Right before the ASG afternoon debate April 13, the candidates for ASG sat down and shared their thoughts and ideas for the future of City College.

Vikrum S. Deol and Josef Shannon sat side-by-side in the ASG office while they discussed their platforms on being ASG president.

Deol felt that one of the biggest problems was the “disconnect between ASG and the students” and that it was a huge goal of his to “bridge the gap” between them.

“I don’t feel like there is any limit to my goals, even if they just sound too big. I want to illuminate City College as a campus and put them on the map. I want to go global, I want President Obama to visit, and I want to make City College the hub of San Diego.”

Deol, a member of Team Klue, also felt that lack of funds shouldn’t hold back ASG. “We have to solve the problem without the finance. We can’t let the budget problems hold us back from making our campus better.”

Shannon, current ASG vice president, chimed in next to speak on his qualifications to be ASG president. He mentioned recently lobbying in Washington D.C. on important issues, such as a possible revision of the pell grant and an age limit on tax information.

“I support having all of our clubs under one roof as a member of the AS Student Center Committee. I am the co-organizer in the protest against the state budget cuts to the social programs. We need to take action on these issues that will directly affect us.”

David Campbell, endorsed by www.citycollegeaction.com as “a tie for president” with Shannon, spoke quickly about his frustrations in his introduction before the debate that many students have and how he would alleviate them if he was the next ASG president.

“I really feel like the school is declining. When I first came here, every Thursday there was a cultural event out here in the quad. What happened to that?” questioned Campbell.

Campbell also addressed events that were going unnoticed by students. “There are so many activities on campus. There are art programs, music programs, theatre events, tons of things to attend or be a part of. Why don’t we know what we have available here? For example, the theatre department puts on great shows. Why doesn’t anyone ever go to them? We just don’t know what we have here.”

During the candidates’ introductions prior to the debate, Christopher Conyers, current ASG senator and candidate running for vice president, endorsed many of the ideas and goals of the citycollegeaction.com website. Conyers summed up his platform by spelling out the three clear topics on his agenda.

“First, we have to rebuild the foundation of ASG to make sure we have the proper representation. Once we have the proper representation, a census could be held where the students could tell us directly what (they) want us to do.”

Conyers continued with the topic of uniting ASG with the campus by sharing ideas on websites or through surveys and votes. The last topic Conyers touched on was the shrinking budget and what could be done to remedy money troubles.

Conyers’ opposition for vice president was Team Klue webmaster Abdulkadir Ahmed. Ahmed felt that being a part of Team Klue really meant working together for a “team solution,” but that he was “a hard worker and would love to be the next vice president.”

He went on to share some solutions to major student problems, such as the lack of parking on campus and the sky-rocketing prices of textbooks.

“We plan on fixing the parking problem and offer shuttles that run every 15 minutes instead of every 45 minutes,” Ahmed explained.

As far as the overpriced textbooks on campus, he supported the idea of “a book rental program” and “maybe an online book exchange that would solve the problem of expensive textbooks.”

“Say for instance you have a psychology book and someone else has a math book. You could trade books for either a small fee or no fee at all, because you made a trade that helped both of you.”

While there is fierce competition between each candidate, there is one goal all candidates can agree on: working together to unify the campus.

Although April 20 will bring the results of the election, all ASG members plan on working together for the common good until the end of the spring semester.

“Until June 1, we’re hitting it full force,” noted Shannon. “We may be running against each other in the election, but we still have to work together.”