SGA presidential candidates square off

The Daily Cougar hosted Tuesday’s Student Government Association presidential and vice presidential runoff debate between Carlos Reyes, left, and Prince Wilson, right, for the elections that will be held today and Thursday. | Travis Hensley/The Daily Cougar

The Student Government Association runoff presidential candidates, Vice President Prince Wilson and Director of Finance Carlos Reyes, met Tuesday to address their agendas and answer questions from students during a debate hosted by The Daily Cougar.

Wilson said the three main areas of concern he will focus on are tuition, campus safety and helping the University achieve flagship status.

“When we think about tuition,” Wilson said, “we have to understand how the University works, how the budget works, where the money is going to go and what are the priorities.”

In his rebuttal, Reyes he will zero in on improving security, educating students on parking options and building school pride.

He said while developing his agenda, he wanted to focus on goals that are attainable and benefit students.

“One of the things that we did (before coming up with our agenda), we pulled about 500 students and asked them what their concerns were,” Reyes said. “They said it was security, parking and school pride.”

Both candidates addressed parking, but their proposed solutions differ.

Reyes said he wants to focus on educating students of the many programs already available to them to alleviate the parking problem.

“Parking is a pretty good situation,” he said. “We have all these great parking programs, but people don’t know about them.”

Wilson said he wants to create a rental car program for freshmen to help solve parking congestion. He also suggested promoting carpooling and mass transportation.

“Building more parking spaces is just a temporary solution,” he said.

[email protected]