‘ Current Associated Students (A.S.) President Miguel Segura fired four A.S. senators last week. The positions included director of visibility, director of political awareness, director of finance and the assistant director of finance.

Former Director of Finance Sam Scruggs received the news last Tuesday from Segura after the senate meeting.

Scruggs had just delivered his annual budget report and is done with his work as director of finance for the semester.

‘It was definitely strange because I finished all my work and the timing makes no sense, but I don’t hold any grudges,’ said Scruggs. ‘I reached out to clubs, did my best to communicate with them and still think A.S. is a very important organization on campus.’

Scruggs acknowledged that throughout his yearlong appointment he did encounter communication issues with some of the clubs.

‘Obviously, I am a student and balancing it all gets difficult but I still believe that I was able to accomplish my goal as director, which was to bring new clubs to A.S. for funding,’ said Scruggs.

The code on the Associated Students president’s cabinet (#103b) states that A.S. directors are appointed by the president and work at his discretion, not for the senate.

‘Honestly, this is not the biggest issue facing A.S. right now, in terms of what we want to focus our energies on,’ said Segura. ‘This has been an internal issue for some time now, and after careful consideration, I decided to go forward with my decision.’

Scruggs said he still has a sense of personal satisfaction with the work he did at A.S. and would be open to returning next semester and helping the finance committee.

‘We worked hard with these directors, trying to assist them in their jobs and we gave them support and many chances to improve. Unfortunately, they did not and we had to take the appropriate steps,’ said Segura.

‘For example, the director of political awareness last semester during the general election was supposed to plan various events and while SPACE did do some things, the director failed to produce an event,’ said Segura.

The move comes about a month before the end of the spring semester, a temporary director of finance will be appointed while the other three positions will remain vacant.

‘We wanted to end the semester by making the transition to the next administration as efficient as possible, and while these directors did perform some of their duties and work, it was unfortunately not enough of what we needed,’ said Segura.

President-elect Abel Pacheco, not involved in this decision, will be selecting his own cabinet for the fall semester as is standard with a new administration.

Scruggs said he was instructed by Segura to fire his assistant director of finance, Launa Amabeoku, which he did immediately after learning of his own termination.

Amabeoku declined to comment to the Sundial for this story.‘

The other directors that were let go of include director of visibility Aron Schlabra, who earlier this semester was on the C.S.U.N. slate running for vice-president during the A.S. elections.

Segura said he did not want to make the announcement before or during the election campaign as he did not want to influence the vote or results in any way.

In addition, the director of political awareness, Pedro Trujillo was among the four.

Schlabra and Trujillo did not return calls for this story.

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