Taylor Angel beat Melchie Cabrigas by 52 votes in the runoff election held on Sept. 6 and 7.
A total of 319 people voted in the election, with Angel as the clear victor with 183 votes, while Cabrigas won 131, there was also 5 write in votes. Angel who served as a senator last fall and as commissioner of public records says he believes the most important item on his agenda for the Associate Students of Skyline College (ASSC) is for the council members to become acclimated with each other and says he plans to be as proficient as he can in dealing with that. Angel is disappointed in the low number of voters but acknowledges that it is a choice students make
“I think the students of Skyline College make a choice, they make a choice whether they want to involve themselves or not,” he said. “Would I have liked them to have been involved in the election process? Yes. Can I fight them to do that? No.”
Cabrigas is unsure as to whether she would like to stay on student council, dropping student government perhaps, in order to make more time for studying. Cabrigas says she plans to remain active in the school clubs.
Peter Monrroy, vice president and, until just recently, interim president of ASSC says he believes that few people would have voted if it wasn’t for a last minute barbeque he had put on in the quad on Sept. 7.
“It was like, we have to do something to get people to vote.” he said
80 people had voted the first day when they were set up in the cafeteria, the remaining 239 people voted at the barbeque the following day. But even then Monrroy said not many students knew who their candidates were.
“People, when they were voting were like ‘Who do we vote for? Who are these people?’ nobody really knew who [their candidates] were.”
Monrroy feels that the low voter turn-out was attributed to the candidate’s lack of promoting themselves.
“If they had [promoted themselves better] they would have perhaps had a better outcome,” Monrroy said.
Angel said in regard to his new semester as ASSC president, he would like to make it known that there will be a difference in this year’s council.
“We will be representative of students, coming in the form of student leaders and that we will be efficient leaders, and productive leaders and we will represent the student body well.”