the college administration.
Kramer says part of the reason for
this is his application of ”Newton's
Third Law. ” He says: “The harder
you push people, the harder they push
back (for every action there’s an
equal and opposite reaction). The way
to get things done is to know what you
want to do and to present it well. You
get results that way. ”

Cronin adds investment funding twist

The position of SGA treasurer can
'a- very boring job As the office
Was run in the past, the most' impor-
tant work drafting the operating

. budget didn t come until late in the

- second semester. But Jeff Cronin has

I added a new twist to the job: in-

: vestments.

‘ Last year when he was being inter»
viewed for the treasurer’ 5 position he
learned that a large amount of student

- government’s funds was in no. interest

checking accounts. The monies that
were earning interest were in savings
accounts, which pay about 5% in-
terest.

Cronin has changed things this year.

After deciding how much money had
to be kept in the SGA checking ac»
counts, he invested some of the rest
(about $5,500) in the Kemper Money
Market, which is currently paying
about 12.3% interest.

He says that the choice of the Kemper
market was based mainly on two
reasons. The market is “as liquid as
a savings account and pays a very
high rate of interest."

Investment banking is nothing new
to Cronin: h_e’s been working in banks
since he was fifteen. His family owns
an investment‘banking firm in Boston,
and he has been interested in inc
vestments for quite a while. “I learn-
ed banking like other kids learn
baseball," he said.

He would like to see SGA establish
an investment fund which would in-
vest monies that do not have to be in
the quick-access checking accounts
and monies that are in the SGA
reserve. If enough money was put in-
to the fund, and if the investments
were managed properly, Cronin feels
the fund could be contributing in the
”tens of thousands of dollars to the

general budget over the next ten
years.‘

This money, Cronin and Vice Presi~
dent George Turnbull feel could make
SGA less dependent on me student ac-
tivities fee and more self-supporting.

For this year, Cronin has
“conservatively" budgeted for $1100 in
interest income, He says that he’s
hoping for more than twice that
figure but he doesn’ t want to set ex-
pectations too high

Another thing his office and the
finance committee are working on is a
“Consumers' Guide to Grinnell.”
Cronin says they are working with a
twelveepage list of all the businesses
in Grinnell to compile a comparative
guide to everything from dentists to
auto garages to records and school
supplies.

“Most Grinnell students are in-
telligcnt enough to iigure out where
the cheapest place to buy records is,
so in that sense the guide will be for
new students. But there are things
that people never get around to check-
ing out (such as where to change tires
in the winter), and the guide should
help out there.”

Although work has just begun on the
guide. Cronin hopes that it will be out
before the end of the semester.

Scarlet & Black,

 

