Downtown undergraduate student government President Frank Smith has shown a pattern of intimidation and manipulation of USGD Senators and staff members during the first semester of his term, several USGD members said.
Smith’s actions include controlling the student government’s former public relations director and threatening to fire her multiple times, denying a senator and an intern access to positions of influence following disagreements, and planning to pass off another USGD member’s work as his own, according to multiple people in the organization.
Smith cited his “high standards” for executives and directors as a reason for being perceived as intimidating. Smith said he’s only asking them to “do their job.”
“I just talked to them and said, ‘Can you do this?’” Smith said. “I don’t know where all this is coming from.”
Smith said he only meets with the general USGD membership once a week. He said his Chief of Staff Charles Liao handles most interactions with USGD staff.
Former public relations director Daniela Nepita said Smith controlled her communication externally and with other USGD members.
When she was the public relations director, Nepita was the primary contact for the media, but Smith and Senate President Stephany Caceres told her not to talk to the media.
Cronkite Sen. and Senate co-chair Alexis Kramer reached out to media outlets trying to improve the Senate’s media relations. She received an email from Nepita that said Kramer was “overstepping her boundaries” and told to stop contacting the media. Nepita alone would act as media liaison, according to the email.
Nepita said Smith instructed her to send the email, which has been obtained by the Downtown Devil, and Nepita claims not to have written the email at all.
“I didn’t even type it,” Nepita said.
Smith denies this, saying Nepita consulted with him on how to structure the email, but that she sent it.
“I helped her craft the email so that it didn’t seem like she was attacking Alexis,” Smith said. “It’s her email. I didn’t log into her account.”
Prior to her resignation, Smith threatened to fire Nepita whenever she said something he perceived as “making him look bad,” Nepita said.
“If I said something he didn’t like, he’d say, ‘You know I can always just fire you, that’s easy,'” she said.
Smith denied threatening to fire Nepita for that reason, instead saying Nepita continually missed deadlines set by Smith.
“I texted her, I called her, and she never met the deadlines,” Smith said.
Others said Smith tries to control all Executive Board conversations, not just Nepita’s.
“There’s not a lot of room for talking, for disagreeing,” Vice President of Services Marcus Dudas said. “It’s not an environment where we can express our concerns with what’s going on.”
After Nepita resigned Nov. 8, Smith kept Kramer off the interview board responsible for picking a replacement. Before Smith’s decision, Kramer voiced opposition to what she and other senators saw as a rushed vote on the recent athletic fee bill.
Government Operations Committee chair and College of Public Programs Sen. Frank Vasquez said Smith asked to have just Executive Board members on the interview board. The only exceptions were to be Vasquez and Caceres.
“Kramer was the only other person showing interest in the interview process for a new public relations director and she was very interested,” Vasquez said.
Instead, Vasquez invited the members of the Senate Government Operations Committee, which included Kramer, to sit on the interview board. This time, Caceres reiterated that just Executive Board members, Vasquez and Caceres would be interviewing. Kramer decided to drop the issue at this point.
Smith cited previous hiring processes that included only the Government Operations Committee chair, the Senate president and the president.
Dudas said the president has long been intimidated by Kramer. A central reason may be the speculation that Kramer will run for president in the spring, he said.
Smith opposed Kramer’s nomination for Senate co-chair, and Smith said at the meeting that bylaw procedure required the Senate to ask if any other member wanted the nomination before voting on Kramer’s confirmation. The bylaws do not mention the requirement and there had been no attempt, nor has there been since, to apply this requirement to nominees.
“I intimidate him … because I know what I’m doing,” Kramer said. “He doesn’t want to give me more power.”
Smith told Dudas to talk to Kramer and “be some kind of stupid informant for Frank,” Dudas said.
Smith denies giving Dudas those instructions and said he never asked anyone to act as an informant.
“If I have any questions about what the Senate’s doing I ask (Caceres),” Smith said.
This wasn’t the only problem Dudas said he had with Smith. Dudas said Smith asked him to write a letter to ASU President Michael Crow detailing student responses to a proposal for a new library downtown.
Dudas said he initially agreed, but later found out that Smith planned to take credit for the letter. He asked Smith twice if he would include his name or give recognition to the Undergraduate Student Government, but did not hear back. Barrett, the Honors College Sen. Hattie Hayes said Dudas has considered resigning and Dudas said this incident was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Smith said he only asked Dudas to report back with student feedback, and said he never received the information.
Contact the reporter at noah.b.briggs@asu.edu
