The first Boca House of Representatives meeting for the Spring 2023 semester took place on Friday. Isabella Feaheny was elected as house speaker and Alex Mojica was elected as representative as an in-house applicant. 

Isabella Feaheny was speaker pro tempore before her election as house speaker, a leadership position with power of presiding over the House of Representatives. She was the only candidate and received a unanimous vote with 24 representatives present and one absent. She discussed currently working with the library to install menstrual products in the bathrooms and her desire to place a higher focus on parliamentary procedure.

“I’m very, very happy to be elected speaker and I plan on making sure that we have a very productive session and everything goes smoothly in the spring semester,” Feaheny said. 

Alex Mojica ran as an in-house applicant for a representative position. He was the only in-house applicant at the meeting and won by a 14-9 vote. He spoke about his initiatives on education reform, requiring the bathrooms to supply plungers, and a newspaper stand reform.

“I’m proud of the student government. They were here to give me advice and a few people even motioned against me and that’s a way of giving me advice,” Mojica said. 

Campus Action Chair Alexander Cedeño,  representing the president’s Chief of Staff Nicole Abreu, gave an update concerning the Sustainability Action Committee’s work regarding the parking garage planned to be built on Tortuga Trail, a nature preserve which protects the gopher tortoise and the burrowing owl. 

“I’m incredibly excited to see what they will accomplish relating to the topic of protecting the preserve,” Cedeño said, on behalf of Abreu.

Mary Rasura is a senior staff writer for the University Press. For more information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or DM her on Instagram @maryrasura.