VRC Accomplishments
* 2011-2012 *
Members: Arpine Hovasapian, Erin McClelland, Crystal Null, Paul Rama, James Stobaugh
We plan to improve the Verano Community over the course of the 2011-2012 year. Please check back during the school year for updates!
- Advocacy:
- Committee Participation:
- Budget:
- Communications:
- Issues:
- Events:
- Funded Residents' Events:
- Community Purchases:
* 2010-2011 *
Members: Andrew Hatch, Erin McClelland, Crystal Null, Tia Peterson, Jackie Rama, and Chris Gunderson
- Advocacy:
- Pet Policy
- Improve parking signs and function
- Increase awareness of cat registration and pet safety
- Re-locate community garden in a timely manner
- Improve awareness of large capacity washing machines
- Successfully petitioned for WiFi in Verano Commons
- Committee Participation:
- Combined Governance Group (CGG, all graduate housing communities)
- Housing Budget
- Cat Moratorium Committee
- Assisted with Housing Assistant and Cyber Cafe hiring interviews and selection
- Budget:
- Developed and adhered to a VRC budget allotting funding for (1) Community Events, (2) Community Improvements, and (3) Welcome Day.
- Slashed this year's Welcome Day budget in half by replacing catering service with participation from VRC members, HA's, Verano volunteers, and housing staff
- Revised general funding guidelines for events to better serve residents
budget details forthcoming later in the year
- Communications:
- Maintained the VRC website with information for residents including the VRC Newsletter and VRC meeting notes
- distributed VRC newsletters
- Maintained VRC blurb in Gazzette
- Answered emails from residents
- Posted flyers about events and current issues
- Communicated community issues and resident concerns with Housing Office staff during bimonthly meetings
- Raised awareness of Verano posting policy
- Maintained VRC facebook page
- Dramatically increased communication between VRC and residents with incentives to attend VRC meetings
- Issues:
- Addressed issues of visitor parking signage and petitioned for increased visitor parking hours for residents
- Raised concerns with staff with regards to lawn irrigation and watering schedule
- Helped raise and advocate awareness for emergency preparedness and pet safety
- Advocated for improved play areas
- Events:
- Superbowl Party: hosted a superbowl party at the Verano Commons and provided food and drinks for residents to attend, over 40 residents participated in the event.
- Winter Feast: Over 25 residents attended a feast funded and hosted by the VRC in late December
- Welcome BBQ:With over 450+ attendants we consider this event to be a huge success. We cooked food, gathered donations for raffle prizes, organized volunteers to help run event and sponsored the bounce house, face painting, cotton candy machine, popcorn, chips and drinks.
- Sponsored monthly VRC open house meetings with pizza and drinks
- Sponsored drinks at quarterly pancake breakfasts
- Sponsored free food and treats for residents at cyber cafe during quarterly finals weeks(hot dogs, cookies, donuts).
- Funded Residents' Events:
- 1 Yaldi Event
- 1 Iranian New Year Event
- 1 SPICMACAY Event
- Community Purchases:
- HotDog machine for community events
- Purchased tables for community events
* 2009-2010 *
Members: Carrie Carmody, Andrew Hatch, Tia Peterson, Raphaëlle Rabannes, Ashlie Taggart
- Advocacy:
- Housing construction project
- Apartment inspection hours
- Pet policy
- Irrigation
- Car maintenance
- Resnet internet connection
- Verano housing budget review
- Rent
- Petitioned for HDTV service
- Petitioned for WiFi in Verano Commons
- Committee Participation:
- Unit IV design building committee with subcommittee's on proposed childcare and community centers
- Combined Governance Group (CGG, all graduate housing communities)
- Housing Assistant Hiring process
- Cyber Cafe manager hiring process
- Housing Budget
- Budget:
This file contains the budget details- Communications:
- Created a new Verano Place resident gmail group
- Maintained the VRC website with information for residents including issues of the VRC Newsletter and VRC meeting notes
- distributed newsletters
- Maintained gmail group
- Maintained VRC blurb in Gazzette
- Answered emails from residents
- posted flyers about events
- Participated in survey's relating to pet policy, general verano place housing, and Housing construction project
- Issues:
- This years Verano Resident's council has discussed issues related to policies on rental vacancy, air conditioners, parking, car washing and maintenance, smoking, school bus safety, verano commons reservations, and more
- Verano Resident Shooting event that took place on September 14, 2009 has received a great deal of attention and efforts were made to increase community awareness of counseling, safety measures, and school and community policies related to the incident
- Events:
- Welcome BBQ
- Quarterly VRC Open House
- Pub Night Event
- Funded Residents' Events:
- 2 SPICMACAY Events
- Queer Caucaus Event
- Chinese Student Association Event
- Easter Event
- International Festival
- Community Purchases:
- 47" Vizio TV for commons area
- Sony Blu Ray disk player
- Pioneer surround sound audio receiver
- Artwork for Commons Area
* 2008-2009 *
Members: Carrie Carmody, Ling Lin, Anna Guercio, Yang Wang, Suzanne Kaasa, Tia Peterson
- Advocacy:
- Worked with Housing on budget to lower rent increase to 2% this year, the lowest rent increase in several years
- Worked with campus administration in changing the housing guarantee program
- Responded to resident complaints by negotiating with Housing that certain landscaping projects begin after 9:00am
- Responded to resident complaints by negotiating with Housing about child care givers parking in verano
- Meets with Lisa Cornish, the Executive Director of Graduate and Family Housing, Dan Dooros, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, and Beverly Chaney, the Director of Verano Place on a regular basis to discuss resident concerns and advocate for housing issues
- Meets with Manuel Gomez, the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, and representatives from Association of Graduate Students (AGS), PVRC, and the Academic Senate to discuss housing issues such as length-of-stay.
- Budget:
This file contains the budget details.- Communication:
- Created a new Verano Place resident gmail group
- Created an "intentional Verano" gmail group
- Maintained a new VRC website with information for residents including issues of the VRC Newsletter and VRC meeting notes.
- Created a new VRC blurb for inclusion in the weekly Verano Gazzet.
- Issues:
- This year Housing has negotiated a change in the laundry room service, with card-operated machines installed in laundry rooms.
- Looked into laundry room card system problems
- Fire drill practice
- Fire alarm installation
- Explored ways to increase recycling in Verano and a new program has been implemented.
- Other issues that we focused on this year were resident inquiries like parking tickets, priority for possible move-out consideration in buildings close to construction site, etc.
- Events:
- Welcome BBQ
- Five pub nights
- Quarterly VRC open house
- Funded residents events:
- Indian music events
- Chinese New Year Event
- 2 final's week treats at Cyber Cafe
- Halloween week's treats at Cyber Cafe
- HA's events: potluck night, etc
- Queer Caucus's event
- Meet the City Election Candidate event
- Community purchases:
- Movie system
- BBQ
- BBQ umbrellas
- laundry room carts
- Verano Garden compost expansion and signs/labels
- Cyber cafe enhancement (neon sign, DVD collections, floor lamp, etc)
* 2007-2008 *
Members: Carrie Carmody, Suzanne Kaasa, Sameer Patil, Tia Peterson, Donna Willis, Katie Pine, Tom Pine
- Advocacy:
- Worked with Housing on budget to lower rent increase to 3.2% this year, the lowest rent increase in several years.
- Responded to resident requests to restripe parking lot 35 and re-surface the playground equipment .
- Responded to resident complaints by negotiating with Housing that certain landscaping projects begin after 9:00am.
- Worked to ensure that Verano residents can remain in housing for as long as possible. For instance, Housing will be sending out notice to all residents who moved here in 2003-2004 that they may have no Normative Time To Degree (NTTD) according to their department catalogue for that year, which means their length-of-stay may be increased.
- Is working with Association of Graduate Students (AGS) to protect the rights of VDC residents who are currently not receiving the same benefits and rights as residents in Verano.
- Meets with Lisa Cornish, the Executive Director of Graduate and Family Housing, Dan Dooros, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, and Beverly Chaney, the Director of Verano Place on a regular basis to discuss resident concerns and advocate for housing issues.
- Meets with Manuel Gomez, the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, and representatives from Association of Graduate Students (AGS), PVRC, and the Academic Senate to discuss housing issues such as length-of-stay.
- Communication:
- Conducted a resident survey on community services and events.
- Created a new VRC website with information for residents including issues of the VRC Newsletter and VRC meeting notes.
- Drafted a new VRC statement for inclusion in the new residents information package.
- Issues:
- Worked with Housing to educate residents as to the new methods of paying rent. This includes a conveniently-located drop-box adjacent to the Police Station.
- This year Housing has negotiated a change in the laundry room service, with card-operated machines planned for installation in the coming months.
- Looked into providing charcoal grills but face an up hill battle over campus waste disposal policies.
- Explored the possibility of individual utilities to conserve energy but conversion cost may be prohibitive.
- Explored ways to increase recycling in Verano and a new program will be implemented in the next few months.
- Expressed concern about maintenance scheduling and reporting and a new system was implemented this past month.
- Advocated for energy efficiency and all apartments have been converted to energystar appliances and a schedule is in place to re-fit apartments with energy efficient lighting.
- Other issues that we focused on this year were a switch from paper calendars delivered to each door monthly to a paperless electronic delivery system, an updated section on the maintenance policy for the Verano handbook, and new signs in the laundry rooms regarding laundry room policy.
- Events:
- Welcome BBQ
- St. Patrick's Day at the Pub
- Cinco de Mayo at the Pub
- Funded residents events:
- 2 separate Diwalli events, co-sponsored with AGS and PVRC,
- Queer Graduate Caucus Winter party
- Queer Graduate Caucus Spring party
- Community purchases:
- Bicycle racks
- PA system
- Picnic tables and benches (pending)
* 2006-2007 *
Members: Renee Ellis, Suzanne Kaasa, Tom Pine, Emma Taylor, Satish Vutukuru
- Events:
- Welcome BBQ
- Halloween party
- Oscars party
- Easter egg hunt
- Funded residents events:
- Queer Graduate Caucus party
- Diwali celebration
- Garden Club
- SPICMACAY concert
- Community purchases:
- Gas BBQ for Verano Commons
- Direct TV for Verano Commons
- Advocacy:
- Worked with Housing on budget to lower rent increase from projected 8% to 5%
- Stopped planned in-home inspections by Housing
- Stopped planned changes to pet and smoking policies by Housing
- Represented residents to Housing on length-of-stay issues
- Worked with PVRC on parking lot exit issue. PV had one exit to their community closed because of complaints from University Hills. VRC worked with PVRC to open this exit through construction of a median, and also worked to make sure that the entire cost did not come from rent PV and VP rent money, as originally planned
- Requested that Housing restripe parking lot 36 in response to resident requests
- Met with Manuel Gomez (Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs), members of the Academic Senate, Lisa Cornish (Executive Director of Graduate and Family Housing) and the directors of Verano and Palo Verde in order advocate on behalf of residents at all levels of UCI Housing administration
- Communication:
- Held resident forums to gather feedback about planned changes to pet and smoking policies
- Initiated the VRC Newsletter, a monthly publication by the VRC with updates on Housing issues
- Initiated the VRC listserv, a way for VRC to directly communicate with residents
- Issues:
- Attempted to allow residents to wash their cars in Verano Housing has remained firm about disallowing this, as there is concern from campus about the negative environmental impact this would produce
- Wrked to increase communication and cooperation with other campus entities such as PVRC and AGS, as well as represent resident concerns directly to upper Housing administrators such as the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs