In last week’s issue of the Experience, we broke the story of Los Medanos College Associated Students President Gary Walker’s possible sanctioning. It was decided at a meeting this past Monday, that instead of the sanction, both Walker and the other senators would undergo conflict management. The Experience fully supports this decision rather than what would have been the alternative.

While it is admirable that both sides were able to come up with a reasonable solution, we also think this situation could have been handled differently.

The whole concept of sanctioning someone should only be thought of as a last resort, when the behavior of an individual wholly misrepresents the school or student government. Walker was cited for “unprofessionalism,” a charge that seemed somewhat excessive.

Unless he was blatantly belligerent, uncooperative or negligent to the point where it stared affecting his ability to perform his duties, he should have never been up for sanctioning in the first place. The reason LMCAS is in place is to represent the perspective of every LMC student.

The student body didn’t have an issue with Walker doing his job as demonstrated by the amount of letters he received and the number of students who showed up to this most recent meeting in his support. It seemed to be more of a personal issue, centered around only a few people. Thus, it should have been dealt with on a smaller level.

It wasn’t necessary and it only made tension worse. If the behavior in question was as trivial as a rolling of the eyes, there wasn’t really a solid reason to remove someone from their position, or possibly have their senate privileges suspended or taken away.

This was one situation that didn’t need to escalate to the level that it did. A simple conversation would have sufficed. Instead it was dragged out into a long process and it looked as if feelings on both sides were hurt. The fact that it came to this seemed to have stemmed from a buildup of emotions and difference of opinions.

There were some rash decisions made but at least both parties came to a peaceful conclusion. A peaceful solution is the best solution and hopefully this conflict is dealt with quickly and objectively. In the future, it would be nice to see better communication in LMCAS to avoid another situation such as this.