Vending meeting set for this afternoon

All the parties who got an invitation to a meeting today designed to finalize a unified proposal to regulate vending on and around campus will attend the event -- except for University administrators. The administration's absence means the main player in the controversy will be missing from what organizers expect to be a productive session. The meeting, announced earlier this week by the Penn Consumer Alliance, is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. in the Quadrangle's McClelland Hall. University officials declined the invitation because they only want to negotiate the proposed ordinance in the presence of Philadelphia Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell. Still, PCA is holding the meeting as planned and will subsequently present its proposal to Blackwell. "If [the University] wants to talk with us they know where to find us," PCA spokesperson Matthew Ruben said. Blackwell said Monday she would call for a meeting on the ordinance in "the next couple of weeks." Many representatives of student and faculty groups are scheduled to attend the meeting. Among them are Undergraduate Assembly Chairperson and College junior Noah Bilenker, Alex Welte of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and Political Science Professor Jack Nagel of the Faculty Senate. Also scheduled to attend the meeting are librarian Jim Gray, representing unionized employees; librarian John Hogan of the A-3 Assembly, which represents staff members; Jim Bean of the Penn Professional Staff Assembly; David Jensen of the Spruce Hill Community Association; and representatives of vending and consumer groups. Roberta Doherty, Middle East bibliographer at Van Pelt Library, will moderate the meeting. The conflict between the University and the vendor and consumer groups began last May when Penn submitted a proposal for an ordinance regulating vending to Blackwell. The community groups objected to the proposal and have sought to make the ordinance less restrictive. Earlier this month, Blackwell called on the University, PCA and the University City Vendors Alliance to submit a single proposal to her. The parties have clashed over specific terms of the ordinance. The proposal would then be sent to Blackwell, who would introduce it to the City Council for debate and an eventual vote. At yesterday's University Council meeting, Bilenker, GAPSA Chairperson Sanjay Udani and A-3 Assembly Chairperson Donna Arthur each criticized the University's decision not to attend today's vending meeting. Udani said he was taken aback by the University's decision not to attend the event, stressing that today's meeting will provide a perfect forum for compromise. "All groups involved in the dispute will be represented," he added.

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